by S. E. Lund
Other than a brief vision of my savior wearing protective gear against the sandstorm, I had few memories of the crash itself and the mayhem that followed, the fire consuming the chopper, killing several on board in a most-horrible manner. My uncle Colm told me what little he knew about it when I returned and spent several months in a VA hospital recovering from my near death experience. I’d lost a great deal of blood and had been in a coma for a month due to an infection. It had taken me six months to get back to my old self – if that old self still even existed.
He didn’t.
War changes you and tragedy makes you see the world in a different way. I’d had too many tragedies. First Sue. My dad. Then the crash. Now, Graham.
I read the obituary and some of the forum posts about Lewis. Friends wrote that he was wild man, fearless and heroic. He’d become one of the most highly trained medics, deploying with Marine Special Operations Forces. They did other duties, including going deep behind enemy lines.
I looked at the photos of Lewis. Tall, strong, heroic. Going into the most dangerous places and saving lives. These letters had been meant for him but somehow got mixed up with my gear after the accident.
Now, at least I had a name.
After reading her letters, I knew one thing for certain. No matter how busy I was trying to save my company from bankruptcy, no matter how long it took, I’d find her and return her letters.
Given that her husband lost his life saving mine, it was the least I could do.
CHAPTER TWO
Miranda
I knew the first moment I laid eyes on him that he was trouble.
The door to the bar opened, emitting a bright swath of light into the otherwise dim interior. A man stood in the doorway, framed by the light. Tall and strong, his shoulders were wide, his hips narrow. He clutched a motorcycle helmet under his arm.
A biker.
When I caught a look at his face, I felt a stab of desire. Despite the rugged exterior, he was beautiful. Dirty blond hair below his collar, blue blue eyes, and a neatly trimmed beard on a jaw so square you could practically cut yourself on it.
He reminded me of a bad boy biker, or maybe a Viking warlord looking for his next conquest. Dressed in some faded well-worn jeans, a white turtleneck despite the warm weather, and a black leather jacket, he was something to look at.
I’d spent the previous year in Topsail Beach and with the exception of tourist season, there weren’t many new faces – especially none as gorgeous as his. To keep myself amused, my best friend Leah and I spent a lot of time imagining who the strangers were, concocting fabulous identities for them to pass the time. For Mr. Viking God, I imagined that, instead of a biker, he was a secret agent, maybe an assassin, newly in town looking for his target. Or a Calvin Klein model on location, having spent the day doing an underwear shoot.
I knew one thing for certain: any woman who laid eyes on him would fantasize about him that night while her man pounded into her. Any man who saw him would imagine bashing in his handsome face, just to take out the unfair competition.
Now, as the daughter of a career FBI Special Agent, I knew that spies and assassins weren't the way they were portrayed in movies and novels, but it was fun to imagine. Spies looked like anyone else. That was their goal. Blend. Fade. Become invisible.
This stranger could never blend, no matter how scruffy his jaw or faded his jeans.
He was just too pretty.
When his eyes came to rest squarely on me where I stood behind the bar, a bottle of bar lime in one hand and tequila in the other, a shiver raced down my spine. I stood there, arms poised in mid pour, and gaped.
In that moment, he reminded me so much of Dan, I had to blink twice. It wasn’t that he looked like Dan. Dan had slightly darker hair, had been clean shaven and was leaner. It was the way the man held himself so tightly in control. Despite the wild exterior, his eyes were assessing. He had that ‘ready to wreak havoc’ look about him that Dan developed during several hellish tours of duty in Iraq and then time in Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan during the last year before his death.
This man had that same sense of stiff-backed power held in check that Dan had. There was also just a hint of sadness in him. I couldn't tell you where I saw it, but it was there. Maybe in the way he held his mouth, his full lips pressed a bit too firmly together. A bit too much pain in his gray-blue eyes, which were the color of stormy seas.
Gramps always said that if you turned a man into a killer, there would be consequences. If you gave him wide-open terms of engagement, his kills would haunt him the rest of his days no matter how justified they were. At least, that's what Gramps told me when Dan returned on leave once and I felt as if I didn’t recognize him.
War changed men.
Gramps said it was the crucible that tested a man’s character. Only the true psychopaths could get away with being a killer with no effects on their souls.
Dan had been a Navy Hospital Corpsman attached to a Marine Special Operations Forces team, losing his life somewhere in Afghanistan. All we were told was that he died when his team went in on a routine training mission. Dan’s chopper went down in a dust storm. Because of the classified nature of the mission, there wasn’t much publicity. Just a solemn service in Arlington attended by a few of his closest buddies and the families of the fallen.
Our family seemed destined to experience tragedy. My father died in the line of duty. Then Dan died just three months after we were married. Mom was a total mess, and spent her days medicated, lost in an OxyContin haze with her new husband up in New Hampshire.
It was just me and Gramps left who were somewhat functional. Gramps was retired from the NYPD and living in Queens, running The Harp and Keg, the bar I worked at during the school year. He complained ever so softly about my year-long absence while I spent time living with Dan’s family in Topsail Beach, North Carolina, trying to start my life again as a young widow. Trying to find out what happened and why Dan died. It proved futile so Dan’s father Scott and mother Jeanne gave up and accepted that it was the usual mayhem that was Afghanistan.
One day, I hoped to understand what made people into killers. If I couldn’t save my father or my beloved Dan, then maybe someone else.
The man standing in the doorway with the biker helmet had that same ready for action sense about him that Dan had, with that same assessing gaze, his eyes narrowed as if he was constantly looking for threats.
He walked straight to the bar with an expression that made me panic. Like the day the sedan drove up the driveway to the house, two uniformed military men walking to the front door to tell us the news, their hats in their hands.
“Holy crap,” Leah said. My best friend from college, Leah had been my support for the past year while I recovered and learned to live my life again after Dan’s death. She’d come down from Manhattan to stay in Topsail Beach after Dan died, taking a job at the restaurant so we could support each other.
She gawked at the man, unabashed desire on her face.
“What?” I said, my throat dry, although I knew exactly what she meant. I glanced away, not wanting to appear like I was checking the man out.
“He’s gorgeous.”
Steve, a friend of Dan’s family who worked at the bar during the summer, turned to look at the man along with the rest of us.
“He looks like a hood,” Steve said, making a face of disgust.
“Hey,” Leah said, putting her empty tray down on the bar. “Don’t judge a book by its cover. He might be a really nice guy.”
“Huh,” Steve said and raised his eyebrows at me. “Looks like scum to me.”
I shrugged, and managed to finish pouring the drink order in front of me. Steve was the second bartender, and would be taking the last shift.
When the man approached the bar instead of taking a seat at one of the empty tables, I felt a sense of unease overtake me. For some reason I wanted to run, so I turned to Steve and wiped my hands on my apron.
"Take ove
r for a minute, okay? I have to get something out back."
Steve raised his eyebrows but took my place and continued to pour the drinks on my current order.
I ducked under the bar hatch, and made a beeline for the kitchen and the walk-in refrigerator. I didn't know why I wanted to avoid the man, but I did, every ounce of my being screaming that no matter how gorgeous his face and how hot his body, he was dangerous. Once inside, I leaned against the door, my eyes closed. The cool air was a relief and soon, my heart rate decreased a few beats and my breathing returned to normal.
Wow. He really spooked me. I had this sense of impending doom when I saw him.
I went to one of the shelves and fished around in a box of lemons and limes, choosing a few and leaving the refrigerator for the prep area where I cut them up methodically, trying to calm down, slicing a few twists of lime, a few wedges and a few slices as garnish. I knew I'd have to go back to pouring drinks but at least I'd be prepared.
“What are you doing in here?” Leah said, having followed me inside the prep area.
“I needed some bar garnish,” I said, my voice wavery.
“That’s my job, and there’s lots on the other side of the bar. Let me get that,” she said and tried to push me out of the way. It was her job, and there was garnish at the other end of the bar, but I needed to get away from that man.
She peered at me. “What’s wrong, Mira? Are you okay?”
I took in a deep breath. “Yeah, that customer who just came in spooked me.”
Her eyes widened. “You mean Mr. Hunk with the fuck-me face and to-die-for body?”
I nodded. “The very one.”
“He had that much of an effect on you?” A slow grin spread across her face. “Girl, I told you that you need to get some.”
I laughed, and a bit of my anxiety faded. “He’s a biker,” I said and shook my head. “He’s hot, but he’s a bad boy. I don’t need one of them on my books. The FBI checks all your associates when you apply, so not even going to think of it.”
“He’s no biker,” she said with a snort. “He’s wearing a huge Cartier on his wrist. Bikers don’t wear Cartier.”
“Now, how can you tell he’s wearing a Cartier?”
She winked at me and took the tray of garnish from me. “I know quality.”
I laughed, relaxing a bit. She dated day traders from Wall Street almost exclusively when we both lived in Manhattan so if anyone could identify a Cartier from a distance, it was Leah.
She took the tray and left, and I followed her slowly. Before I went back into the bar, I glanced through the tiny window in the swinging door and saw that the man had moved and was sitting at the bar directly beside my pour station.
Damn…
Steve was busy pouring a drink order when I returned. I tried to avoid the man’s eyes, but I could feel his gaze fixed on me.
"I'll take over now," I said to Steve, who nodded and stepped aside with some reluctance. I glanced at the next drink order – a couple of pretty easy drinks – rum and coke and a screwdriver – and set to work filling it, hoping my hands didn’t shake.
The man said nothing while I worked, but he watched my every move. When I went to the other end of the bar to get a new bottle of mixer, he watched me. When I came back to his end, he watched me. When I bent over to refill the ice hopper, he watched me.
He held a menu in his hands. Unable to avoid him any longer, I stopped directly in front of him, my arms spread, hands resting on the bar.
"See anything you like?" I said, finally meeting his eyes.
He inhaled audibly. "I think I do." Slowly, a grin that was far too sexy for my own good spread on his face.
"She’s not on the menu," Steve said quietly, butting in. I turned to him, shocked at that he said that.
"How unfortunate," the man said. He had this low sexy voice, deep and melodious. The kind that made you melt into a helpless puddle of ‘yes.’
I couldn't hold back my grin, so I quickly turned my back to him and busied myself by sorting through the bottles on the shelf, searching for the one needed for my order.
I gestured to Steve. "Why don’t you help our guest with his order. I have things to do."
Steve frowned and stood in front of the stranger. "What can I get for you?"
"Bourbon. What do you have in stock?"
Steve ran down the list of bourbon brands we had on hand and the man pursed his lips.
“What would you suggest?” the man asked.
Steve shrugged. “It all tastes like kerosene to me.”
“What?” the man said, his voice sounding seriously affronted in a joking kind of way. "You work at a bar and you don’t like bourbon?”
I stepped beside Steve. “Woodford Reserve," I said, remembering a taste-test Gramps made me take when I started working at his bar.
“Ah, the lady is beautiful and knows her bourbon. Consider me smitten,” the man said. “Woodford Reserve it is.”
I smiled to myself while I attached a new canister of soda to the dispenser.
"What are you smiling about?" he said, his voice playful with just a touch of an accent – Cajun, from the sounds of it.
"You're not from around these parts," I said as I scooped ice into some glasses on the bar and then started pouring. "But you know your bourbon."
"I’m an aficionado. Come from a long line of bourbon drinkers. Actually, a long line of drunks, truth be told."
"Oh, yeah? Where are you from? You sound Cajun." I bent down to take a beer out of the fridge, liking him despite my initial impressions because of his playful sense of humor. Unfortunately, I knew that charm was one of the chief character traits of sociopaths, so that didn’t win him any points with me.
"Cajun, born and raised," he said as I sorted through the beer. "I lived in Louisiana just outside New Orleans for part of my childhood, so you know your accents."
When I stood up, he stood as well and bowed, bending at the waist with a flourish of his arm.
"Beckett," he said, and then he laid the accent on thick. "At your service. "
I laughed and wiped the bar with a clean cloth. "Is that a first or last name?"
"Both. It’s my grandfather’s name and my mother didn’t want our family to lose.”
“No last name?”
“Call me Beckett. I have too many names so just Beckett will do.”
“Okay, just Beckett,” I said with a grin. “People usually introduce themselves using their full name where I come from.”
He grinned back. “I find it creates an air of mystery."
“Or suspicion,” Steve said, standing beside me, his brow furrowed.
“You have to forgive Steve,” I said and poked Steve in the shoulder playfully. “He thinks he’s my big brother.” I frowned at Steve but he didn’t budge. Finally, he sighed and went back to his side of the bar.
I turned to the man who called himself Beckett, barely able to suppress a smile. He glanced up at me.
"There's that smile again," he said, his eyes twinkling, his voice very sexy. "I'm glad I amuse you, because it's a very pretty smile. Très belle. Maybe when you get off work, you'll let me buy you a drink so I can see you smile some more."
I snorted at that. "Flattery will get you nowhere with me, Mr. Just Call Me Beckett mystery man…" I said. "Back home I work in a bar surrounded by cops. I've heard every pickup line you could imagine. I need something really innovative to pique my interest."
"I'll bet you do." He grinned and finished his drink. "Tell you what, sha,” he said, the way they say the French word cher in the Bayou. “You pour me another one and I'll work on something really innovative."
"Don't bother." I grabbed the bottle of bourbon and poured another shot. Then, I put the bottle down on the bar. "I pulled a double shift today."
"You should relax after your double shift. Have a drink with me. "
"Sorry. When I get off, it's right straight home to sleep for me. I work all day again tomorrow."
"Sh
ame," he said, his eyes roving over me. "I'm only in town for a night."
"Shame," I said and grinned back, deciding to play it a bit dangerously, seeing as nothing was going to happen between us.
I went to the other end of the bar where Leah stood.
“What did he say?” she said, practically drooling over him. I noticed Steve floated over to where we stood and bent down to fiddle with the ice bin.
“He asked me to have a drink with him after work,” I said quietly, feeling a bit weird because Steve was listening in. “I told him no.”
“You’re crazy,” Leah said, eyes wide. “He’s a total babe.”
“He’s too rough for you,” Steve said and stood up, nodding at me like he approved of my decision.
Leah made a face. “It’s none of your business, Steve.” She glanced over at Beckett and sighed. “He looks high end to me. I told you the watch he’s wearing is a Cartier. Expensive. Like thousands of dollars. And those jeans? DKNY Men. He’s no biker.”
“He probably got the watch off the corpse of someone he murdered,” Steve said with a snort.
“Oh, you,” she said and made a face at Steve. “Not everyone’s a criminal.”
“Bikers are, mostly.”
“You’re crazy,” she said again and took the drinks off the bar, putting them on her tray.
“Certifiably,” I said with a laugh, giving Steve a grin. He seemed so serious all the time. I went back to the other end of the bar and wiped the top.
"So," I said, enjoying Beckett’s attention in spite of my earlier hesitation. "A stranger comes into town and all the locals wonder why he's here in Topsail Beach, of all places." I hadn't planned on talking to him, but I'd been through a long dry spell since Dan died and Beckett was so pretty, I had a hard time not flirting with him. "You a biker?”
“I ride a Harley, yes,” he said. “I love working on engines and have since I was a kid. Nothing makes me happier than when I’m up to my elbows in grease and listen to an engine I’ve just fixed purr. Other than riding, that is.”
“You must have some business here."
"I'm staying at the Yacht Club, scouting out locations for a staff retreat I’m planning.”