Maverick

by Lisa Marie Rice

  Brown. His eyes were brown.

  Claire could hardly breathe as she held the paper with his bio. He had been there, in Laka at the time of the bombing, though she didn’t remember him.

  In the past year, Claire had had no curiosity about the bombing itself. She’d barely survived it. Her life had been neatly divided into Before Bombing and After Bombing. And the After Bombing part of her life had left her broken and weak, half a person, almost a ghost.

  A woman haunted by nightmares, horrible dreams so vivid she often woke up reaching for a nonexistent knife to defend herself.

  Claire was as certain as she could be that this Daniel Weston, who’d been posted to Laka with her, held a key to something. Maybe he held the key to… herself.

  And surely… surely her nightmares were trying to tell her something? Surely there was a reason she couldn’t sleep, and heard voices and gunshots? Surely there was some element she could understand, and by understanding, eliminate it?

  It would be simply too cruel if this was to be her life for the rest of her days—reduced to rubble, a wreck of a woman whose greatest hope was to sleep through the night.

  No.

  No, she refused even the thought of it.

  She was lost in a labyrinth, unable to find her way out. Maybe this man could help her. It was the first ray of hope since the bombing. Perhaps in some way he could help her help herself. Find a way out of the swamp of her nightmares.

  Suddenly galvanized, Claire sat down at her laptop, logged on and booked the first flight out from Tampa the next morning. Destination: Washington D.C. When she finished, she sat back, folding her shaking hands in her lap.

  Even the thought of getting on to a plane, flying a couple of hours, taking a taxi, confronting a man who would barely remember her, if he remembered her at all, who would probably think she was crazy—it was all too much. She couldn’t do it.

  What on earth could she say to him? Can you help me? I think I’m going crazy. I hear voices and see men in my sleep.

  Oh God. Maybe he’d call the cops, have the crazy woman escorted to the door. She sounded crazy even to herself.

  Claire sat trembling in her chair, heart beating fast. Maybe she could get her money back if she cancelled right away. She reached out a shaking hand to the mouse, then stopped.

  However terrified she was at leaving her home, leaving Safety Harbor, contacting a stranger, the alternative was worse. If she didn’t make an effort to understand why she had the nightmares, to understand what she was so afraid of, to make some kind of effort to get her life back, she could spend the rest of her life in this condition.

  The thought was unbearable. She’d rather die.

  She had to know. Had to.

  Gunnery Sergeant Daniel Weston might have some answers to the Laka bombing. He might be able to provide some information that would fill the terrifying gaps in her memory.

  But that wasn’t the reason why she was venturing out from her home for the first time in a year. There was another, far more urgent reason. A reason she didn’t dare tell him, because then he really would think she was crazy.

  Because Daniel Weston was the man in her dreams who kept her safe.

  CHAPTER 3

  WASHINGTON D.C., NOVEMBER 27

  Claire looked at the address on a sheet of paper in her hand, then back up again at the number on the brass plate. When she swung her head up to check the plate bearing the number 2215, she had a moment’s dizziness and clenched her teeth.

  Sometimes the dizziness morphed into nausea before she could stop it. Please God, not now. Don’t let me upchuck all over Barron Street.

  The goddess of hurting women listened and the dizziness subsided, leaving her shaken and still disoriented. What on earth was she doing here, so far from home?

  Oh yes. Coming to Weston Consulting at 2215 Barron Street in Alexandria because maybe, just maybe, Daniel Weston could help dispel some of the shadows in her mind.

  And, though she could hardly let herself think of it, because he haunted her dreams.

  So here she was, at—the paper with the address on it shook in her hand as her mind suddenly went blank. She had to check the number, then the brass plaque again.

  What a simple thing—to check an address, something any person on earth had to do but once. And yet so hard for her. She hated it that she needed to check even simple things twice, three times.

  She turned to the taxi driver who had been patiently waiting, probably thinking she was a moron to take so long, and nodded. Yes, this is the right place.

  He touched his baseball cap with his index finger in a salute, then took off with a squeal of tires, leaving her completely alone on the deserted street.

  The trip had been such a nightmare. She’d regretted it the moment she’d left the house in the pouring rain. The taxi had gotten caught in a jam due to the sudden downpour, tipping her out at Departures barely in time to make it to the gate. Two huge Airbuses were boarding, and the gates were crowded with far more passengers than the relatively small Tampa airport was equipped to handle.

  By the time Claire had fought her way to the gate through enormous pink tourists smelling of suntan lotion, tripped over baby bags, and tried to shove her way past a group of basketball players so tall they looked alien, she was sweating and frightened, heart pounding, head so light she prayed she wouldn’t faint.

  The plane ride had been the most turbulent flight she’d ever experienced, and she thanked her wretched stomach that it had refused any food at all this morning, because she wasn’t forced to spew her breakfast into a paper bag, like the lady sitting next to her in 26C.

  Even finding a taxi at National had been a horror story, since apparently there was a huge snarl-up downtown.

  But finally she was here. Shaking, wondering whether she’d lost her mind, almost certain that this Daniel Weston would call 911 to have her carted away—but here.

  She’d made it this far, in her first foray out of Safety Harbor since the bombing, which surely should earn her points somewhere.

  Now all she had to do was ring the bell, go inside, and ask a man she didn’t know if he knew her, and try to figure out why he was haunting her dreams.

  Piece of cake.

  She drew in a deep breath, pressed the bell and waited. And waited. Nothing happened. Oh God, had she made this nightmare journey for someone who wasn’t in? She forced her brain into rewind mode, consulted her muscle memory and realized that she hadn’t pressed the bell hard enough.

  She pressed the bell again, harder. Almost immediately a voice with a strong New York accent answered.

  “Weston Consulting.”

  “I’d like—" What would she like? Well, her life back, for starters. To have this perpetual fog in her head lifted. To understand her nightmares. All of that would be nice.

  She cleared her throat.

  “I’d like to speak to Daniel Weston, please.”

  The sigh was audible over the intercom. “You and a million other women,” the disembodied, nasal voice said. “Do you have an appointment?”

  Oh God. Claire was appalled. Not that she hadn’t picked up the phone to make an appointment, but that the thought hadn’t even occurred to her.

  This was awful. She was much worse off than she’d thought.

  She’d been a successful professional in a hard job that wasn’t top-heavy with women. Apart from being good at it, she’d risen through the ranks because she also knew how to play the game, because she knew the rules and abided by them.

  Right up there in the rules on how to get by in this life was making an appointment with a busy man whose help you needed.

  She knew that, knew it intimately, down to her toes. And yet, when she’d seen the video footage, all she could think of was this man might help me, as she’d set about feverishly making her travel arrangements with no thought other than how hard it was going to be to trek up to Washington.

  And even during the exhausting journey, she’d been so busy s
urviving her first trip since the bombing, it had never once crossed her mind to call ahead and make an appointment.

  Claire hardly recognized herself. She was a shell of a woman, more than halfway to going mad. Certainly incapable of living in the modern world.

  “No, sorry.” She swallowed. “I don’t have an appointment. I’m sorry to take up your time.”

  Another sigh over the intercom. “Well, since you’re here, you might as well come up. I’ll see what I can do to fit you in. Fourth floor.” And with a loud snick! the big, solid door unlatched.

  Claire placed the flat of her hand against the big polished wooden door, hesitating.

  She felt as if she were on a raft somewhere far out to sea, rudderless, completely adrift. There was one island in all the vastness of the sea, and it was waiting upstairs. If the island was empty, merely a sandbar, she was dead. Her life was over.

  Her fingers caressed the grain of the wood as she tried to steel herself to push the door open.

  Opening an unlatched door. How hard could it be? And yet her heart pounded and she felt dizzy, unable to draw breath.

  She stiffened her knees and spine. Just do it. After all, the worst thing that could happen would be that he’d think her a loon. He couldn’t say anything worse to her than what she told herself a dozen times a day.

  Claire pushed the door all the way open and entered the building’s foyer. It was nice without being obnoxiously upscale. The kind of building small, personal, successful businesses would choose. Clean, with lots of thriving plants.

  According to her research, former Gunnery Sergeant Daniel Weston had been out of the Marines for nine months, had started up his company just six months ago and here he was already in a nice building, with a receptionist.

  Whoever and whatever Daniel Weston was, he seemed to be good at his job.

  Claire forced herself to walk across the lobby to the bank of elevators at the back. When one arrived, she punched the button for the fourth floor, and felt her stomach sink as the cabin rose.

  How much of a wild-goose chase was she on? She was going to bother a perfect stranger, whose only connection to her was that they’d been posted to Laka at the same time, though she didn’t remember him and presumably he wouldn’t remember her.

  And, well, of course, she dreamed about him. There was that. Maybe the latest Manual of Mental Disorders would create a new category—Women Who Dream of Men They Didn’t Know.

  The elevator came to a smooth stop, the doors opening with a muted whoosh onto a pleasant landing with inset ceiling lights, more potted plants, and a series of doors with shiny brass plaques.

  Right across from her was the door to Weston Consulting. All she had to do was step out and ring the bell.

  Without any warning, Claire had a sudden panic attack, the bottom dropping out of her stomach. It wasn’t that she was frightened of Daniel Weston. She was frightened of herself. At what she had become. This fearful creature incapable of dealing with the world in any way, on any terms.

  She was frightened at what might come of this meeting. Or rather, what might not.

  She recognized that something wild inside her, something that felt perilously close to hope, had propelled her a thousand miles north, on a trip she wasn’t yet ready to take. Only now could she recognize the crazy hope that somehow this man held some answers to the darkness inside her for what it was.

  Madness.

  She wasn’t terrified at what he would say to her. She was terrified that he would have nothing to say to her. That this would be a dead end, and that she was condemned to the shadows in her mind forever.

  Trembling, she crossed the corridor and rang the bell. When the door clicked open, she stood quaking on the threshold, then drew in a sharp breath and stepped forward.

  Inside was a pleasant waiting room decorated in neutral tones, with comfortable-looking couches and some tasteful art. Well, if you had to go to a security consultant, you probably needed reassurance. The calm, neutral surroundings actually worked, because she felt her anxiety go down a notch.

  “Can I help you?” A good-looking, middle-aged Black woman looked up from her computer monitor. She looked competent, intelligent and kind. She also looked a little like Marie and Aba’s mother, who’d basically adopted her as the third Diur girl while she’d been in Laka. Claire’s anxiety dropped another degree.

  “Yes,” she said, hating the breathlessness in her voice. Her heart was pounding so hard she wondered whether the silk blouse over her left breast was moving. Thank God she had her coat on. “I’ve come to see Gunnery—Mr. Daniel Weston. I’m sorry I don’t have an appointment. We served together at the Laka Embassy in Makongo. Our tours of duty overlapped briefly. He—he might remember me.”

  The woman already had a handset to her ear. “Dan, the lady has arrived. Uh huh.” Her eyes rolled skywards. “Yeah, I know. But she said to say that the two of you worked together in Makongo. Her name is—“ She looked over her reading glasses at Claire, dark eyebrows up in silent query.

  Claire Day, she wanted to say, but somehow the words never came out. To her utter astonishment, her Foreign Service nickname came spilling out of her mouth before she could censor herself.

  “Blondie. Tell him Blondie is here.”

  CHAPTER 4

  “Another lady to see you,” Roxanne announced on the intercom. “She’s on her way up. Jesus, Dan, they’re coming out of the woodwork.”

  “Tell her no.” Dan thrust a hand through his hair, nostrils flaring in disgust. Though he must have washed his hair 20 times, it still held the acrid smell of smoke. “Tell her I’ve gone. Tell her I’m not available until the next millennium. Tell her I’m dead.”

  “Too late,” Roxanne trilled in a singsong voice and hung up.

  Jesus Christ. Ever since that reporter put him on the news as some sort of male meat, up for grabs, his life hadn’t been worth living. He’d had no idea of the impact the news item had made until he walked out of the hospital into the glare of feeder lights and overhead boom mikes, with a hundred screaming reporters and a thousand screaming women.

  He’d had to make his way through the crowd by sheer force, hoping he wasn’t hurting anyone, but desperate to just get out of there, batting mikes away from his mouth and fending off women who were old enough to know better. Women who wanted a souvenir of him and weren’t prepared to take no for an answer.

  He’d lost his bomber jacket to a particularly sinewy redhead, who threw him a body block and started stripping him. The only way out was to ditch the jacket, like throwing a minnow into the water for the sharks so you could get away.

  He’d made his escape in the ensuing scrimmage, accompanied by squeals he could hear a block away.

  Home was no sanctuary, since he’d crazily allowed his home number to be listed in the phone book. Man, that had been a big mistake, one he wasn’t making again. He walked into his home to the sound of the ringing phone and simply pulled the plug. His office e-mail box was full, which he would have thought impossible. But it looked like every female loon in America, and even some in Canada, had come out of the woodwork to send him photos. Lots of them. Not all of them with clothes on.

  Just glancing at the subject lines—most of which were propositions for sex—made him shudder as he quickly ran down the list of literally thousands and thousands of e-mails, deleting everything that wasn’t work-related.

  It took him an hour.

  The instant he emptied his inbox, it started filling up again. At this rate, he was going to have to change his e-mail address, which was a real pain. It meant contacting all his clients and buddies, changing the web page, and notifying his bank, accountant, lawyer, and doctor.

  Gah.

  What the fuck was the matter with these women, anyway? It was like he’d flipped some kind of switch he never even knew was there. Or had emitted some kind of whistle on some high-pitched frequency only women heard.

  He’d done exactly what any other man would have done. Certa
inly one as well-trained as he had been. Any cop, any firefighter, any pilot, certainly any soldier, would have done exactly the same. You’d think he’d morphed into Superman and the entire female population into Lois Lane.

  And his secretary Roxanne hadn’t been any help at all. She found the whole thing hilarious. When he’d walked in this morning, she’d simply saluted him and pushed several sheets of paper across her desk at him.

  “Messages. My hero.” She’d actually fluttered her eyelashes, the minx. She smiled at his snarl and when he’d slammed the door behind him, he could hear her laughing.

  Shit, shit, shit. He wasn’t going to get any work done today, and he had the World Bank security assessment report and a Homeland Security contract to get through, not to mention preparing for a big meeting in Baltimore this afternoon with the CEO of an enormous hedge fund. But how could he concentrate on work through a solid wall of women?

  His old Marine buddy Andy Crossley had called, sniggering. “Maybe they’ll do a made-for-TV movie. Man, you are going to get so laid for the next year, you lucky dog. All you’ll have to do is snap your fingers.”

  Fuck that. He didn’t want to get laid. Well, of course he did, he had a Y chromosome after all, but not with any of the women so frantic to get in touch with him.

  There was only one woman he wanted, and she’d been in the cold, cold ground for a year now.

  Shit. He tried, he really did, to keep Claire Day out of his head, but it wasn’t working. It hadn’t been working for a whole fucking year now. It was like she was stuck in there.

  He hadn’t even been able to go to bed with someone—a full year of chastity, completely self-imposed. He told himself it was because the women he dated all had fatal flaws. They were too this or not enough that.

  Bullshit.

  He realized it was bullshit when he accompanied a very pretty and nice enough brunette home after dinner last month without even a goodnight kiss, thinking he liked her, but she wasn’t blonde.