“God, you are so jaded.” Gina looked back at the girl, who was still pleading with the World Airlines attendants, her mascara starting to run. “I bet you don’t believe in Santa Claus either, huh?”
But Casey was tugging on her sleeve now, too. With her face pinched and worried, she looked about twelve. “Please, Gina,” she said. “Let’s just get on the plane. I can’t wait to get out of here.”
Gina had to admit that this airport, with its history of violence and terrorist threats, wasn’t on her top ten list of favorite places to hang out.
Her father had been absolutely grim when she’d told him she was going to Europe with the university jazz band and that one of the tour cities was Athens. But she was twenty-one years old, and she’d earned the money for this trip herself. She’d weighed the potential risks in with the other pros and cons, and decided the opportunity was too good to pass up. There’d been no stopping her.
Ironically, one of the pros had been the chance of spending three weeks with dreamy Trent Engelman. Hah. Mr. Athens-is-so-dull, wake-me-when-the-bus-gets-to-the-airport Engelman.
What was wrong with him?
He was holding on to her by the waistband of her shorts, as if she were a dog on a leash, needing a firm hand to stay heeled. Maybe if he hadn’t held her like that she would have just gotten onto the plane.
Instead she pulled away from him and out of the line. “I’ll catch up.” She said it to Casey, not Trent.
Poor Casey looked as if she were going to have a stroke, and Gina gave her a reassuring smile, waving her boarding pass. “It’s not like I don’t have a seat.”
“There she goes again,” Trent said with a long-suffering sigh. “Off to save the world, one pathetic loser at a time. You know, Gina, I’m not waiting for you.”
He wasn’t waiting for her. Okay. And she, well, she was never having sex with him again.
Between the two of them—and as long as the topic of losers had come up—she suspected he was the one who was going to be the most disappointed.
She smiled at him, too, then. As sweetly as possible. Looked pointedly at the long line behind them. “It’s not like the plane’s going to leave before everyone gets on.”
Gina moved quickly away from them, before Casey could gulp at her again, before Trent could be any stupider.
Before she called him an asshole to his face.
Asshole.
“But my passport was stolen along with my boarding pass,” the girl at the counter was saying. She had a remarkably perfect nose. “If I don’t get on this plane—”
“I’m sorry, miss,” the woman behind the counter replied in her British-tinged English-as-a-second-language accent. “I’m not sure how you got to this gate without a boarding pass, but I can’t help. You have to go back to the ticket desk—”
“But I’ll miss this flight!” The girl started to tear up again.
Except she wasn’t a girl. Up close, Gina saw that she had to be a few years out of college. Older than Gina by at least two years. She merely looked seventeen, with long brown hair and delicate features that made her seem as if she came with a fragile—handle with care label sewn behind one of her perfect ears.
She looked a little bit like an anemic, thoroughbred version of Gina, with the same dark brown eyes and a faintly similar heart-shaped face.
They could’ve maybe been cousins.
It was possible this girl was what Gina would’ve looked like if she hadn’t been born in East Meadow, Long Island, with three older brothers who continuously pounded on her until she learned to pound back, a mother who force-fed five-course Italian meals to anyone within shouting distance, a father who was a die-hard Mets fan and permanently depressed because of it, and about forty-seven aunts, uncles, and close family friends who spent their free time mucking up the lives of those unlucky enough to have been born in Gina’s generation.
“I have no money at all,” the girl continued. “What am I going to do?”
The World Airlines clerk had already turned away.
Yeah, this girl really had an amazing nose. It was a living tribute to some high priced plastic surgeon. Man-oh-man.
“Hi,” Gina said. “I couldn’t help but overhear. . . . Got your purse snatched, huh?”
The girl wiped that perfect nose on her sleeve. “My pocket was picked,” she said tightly. “I wasn’t even carrying a purse because I’d heard . . .” She shook her head, miserable. “This sucks. My father is going to kill me. If I’m not on that plane . . .” Her voice wobbled even harder—very Mary Tyler Moore at her most stressed. “I’m supposed to meet my sister at some hotel in Vienna and I have no way of getting in touch with her. I can’t call the hotel collect and I’m not going to call my father!”
Gina could relate. Absolutely. “Write down your sister’s name and the hotel, too,” she suggested. “I’ll call and leave a message for her as soon as the plane gets in.”
Her long-lost half cousin’s eyes widened. “You’d do that?”
“Sure. We Americans have to stick together. Got a pen?” There was one on the counter. Gina reached over and took it, handing it to the girl, along with the paper that had her luggage tags attached. “Write it on this. Do me a favor and try not to get any snot on it, okay?”
“Oh, God, I’m sorry!”
“That was a joke. I was kidding.”
“It’s the Hotel Rathauspark—I have the phone number for her room,” the girl said. “If you could do this for me—”
“Consider it done,” Gina said, glancing at the paper. The sister’s name was Emily something and the hotel Ratsomething else but the number and extension were clear. “New York, right?”
The girl nodded.
“Me, too. I can always tell a fellow New Yorker. I’m Gina, by the way.”
“Karen.”
The line for boarding the plane was down to a businessman and a tired looking woman with a sleeping baby in a frontpack who’d come late to the gate.
Gina dug into her pocket. She had a single Greek bill there—10,000 drachmas. It was the equivalent of about twenty dollars, give or take a few.
She held it out to Karen. “Lookit, I’m not going to need this anymore. You might as well have it—buy yourself a hunk of whatever that crap is they try to pass off as hamburger. Save me the trouble of exchanging it.”
The girl started to cry again. “Oh, my God, thank you so much.”
“No problem. By the way, nice nose,” Gina said, and got onto the plane.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Three
Sam Starrett was fast asleep and dreaming that he was lying on the deck of John Nilsson’s boat. It was vivid, and for a moment he was uncertain. Was he awake or was he asleep?
It was afternoon, and Nils had cut the engine. The boat was drifting while he and WildCard Karmody fished and Sam lazed in the sun—a pleasant sensation.
But Sam knew he had to be dreaming when Alyssa Locke came out onto the deck carrying two piña coladas and wearing a smile.
And absolutely nothing else.
Jesus, she was beautiful. Part black, part white, part Hispanic, part God knows what, Alyssa had a face that combined the very best features from every single race of humans around the world. Her ocean green eyes had a slightly exotic slant, and her nose was exactly the right size and shape to complement those eyes. Her smile was wide, her lips lush and full, and she had the most gorgeous, smooth as silk, mocha-colored skin. Her hair was wavy, with reddish tints. Her arms and legs were long and gracefully shaped, her body slender and athletic, yet soft in all the right places. Her breasts weren’t large, but they were perfection. She was perfection.
He should know. He’d made love to her, thanks to the fact that she’d gotten completely shit-faced drunk and spent a night in his hotel room. One incredible, amazing night.
Of course the morning after hadn’t been very much fun.
Because Alyssa Locke hated him.
She’d always hated him. It had been hate at first sight and apparently a night filled with the best sex of either of their lives wasn’t enough to change that.
A former U.S. Navy officer herself, Locke had resigned her commission when she was tapped to join the FBI’s most elite counterterrorist team. A team that, at times—unfortunately—worked closely with SEAL Team Sixteen’s Troubleshooters Squad.
Sam’s team.
That night of heaven and morning of hellfire had happened nearly six months ago. Six long months.
During which time Sam had dreamed about her constantly. Hardly a night went by without Alyssa Locke showing up in his dreams, usually naked, and so stupendously perfect it hurt.
She smiled at him now, sitting down on top of him, straddling him right there on the lounge chair. And God, then he was touching her again, running his hands across all that smooth, beautiful skin.
“I missed you,” she whispered, leaning down to kiss him, her eyes filled with warmth and sparkling with amusement and desire.
Why don’t you leave me alone?
When Sam was awake, he always vowed to ask her that, the next time he dreamed her into his life. But when he was asleep and dreaming about her, he didn’t want to say or do anything that might make her vanish.
“I missed you, too,” he whispered, heart in his throat. He missed seeing her, missed talking to her, missed making her laugh.
“Mmmm,” she said, as she settled herself more completely on top of him, pressing herself against the full length of his erection. She kissed him again and then smiled. “Is that for me?”
Stay asleep, he ordered himself. Whatever you do, stay asleep.
In a heartbeat, both the drinks she was holding and his bathing suit were gone. In a shift of the dream universe, he was inside of her, and they were making love, moving together in perfect unison, skin slick with sweat. He was laughing aloud, it was so damn good. She was laughing, too, her eyes alight with the same pure joy he was feeling.
“Lys,” he said. He needed to tell her . . . It was important that she know . . .
Another shift, and he could hear her ragged breathing, feel each exhale against his skin, and he knew she was close, so close.
Stay asleep! Stay asleep, god damn it!
“Lys,” he begged her. “Lys, please—”
“Who’s Liss?” WildCard’s voice cut through, and just like that, Alyssa Locke was gone and Sam was awake.
Shit.
Heart still pounding, drenched with sweat, Sam opened his eyes and stared up at the relentless blue of the sky.
WildCard handed him a bottle of beer, sat down on one of the built-in cushioned seats beside him.
Sam sat up, adjusting his shorts as he took a long, cooling slug of beer. It was probably a good thing WildCard had woken him up when he did. Another few minutes, and he would’ve had his first wet dream in years.
In public.
Jesus.
Johnny Nilsson sat down on the other side of him, sighing with contentment as he nursed his own beer.
“New girlfriend?” WildCard asked. “What, is Liss short for Alice or something? Do we know this girl?”
“No.” Sam answered his first two questions, hoping he would apply it to the third as well, even though it wasn’t true.
Yes, WildCard and Nils both knew Alyssa Locke. Sam hated the idea of lying to his friends, but he’d given Alyssa his word that he’d never tell a soul about the night they spent together.
He probably could’ve gotten away with confessing that he’d been dreaming about a woman he’d had a one nighter with and—didn’t it always work that way?—he’d wanted more but she hadn’t. But WildCard was one superintelligent son of a bitch, and it would be just Sam’s luck if he put zero and zero together and came up with Alyssa Locke.
Besides, talking about it made him feel pathetic. So he drank his beer and gazed out at the horizon.
“So you’re not seeing anyone these days?” WildCard persisted. “Because Janine gave me a call—I’m not with her anymore, but we’re still friends—and she wanted me to ask you how come you won’t return Mary Lou’s phone calls?”
Ah, shit.
Sam gave him the same answer he’d told Mary Lou months ago. “It wasn’t working out.”
Nils opened his eyes. “I thought you said you really liked this woman.”
“I did, but . . .”
“Man, you can’t just not call her back,” WildCard said. “I’ve been there, on the unanswered end of the telephone line, and it sucks.”
“She was fun at first, but then it got un-fun,” Sam admitted.
If he was going to withhold the truth about Alyssa from his best friends, he might as well come clean about Mary Lou. Well, as clean as he could without talking about the way he really felt.
“She’s a party girl, you know?” he told them. “Every night was a Saturday night. And that body—Jesus! It was like going home with the winner of the wet T-shirt contest all the time.”
Which was fun for about a week and a half.
Then reality cut through. He would lie in Mary Lou’s bed, mere seconds after strenuous, gymnastic, heart-pounding, gut-wrenching sex, and instead of settling into the relaxing calm of orgasm-induced peace, his entire body would hum with dissatisfaction.
This wasn’t enough.
He wanted—
No. There was no way he was going to let one night with Alyssa Locke ruin sex for him forever.
Maybe Mary Lou Morrison just wasn’t the right woman. Maybe his dissatisfaction was because he was getting older, growing up, and he just didn’t want every night to be a party anymore.
He didn’t want empty sex with some stranger with big tits who drank too much and had no real ambition besides hooking herself a SEAL for a husband.
“I thought she was into me for the fun,” Sam admitted now to Nils and WildCard. “But she wants to join the Wives of Navy SEALs Club, and soon as she started talking about moving in, I cut her loose.”
He’d actually started extracting himself from the relationship before that, pulling back instead of matching her beer for beer every night. Going home after she fell asleep.
He’d told himself it was because he couldn’t stop dreaming about Alyssa Locke. She came to him relentlessly—even the nights he spent in Mary Lou’s bed. He’d told himself that that wasn’t fair to Mary Lou.
Truth was, Mary Lou in the morning was not a pretty sight.
“She wasn’t in love with me,” Sam said. “And I sure as hell am not in love with her.” He looked at Nils sitting there, basking in the sunshine, all but dripping with contentment. “What we had going on was nothing like what you’ve got with Meg.”
Newly married, with an instant family that included a ten-year-old stepdaughter and a gorgeous wife who was already pregnant with his child, John Nilsson was the poster model for true love. He walked around with a spring in his step, smiling for no apparent reason, as if he and the sun and the moon shared a private joke. Running home to Meg as soon as the day was done. Calling her if he had a few minutes free. Happier than he’d ever been before.
It would’ve been annoying if Sam and Nils weren’t so tight. But since Sam couldn’t have loved Nils more if the man were his own blood brother, he focused on being glad for him instead of envious.
And maybe that, too, was what made him decide to break it off with Mary Lou before she even started talking about the future.
Seeing Nils and Meg together.
Wanting what they’d found.
It was stupid. Sam was stupid. He didn’t want what they’d found.
Couldn’t you just see him with a baby on the way? He wouldn’t be calmly sitting around like Nils. He’d be in a dead panic.
What the hell did you do with a baby?
“Still,” WildCard persisted. “You gotta call her back, man. Don’t ignore her—you don’t want to pull an Adele Zakashansky on her.”
“The bitch,” both Nils and Sam said in unison, and they all
cracked up.
Except WildCard wasn’t really laughing. He was just pretending to laugh. Ten whole months after he split with Adele, and he was still hurt.
Jesus, love was a crapshoot. Nils had won himself a happy-ever-after. But WildCard had lost his shirt.
And here Sam sat, between the two of them, safely single again and determined to stay that way. Unless, of course, Alyssa Locke came walking up from below, naked.
Troubleshooters 03 Over The Edge Page 6