by Elle Kennedy
His life with Gina had been angst-free. It had been easy and comfortable, filled with light and laughter and hope, damn it.
It wasn’t like that with Isabel. It was a million times harder, a million times more intense, and he was tired of trying to make sense of the hot rush of emotions constantly threatening to choke him.
Morgan. His focus had to be on Morgan now.
He would try to make sense of his feelings for Isabel later. Right now, all that mattered was figuring out what the hell had happened to his boss.
• • •
The phone rang at seven a.m., but Lassiter wasn’t sleeping. He’d been up all night staring at the waves as they crashed against the white sand a hundred yards from his deck.
Lex hadn’t been able to confirm a goddamn thing. The team they’d sent to investigate had discovered a dozen charred bodies inside the burning compound. The ones wearing dog tags were Lassiter’s mercs. Of the other four, one might’ve been a woman, the other three definitely men.
Million-dollar question was—was one of those men the right man?
No answer for that, and no way of determining it. Couldn’t exactly run a DNA test or pull dental records. The only way to know for sure was if he surfaced again. Until then, they had to assume he was either dead or had gone underground.
Meiro wasn’t going to like this.
Dread climbed up Lassiter’s throat like strands of ivy. Dragging a hand through his hair, he finally clicked the TALK button and lifted the phone to his ear. “Lassiter.”
“You fucked up.”
The smooth, accented voice sent a shiver of fear along Lassiter’s spine. He hadn’t expected to be hearing from Meiro himself. This didn’t bode well. Not in the fucking slightest.
“There were skilled soldiers living in the facility.” He winced at the feeble note in his voice. “We knew it would be difficult to—”
“To what?” Meiro said pleasantly. “Carry out the task I entrusted you with? The task you were paid rather handsomely for? The task you assured me would go off without a, what did you call it? A hiccup?”
“Well, we didn’t take into consideration—”
“Who is we, Mr. Lassiter? Are you implying that I am partially responsible for your mistake?”
“No, of course not,” he replied hastily. “You’re right, Mr. Meiro. I fucked up. It was my mistake. But don’t worry. I’m already assembling another team. They’ll track the whereabouts of the men who escaped during the assault and—”
“Don’t trouble yourself. Your services are no longer required.”
He gulped. “Mr. Meiro—”
“What do you say I give you a head start?” Meiro’s tone was downright amiable. “An hour? Two?”
“No, please—”
“One hour it is.”
Click.
The phone fell from Lassiter’s hands and clattered to the sand-covered deck. As panic took hold in his chest, he dove into the house like his very existence depended on it.
Because it did.
Chapter 7
Isabel found Trevor on the front porch, staring at the thick cluster of lemon trees growing at the side of the house.
“Hey,” she said tentatively.
He turned at her approach. “Hey.”
She came up beside him, fixing her gaze on his clean-shaven jaw and damp hair. He must have just come out of the shower, and gosh, what an appealing visual that made. She pictured Trevor’s naked body under the shower spray, water sliding down his sculpted pecs and clinging to the dark hair on his chest, then following that line of hair lower and lower . . .
It took a serious amount of effort to banish the naughty images from her mind.
This was the first time she’d experienced such a raw, primal case of lust. It hadn’t been this bad in New York. She’d desired him, yes. He’d made her heart pound, definitely. But it certainly hadn’t been as powerful as this.
Everything about Trevor Callaghan teased her senses. His heady scent, his incredible body, his intense brown eyes. And his lips. She couldn’t seem to quit staring at his lips. She kept remembering how warm they’d been when he’d kissed her all those months ago. Warm and firm and seductive, and his tongue . . . God, his tongue had been so skilled, so damn greedy . . .
“Were you the one who talked Noelle into helping us?” Trevor’s voice interrupted her totally inappropriate thoughts.
Hoping she wasn’t blushing—her cheeks felt too damn hot—Isabel shook her head. “I didn’t do a thing. She was dead set on letting Morgan fend for himself when I spoke to her last.”
“I wonder what changed her mind.”
“Don’t even bother. Noelle operates on her own twisted logic. Normal people could never understand how that woman’s brain works.”
They went quiet, Trevor’s gaze once again returning to the trees. The early-afternoon breeze rustled the branches, and a sweet lemony scent wafted in their direction. From the corner of her eye, Isabel saw him take a deep breath.
“It’s so odd, isn’t it?” he said absently. “How certain smells trigger certain memories?”
Without waiting for an answer, he left the porch and headed toward the trees. It wasn’t until he realized she hadn’t followed that he stopped and glanced over his shoulder. “You coming or what?”
Isabel had to smile. “You didn’t exactly ask me to take a walk,” she said as she joined him.
“I thought it was implied.”
When he offered an easy grin, her heart skipped a beat. Damn him for having such an amazing smile.
“So, what’s your lemon memory?” She kept her tone casual, her gait relaxed.
They wandered into the thicket, where it immediately got shadier and the scent grew stronger.
“Gina’s hands. Every summer, they smelled like lemons. She loved fresh-squeezed lemonade. Made it herself.”
Isabel studied his profile, anticipating tight muscles and tortured eyes, but all she saw was sadness and resignation. He no longer looked like he was about to fall apart each time he spoke of his fiancée.
“How did you two meet?” she heard herself ask. “I don’t think you’ve ever told me the story.”
Trevor laughed. “It’s not much of a story. She was a bank teller, I was cashing a check. I thought she was hot, so I asked her to dinner.”
The straightforward account made Isabel grin. “How romantic.”
“Sorry it’s not the meet-cute you were looking for.”
They moved deeper into the grove, walking side by side, not touching, but not crazy far apart either. Isabel was so tempted to reach for his hand. She wanted to kick herself for even thinking about holding hands with this man, but she couldn’t seem to control the mystifying emotions swirling in her stomach like a pack of panicked butterflies.
Friends. That’s what she’d told Trevor she wanted, and she needed to stick to her guns. Friendship was the best option for them. The safe option. Anything more than that scared her, threatened the life she’d built for herself.
“If I’m being honest, we were kind of a boring couple,” Trevor confessed. “I was gone so often that—” He stopped suddenly. “Want to sit down?”
He gestured to the wooden bench ten yards away, tucked beneath a pair of trees with low-hanging branches that provided a canopy of shade.
“Sure,” she said.
They settled on the bench, a foot of space separating them. He had big thighs, she noticed. Firm, muscular, hugged by the fabric of his camo fatigues. And he’d changed into a snug white T-shirt that outlined every masculine contour of his chest.
Heat spiraled through her, and her hands trembled with the need to touch him. She clasped them in her lap instead and forced herself to concentrate on the man’s words rather than his tantalizing body.
“You were saying you were gone a lot?” she prompted.
He nodded. “I was twenty-one when I met Gina, still serving a four-year hitch, so the beginning of our relationship took place via e-mails
, phone calls, and video chats. We tried the whole romantic handwritten-letter crap, but I have atrocious handwriting, so Gina finally ordered me to stop writing letters.” He laughed before going serious again. “It was tough making it work at first, but we managed to stick it out. Once I left the service, it got easier.”
“You were together for a long time, huh?”
“Ten years.” He paused. “What was your longest relationship?”
Isabel bit her bottom lip, tried to keep her composure. “A few months.”
“Really? So short?”
“I didn’t have a lot of opportunities to date.”
She fiddled with her hands, wanting to change the subject, but at the same time feeling that she owed him something in return for the way he’d opened up about his fiancée.
“Once I hit puberty, no boy was allowed to come near me,” she confessed. “I was Bernie Roma’s daughter, Joey Roma’s little sister. The boys at my high school didn’t dare get close to me.”
“Shit. That must have sucked.”
“Yup. I didn’t even touch a member of the opposite sex until my senior year. One of my brother’s friends started hanging out at our house in Brooklyn. Sometimes he’d stop by and wait for Joey to come home from the restaurant, and the two of us would talk.” A sad smile tugged at her lips. “He was my first love. His name was Michael.”
She jumped when Trevor covered both her hands with one of his, gently stroking her knuckles with his fingers. “What happened to him?” he asked.
“I gave my virginity to him, and Michael made the mistake of confiding in Joey about it. Joey told our father, and Dad had Michael brought to the back room of the restaurant.” Pain squeezed her heart. “And let’s just say the back room wasn’t the place you wanted to find yourself in.”
“Fuck.”
“My father broke both of Michael’s hands, ordered his goons to beat the shit out of him, and I never saw him again.” Before Trevor could offer words of sympathy, she hurried on. “After that, I stayed away from Joey’s friends. From all men, actually. I went out with a couple of guys in college, but it didn’t last. Once I joined the bureau, I dated a colleague for three or four months—that was the relationship I was referring to. But it didn’t work out.”
“Why not?”
“According to him, I was ‘emotionally unavailable.’”
Trevor ran his fingers over her knuckles. “And was he wrong?”
Wrong? Isabel almost laughed. Brett’s parting words had hurt, but the man had been right on the money. She kept her emotions locked up so tight you’d need a team of professional bank robbers to crack open her emotional vault. That guardedness had started in childhood and followed her all the way to adulthood.
She was spared from answering Trevor’s question thanks to his buzzing cell phone. A quick glance at the incoming text, and then he was on his feet.
“What is it?” she asked.
“We’ve got a lead on Lassiter.”
• • •
The tip came from the head of the military company in Texas, a man by the name of Russ Pollack, with whom Trevor had crossed paths a few times previously. Pollack was a former Green Beret who’d gone private and was now making cash hand over fist training mercenaries down south—and he’d lost three men during the ambush on Morgan’s compound.
“Shit, Callaghan, if I’d known Lassiter was aiming to take out Morgan, I wouldn’t have sent him any men.”
Pollack’s apologetic words put a bitter smile on Trevor’s face. “A soldier for hire with a moral code. How rare.”
“I mean it, Trev. You know my past with Morgan—I owe that prickly bastard my life. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have such a great gig down here.”
Trevor knew Pollack wasn’t bullshitting him. Rumor had it, Russ Pollack had suffered a complete mental breakdown after his Special Forces stint and subsequent discharge. Trevor wasn’t sure what Morgan had done exactly, but there was no bigger Morgan supporter in the merc community than Pollack.
“Well, maybe next time you can ask for more information before agreeing to do business with men like Lassiter,” Trevor said pointedly.
“I will.” There was a beat. “You’ll make sure Morgan knows I didn’t deliberately try to fuck with him?”
“Sure thing, Russ. And the address you gave us—you certain it’s current?”
“Should be. My sources say Lassiter’s been living at the beach house for the last two years. You need backup checking it out?”
“Nah, we’re good. Later, Russ.”
He hung up and drifted to the central courtyard of the ranch house. Noelle and D were at the table, smoking in silence, while Ethan cleaned his rifle nearby. Isabel stood by a bed of pink tulips, her expression sharpening when Trevor walked out.
“Do we know where Lassiter is?”
“Holed up in a beach house near Baja.” Despite himself, Trevor couldn’t help but smirk at Noelle. “Our contact scored the intel faster than yours did. One point for Morgan’s team.”
She smirked right back. “Your team captain is most likely worm food. I’m very much alive. Please remember that.”
Trevor just laughed. The more time he spent with Noelle, the less terrifying she became.
Casting him a shrewd look, she pursed her lush red lips. “Oh, Callaghan, please don’t make the same mistake other men have made.”
“And what mistake is that?”
“Underestimating me.”
With her cigarette dangling from her graceful fingers, she rose from her chair and sauntered up to him. Smoke curled in his direction and floated into his face, but he ignored it. Noelle was so close their bodies were nearly touching. The top of her head brushed his chin, her silky hair tickling his flesh.
She brought her lips right up to his ear. “I’m capable of killing you in a hundred different ways, honey. I know at least seven methods that focus heavily on a man’s testicles. Want me to show you?”
Trevor’s shoulders stiffened. There was no mistaking the heat in the blonde’s blue eyes. Was she flirting with him?
Noelle dragged her fingers over the curve of his jaw before resting her palm on the center of his chest. “What do you say, Callaghan? Want me to show you some tricks?”
Fuck, she was hitting on him.
“Leave him alone, Noelle.”
Isabel’s annoyed voice summoned a throaty laugh from Noelle. “Oh, Isabel, you’re no fun at all.” With that, she broke the contact and returned to the table, taking a careless drag on her cigarette.
When Trevor met Isabel’s gaze, her cloudy expression didn’t go unmissed. Was she jealous of the inexplicable attention Noelle had been paying him ever since she’d arrived at the ranch? Because that sure looked like jealousy darkening Isabel’s blue eyes.
“All right,” Noelle said, back to business. “Callaghan and the kid will check out this lead. Can you boys be ready in an hour?”
Trevor ignored her use of the word “boys” and offered a nod.
“I’m going with them,” D said stiffly.
“You’re a liability,” Noelle retorted. “You stay behind.”
D looked ready to murder her, but Trevor quickly intervened before the man lost his shit. “She’s right. Give yourself another day to rest, man. You’re still white as a sheet, and don’t think I didn’t notice you swallowing half a bottle of ibuprofen this morning. Head still hurts, huh?”
D just scowled at him.
“Well, then I’m going,” Isabel spoke up.
Noelle’s eyes flickered with irritation. “For fuck’s sake, is everyone here deaf? I said Callaghan and the kid. And if you keep questioning every fucking decision I make, Isabel, I’ll sideline you entirely.”
Trevor’s hackles rose. He wanted to lay into her for talking to Isabel like that, but Noelle was suddenly reaching for her phone. Her lips curved as she glanced at the screen. “Good. Juliet’s here.”
Isabel looked surprised. “Already?”
“S
he was in the air an hour after I summoned her.”
“You say jump, and your chameleons jump, huh?” Isabel sounded oddly bitter, but when Noelle gestured for her to follow, she did so without protesting.
After the two women disappeared, Trevor met D’s eyes, then Ethan’s. “I don’t like this,” he admitted.
“Me either.” Ethan glanced uneasily at the French doors. “Let’s hope this Juliet chick is more like Isabel and less like Noelle.”
Ethan didn’t get his wish—the woman who strolled outside a few minutes later took one look at the rookie and released a peal of laughter.
“Oh, aren’t you adorable,” she cooed. “I didn’t realize Morgan was recruiting them out of high school.”
Ethan looked at Trevor as if asking for permission to kick some ass.
Fighting a grin, Trevor gave a slight shake of his head.
He took a minute to appraise the newcomer, who—no surprise—was an absolute knockout. She looked to be in her early thirties, with a head of thick dark hair that fell down her back in tousled waves, eyes the color of dark chocolate, a willowy body, and a damn nice rack. Her dark blue jeans were plastered to her long legs like plastic wrap, and her arms, bare thanks to her black tank top, revealed a pair of matching tattoos on her biceps. A cluster of nautical stars, feminine yet edgy.
“Guys, this is Juliet,” Isabel said. “Jules, this is Ethan, D, and Trevor.”
The brunette studied D first. Well, more like eye-fucked him. She damn near licked her lips too.
Then that seductive gaze landed on Trevor, who suppressed a sigh and managed a half smile. “Nice to meet you,” he told her.
“Oh, the pleasure is all mine.” She grinned, and he noticed she had a little mole right above her mouth.
Okay. He wasn’t even gonna try to deny it—the woman was hotter than a five-alarm fire. But although he was able to appreciate her on a wholly masculine level, she didn’t get his blood going the way Isabel did. Not even close.
“So you’re one of the chameleons.” He kept his tone polite. “Another master of disguise?”