Hell or High Water

by Julie Ann Walker

  Unsteadily climbing from the hammock, he stood and concentrated on sucking in deep, steadying breaths. The pungent aroma of Uncle John’s favorite chicory coffee tunneled up his nose. “Shit,” he muttered again as he slowly peeled open one eyelid.

  Woof! Meat barked happily, licking his ridiculous underbite as his wrinkly back end wobbled in the English bulldog version of a tail wag.

  “I should’ve made Mason take you with him to Spain, you flea-bitten mutt,” he grumbled, gingerly taking the warm mug of coffee his uncle held out to him. “Thanks, Uncle John,” he managed. Because even though the smell turned his stomach, he knew if he could just choke down the tart brew, it’d go a long way toward mitigating the effects of the brown bottle flu he’d stupidly allowed himself to contract last night.

  “Yep,” his uncle replied monosyllabically, leaning back against the trunk of a palm. He was humming softly and tapping his foot in rhythm to Bob’s jam.

  When Leo glanced over, he was disgusted to discover the sea dog seemed none the worse for wear after last’s night overindulgence. “Just looking at that shirt makes my head hurt,” he groused.

  “Now, don’t you go blamin’ your skull-pounder on me, son.” Uncle John adjusted the collar of his shirt and smoothed it over his chest. “Besides, you only wish you looked this good.”

  Despite himself, Leo grinned. That is until—woof!—Meat barked again. It occurred to him that instead of chucking himself into the ocean, he might be better served by giving Meat the heave-ho.

  Woof!

  Cock-a-doodle-doo!

  “Oh, for the love of Christ,” Leo growled at the damn dog and his damn rooster companion. “I swear, it’s like we’re living in a motherfrickin’ zoo. I thought Romeo said he was takin’ that noisy-assed rooster back to Key West with him on his last run.” The island at the end of the chain of the Florida Keys was swarming with wild chickens, happily referred to by residents as feral fowl or jungle fowl.

  “He did,” his uncle told him.

  In the bleary, confused way only a jug-bitten man can pull off, Leo glanced down at the rooster pecking in the sand at his feet. The bird’s brilliant plumage was as much of an assault on his eyes as his uncle’s hula shirt. “Huh?”

  “Romeo said the winged shithead—Romeo’s words, not mine—refused to stay in Key West. He just kept hoppin’ back on the catamaran.” Uncle John shrugged. “So I suppose that means we’re keepin’ him.”

  “Keepin’ him?”

  “Yep.”

  “Sonofa—”

  Cock-a-doodle-doo!

  “Shut up, you little bastard, before I turn you into fried chicken!” Leo shouted. Taking a quick sip of the coffee, he winced at its bitterness and swished the liquid through his furry teeth and over his fuzzy tongue before spitting it on the ground. Fuck a duck. Thank God he didn’t have a mirror. Because he didn’t think he’d like to see the thing staring back at him.

  Raking in a deep breath, he steeled his woozy stomach against what was about to enter it before he upended the mug and downed the remaining contents, welcoming the burn in his throat because it distracted him from his other maladies. His uncle liked to brag that his coffee was strong enough to walk into a cup all on its own, and Leo figured that pretty much hit the nail on the head. Come on, caffeine. Work your wonders.

  “And that’s what I’ve decided to call him, by the way,” Uncle John added.

  Again, Leo went with the spectacularly witty rebuttal of “Huh?”

  “Li’l Bastard. That’s what you and the others are always hollerin’ at him, so I reckon that should be his name.”

  Leo once again lowered his gaze to the rooster. The annoying bird was obviously ready to let loose with another one of its ear-piercing crows. “Don’t you even think about it,” Leo snarled, stomping his foot in the sand. The rooster flapped its wings and let out a resentful squawk.

  Woof! Woof! Woof!

  “Oh, for cryin’ out loud. I’m goin’ to need a lot more coffee,” he warned his uncle. And as bad as he felt, he didn’t hesitate to take the half-empty mug when it was offered to him. Chugging what was left of his uncle’s coffee, he handed over both earthenware cups before squatting next to Meat. He’d promised Mason he’d look after the mutt. And even though scooping foul-smelling dog food from the sack they kept under the kitchen counter was something he looked forward to with about as much enthusiasm as a root canal, he was nothing if not a man of his word.

  Besides, he knew one way to shut the silly dog up was to give him something to put in his mouth. “Are you hungry?” he asked the big, furry lunkhead, scratching the row of fat wrinkles that passed for Meat’s neck.

  The bulldog immediately licked his chops, brown eyes sparkling with zealous canine fervor.

  “Yeah? So what else is new?” Because as far as Leo could figure, Meat had three stomachs. The first was used for kibble. The second was used for Milk-Bones and the occasional morsel of human food the cunning mongrel managed to steal. And the third was used for any rank-ass smelly thing Meat happened to come across. In Leo’s estimation, each stomach had a limitless capacity.

  “Come on, then,” he told the dog as he shuffled toward the house. The bracing effects of the coffee were beginning to take hold, making him feel almost human again. In fact, if the growling of his stomach was anything to go by, he might just be able to keep down some breakfast.

  “What do you say to banana pancakes?” he asked his uncle as they trudged up the stairs leading to the pine-plank porch that wrapped around the bottom half of the old house. The whole structure needed a fresh coat of paint, but that was way down on Leo’s list of Shit That Needs Doin’. If it ever got done, that is, considering there was no real financial incentive to pretty up the place.

  “You cookin’?” his uncle inquired.

  Leo shot him a look as he reached into the breast pocket of his T-shirt. Snagging his pack of Big Red and quickly unwrapping a single stick, he folded the piece of cinnamon-flavored chewing gum into his mouth and said, “Are you tellin’ me you don’t know how to make banana pancakes?”

  “It ain’t a matter of knowin’ how.” Uncle John shook his shaggy head. A lock of stark white hair flopped over his brow. “It’s a matter of effort versus pleasure. Is the pleasure I’m goin’ to get from eatin’ the pancakes worth the effort of me standin’ over a hot stove and flippin’ the suckers? I suspect not.”

  Slack-ass hippie, indeed…

  “Fine.” Leo opened the screen door, wincing when the hinges screamed in rusty agony. Item number one million and one on The List: oil the hinges. That one he would get around to eventually, if for no other reason than to mitigate any unnecessary noise on mornings like this. And on the subject of unnecessary noise, Meat raced by him, doggy nails scrabbling on the waxed wooden floor in his mad dash toward the kitchen. “I’ll cook. But only if you promise to turn that shit off, or else find some new music to torment us—”

  His words were cut off when he heard the low buzz of the Canadian-built de Havilland Otter floatplane that was Romeo’s pride and joy. Romeo had purchased the single-engine, propeller-drive aircraft under the auspices of we need a faster way than the catamaran to get back and forth to Key West. But Leo figured Romeo just flat-out wanted the aircraft, considering his time behind the throttle was cut short due to the fact that they were now, you know, C-words. And even though it hadn’t really been in the budget, who was Leo to tell a guy he couldn’t spend his hard-earned cash the way he wanted? Plus, the plane had come in handy more than a time or two.

  Of course, it had irked Romeo to no end that Wolf—the only other guy in their group with a pilot’s license—had gleefully requisitioned the aircraft for transportation preceding and following the trip to Seville. When Romeo objected, Wolf had simply said, his black eyes flashing, “Letting me take the Otter just makes plain good sense, and arguing about it is as useful as wrestling with shadows.”

  Ray “Wolf” Roanhorse could play the quiet, resolute, impeccably logi
cal card better than anyone Leo knew. And when he combined that with the colorful Cherokee-isms he’d picked up from his wise, old grandmother, none of them could naysay him. Not even Romeo, who usually had a smart-alecky comeback for everything.

  Unhooking his aviators from the collar of his T-shirt, Leo slid the sunglasses onto his face and stepped toward the edge of the porch. The little Otter was coming in for a landing in the lagoon, but just before its pontoons cleared the ring of choppy water that heralded the presence of the treacherous underwater reef, the left wing dipped once—the flyboy equivalent of hello. It was then that Leo realized the catamaran was no longer tied to the dock, but motoring through the break in the reef line toward open water. Squinting against the glare of the sun, he could see the main sail on the twin-hulled boat unfurling. It caught the wind with a loud snap that echoed back to him a moment before the sploosh-hisssss of the Otter touching down drowned out all other sounds…even ol’ Bob, who had switched from singing about three little birds to singing about a buffalo soldier.

  “Romeo and Doc are sailin’ the ladies back to Key West,” his uncle informed him, seeing the direction of his gaze. Leo walked over and clicked off the boom box and…silence. Blessed, sweet silence. “They said they’ll be home by dinner. But, hey”— his uncle clapped a hand on his shoulder when he returned to lean against the porch rail—“this is an auspicious arrival, ain’t it? I suspect you can talk Bran into makin’ us some banana pancakes.”

  Despite the rough start to his morning, Leo felt his lips curve. His best friend loved cooking like most men loved beer, brats, and reruns of Baywatch, and Leo had no doubt that all it would take for Bran to don his ridiculous apron—the thing actually read Mr. Good-Lookin’ Is Cookin’; I mean, for chrissakes—would be for Leo to mention in passing that banana pancakes would just about hit the spot. Of course, all thoughts of breakfast vanished like smoke on the water when the Otter motored toward the beach, its pontoons kissing the edge of the sand, and Leo counted not three but four silhouettes in the little floatplane’s windows.

  Now, who is that? he wondered.

  Wolf throttled up until the bird was secure on the beach, then cut the engine. The back cabin door popped open and Mason McCarthy hopped out. Mason was their resident underwater demolitions expert and ace electrician. And when you combined those terribly macho talents with his big, burly, Black Irish facade and his South Boston propensity for using the work “fuck” in all its glorious variations, the fact that he liked to paint landscapes in his off time seemed a bit…well…contradictory. Then again, any hobby that could quiet the cacophonous mind of a former fighting man was A-okay in Leo’s book.

  He watched Mason fist both hands into the small of his back before arching into a stretch. At 5' 11", what Mason lacked in height compared to the rest of the guys, he more than made up for in sheer muscle mass. And the interior of the Otter was a squeeze for even an average-sized man, much less one who looked like he could be John Cena’s stunt double. After working out the kinks, Mason turned to offer a hand up to their guest.

  Long, tan legs emerged from the plane. Smooth legs.

  Wrinkled khaki shorts soon followed. Short shorts.

  A ribbed, black tank top came next. Tight tank top.

  And then…

  Olivia Mortier.

  What the hell? Leo’s chin jerked back at the same time his pulse jumped into overdrive. What’s she doing here?

  And then it occurred to him that the guys must have taken it into their fool heads to do what he’d been refusing to do, namely, contact Olivia.

  Stupid, interfering sonsofbitches!

  He was all set to rip the assholes some new assholes when he saw Bran open the copilot side door and jump down from the plane carrying a huge black duffel. After skirting the nose of the aircraft, he tossed the bag to Mason before slinging a muscular arm around Olivia’s shoulders. And, no. No, no. All thought of ripping anyone a new anything flew out of Leo’s head quick as a whistle, replaced by a surge of possessiveness so strong he knew, then and there, and without a doubt, that his life had just gotten a lot more complicated. Because if there was one word in the entire English language to describe Olivia Mortier, it was certainly, unequivocally “complicated.”

  Shit!

  “Ahoy, the house!” Bran called, a skip in his step and a goofy grin plastered across his face.

  Leo wondered if the two affectations were due to Bran having just spent a night carousing in the bars on Key West—the place was like the holy Mecca for a drifting, shiftless, unattached guy just looking for a one-night stand—or the shoulders of one black-haired, blue-eyed CIA agent that were supporting his arm.

  Can you say, “All of the above,” boys and girls?

  Shit!

  All right, Leo was definitely sensing a theme for the day.

  “Who do you suppose she is?” his uncle inquired from beside him, leaning against the porch rail and squinting at the new arrivals as they made their way up the beach toward the house.

  Trouble with a capital T. Temptation on two legs. My wildest fantasy come to life. “Olivia Mortier,” Leo managed, his voice coming out all scratchy and rough, like he’d been swallowing fistfuls of sand or some other such equally asinine thing.

  He felt his uncle turn quickly toward him, but couldn’t take his eyes off the woman coming his way.

  “The Olivia Mortier?” Uncle John asked. “As in the woman Doc was talkin’ about last night?”

  “That’s the one,” Leo admitted, still not quite believing his eyes. “And I think some serious ass-kickin’ is in order. Because I told ’em I—”

  Woof!

  Having lost patience in the kitchen, Meat had his snout pressed against the screen door, his bark the doggy equivalent of What’s the holdup? Then he spotted Mason and his very manly sounding woof turned into a series of terribly girly-sounding yip-yip-yips! Leo managed to peel his eyes away from Olivia long enough to turn and see Meat spinning in circles behind the screen door, unable to contain his doggy excitement upon the return of his beloved owner.

  Then Leo’s neck jerked around so fast it was a wonder he didn’t give himself whiplash when four pairs of footsteps pounded up the porch’s wooden steps. Olivia was suddenly standing in front of him in that oh-so-confident way she had, all while wearing…that.

  Woot-whooooo!

  If he wasn’t mistaken, that was the wolf-whistle sound that was supposed to accompany his tongue unfurling from his mouth to hang down to his knees. He’d only ever seen her in baggy, desert-drab cargo pants and scuffed-up combat boots. Which meant all the skin now on display was enough to give him an eye-gasm.

  “Hello, Leo,” she murmured in that smoky, Stevie Nicks voice that just…holy Christ… It got to him. And, as if that wasn’t enough, her subtle perfume drifted on the balmy morning breeze, causing his nostrils to flare wide.

  He remembered that smell all too well. How the hell could he forget it when it haunted his dreams at night? And damned if he could ever figure it out, but even after twelve hours under the baking Syrian sun, she’d still managed to exude that tantalizing aroma. Like wild jasmine, all things sweet and exotic.

  “Olivia.” He nodded, giving himself major points for playing it cool when cool was the dead-last thing he was feeling. He was on fire from head to toe. “What brings you here? Wait”—he held up a hand—“let me guess. It’s thanks to five Navy SEALs. And as soon as I get ’em alone, I can assure you their asses will be grass.”

  For such a small movement, the lifting of one perfectly arched black brow packed quite a punch. “Your men don’t have anything to do with why I’m here.”

  “They don’t?” He looked around at the faces of some of the men in question, quickly noting their amused, slightly quizzical expressions. “You don’t?” he demanded of them, a sense of foreboding scratching at the back of his brain.

  “We found her at the airport, LT. Swear on my mother’s grave,” Bran vowed, his bastardly arm still around Olivia’s
shoulders. Leo had never before begrudged Bran his wavy dark hair or lithe swimmer’s physique. But right now, he couldn’t help but wish the guy looked a little less like he belonged in underwear commercials and a little more like he belonged under a bridge.

  “She was about to hop on the Seaplane Charters’ Otter when we spotted her. And, can you believe it? She was headed this way. Says she has something she needs to…uh…discuss”—Bran wiggled his eyebrows meaningfully—“with you. So, I guess it’s a classic case of ask and ye shall receive, eh, paisano?”

  All right, and now the least of Leo’s worries was Bran and his too-friendly embrace of Olivia. Because all of his foreboding instantly morphed into dark dread. He turned back to her, ignoring the cheap shot her pretty, heart-shaped face always delivered. “So then what the hell are you doin’ here, Olivia?”

  And though he hadn’t meant for it to be, he could tell by her expression he’d just posed a loaded question, loaded six ways from Sunday. He knew deep in his gut he wasn’t going to like her answer.

  “I’m here to call in all those IOUs,” she told him, her laser-blue eyes gleaming in the dappled morning light cutting through the palm trees and lighting up the front porch.

  “What IOUs?” He lowered his chin, regarding her over the tops of his Ray-Bans. He didn’t remember filling out any IOUs.

  “Okay, you got me.” She smiled, flashing him that slightly crooked front tooth, the one so sexy it made his bare toes curl against boards of the porch. “So, the truth is, I’m here to ask you for a favor.”

  Uh-huh. And suddenly he knew why his sixth sense was screaming and running around in circles like its hair was on fire. Because when a CIA agent came begging for favors, you knew it was time to bend over, put your head between your legs, and kiss your ass good-bye.

  He didn’t want to ask, but, “What kind of favor?”