Joint Engagement

by Karen Anders

  They had most likely transferred Cameron and his friends from a boat they probably boarded in the Bahamas.

  His eyes caressed her, a tight look coming over his face. He looked away. “That sounds feasible. Good call. I’m sorry to hear about your crew members.”

  “I didn’t know them, but it’s always such a terrible loss to lose CG in the line of duty.” Heaviness weighed her down just thinking about the families who would be notified when Search and Rescue had a chance to scour the ocean. But hope was always a tricky thing.

  The outside door slammed and she jumped. One of the agents came into the room and waved, settling in at his desk.

  When she looked back, Beau was studying the map again. How did he do that? Seduce without even trying?

  He was a beautiful man, but if he’d been conceited or shallow, it would have been easier to discount him. It was something in his eyes, a tortured quality that drew her. She blew out a breath. He slanted a glance at her and she said, “What did the ME say?”

  He smiled. “The most I got out of him was that there was a banging chicken place about a block from him.”

  “Really?”

  His smile deepened, the magnetism pulling harder. “Yeah, he said forensic science cannot be rushed. Thanked me for making his job easier with the identification of Cameron and his friends, but he wasn’t going to give me any information until he’d autopsied all the bodies and run the DNA. He did say with the IDs that he could focus on the unidentified victims and that should cut his time.”

  “I guess your considerable charm doesn’t affect men.”

  He shook his head, shrugging. “When I’m on a mission, I use everything at my disposal, Cooper.”

  Kinley didn’t respond as she brought up the photos of the two dead men. One had a weaselly face, even in death.

  The other man was black, and as she stared at the picture, he looked vaguely familiar. Still staring at the picture, she picked up the phone to make some inquiries.

  Hours later, Kinley rubbed the back of her neck and blearily looked at the time in the corner of her computer monitor: 3:00 a.m. She’d spent her time following a couple of hunches and putting out feelers. She’d have to wait until the morning to see if they panned out. Should she update Beau? No. If nothing came of them, there wouldn’t be any need to fill him in. She looked over at Beau’s desk. His head was down and he was fast asleep, his breathing even. She’d heard that SEALs could sleep anywhere, caught short winks and were up and ready to go.

  She turned off her computer and, leaning over Beau, she shut his down, too. She looked down at him in slumber and had the overpowering urge to slip her hand into his hair.

  Instead, she gently touched his shoulder. He came wide-awake and took a deep breath, then let it out slowly.

  “What time is it?”

  “Three a.m.”

  “Damn, I gave up my hotel room.” He rose and rubbed the back of his neck.

  Before she could stop the words, she said, “Why don’t you just crash at my place?”

  “You sure?” he said, rubbing at his eyes.

  “Yes, c’mon. Let’s get to bed...uh...some sleep,” she amended quickly.

  He just flashed her a sleepy grin and indicated she should go first. She turned and walked toward the door. It was a quick drive to her house and she was now having second thoughts. When she’d offered, she hadn’t been thinking. It wasn’t a good idea to keep the tantalizing Beau anywhere near her in a personal situation. But he’d worked so hard today and the time and trouble of checking into a hotel seemed stupid when she had a perfectly good guest room.

  She drove home while Beau followed in his sleek muscle car. Once inside, she showed him the guest room.

  “This is nice of you. Thank you, Cooper.”

  She nodded and retreated to her room. After undressing and slipping on a silk nightie, she got into bed. She reached into the bottom drawer of her nightstand. Inside was a wooden box. She set it on her lap, clenching and unclenching her hands. Her chest filling. With trembling hands she lifted the lid. Her eyes grew moist. She reached for the picture of her father with his arm around her shoulder. They were laughing hysterically. It was the result of a joke she’d told, and his girlfriend had caught the moment on film. She brushed her fingers over his face, squeezing her eyes closed.

  She set the photo down and reached for the watch. It was a dive watch in perfect condition. She got it serviced every year. She’d do that as soon as this investigation was over. The next thing she removed was his Navy Cross, and as she opened the case, pride infused her. She had no doubt he’d died protecting her to his last breath.

  God, how she missed him. How she loved him. And he had loved her unconditionally. His anniversary was over. It had passed, her father’s death rolling over into another year.

  Her heart contracted and she covered her face.

  She set everything back into the box and replaced it. She settled down onto her pillows and sighed. Tears leaked out of her eyes as she drifted into sleep, into her nightmare.

  The fog was so thick and that jittery feeling came over her. She looked around, searching for something so very important, but the sense of loss ran through her over and over, wearing on her, tearing at her conscience, ripping at her heart. The sound of gunshots was the worst of it. The sounds all around her. Her pulse jumped, and her breath came in short, shallow, unsatisfying gasps. Adrenaline and frustration pumped through her in equal amounts.

  Then she was running as if through water. Horrible feelings piling up on top of one another. Rage, panic, helplessness, fear, hatred. Hearing the end of her world in those eerie pops. She came up against a hard body and he was just there. Beau. She looked up into his face. He was looking out into the fog, his body primed for battle.

  And for the first time since the death of her father she felt...safe.

  “It’s okay, chérie. I’ve got you.”

  Kinley started awake. She was sitting up in bed and Beau was there on the edge, holding her in his arms. She was crying, the tears hot and wet against her cheeks. The air heaved in and out of her lungs in tremendous, hot, ragged gasps. Her nightgown was plastered to her skin with cold sweat.

  She wasn’t in that fog. She was in her bedroom and a man she barely knew was holding her. He was so warm, so comforting, and she was so, so lonely, the grief felt as fresh as it had that day. The stiffness left her in a rush and she collapsed against him.

  Kinley pressed her face into his strong neck. This was the worst time of the year for her. She was usually able to weather the day as long as she kept her emotions at bay, but breaking the news to the families had made the grief she’d never really dealt with build, until she was suffering this...this emotional breakdown.

  She pulled in on herself, trying to get control of the tears, worried that she was showing Beau just how weak she was. All she heard was her pulse roaring in her ears.

  This was all rooted in a past she refused to let go of, was perhaps incapable of letting go of. It always hurt. Hurt so bad, a small voice inside her said. The voice of a young girl who had only her father to rely on for love and comfort. The father who looked out for her, who protected her, who sacrificed his life for her.

  Kinley bit her lip against the pain, squeezed her eyes shut against it. She trembled, afraid if she even breathed, the dam would burst and she would lose it. Break down into a mass of weakness, guilt and pain.

  He murmured to her in French. Even though she didn’t know what he was saying, the tone of his voice released her tears and she wrapped her arms around his neck. She shouldn’t be doing this, but she needed an anchor in this storm. It felt too good to be held, to let someone be strong.

  He sent his hand into her hair, displacing the heavy mass and cupping his big palm against her scalp.

  Her emotions frightened her because
there was always a chance they would get out of control. The numbness allowed her to run roughshod over them.

  But with Beau, she didn’t want the numbness. She was quite aware she’d held on to it with Daniel, and that it was easy to let go when things had gone south. She was also aware that she’d done that with the two previous boyfriends before Daniel.

  So, why couldn’t she do it with Beau? She wanted to feel him in every way possible. Let go and give in to the sizzling attraction that was something...extraordinary. Something wholly dangerous. She craved the closeness, the heat, wanted it to fill that terrible void inside. She trembled with the promise of how...more...he would be.

  Beau looked at her with eyes as deep and dark as midnight and she found something in them she wanted to have. But that wasn’t possible. They worked together and she couldn’t make the same mistake twice. He wouldn’t be a mistake.

  The seductive quality of him swamped her senses and she knew she was vulnerable. He melted her and opened her up. It would have been easy if she didn’t feel anything for him and he was simply comforting her. But her awareness of him was thick and heavy in the air.

  And that was the problem. She should let go of him and weather this storm as she always did.

  Alone.

  But she couldn’t seem to make herself let him go. Suddenly, alone seemed so, so...lonely.

  Chapter 5

  Beau held her in the dark room, her sobs tearing at him. He had no idea what had upset her. He had woken up at the soft cries and made his way to her room to find her thrashing in her sleep.

  Nightmares could catch even the most battle-hardened warrior unaware. He’d had his fair share of them, and this had been a terrible day full of blood, grief and stress.

  Normally, he would think there was no way in hell he wanted to get caught up in this. He usually chose uncomplicated women who just wanted to have a good time. He’d had complicated and it had damn near done him in. Kinley Cooper was definitely complicated in ways that would tie him into really tight knots. But unlike the past, he was unable to turn away from her. In fact, it killed him that she was unraveling.

  He damned her for being so brave, damned himself for caring. No good could come of it for either of them. But even as he was convincing himself of that fact, his feet had been moving unerringly toward her small, huddled shape.

  He tightened his arms around her, and let her cry all over him, melting his jaded heart as easily as ice cream left out in the sun.

  “It’s been a rough day, huh, Cooper?” he murmured, his lips brushing her fragrant, soft hair, her faint perfume filling his head. She was so dainty, so delicate in his arms, but he knew what that slight body held. He’d seen the steel in her and he couldn’t freaking help being a champion for a tough cookie...damn...for this tough cookie.

  “Yes, very,” she said, her voice soft in the darkness, making his heart contract at the broken quality to it.

  Dammit. He rocked her against him, the movement soothing him, too. He didn’t mind bending the rules to get something done that needed getting done. Hell, he wasn’t exactly Mr. By-the-book. He worked with her on an investigation, but that was temporary, and they weren’t even in the same agency.

  Still, it was that something...that thing that was flowing between them that kept him skirting the razor’s edge.

  He hadn’t felt what he was experiencing with Kinley with anyone.

  He was willing to give her the time she needed to get her bearings.

  It took some time.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, “I’ll be okay in a minute. I promise. This is the worst day of the year for me.”

  It took way longer than a minute. A very long time, in which she just snuggled against his naked chest, all curves and heat, her face pressed into the hollow of his neck, her warm, wet tears sliding down his throat in a slow, heartbreaking trickle. Her breath hot against his bare skin, her arms wrapped around him in a death grip, he drew from his training to stay cool. He could stay cool as a cucumber, even when his skin was on fire.

  But she moved one of her hands then, flattening her palm on the back of his neck, rubbing her way over the swell of muscle to his shoulder. He gritted his teeth. He was trying to keep a tight rein on his purely male, purely gut-deep reaction. She was turning him on, but she wasn’t really trying to. This was purely an “any port in a storm” case, and the difference in their reactions was not lost on him. In addition, he needed to deal with it now and realize this kind of disquiet in her presence wasn’t going to miraculously disappear.

  No. In fact, it was only going to get worse as he got to know her. He was a pretty good judge of character. He’d had to be as a member of SEAL Team 10. Split-second decisions were his bread and butter and kept not only him but his teammates alive, allowing them to complete their missions.

  His directive was to comfort her, not get lost in the feel of her skin, the scent of the kind of body that would give any man hard, hot fevered dreams. It would have been that much easier if he hadn’t seen her naked. But he wanted to explore that body and the tantalizing spirit of the woman who inhabited it.

  He came back to the directive with a jolting mental punch. He would have been able to follow through, would have held her all night without doing anything but murmuring to her and keeping his hands to himself...

  But Kinley raised her head, still holding fast, still fused to him, and dropped her head back, dragging her hair over the skin of his shoulder in an aching, seductive tease. She locked on to him like a dangerous heat-seeking missile. Unwavering, her eyes captured his and his mission went south, everything went south, a tortured, unexpected, complete ambush.

  He froze with the threat of danger. His heart started hammering against the wall of his chest. SEALs knew how to do things the easy way, quick in and quick out, devastating results in their wake. But he wasn’t thinking quickly here at all. He wanted in, into her, slow and deep. Instead of avoiding her gaze, he hit it straight on and went the hard path, allowing his gaze to slowly caress her face, allowing his awareness of her closeness to duck past his barriers, allowing the arousal to jack him up to the friggin’ max.

  His hands tightened around her upper arms where they had slipped. Hell, he didn’t need this, he told himself, not for one second did he need this. He needed his head in the investigation, but there only seemed to be enough blood in his body to fill one head and it wasn’t the one he thought with.

  What was it about her? She was beautiful, but he’d been with many, many beautiful women. She was in his arms, all warm and lovely with those laser-green eyes and a mouth that had been his undoing from the moment he’d laid eyes on her, and he couldn’t figure it out.

  It didn’t help that he knew she wanted to kiss him. That thought had been clearly telegraphed to him with the way she’d looked at him back at NCIS. Okay, that look had said more than kiss him. That look was more about devouring him. He was all for it until she’d looked away in embarrassment after being caught staring at him. He never minded the staring. It was tantalizing to have women want him from just running their eyes over him. It suited him that they kept it all surface and about how God had put his face together. He’d unabashedly used his looks to get what he wanted, a temporary fix. He’d used them in missions to disarm and distract. He’d even gotten those kinds of looks from teenagers and grandmothers, and that amused him. But nothing about the way Kinley had looked at him amused him.

  And she was looking at him that way now, a tumbled, mixed-up look filled with wanting.

  It was hot enough to fry his synapses and his brain started shutting down, all his energy focusing on her. He should keep this...keep this...

  Whatever stellar and completely rational thought he was trying to hold on to got lost somewhere in the sheer heat of her gaze.

  Her lips parted and he was so tempted, was going down in flam
es. Then he felt it beneath his hands, the shiver that went through her. He was a man who enjoyed women, and shivers were usually so, so good, but not this one. This shiver was all about her emotional state. His gaze instantly narrowed. Tears welled in her eyes and in the next second she was crumbling all over again.

  “I can’t believe I’m here again and this is all screwed up. So screwed up.” Her voice was barely a whisper, her words a little muddled and filled with remorse, regret and a tantalizing husky need.

  “What is this about, sugar?” He was very careful to curb his Southern inclination to call a professional woman by an endearing name on the job, but with Kinley it simply slipped out in his genuine concern for her.

  Her eyes softened even further and she dropped her head. “Really, you want to know?”

  “I think this is more than a nightmare. It’s really none of my business. If you want me to leave, just say the word, chérie.” Great, now he was calling her sweetheart.

  “Oh, God.” She sniffed and he was completely shredded. He pulled her against him again, but she struggled out of his arms, clutching her stomach, and stumbled out of the bed, retreating to the window. She threw it open and breathed deep gulps of the night air.

  But she collapsed over the sill and he could have held out and given her the space she thought she wanted, but the anguish, the tears spilling onto her cheeks, gave her a slightly bruised and helpless, damsel-in-distress look, a look that affected him at a visceral level.

  He couldn’t take it. He just couldn’t. He took two long strides to her and dragged her against the length of him and, it was so not a good idea as he clenched his teeth at the feel of the silk of her skin and skimpy nightie.

  He felt her surrender as she gave in, her sudden bravado lost to her as quickly as it had come.

  He took a breath because, damn, he needed a breather. “Tell me what’s making you cry and I’ll hunt it down and kill it with my bare hands.”