Fuck that shit.
Top’s little sister. Hands off, grunt.
“I don’t want you sleeping outside. But I wouldn’t feel right giving you Patrick’s room. I can let you take the sofa, if you’d like.”
“I won’t be sleeping.”
“But you’ve probably been up all night, same as I have.”
“I’ve stayed awake longer than this while on guard duty. I’ll be fine.”
“Ryder, just how long does Adam expect you to shadow me?”
“Until the mission is completed and the objective achieved—or Patrick returns. I won’t sugarcoat the situation, and I won’t leave you in any kind of danger.”
“But I’m not in danger.”
“You sure?”
“I told you, I have no enemies.”
“Give me the access codes to the security system and go get some sleep.” She wrote them on a piece of paper that he pocketed in his jeans. “Call out if you need me. Rest assured no one will harm you on my watch, Megan.”
“Thanks. I do appreciate you coming on such short notice like this. I hope your wife and family don’t mind.”
He tensed, not wanting to reveal more about himself than she needed to know. “I live alone.”
“You wouldn’t have a little sister, would you, Ryder?”
“What?” Had his mind strayed from the conversation? Wouldn’t be the first time he’d tuned out a woman.
“Just wondering if you have a sister, because my brothers are just as protective as you are. Maybe it’s a Marine thing.”
He glanced down at the floor. “I have one older sister. She lives up in Santa Fe.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re going to stay, because I really didn’t want to go to a hotel.”
Ryder nodded. “I’m going to check the perimeter. Pleasant dreams, Megan.”
* * *
Megan watched him walk out of the room, his body ramrod straight. Did the man even know how to relax?
Well, she did. This night had been exhausting, and she wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and zone out for a few hours. She contemplated having another belt of cognac to help achieve that, but decided against it. First, she’d try lying down and closing her eyes. If that didn’t work, she’d resort to alcohol or sleep aids. She didn’t like taking drugs or anything that impaired her mind or judgment, not after having to rely on so many of them just to keep the pain at bay for so many years. Never again.
Before going to her room, she made up a bed for Ryder on the sofa. Surely he’d realize soon how ridiculous he was being about all-night guard duty and would at least take a nap.
Stretching out on her bed, she pulled the sheet and summer bedspread up to her neck and curled onto her side. Every time she closed her eyes, thoughts of her missing computer bombarded her. She couldn’t wait to get to the computer store.
Megan turned on her other side and reached for one of the paperbacks on the nightstand, flipping the light on before settling back on her pillows. Maybe if she read a few chapters, she’d become tired enough to sleep. She might even replace the mayhem in her life with that of the protagonist’s in this fascinating mystery novel by her favorite author.
Her mind strayed a few times to the erotica site she accessed from her iPad when she needed a little self-induced stress relief, but the last thing she needed was any more sexual stimulation tonight. That potent man patrolling Patrick’s condo right now exuded enough sexiness to keep her in fantasies the rest of her life.
An hour later, she realized the book had the opposite effect to making her sleepy. She’d replaced the male protagonist’s image in her mind with one of Ryder Wilson. No more sleepy than before, she picked up the latest issue of one of Patrick’s boring news magazines. When she heard a knock on her bedroom doorframe a few minutes later, she jumped.
“Megan?”
“Come in.”
The door opened. “Sorry, but I saw the light on and wanted to check to make sure you were okay.” He glanced at the magazine now lying on her chest. “Can’t sleep?”
She set it aside. “Not a wink. My mind won’t shut down.” She tented her knees, keeping the covers on. “Any sign of trouble out there?”
“All quiet. Can I get you anything?”
She shook her head. Seeing to her needs was above and beyond his mission.
Ryder’s gaze darted from her to the floor in front of him and back. Megan motioned toward the foot of the bed. “We might as well get to know each other a little better if we’re going to be under forced confinement for a while. Have a seat.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“What—the having a seat part or the getting to know each other better part?”
“Both, actually. I don’t think your brothers would like hearing about a major lapse in protocol on my part, like sitting on your bed while you’re in it.”
She grinned. “Ah, a cautious man. Well, brothers be damned, if you won’t sit here, we can go into the kitchen and brew some coffee or cocoa or something. Then you can tell me more about Adam.”
He furrowed his brow. “You really should try to get some sleep. You’ve been through a lot in the last few hours.”
“Short of taking a sleeping pill, I don’t think sleep is going to happen. The sun streaming through my windows shortly is going to make that even harder. Unless you put a blindfold on me.”
His brown eyes smoldered before he stared at the floor again. She’d embarrassed him. Well, from what she’d read and heard, people dabbling in kink was more common these days than anyone knew. The media was all over it. She’d been reading an article about it when Ryder knocked. Not that she’d tried it herself or had any desire to give up control at that level to a man. But having a man under her control might be fun to try.
Oh, she’d let him squirm long enough about the blindfold. “I meant blindfold me with my sleep mask. To block out the sun, of course.”
The relief in his gaze surprised her. Did he think she was flirting with him? She’d never bothered developing such wiles. What man would want damaged goods or a wife who could never…
Don’t go there, Megan.
“What was Adam like when you knew him in service?”
“He was a senior SNCO.” Marines had so much jargon and apparently her confusion showed. “Sorry, staff non-commissioned officer. We were both enlisted men. I was a corporal, several ranks below Top. We didn’t pal around or anything so there’s not much I could tell you, even if I wanted to.”
And clearly he didn’t. “So, then, what was he like as your master sergeant?”
He visibly relaxed and leaned against the doorjamb. “The best there is. He gave it to us straight and wouldn’t ask us to do anything he wouldn’t do himself or hadn’t already done many times before. He put his life on the line to get all of his Marines out of every engagement.”
“I know it killed him that he didn’t succeed.”
His eyelids narrowed. “Did he tell you about Kandahar or Fallujah?”
“No. At the wedding I overheard snippets of conversations throughout the house as I was taking photos. Fallujah was where one of his business partners—Damián Orlando—was injured.” Ryder nodded. “That’s all I know. A wedding isn’t the place to discuss the gory details of war, but given how many military personnel were present, there had to be some.”
The light in his eyes dimmed as though the windows to his soul had just been slammed shut. “The details of his combat history are something you need to discuss with him. He’ll decide how much he wants you to know.” He reached for the doorknob and began to pull it closed as well. “I’m going to take another look around.”
Ryder left before she could say another word. Great. Now she was even less sleepy, wondering what he wasn’t telling her. It must have been a nightmare in Fallujah. She knew even less about Kandahar.
Megan tossed the sheet and bedspread back and went into the bathroom. After a long, hot shower, she dressed and went in sea
rch of Ryder.
The smell of eggs cooking assailed her the moment she opened her bedroom door and ventured into the hallway. When she reached the kitchen, she found him standing in front of the stove as he flipped over the scrambled eggs.
“That smells great.”
“I figured since you couldn’t sleep, you might like an early breakfast.” The skylight showed the beginning stages of dawn. She wondered if he’d been planning to serve her in bed if she hadn’t come in here.
He sprinkled liberal amounts of cheese, mushrooms, and chopped peppers onto the surface of the eggs and flipped half of the overstuffed omelet onto the other half. He probably could have eaten the entire thing himself. She’d always been amazed at how much food Patrick could pack away and still never gain an extra ounce.
She went to the cupboard, pulled out two plates, and set them next to the stove. “Thanks for making breakfast. Nothing sexier than a man working at the stove.”
Crap! What made her say something like that?
His hand stilled a moment. “No worries.”
Needing something to distract herself—and put some distance between them—she fixed four slices of toast and poured orange juice into two glasses. The coffee pot was three-fourths full. He probably planned on drinking the brew to stay awake. She poured herself a mug and refreshed his.
The two of them sat at the bar rather than at the table and ate and drank in silence for several minutes before he set his fork down and looked sidelong at her. “When do you want to go buy the new computer?”
She smiled. “As soon as the mall opens.”
“There’s no more remote store to buy one?”
“’Fraid not. Only one in the whole city. I’ll need to buy new software for programs I don’t have digitally and download and install everything again. The sooner I do that, the sooner I can resume some semblance of normalcy.”
He nodded and swallowed a sip of his black coffee.
“Where do you live, Ryder?”
“On a pueblo north of here.”
“You’re Native American?” He didn’t have the coloring or features, for sure. She’d have guessed his ancestors were more central European.
“No. A friend from high school let me stay at his grandmother’s place when I…returned from Fallujah. She passed away more than a decade ago, but we used to spend summers there as teens when he was sent to the pueblo to learn the ways of his people. Lucky for me, his folks didn’t mind having me tag along.”
“How interesting that must have been for you.”
He narrowed his gaze as if gauging her sincerity but soon relaxed. “Actually, those were some of the best times of my childhood.”
So he hadn’t had the idyllic childhood she had. “What kinds of things did you learn?”
He took a bite of his omelet and chewed slowly. She thought he was going to evade the question, but he washed the last of his eggs down with his juice and sat back in his chair.
“Hunting. Fishing. Drumming.”
“Drumming! My family has a cabin up in the Black Hills that my brother is fixing up, and I spent a couple of summers there. We went to a powwow every summer. Also learned to fish. Didn’t really care for hunting, though. Something about those cute furry animals—well, I couldn’t kill one.”
“We only killed what we needed to survive. It was never about the sport of killing.”
“Oh, I’m sure it wasn’t!” She didn’t mean to guilt him out about it. “I’m just, well, rambling, I guess.” She stood and started clearing the dishes from the counter. “When would you like to go shopping?”
He hesitated a moment. “Any time you’re ready. You sure you don’t want to try to get some sleep first?”
She shook her head. “No. This coffee will keep me going for a few more hours, I’m sure, and I’m anxious to see if I can get what I need out of my cloud.”
“Cloud?”
“It’s where my current work is stored. Like a back-up system in the sky.” She grinned at his expression. Apparently, he didn’t use computers much.
After rinsing and stacking the dishes in the sink, she grabbed her purse. “Ready when you are.”
Chapter Four
Ryder rode shotgun as her metallic blue Ford Escape sped to the mall. He hoped he wasn’t making a mistake leaving the condo unguarded. One thing was certain—he’d rather be alone with her there than have to face all those people at the computer store. No way would he let her out of his sight, though. No harm would come to her on his watch.
When he could get some time alone, he needed to call Top and update him on the situation—what he could figure of it, anyway. He wished the woman would let him take her out of the city for a few days. He could protect her so much better at his place.
Whoa there, buddy.
The thought of taking a woman to his place was dumber than a sack of nails. That house was way too isolated for someone used to living where she did. Then again, it sounded as though she had spent some time in the country at her family’s summer cabin.
Too soon, she pulled into the parking lot for the mall. Jesus Christ, wall-to-wall vehicles.
“I may have to park out a ways.”
He wished she’d been deterred and would give up on the idea of shopping now. “Maybe we should try during the dinner hour. I hear there are fewer people shopping then.”
“I’m sure they aren’t all headed to the computer store. It’ll be fine.”
Ryder began scanning the scene for any threats to her safety, but the pounding of his blood rushing in his ears blocked out all use of that sense. Sweat broke out on his upper lip. What if he couldn’t protect her from harm?
“Ryder, are you all right?”
Belatedly, he realized she’d found a place and parked. Now, she stared at him and wondered what the fuck his problem was. How could he explain?
“My breakfast isn’t setting too well. Haven’t eaten like that in a while.”
“Oh, I’m sorry! Let’s go back to my place then.” She inserted the key in the ignition and turned the engine over.
He refused to allow his fears to hinder her from doing what she needed to do. She needed that computer to be able to get back to work.
Ryder reached out and placed his hand lightly on top of her wrist. Soft. He pulled away again. “No. Let’s go on in. They’ll have bathrooms if I need one, but you need to get that computer.”
“Are you sure? I can wait.”
He opened his door. “Yes. I’m fine.” After exiting the Escape, he scanned the lot, but only saw a dozen or so shoppers either heading inside or returning to their cars.
“You look like you’re expecting a full-on attack.”
He met her gaze. He was, but wouldn’t tell her that. She’d think he was crazy like all the other civilians did.
Maybe he was.
“Never hurts to be aware of your surroundings. Marine training.”
She nodded and smiled. “I have two Marine brothers. I understand completely.” She started toward the mall entrance again and turned back to make sure he was following. “Sooner we get this done, the sooner we can get out of here.”
She winked, and his defenses dropped. Or maybe his big head just deferred to his little head’s judgment. What the fuck?
Focus, man. This is Top’s sister.
She continued toward the store, her hips swaying in her jeans. He forced himself to keep careful watch over her without ogling.
Ryder followed a few feet behind so she wouldn’t become alarmed by the way he continually scanned their surroundings looking for any unusual activity. Once inside the doors of the mall, an assault of sound and movement bombarded him.
He came to a halt as he tried to process the scene.
Shoppers rushing toward them with bags in both hands. Merchandise. Not suicide bombs.
Screaming kids heightened his senses, but they weren’t solemn like the ones in Iraq.
Don’t trust the kids.
No, wait. These kids were j
ust pissed they didn’t get what they wanted at the mall. No booby traps. No human barricades—
Then a sound he couldn’t mistake anywhere—the hiss of an RPG.
“Hit the floor!”
He rushed toward Megan to provide cover before his brain kicked in and computed that they were near a party store. The sound was the helium filling a birthday balloon.
You’re in suburban Albuquerque. No one is aiming for you.
Megan turned and stared at him as if he’d grown a second head. Hoping to regain his cool, he looked at the floor and reached down to pick up an imaginary object he quickly pretended to put in his pocket.
“Found it.”
Her brows furrowed, but she smiled again and turned, making her way toward the computer store once more. People passed within barely a foot of her, and he went on high alert again. Too many people. Too many unfamiliar sounds.
Jesus, let’s get this over with and get back to her place.
Inside the computer store, a saleswoman entered her name in her iPad, and he surveyed the showroom while waiting for her to be served. While busy, fewer than ten people occupied the store, half of them appearing to be staff members. One quickly recorded her order and headed to the back to retrieve the components she’d requested.
Less than half an hour later, he carried the bag with her new laptop as well as an additional wide screen she said would help with her photo editing.
“That was fast.”
“They usually are.”
“It helped that you knew what you wanted.”
At the SUV, they stowed the boxes and bags in the cargo area.
Ryder sat in the passenger seat and breathed a little easier for the first time since they’d arrived at the mall. Before she started the ignition, he suggested, “Let’s stop by the hardware store. I’d like to pick up some new locks for the condo. I can work on that while you set up your computer.” His nerves were stretched thin. He needed to decompress before he had a full-blown anxiety attack. Installing the locks would give him something to do that would get his head back in the game.
“Sounds good. All I know is the sooner I restore my photo files, the better I’ll feel. Maybe we can go out later tonight as a reward for working so hard today.”
Nobody's Lost (Rescue Me Saga #5) Page 4