"Hey," Clark said. "Where's your TV?"
"I don't have a TV," she told him. "What are you doing here? Is Ashley back?"
"Nah. Mr. Platonic called us," Clark answered. "He didn't want you coming home to an empty apartment."
"He had to go someplace called Little Creek," Kenneth volunteered. "He left a note on your bed. I didn't let Clark read it."
Bobby had gone to Little Creek. He'd finally run away, leaving the two stooges behind as baby-sitters.
"Thanks," she said. "I'm home now. You don't have to hang here."
"We don't mind," Clark said. "You actually have food in your kitchen and—"
"Please, I need you to go," Colleen told them. "I'm sorry." She had no idea what Bobby had written in that note that was in her bedroom. She couldn't deal with reading it while they were in her living room.
And she couldn't deal with not reading it another second longer.
"It's cool," Clark said. "I was betting we wouldn't get the warmest welcome, since you're one of those liberated, I-can-take-care-of-myself babes and—"
She heard the door close as Kenneth dragged Clark out.
Colleen took her backpack into her bedroom. Bobby had cleaned up the room. And made the bed, too. And left a note, right on her pillow.
"I got a call and had to run," it said in bold block letters—an attempt by someone with messy penmanship to write clearly. "Heading to Little Creek—to a meeting I can't miss. I'm sorry (more than I can say!) that I couldn't stick around to kiss you goodbye properly, but this is what it's like—being part of Alpha Squad. When I have to go, I go, whether I want to or not."
He'd then written something that he'd crossed out. Try as she might, Colleen couldn't see beneath the scribbled pen to the letters below. The first word looked as if it might be maybe. But she couldn't read the rest.
"Stay safe!" he wrote, both words underlined twice. "I'll call you from Little Creek." He'd signed it "Bobby." Not "Love, Bobby." Not "Passionately yours, Bobby." Just "Bobby."
Colleen lay back on her bed, trying not to overanalyze his note, wishing he hadn't had to go, trying not to wonder if he were ever coming back.
He'd come back if she were pregnant. Maybe she should wish she actually was. He'd insist that she marry him and...
The thought made her sit up, shocked at herself. What a terrible thing to wish for. She didn't want to be an obligation. A lifelong responsibility. A permanent mistake.
She wanted him to come back here because he liked being with her. And yes, okay—because he liked making love to her. She wasn't going to pretend their relationship wasn't based mostly on sex. Great sex. Incredible sex.
She knew that he liked making love to her. And so she would see him again, Colleen told herself. And when he called from Little Creek—if he called—she'd make herself sound relaxed. As if she wasn't a bundle of anxiety. As if she had no doubt that he would be back in her bed in a matter of a day or two. And as if her world wouldn't end if he didn't come back.
The phone rang, and she rolled to the edge of her bed, lying on her stomach to look at the caller ID box, hoping... Yes. It was Bobby. Had to be. The area code and exchange was from Little Creek. She knew those numbers well—Wes had been stationed there when he'd first joined the Navy. Back before he'd even met Bobby Taylor.
Bobby must've just arrived, and he was calling her first thing. Maybe this wasn't just about sex for him....
Colleen picked up the phone, keeping her voice light, even though her heart was in her throat. "Too bad you had to leave. I spent the entire T ride imagining all the different ways we were going to make love again this afternoon."
The words that came out of the phone were deafening and colorful. The voice wasn't Bobby's. It was her brother's. "I don't know who you think I am, Colleen, but you better tell me who you thought you were talking to so that I can kill him."
"Wes," she said weakly. Oh, no!
“This is great. This is just great. Just what I want to hear coming out of the mouth of my little sister."
Her temper sparked. "Excuse me, I'm not little. I haven't been little for a long time. I'm twenty-three years old, thank you very much, and yes, you want to know the truth? I'm in a relationship that's intensely physical and enormously
satisfying. I spent last night and most of the morning having wild sex."
Wes shouted. "Oh, my God! Don't tell me that! I don't want to hear that!"
"If I were Sean or...or..." She didn't want to say Ethan. Mentioning their dead brother was like stomping with both feet on one of Wes's more sensitive buttons. "Or Frank you'd be happy for me!"
"Frank's a priest!"
"You know what I mean," Colleen countered. "If I were one of the guys in Alpha Squad, and I told you I just got lucky, you'd be slapping me on the back and congratulating me. I don't see the difference—"
"The difference is you're a girl!"
"No," she said, tightly. "I'm a woman. Maybe that's the basis of your relationship problems, Wes. Maybe until you stop seeing women as girls, until you treat them as equals—"
"Yeah, thanks a million, Dr. Freud. Like you even have a half a clue about my problems." He swore.
"I know you're unhappy," she said softly. "And angry almost all the time. I think you've got some unresolved issues that you've really got to deal with before—"
He refused to follow her out of this argument and into a more personal, private discussion. "Damn straight I've got unresolved issues—and they're all about this jackass you've been letting take advantage of you. You probably think he loves you, right? Is that what he told you?"
"No," Colleen said, stung by his implications. "As a matter of fact he hasn't. He likes me, though. And he respects me—which is more than I can say about you."
"What, is he some geeky lawyer?"
"That's not your business." Colleen closed her eyes. She couldn't let herself get mad and tell him it was Bobby. If Bobby wanted to tell him, fine. But her brother wasn't going to hear it first from her. No way. "Look, I have to go. You know, paint myself with body oil," she lied just to annoy him. "Get ready for tonight."
It got the response she'd expected, through gritted teeth. “Colleen!”
"I'm glad you're back safely."
"Wait," he said. "I'm calling for a reason."
"No kidding? A reason besides sibling harassment?"
"Yeah. I have to go pick up Bobby at the airport, but before I leave, I need info on your contacts in the Tulgerian government. Admiral Robinson is going to run a quick check on everyone involved." Wes paused. "Didn't you get my message to call me?" he asked. "When I spoke to Bobby just before noon, I told him to leave a message for you and — "
Silence.
Big, long silence.
Colleen could almost hear the wheels in Wes's head turning as he put two and two together.
Colleen had spent — in her own words — "most of the morning having wild sex" with her mysterious lover.
Her brother had spoken to Bobby earlier. In Colleen's apartment. Just before noon. As in the "just before noon" that occurred at the very end of a morning filled with wild sex.
"Tell me I'm wrong," Wes said very, very quietly — never a good sign. "Tell me it's not Bobby Taylor. Tell me my best friend didn't betray me."
Colleen couldn't keep quiet at that. "Betray you? Oh, my God, Wesley, that's absurd. What's between me and Bobby has nothing to do with you at all!"
"I'm right?" Wes lost it. "I am right! How could he do that, that son of a — I'm gonna kill him!"
Oh, damn! "Wes! Listen to me! It was my fault. I — "
But her brother had already hung up.
Oh, dear Lord, this was going to be bad. Wes was going to pick up Bobby from the airport and...
Colleen checked her caller-ID box and tried to call Wes back.
The flight to Norfolk was just long enough to set Bobby completely on edge. He'd had enough time to buy a book at the airport store, but he stared at the words on t
he page, unable to concentrate on the bestselling story.
What was he going to say to Wes?
"So, hey, nice to see you. Yeah, Cambridge was great. I liked it a lot—especially when I was having sex with your sister."
Oh, man.
Thinking about his impending conversation with Wes was making him feel edgy and unsettled.
Thinking about Colleen was making him crazy.
A glance at his watch told him that she had surely come back to her apartment by now.
If he hadn't left, she'd be naked, just as she'd promised, and he'd be buried deep inside of her and He shifted in his seat. Coach wasn't built for someone his size, and his knees were already pressed against the back of the seat in front of him. He was already uncomfortable as hell—thinking of Colleen wasn't going to help.
But as Bobby closed his eyes, he couldn't help but think of her.
It was probably good that he'd had to leave. If it had been left up to him, he never would have left. He would have just stayed there forever, in Colleen's bedroom, waiting for her to come and make love to him.
She had cast a spell over him, and he couldn't resist her. All she had to do was smile, and he was putty in her hands.
This way the spell was broken. Wasn't it? God, he hoped so. It would be just his luck to fall for another woman who didn't love him. Even better luck to fall for a woman who clearly only saw him as a sexual plaything. If he wasn't careful, his heart was going to get trashed.
Bobby tried to focus again on his book, tried to banish the image of Colleen, her eyes filled with laughter as she leaned forward to kiss him, as she pressed her body against him, as their legs tangled and...
Help.
He wanted her with every breath.
God, why couldn't he have felt this way about Kyra?
Because even back then, he was in love with Colleen.
Man, where had that thought come from? Love. God. This was already way too complicated without screwing it up by putting love into the picture.
In a matter of minutes Bobby was going to be hip deep in a conversation with Wes that he was dreading with every ounce of his being. And Wes was going to warn him away from Colleen. Don't go near her anymore. He could hear the words already.
If he were smart, he'd heed his friend.
If he weren't smart, if he kept thinking with his body instead of his brain, he was going to get in too deep. Before he even blinked, he would find himself in a long-distance relationship, God help him. And then it would be a year from now, and he'd be on the phone with Colleen again, having to tell her—again—that he wasn't going to make it out for the weekend, and she would tell him that was okay—again—but in truth, he'd know that she was trying not to cry.
He didn't want to make her cry—but that didn't mean he was in love with her.
And the fact that he wanted to be with her constantly, the fact that he missed her desperately even now, mere hours after having been in bed with her, well, that was just his body's healthy response to great sex. It was natural, having had some, to want more.
Bobby squeezed his eyes shut. Oh, God, he wanted more.
It wouldn't be too hard to talk Colleen into giving a bicoastal relationship a try. She was adventurous and she liked him. And, of course, he'd never had a long-distance relationship with someone who liked phone sex....
Bobby felt himself start to smile. Yeah, who was he kidding? Pretending he had any choice at all? Pretending that he wasn't going to spend every waking hour working on ways to get back to Cambridge to see Colleen. The truth was, unless she flat-out refused to see him again, he was going to be raking up the frequent flyer miles, big-time.
He was already in too deep.
And, jeez, if Colleen were pregnant...
Oh, hell. As the plane approached the runway for a landing, Bobby tried to imagine Wes's reaction to that news.
"Hey, man! Not only did I do the nasty with your sister more times than I can remember, but the condom broke and I probably knocked her up, ruining her dreams of finishing law school, condemning her to a life with a husband she doesn't particularly love, who isn't even around all that often, anyway. And how was your week?"
Bobby came off the plane the way he'd gotten on. With no luggage, wearing the same cargo shorts and shirt he'd worn over to Colleen's nearly a full twenty-four hours ago.
Not that he'd been wearing them for that entire time. On the contrary.
As he came out of the walkway that connected the plane to the terminal, he scanned the crowd, searching for Wes's familiar face.
And then, there he was. Wes Skelly. He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed in front of his chest, looking more like a biker than a chief in the elite U.S. Navy SEALs.
He was wearing baggy green cargo pants with lots of pockets and a white tank top that showed off his tan and revealed the barbwire tattoo on his upper arm. His hair was long and messy. The longer it got, the lighter it looked as it was bleached by the sun, as the reddish highlights were brought out.
Bobby and Wes had been virtually inseparable for nearly eleven years—even though they'd hated each other's guts at the outset of BUD/S training, when they'd been assigned together as swim buddies. That was something not many people knew. But Wes had earned Bobby's respect through the grueling training sessions—the same way Bobby earned Wes's. It took them a while, but once they recognized that they were made from the same unbreakable fabric, they'd started working together.
It was a case of one plus one equaling three. As a team, they were unstoppable. And so they became allies.
And when Wes's little brother Ethan had died, they'd taken their partnership a step forward and become friends. Real friends. Over the past decade that bond had strengthened to the point where it seemed indestructible.
But years of working with explosives had taught Bobby that indestructibility was a myth. There was no such thing, And there was a very good chance that over the next few minutes, he was going to destroy ten years of friendship with just a few small words.
I slept with your sister.
"Hey," Wes said in greeting. "You look tired."
Bobby shrugged. "I'm okay. You?"
Wes pushed himself off the wall. "Please tell me you didn't check your luggage."
They started walking, following the stream of humanity away from the gate. "I didn't. I didn't bring it. There was no time to go back to the hotel. I just left it there."
"Bummer," Wes said. "Paying for a room when you don't even sleep there. That's pretty stupid."
"Yeah," Bobby agreed. I slept with your sister. How the hell was he supposed to say something like that? Just blurting it out seemed wrong, and yet there was no real graceful way to lead into a topic like that.
"How's Colleen?" Wes asked.
"She's—" Bobby hesitated. Beautiful. Heart-stoppingly sexy. Great in bed. Maybe carrying his baby. "Doing okay. Selling the car wasn't easy for her."
"Jeez, I can't believe she did that. Her Mustang... That's like selling a child."
"She got a good price. The buyer was a collector, and she was sure he'd take good care of it."
Wes pushed open a door that led toward the parking area. "Still..."
"Did Jake fill you in on the situation with this Tulgerian orphanage Colleen and her friends have been trying to move out of the war zone?" Bobby asked.
"Yeah, apparently the building was hit in some kind of skirmish a day or so ago. The place was pretty much destroyed, and the survivors were brought to a local hospital—but the place doesn't even have electricity or running water. We'll be going out there pretty much upon insertion in Tulgeria to move the kids back into the city."
"Good," Bobby said. "I'm glad the admiral's made that a priority. Wes, there's something you need to know..." The easy stuff first. “The little girl that Colleen was hoping to adopt was killed in that air strike."
Wes stared at him in the shadowy dimness of the parking garage. "Adopt?" he said, loud enough t
hat his voice echoed. "She was going to adopt a kid? What, was she nuts? She's just a kid herself."
"No, she's not," Bobby said quietly. "She's a grown woman. And—" okay, here's where he had to say it "
should know. I've...uh, been with her, Wes. Colleen. And me."
Wes stopped walking. "Aw, come on, Bobby, you can do better than that. You've been with her? You could say slept with, but of course you didn't sleep much, did you, dirt wad? How about..." He used the crudest possible expression. "Yeah, that works. That's what you did, huh? You son of a..." He was shouting now.
Bobby stood there. Stunned. Wes had known. Somehow he'd already known. And Bobby had been too self-absorbed to realize it.
"I sent you there to take care of her," Wes continued. "And this is what you do? How could you do this to me?"
"It wasn't about you," Bobby tried to explain. "It was about me and— Wes, I've been crazy about her for years."
"Oh, this is fine," Wes had gone beyond full volume and into overload. "For years, and this is the first I hear of it? What, were you just waiting for a chance to get her alone, scumbag?" He shoved Bobby, both hands against his chest.
Bobby let himself get shoved. He could have planted himself and absorbed it, but he didn't. "No. Believe me I tried to stay away from her, but...I couldn't do it. As weird as it sounds, she got it into her head that she wanted me, and hell, you know how she gets. I didn't stand a chance."
Wes was in his face. "You're ten years older than she is, and you're trying to tell me that she seduced you?"
"It's not that simple. You've got to believe—" Bobby cut himself off. "Look, you're right. It is my fault. I'm more experienced. She offered, and God, I wanted her, and I didn't do the right thing. For you."
"Ho, that's great!" Wes was pacing now, a tightly wound bundle of energy, ready to blow. "Meaning you did the right thing for Colleen, is that what you're saying? How right is it, Bobby, that she sits around and waits for you, that she'll have half a life, pretending to be okay, but really terrified, just waiting to get word that something's happened to you? And say you don't get your head blown off on some op. Say you do make it home. Retire from the teams in a few years. Then what? How right is it that she's the one who makes more money working as a lawyer? How's she supposed to have kids? Put 'em in day care? That's just great."
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