“OCS—Officer Candidate School,” Izzy said. “Yeah. I thought about it for, like, two minutes. It’s not for me.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for starters, I’m not exactly qualified. I got into trouble a few years ago, and … It’s taken me this long to get back on track. I’m a little long in the tooth now, to go O.”
“What kind of trouble?” she asked as the coffeepot finished filling with a hiss and sputter.
“I kind of went UA.” Izzy filled her mug first.
“Thanks,” she said, with a smile and flash of her pretty brown eyes. She carried her mug to the kitchen table. “Tony got doughnuts before he left.”
Tony got wha … ? But indeed, on the table was most of a mighty mixed dozen from the double D. Izzy’d missed seeing it, completely, in his pre-coffee haze. “Bless you, young Tony,” Izzy said.
But suddenly, there he and Maria were, like Mr. and Mrs. Brady, sitting across the breakfast table from each other, as he clogged his arteries with a chocolate-covered Bavarian cream, taking the express train to Sugar Shock Land.
“What does it mean?” Maria asked, delicately dabbing her pornstar-worthy lips with a napkin. “You went UA?”
“Unauthorized absence,” Izzy explained. “It’s the Navy’s version of AWOL—absent without leave.”
“That’s a pretty serious offense,” she said, frowning slightly, “to have on your record.”
Why did this suddenly feel like a job interview?
“Yeah,” he said, “it’s not. On my record. I pretty much became the senior chief’s bitch for a really long time, though.” He translated, because he could see she was confused. “A chief’s the equivalent of a sergeant in the Army, and the senior chief is like the king of the chiefs. He’s big and he’s loud and he’s mean, and when he said jump, I had to jump. I couldn’t blow my nose without asking his permission. But I took my punishment, and earned his trust again, and … Here I am. In New York instead of using up my liberty washing his office floor.”
She took a sip of her coffee as she gazed at him.
“What?” he asked. “Do I have, like, a bat in the cave?”
Maria laughed. “No, your nose is … very nice.”
Okay, now he was really scared. “Thank you,” he said, standing up. “But my very nice nose and my attractive hairdo and I are in dire need of a shower, so …”
She stood up, too.
Dear Penthouse, Why me?
He was halfway to the sink, so he just kept going, keeping his back to her. He rinsed his mug and saw that the dishwasher door was slightly open. Maybe if he simply ignored her, if he didn’t look at her, gave her zero eye contact. “Dishes dirty or clean?”
“Dirty,” she said, so he opened the door and put his mug on the top rack.
But yeah, okay, she was blocking his route to the door, so he had to look at her, and when he did, she smiled and stepped closer—too close—except she was just getting herself another cup of coffee, but he couldn’t back up because the dishwasher door was open now, and in his way.
Instead, he just tried to make himself smaller as he stood in front of the sink, as he tried not to think about how good she smelled—which, was, of course, what women who wore perfume wanted other people to think about. Among other things …
He could’ve escaped by going around her, but it would’ve been clumsy. And yeah, part of him wasn’t really all that scared. Part of him—the Jupiter-sized ego-beast part—wanted to see what she was going to do.
What she did was blow on her hot coffee as she glanced up at him, which made it hard not to think about sex, which was stupid, because it was coffee and she was blowing on it to cool it down—her actions didn’t have anything to do with anyone’s naked anything.
But okay, now he was standing here thinking about it, and she was a woman, and all women had highly tuned sex-radar, which meant that she absolutely knew that he was, indeed, thinking about sex.
And she didn’t move back, and she didn’t move back, and she didn’t…
She put her coffee mug down on the counter.
And she spoke. “Isn’t it crazy how, with some people you just have this … instant chemistry?”
And there she was, standing there, still too close, her hand now on his arm, her thumb brushing the inside of his wrist.
It felt nice—too nice, and any second now she was going to stand on her toes and kiss him, which, okay, yes, she did. Only Izzy turned his head so that her mouth bounced off his cheek. He pulled his arm free and stepped around her, away from her.
He’d surprised the shit out of her—and she wasn’t the only one. Had he really just done that?
“Sorry,” she said. She’d probably never been shut down before, in her entire life. “I just thought…” She laughed a little as she told him, “I don’t know, maybe I could save you another trip to Germany … ?”
“Wow,” Izzy said. “That’s um … very tempting …”
He knew from looking at her that she knew he was lying. But she didn’t call him on it. She was already embarrassed enough.
So he gave her the truth.
“I’m still in love with her,” he said. “With Eden. And I gotta give it one more try.”
He went, then, not to take his shower, but to call Lt. Starrett to see if he couldn’t trade assignments with Tony, ASAP.
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
Sam Starrett was on the phone as Jenn followed Dan past the FBI agents standing guard in the hall, and into the hotel suite.
Whoever Sam was talking to, it was serious, but rather than make them all be quiet, he pointed at Dan, said “Don’t go anywhere,” then went into one of the bedrooms and shut the door behind him.
“What’s going on?” Dan asked Robin, who was sitting on the sofa, giving the baby a bottle.
“Something about teeth in the autopsy reports,” the movie star replied. “It’s gruesome and horrible, and I’m not sure I really want to know the complete details. You guys want to stay for lunch? We’re sending out for Chinese. Maria says there’s a really great place nearby that delivers.”
Dan glanced at Jenn, as if trying to gauge her reaction to being asked to stay for lunch by an Emmy-award winner, even if it was Chinese all over again. He was willing to stay if she wanted to—she could tell just from his body language.
It was sweet. He was sweet.
The way he’d held her hand as they’d walked over here was sweet. The way he smiled, his sense of humor, the way his brown eyes danced when he laughed, and yes, his dazzling good looks and beyond hot, hard-muscled body were all unbelievably … sweet.
And she still couldn’t quite believe that he was smiling at her, that he was kissing her, that he was holding her hand.
For two weeks. No, not quite. Eleven more days, not counting the rest of today. God, it was going by so quickly—it was happening too fast.
She pulled herself back into the moment. Chinese food for lunch? They hadn’t had breakfast yet. She shook her head. “I have work that I need to do,” she said, when in truth she didn’t want to share her remaining eleven Dan days with anyone—not even a movie star. “We really just stopped in to pick up Dan’s book and … I thought Maria would be here.”
“No, she’s still back at her condo,” Robin reported as he watched Dan look around—on the tables, on the floor, even under the window drapes that extended from the ceiling to the carpeting. “Sam called a time-out. Again, it’s about this teeth thing. I’m surprised he didn’t get in touch with you guys.”
Dan stopped looking for his book and dug for his cell phone. “Maybe he called while we were in the cone of silence. Jenn’s building has this ancient elevator and yep, I got a missed call and a message.” He plugged in his code so he could access his voice mail. He listened and … “Yes, the message was to stay put. Great. No wonder he didn’t look happy to see me.”
He pocketed his phone and went back to searching for his book, neatly dropping to the rug as if he
were going to start doing pushups, but in truth to peer beneath the sofa.
Robin obligingly lifted both his feet. “What is it that you’re looking for?”
“The book I was reading,” Dan said. “I’m pretty sure I left it here.”
“Maybe someone moved it,” Jenn suggested.
“They wouldn’t have moved it far,” Robin said. “Just out of baby range—onto the table. Or maybe into the conference room. I haven’t seen it, but my hands have been pretty full. What’s it called?”
Dan cleared his throat. “Ex-Me. It’s, um, a memoir. I was lying on the couch while I was reading it. Not last night, the night before, and, um …”
“This couch?” Robin realized. He stood up gracefully, the baby asleep in his arms. “Maybe it slipped behind the pillows.”
Jenn helped Dan look beneath the various throw pillows and … There it was. It had slid down, along the back of the sofa.
“How the hell did it get back there?” Dan wondered.
“Oh, that’s nothing,” Robin said. “I’ve fallen asleep reading, and had my book end up beneath the seat cushion. Or if I’m in bed, down by my feet. Like, I wasn’t asleep that long, so how did it manage to migrate so far, so fast?”
Jenn looked at Dan, who was looking back at her. She knew what he was thinking. Was it possible that he’d fallen asleep?
“You should talk to Izzy,” she told him.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “I should.”
“Izzy?” Robin said helpfully, as he settled back on the couch with the baby, who was still miraculously asleep. “He just got here. He’s in the third bedroom. I think he just took a shower.”
“Thanks,” Dan said, looking at Jenn again.
But this time, she wasn’t sure what he wanted.
“Should I come with you?” she asked him.
“No,” he said quickly. “Nah, I can, um … You wanted to find out about Frank.” He looked at Robin, since the man seemed to have all the answers. “Has there been any word about Maria’s brother?”
But this time Robin shook his head. “Not that I’ve heard.” He shot Jenn a sympathetic face. “Sorry. I do know he’s detoxing at a psychiatric hospital. Considering what he was on, that’s going to take some time. Anyone looking to have an information-gathering conversation with him is going to have to wait, because right now he’s probably not capable of putting together a coherent sentence.”
“Thanks,” Jenn said. “And thanks for helping us find Dan’s book.”
“Anytime.” Robin smiled as they drifted away from him.
Which left Dan eying that third bedroom.
He misinterpreted the concern on her face. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not going to kill Izzy.”
Jenn laughed. “God, I didn’t even think of that.” She’d been focusing so completely on his fear of what he was going to discover. But if Izzy had purposely and maliciously pretended that Dan had had another blackout… “Dan, maybe I should—”
“Call Maria,” he said quietly. “I know you need to talk to her. I’ll be quick. I’ll meet you in the conference room.”
“You know, it’s possible you had a conversation with Izzy,” she pointed out, “in your sleep. And he didn’t even know you were—”
“I’m not going to kill him,” he said again, pulling her close and dropping a kiss on her lips. “Not today, anyway.”
Jenn was worried about him.
Dan could see it clearly in her eyes. And she had just the very beginnings of an expression that he knew was going to morph into her apology face—and how weird was it that he already recognized that?
She was sorry, she was going to say, but she knew how hard this was for him. …
He shut it all down cold by kissing her again. More thoroughly this time.
And then, as she staggered away—or, shit, maybe he was the one who was staggering. What was it with the weak knees lately?—he knocked on the open bedroom door, even as he went inside.
Izzy Zanella was sitting at the desk in the corner, his hair still wet, eating a salad. He froze as he saw Danny, his fork midway to his mouth.
“Got a sec?” Dan asked, keeping his voice calm even though the mere sight of Zanella was enough to raise his blood pressure.
Izzy was sitting in one of those swivel desk chairs, so he turned to face Dan, but he didn’t stand up. He was on high alert though, even putting his fork down, probably to have both hands free in case Danny tried to sucker punch him. But he, too, kept his voice light. “Sure, bro, what’s up?”
Bro. They weren’t brothers. They weren’t even close. But okay. Dan forced his shoulders to loosen up, and made sure his hands were open, his fists not clenched.
“I was wondering if I could, um, ask you a few questions about the, uh, other night?”
Izzy sat there, and he was either the best freaking actor in the world, or he truly had absolutely no clue what Dan was talking about. “The other night?” he repeated.
“When you put me in a headlock?” Dan was unable to keep some snark from his voice. “Ring any bells?”
Izzy relaxed, sitting back a little in his seat. “Yeah, sure,” he said. “But you don’t have to worry. I was the only one who heard you.”
“Heard me?” Now Danny was the parrot.
“I must’ve been in a light sleep cycle,” Izzy said, “because you weren’t making that much noise. You were really just talking, man. Hardly more than mumbling. No blood-chilling screams. You’re cool.”
“I was talking,” Dan said, trying to understand.
“It was angry,” Izzy said, “but you were keeping it quiet. Kind of low and dangerous. You know, Get the fuck away from her. That kind of shit. Whoever you were dreaming of was about to get their ass kicked.”
Dreaming.
“Huh,” Izzy continued. “I wonder if it was me. You know, the ass-kickee. Because when I went to wake you, you just—bam—took me down.”
Danny had to sit, so he lowered himself down on the edge of one of the beds.
And then, as if the miracle of him not having blacked out again wasn’t enough, Izzy went and apologized.
“I’m sorry for, you know, the lack of finesse in waking you,” he told Dan. “I tried a coupla different ways, but you were out cold. Except then you were starting to get loud and I figured anything was better than you waking everyone in the suite, right? After Kazabek, I had these nightmares where after I woke up I nearly puked, and I didn’t know if you had, you know, something similar going on.”
Izzy’d gotten shot in a terrorist attack on the Grand Hotel in Kazabek, in which one of the SEAL team’s beloved chiefs had died. Dan had been injured, too, in the same attack—but he’d only been hit by flying glass.
“No,” Danny said now. “I, um, can get pretty loud though, so …” He made himself meet Izzy’s gaze. “Thanks. I’m, uh, sorry I, um, you know …”
Izzy shrugged. “No biggie.” He smiled. “It had shades of Not now, Cato, not now, though,” he said, referencing the Pink Panther movies, where the Inspector’s servant Cato would jump out and attack him—for practice—at random times.
Dan laughed a little, too. “I bet. Jesus, and I ended up waking everyone anyway.” He shook his head. “I, um, thought I’d blacked out again when you told Starrett we were talking about Eden.”
“Oh, shit,” Izzy said. “Dan, I am so sorry. It never even occurred to me that you might—”
“No, it’s okay,” Dan interrupted. “It just had me worried for a little bit.”
“Shit,” Izzy said.
“No,” Dan said again. “Just… Thanks for helping clear things up.”
And there they sat for a moment, in silence.
Izzy, who’d never been able to stay silent for long, broke it by saying, “At the risk of you going for my throat again … Have you heard from Eden?”
Jesus Christ. But okay, the asshole had seriously helped him out. Or maybe it was the relief from knowing he wasn’t on the verge of having to giv
e up his career due to frequent and unpredictable blackouts. …
“I haven’t,” Dan answered. “No.” He cleared his throat. “I take it you haven’t heard from her, either.”
Izzy shook his head. “I’m going. Over there. To Germany. After this assignment.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Dan asked, but then realized how harsh he sounded. “I mean, why do you do that to yourself? Lopez told me you go all the time, but she won’t see you.”
Izzy poked at his salad with his fork. “Maybe this time she will.”
“Zanella,” Dan told him, moving closer, sitting now on the other bed. “Don’t you get it? Eden’s crazy. You can’t possibly win with her. Even if by some miracle you do get back together? It’ll only be until the next time she loses it again. Or until she decides she wants to trade up. Which she will—as soon as there’s something she wants that you can’t afford to buy her.”
“She’s not like that,” Izzy said. “You don’t even know her, asshole. When was the last time you had a conversation with her, that wasn’t you telling her what to do, or blaming her for something?”
It was definitely time to go, but maybe because crazy was a default when it came to being a Gillman, Dan ignored his screaming instincts and tried to explain.
“You’re right,” he admitted. “I don’t really know Eden, not anymore, but I know women, and I know this: She’s an infant.”
Izzy shifted, his disgust apparent, so Dan quickly added, “And no, this isn’t me slamming you for screwing around with an eighteen-year-old. This is me saying that the whole running away to Germany and hiding thing is something a twelve-year-old would do, and you know it. Emotionally, Eden’s acting like she’s in seventh grade.”
“Have you ever lost a baby?” Izzy asked, defending her, as usual.
“You know that I haven’t,” Dan answered. “So why are you asking?”
“Because you have no clue what is or isn’t appropriate behavior for—”
“Okay,” Dan said. “You win that one. Point to you.”
“I’m just saying.” Izzy pushed his salad away from him, as if he had no appetite.
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