“All brunette now. She just got to Miramar.”
“Well, good for her. I’ll have to see if she wants to get together sometime,” she said, then looked at Hannah. “While Golden Boy here and I didn’t get along, Elena and I were best of friends. We roomed together.”
“So, are you stationed here at Pendleton?” he asked. “Last I heard you were headed to Afghanistan.”
And like that, the temperature in the kitchen dropped twenty degrees. The retriever slowly walked over to Baker’s side.
She ran her hand over his back. “No. I’m not in the Marines anymore.”
The answer wasn’t what he was expecting. He opened his mouth to ask what the hell was going on, but he was saved by Jack’s wife, Hannah.
“Dinner’s ready.”
CHAPTER TWO
A couple hours later and too much food in his stomach, Dante settled back in the overstuffed chair next to the couch. Dinner had been…interesting. After his initial misstep, things had picked up. Hannah had covered it easily, but it still bothered him. He might not like Madison that much, but he couldn’t forget the haunted look in her eyes.
It was a look he was getting damned sick of seeing from his friends and colleagues. Unfortunately, over a decade of being at war left military folks with too many memories and pain.
He shook those morbid thoughts away.
“So, what did I say wrong earlier?” Dante asked.
Hannah shifted in her seat and didn’t make eye contact with him. Jack looked at her, then at Dante.
“I would have thought you knew because Elena probably knows,” Jack said.
“Elena keeps her own secrets from me now and then.” And, she had been one of Baker’s best friends and her college roommate. Those two were always keeping each other’s secrets. Still, he thought for sure if something bad had happened, his twin would have told him.
“She was hit by a roadside bomb. In country for only three months,” Jack said.
For a second, he didn’t comprehend what Jack was saying. Then, the agitated state, the way she seemed to keep her eye on everyone as if waiting for an attack…that all spoke of hyper-vigilance. Dante had seen it enough with his friends and family. Hell, he had dealt with it himself. It all added up to PTSD, but a pretty extreme case of it.
“She didn’t look physically hurt,” he said, thinking out loud.
Hannah sighed and apparently decided to give up on keeping secrets. “She had injuries, but she deals with it.”
So, super cadet suffered from PTSD. It was always the anal types that seemed to take something like that the worst. Not that he thought he could probably do any better. A hit like that would be hard to take, and he had seen more than one friend struggle with that and worse memories when he or she returned.
As he had thought before, too damned often.
“And since there is a family connection, I thought you would have heard by now,” Hannah remarked, breaking into his thoughts.
“Because of Elena?”
Hannah shook her head.
“What do you mean?”
“Gee’s the one who dug her out. Kind of odd, all the connections,” Hannah murmured.
“He never said anything.” Of course, Dante had been avoiding that side of the family. All four of his cousins were happily married. That left Aunt Joey with nothing to do but focus on her nieces and nephews. His mother and Joey had been spending too much time on the phone talking about grandbabies. That spelled trouble for all of them in his opinion.
Then, something Hannah said caught his attention. “Wait. Did you say, dug her out?”
She nodded. “I don’t know the entire story, just bits and pieces. She doesn’t talk about it much, and I know better than to push too much.”
He knew Hannah was unfortunately accustomed to dealing with PTSD. Jack had issues with it he knew. Hell, he knew more of his active duty buddies who had it than those who didn’t.
“It must have been pretty rough,” he said.
Jack nodded. “I do know she was the only one who survived out of the unit.”
“Charlie is her companion dog, if you were wondering,” Hannah said.
He wasn’t but it made sense. From the moment he asked about her work, the retriever had been by her side. More than once, he had noticed that she would bend down to run her hand over the dog’s fur.
“So, she beat you out of the class standings?” Jack asked.
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and man, that woman would never let me forget it.”
Elena ended up twenty places behind both of us, but damned if Baker had cared about that.
“She moved here not too long ago, and I met her through Charlie. He needed a vet. She teaches yoga now.”
Well, that explained the long, lean muscles. She had always been in good shape, but there was a glow about her now that attracted him more. She wasn’t so damned skinny now. While she was still slim, she had filled out in all the right places. It was hard to miss just how she filled out those jeans that had hugged her hips.
“Wonder how her father dealt with it?”
“Her father?”
“Yeah, her family went further back in the Marines than the Santinis. Only child turned out to be a girl, and he pushed her into the Marines from what Elena said. I met him a time or two.”
And he hadn’t been impressed. The man had been a cold fish. For a Santini, there was always a hug, even if they were getting yelled at or if they had been smacked upside the head. Her father—she barely had gotten a hello.
Hannah was apparently done talking about it. “So, have you talked to your Aunt Joey lately? I heard she and your mother have been busy chatting.”
“Aw, damn, not you too, Hannah. Can’t a guy get a break?” he asked, giving her his best smile.
Hannah was apparently immune to his charms. She shook her head. “Nope. Plus, I’m still kind of scared of her. I will be on the phone with her tomorrow because she’ll call. Can you throw the woman a bone? She wants to make sure you’re happy.”
“At least come up with some kind of story of a woman,” Jack suggested.
“I have prospects…one or two,” he said. And for some reason the image of a mouthy, long-legged brunette came to mind. “One in particular.”
Hannah looked like she wanted to ask who the woman was, but thankfully, Jack stepped in with work talk. Even as he tried to participate, his mind kept drifting back to Madison. He’d always found her attractive when she wasn’t talking.
Tonight, though, he had actually enjoyed watching her. In fact, once or twice that same laugh that had irritated him earlier had sent a dose of heat dancing through his blood.
With a mental sigh, Dante knew he would have to figure out just how he would deal with those odd feelings later.
* * * *
Madison took one large breath in before releasing it to stretch and relax into child’s pose. She listened to the soft music playing, and allowed everything she had been feeling since seeing Dante Santini to dissolve. The stress, the annoyance…the strange jump in heat that seemed to linger in her blood.
It had been a long and frightful night of strange dreams and night sweats. When she opened her eyes, she saw Charlie lying beside her, his head resting on his paws.
“Well, that helped.”
But she still felt a little buzzed. She didn’t understand it. Okay, she knew part of it was the attraction. Whenever it popped up in his presence, she always felt for the idiot. He would have never noticed her if she hadn’t been his sister’s bunkmate, and if she hadn’t kicked his ass on the rankings. But, just like all those years ago at Annapolis, she felt her pulse scramble each time he smiled in her direction. It had even been worse now. And, damn him, he looked better now. The jeans he had worn rode low on his trim hips. His hair was darker, and it brought out his eyes even more. Years ago, she had seen him in a bathing suit but he had been a young man. Madison was pretty sure the warrior
she had met tonight would be a whole new level of sexy man meat.
She rolled her eyes. Great, now she was calling him man meat. Sadly, it was the first time in three years she’d had an inkling of a libido, and it had to be for the man who hated her.
She chugged some water when she noticed Charlie come to his feet. She felt relatively safe in this area of town, but his alertness sent some of her alarms up. Her heart pounded against her chest as she slowly surveyed the perimeter of her yard. She sensed something in Jack and Hannah’s yard.
Jack stepped out of the shadows, and she released the breath she had been holding.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want to interrupt you.”
She drew in a deep breath and counted back from ten. It was one of the methods she had developed in the last few months that had seemed to help. It was simple, but it worked and that is all she cared about these days. Surviving.
“No worries. I usually don’t have to worry about an audience this time of night.”
They both walked over to the fence.
“I had no idea you knew Dante.”
She smiled. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure he’d like to forget about knowing me, but it was hard since Elena and I roomed together. Plus, there weren’t that many women I could get along with, so we kind of clicked. Being both Marine brats—and everyone at the academy knew of the Santinis—we sort of knew how to roll with the punches there.”
He nodded.
“Thank you again for checking on me.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
She laughed. “Oh, Jack, Hannah is a very lucky woman. Not only are you a sweet, sexy man, you also can’t lie. I know you keep an eye on me.”
It was dark out, but she was pretty sure he blushed. Hannah definitely was lucky. Since she’d moved in, Jack came up with all kinds of reasons to pop over. Each time, she knew he was making sure she was okay. If it wasn’t so sweet, she would be irritated. But how could she get a mad a man who was looking out for her at the request of his wife? It was, well, sweet in a way.
“Yeah, well, you are a Marine. We watch each other’s backs.”
She felt her smile fade. “Yeah, well, I used to be a Marine.”
He shook his head. “Madison Baker, don’t you ever say that again. There is no such thing as a former Marine.”
She nodded and just wished someone would explain that to her father. He’d let his disappointment be known by his absence. Other than an occasional call, she rarely heard from her parents. They were only two hours away, but she hadn’t seen them in years.
Brushing off her morose thoughts, she smiled again at Jack.
“Thanks again for checking on me.”
“No problem. Give me a call if you need anything.”
She nodded and headed back into the house. It was time for toast with Charlie and maybe a very cold shower.
CHAPTER THREE
Two days later, Dante was walking across the Commissary parking lot when he heard someone shout his name.
He turned and found his brother’s best friend, Jethro Thomas, known to everyone as JT, jogging toward him. His appearance took Dante by surprise. The usually neat JT was a little ragged around the edges; his hair longer and a bit unkempt, his jaw had an overgrowth of a few days, and his clothes appeared rumpled. For a man who used to be active duty, he appeared to have had a bit of rough luck lately.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Dante asked as he shook his hand.
“Taking a little break for the day.”
Which Dante was pretty sure wasn’t the whole truth. JT was in NCIS and often couldn’t tell any of the Santinis about his work. Well, other than Anthony, who was also NCIS.
“I heard you just got back and figured you would know where to go to be entertained on a Friday night.”
Damn, it was Friday night. He was definitely getting bad. At one time, he’d been out every weekend night and some weeknights as well. Recently, though, his nights consisted of going over some work and going to bed early.
He was turning into his brother, Brando. The man had never liked to party and he was even worse now that he was active duty. Damn.
“Not sure. I haven’t been out that much since I got stationed here. Why don’t I give Jack Johnson a call and see if he can give us some suggestions?”
“Jack?”
“He’s related to the Santinis in a very roundabout way according to my Aunt Joey.”
He smiled. “Sounds like a plan. Wanna grab some lunch?”
Dante nodded. “Why don’t we hit the food court? Most of the lunch crowd should be clearing out, and I don’t have a meeting until after three.”
They made their way across the parking lot.
“How’s Anthony doing in Hawaii?” JT asked.
“I guess okay. I mean…he’s living in Hawaii. How hard can that be? You haven’t talked to him lately?”
Which was odd. Dante knew the two men had been thick as thieves since high school.
He shook his head. “Naw. I’ve been out of the loop for a while. I was at his going away party, then went deep.”
JT worked undercover every now and then as part of his job. He knew his brother did every now and then too, but JT seemed to do it more often.
“That was two months ago.”
He nodded as they stepped into the food court attached to the exchange. “It’s been a long seven weeks.”
Dante didn’t ask, because part of him didn’t want to know. The other part of him understood JT couldn’t talk about it.
“I’m going to grab a sandwich,” JT said. He headed off in the direction of the sandwich shop. Dante pulled out his cell and called Jack.
“Hey, Dante, how’s it going?”
“Fine. I was wondering if you had any suggestions about a place for dinner.”
“Is this for a date?”
“No, this is for hanging out with a friend.”
“Oh, so a drink and be stupid kind of place.”
He glanced at JT, who nodded toward a table. Dante nodded in return. The shadows he saw under the older man’s eyes told him JT needed to relax, at least for one night.
“Yeah. Definitely a drink and be stupid kind of place.”
Jack chuckled. “Not that I would know about that. I’ll text you the names.”
“Do you wanna join?”
He chuckled. “No. See, I have a hot woman to go home to.”
“Suck it, Johnson.”
He just laughed again and hung up. While he was standing in line to order his food, his cell buzzed indicating a text. True to his word, Jack sent him info on a couple of bars in the area. Knowing the Marine, none of them would be on the restricted list.
It was a good thing he ran into JT. Tonight was going to be a night to remember.
* * * *
After returning home from her Friday afternoon class, Madison wandered around her house, something simmering beneath her skin. She felt…energized. The yoga class had been very positive. Most of them were, but there had been something in the air that had given her a special connection with her students.
Excitement. Good excitement. Not the sick, overwhelming sense that something bad was going to happen, but just good. She went out to her patio in the backyard, walked over to the water feature and sat on the bench. Charlie sat down beside her feet.
With the appearance of Dante the night before, it had her thinking of Dr. James’ suggestion that she reach out to friends more often. Accepting the dinner invitation the night before was one step. Hannah had been asking for months when she finally accepted. Other than dealing with her odd feelings for Dante Santini, she was pretty happy she had gone.
She hadn’t really made any girlfriends since she’d returned to California. Truth was, Madison had never been a girlfriend kind of a girl. She had been raised by a man who had wanted boys. Instead, he had been saddled with one daughter. She learned to hunt, fish, and fight…all
of it like she was a boy. But she could never blame her father for her issues with what she called the “chick mindset.” Madison always thought it was built into her DNA. So many things all women seemed to get just went over her head. Why did they always want to go to the bathroom together? And the shoes…why so many?
But there was a woman who always seemed to understand her. Plus, the woman had just moved back to California. She pulled out her cell and hit Elena’s number.
“Hey, you’ve got Elena.”
Madison chuckled. “Hey, yourself. Is that how you answer the phone? Do you even know who this is?”
“Well, that tone tells me I’m talking to Mad Madison Baker,” she said, her voice filled with laughter.
She sighed dramatically even as her mood lightened. No matter how long they had been apart, it was always the same when they got together.
“You never change.”
“Why should I? My mother tells me I’m perfect.” Knowing their mother, Marcella Santini, she did. The mother of six always seemed to have something wonderful to say about each one of them.
“Does she say the same thing about Dante?”
“No. She says he’s ugly as dirt.”
“Sure, sure,” she said. “I had dinner with him last night.”
“My brother and you had a date?” she asked.
“Good God, no! I was invited to my next door neighbor’s house and Dante was invited too.”
“So, that’s your social life. Dinner with the married neighbors. Mad Madison, what a shame that you have come to this.”
“And Dante.”
“That’s pretty sad. I see that I’m the only one holding up the fort in the way of the dating scene.”
Knowing Elena, she was. Whenever someone was around Elena, they never seemed to have a bad time. She was a force of nature and she tended to overwhelm people. The pretty brunette was often the life of the party. She understood that part of it was being the only girl in the family of a bunch of Alpha males. Elena had been a godsend for Madison. She’d have spent her entire college life in her room studying and working out if it hadn’t been for Elena.
“These days, I tend to stick close to home.”
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