by V. K. Sykes
She set the white Belleek teapot, cheerful with its pale green shamrocks, in the middle of the table. “Charley, Lydia, can I get you anything else? It’s last call for the kitchen.”
“We’re good, sweetheart,” Charley said with a smile. “I was just telling Ryan about my time in Korea. The Battle of Chosin Reservoir.”
“Charley was with the Fifth Marines,” Ryan said, his tone admiring. “They were outnumbered and fought their way out of a Chinese trap in brutally heavy fighting. Charley’s company was called the Chosin Few.”
Morgan raised her eyebrows. “So you two fellas have a lot in common, I’m guessing.”
“Damn right,” Charley said. “Although Ryan served longer than I did. Sometimes I wonder about young folks these days, Morgan. And then I meet a guy like Ryan and get my faith back.”
Ryan looked slightly sheepish at the praise. “I’d have been proud to serve alongside you, sir. But I’m falling down on the job, and I don’t want the boss to get mad at me. It was great talking to you, Charley.” He smiled at Lydia. “You too, ma’am.”
“Hope you folks have a great day,” Morgan said to her guests before following Ryan into the kitchen.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to get into a big discussion out there.” Ryan started to load the dishwasher.
She was happy he’d been able to share stories with a fellow vet. “You were entertaining our guests, which is a big part of an innkeeper’s job. Dad wanted people to feel like this place was a second home. Heck, I just might offer you a job in the kitchen and dining room once you get finished with the repairs.”
“If I get finished with the repairs, you mean,” Ryan said wryly.
It had rained for three days straight since their night at the ballpark, making it impossible for him to work on the roof. All the materials were now on-site, including the ladder lift, nail gun, and compressor that Ryan had rented from a Portland supplier. He’d told her that Aiden would join him on Saturday, and in the meantime, he’d work on repairing the water damage in one of the guest rooms and replacing insulation in the attic.
Though the poor weather had frustrated Ryan’s kayaking plans too, he’d been easy and good-natured.
But distant. When he wasn’t working or visiting with his parents, he was usually tucked up in his room in the main building. Only once had he shared dinner with her and Sabrina. The other nights, he’d headed to the Pot and come back to Golden Sunset late.
And not once since that night at the ballpark had he touched her.
Morgan didn’t think Ryan was angry with her for being so cool that night. He’d been friendly enough whenever their paths crossed. She just figured he’d probably absorbed the unspoken message that she wasn’t up for some no-strings-attached sex.
Though she should have felt relieved, his cool approach had only made her feel worse and made her want him even more. By the second night, she practically had to handcuff herself to her bed to make sure she didn’t creep up the stairs and slip into his bedroom. Poor Charley and Lydia were in the room next door to his, and the walls were pretty thin. The thought of that dignified old couple hearing her and Ryan go at it like sex-starved bunnies was horrifying to contemplate.
“I want to get at that roof tomorrow,” Ryan said. “The delay is really bugging me now.”
“I warned the guests about noise,” Morgan said. “They’re fine as long as you don’t start banging around too early.”
“You’d better define early, then.”
“Ten, I guess. You can’t really blame them for not wanting any hammering until they’ve cleared out for the day. When you did that little repair a few days ago, you can’t believe how loud it sounded all through the house.”
“Sorry, but you can’t drive nails with a foam rubber hammer.”
“Ha, ha, funny guy. I get it, but I can’t afford to shut down for a week either. These guests are helping to pay the mortgage and put food on the table. And we want first-timers like the Stringers to come back.”
“Got it.” Ryan leaned a hip against the island counter and studied her. “So what are you going to be up to for the rest of the day, boss?”
Morgan sighed. “Bookkeeping, shopping, laundry, cleaning silverware. Making dinner with Sabrina. Same old, same old. No rest for the wicked.”
His gaze dropped to her chest for a leisurely moment before flicking back up. “Wicked? I haven’t noticed you being wicked. Not yet, I mean.”
Oh, boy. The heat in his eyes that had been missing for a few days sparked to life.
She swallowed, flustered by his sudden sexual innuendo. “It was just a figure of speech, Ryan. People say that all the time around here. Irony, get it?”
His gaze narrowed as if he was irritated that she wasn’t going to play along. “All joking aside, you do work too hard. You need to have some fun too.”
Like having crazy-hot sex with you?
She practically clutched her head in frustration. Of course jumping into bed with Ryan would be the first thing that popped into her head when she thought about fun.
“Well, you did say you’d give me some kayak lessons. That sounds like it would be fun,” she said in an insanely cheerful voice, trying to compensate for the lewd images playing through her mind.
Though she wasn’t crazy about the idea of being wedged into a precarious plastic shell, a nice paddle along the eastern shoreline of Seashell Bay might be relaxing. She sure needed to relax.
Sex would be relaxing, Morgan.
She wished she could tell her damn brain to shut the hell up.
“I’ll be all over that if it ever stops raining.” Ryan moved a little closer, close enough that Morgan had to repress her instinct to take a step back. “But I had another idea. How about I take you and Sabrina out for drinks and dinner tonight at Diamond Cove? You guys have been great to me, so I’d like to do something nice for you.”
Now that she hadn’t expected. It was certainly a sweet and generous gesture on Ryan’s part. Including Sabrina was not only kind, it also told her that he didn’t see the dinner as some kind of date. He couldn’t have known that Sabrina would certainly decline the offer.
She struggled for a moment to find a lighthearted response but gave up when all she could come up with sounded stupidly flippant. “That’s sweet of you. I’ll talk to Sabrina as soon as she gets back.”
I’ll sort out my feelings about being alone with you later.
Morgan couldn’t help noticing that she’d already made up her mind to accept the offer, even though Sabrina wouldn’t be there as a buffer between them.
Her sister hated going out, other than an occasional night at the Pot with Morgan and her closest friends. Whenever Sabrina had to be in a public place off the island for more than a few minutes, she often started to act jittery. She said it made her anxious, and that she couldn’t enjoy the food or the company. Sabrina’s idea of fun had always been to curl up on the cozy love seat in her room with her nose in one of the library’s murder mysteries. She devoured them like chocolate.
“Great,” Ryan said, smiling. He had the best smile. It practically melted the panties right off her body. “I’ll check the ferry connections and make a reservation for seven thirty.”
“Sounds good.”
He took off his server’s apron and hung it up. “And now I’ve got a heavy date with some insulation.”
“Well, you wouldn’t want to disappoint her,” Morgan said. “I hear she can be a real taskmaster.”
Ryan’s smiled turned thoughtful. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
As she watched him leave the kitchen, Morgan thought that there was very little in life that Ryan Butler couldn’t handle.
Including her.
Ryan attacked his sixteen-ounce New York strip with enthusiasm. “Great steak. How’s your tuna?”
Morgan took a small bite, her eyelids fluttering half shut with pleasure. “Mmm, divine,” she purred. When she let out a happy sigh and licked her lips, Ryan felt it all the way do
wn to his groin.
And she was just eating, for God’s sake. Just imagine if she were really trying to turn him on.
Everything about her was so delicate, including how she ate. He’d always punched food down fast, no matter how fancy or fussily prepared. And he’d take a good steak over seafood most of the time, even in Maine. He had little enthusiasm for lobster, no doubt because he’d grown up eating it almost every day. When he was in school, he’d sometimes trade his mom’s lobster rolls for PB&Js or, better yet, sandwiches made out of ham from those little round tins. He’d never had a shortage of mainland kids happy to swap.
“I have to say it again, Morgan—you look amazing tonight.”
She wore the proverbial little black dress—nicely short, he was happy to say. It lovingly hugged her slim form and exposed her tanned arms and shoulders. On the ferry, she’d covered up with a black lace shawl, leaving it on in the cool restaurant. A gold pendant with its single pearl nestled in her sweet cleavage, and her gleaming blond hair looked like silk and begged to be touched—preferably while he was buried deep inside her.
It had practically killed him not to draw her tight against him as they sat thigh to thigh on the short crossing from Seashell Bay to Diamond Cove. Though it was a thank-you dinner, not a date, people on the boat had sure looked at them like they were a couple. And no wonder, because the sexual energy between them was almost palpable.
“Tell me as often as you want,” she said with a smile. “By the way, you clean up pretty nicely too.”
Ryan had worn his navy blazer—the one he kept at his parents’ place—along with gray dress slacks, a white shirt, and his Iraq vet tie. “Thanks. I only wear this jacket about once a year, so I don’t even know if it’s in style.”
She rolled her eyes, as if the idea of him caring about style was ridiculous. Which, of course, it was.
He glanced around at the casually upscale restaurant. It was great other than the fact that they had to dine inside instead of on the lawn or expansive deck. Everything outside was still soaked, but the drizzle had finally tapered off and a few muted purple rays from the setting sun colored the picturesque Diamond Cove marina.
“Sabrina doesn’t know what she’s missing,” he said. “It’s too bad she didn’t want to come.”
Morgan scrunched up her nose. “She didn’t mean to seem ungrateful. You know she’s just built a little different from most people.”
“I like her. Always have, even though the feeling wasn’t exactly mutual.”
“She was touched that you wanted her to come.”
“Yeah, she told me that this afternoon.”
Morgan blinked. “She did?”
“She yelled up at me while I was in the attic.” He couldn’t help grinning as he remembered looking down through the access door to see Sabrina at the bottom of the ladder with her hands on her hips, her face all serious and intent. “Before she ran off, she also said she knew I’d have a good time with her sister.”
Morgan’s eyebrows hiked up. “Really? She didn’t mention any of that to me.”
“I thought it was kind of sweet. But maybe you’d better not tell her I mentioned it.”
She made that cute zipping motion across her lips she’d used before.
“Sabrina had it right,” he said. “I am having a good time with her sister. I always have a good time with you.”
Except for that weird night in Portland when you looked like you wished I’d fall into the bay on the way home.
She blushed and gave him a hesitant smile. “I’m having a good time too.” Then she laughed. Man, he loved her laugh. “It’s hard not to when you’re eating sushi-grade tuna and drinking fine wine. So I must thank you again, Ryan. This is special.”
Then she put her glass down and gave him a mock scowl. “But hey, all we’ve talked about is the B&B and Sabrina and me. Don’t we get to talk about you for a while? Fair is fair after all.”
He mentally flinched. Morgan probably thought this was exactly the sort of setting for sharing secrets. A nice dinner, a couple of glasses of wine, and before you know it, you’re blabbing out your life story. Well, that was never going to happen with him.
Then again, he was happy she was feeling relaxed enough both to ask and to think he would answer. He could afford to share a bit with her.
A bit.
“Just don’t waterboard me for info, okay?” he said drily.
“You are just so funny,” she mocked. “How about you start by being a little more forthcoming about your military career? All anybody seems to know is that you fought in both Afghanistan and Iraq. It seems to me that you must have liked army life to have stayed in the service so long.”
Ryan hesitated, weighing his response. He’d have preferred Morgan to pose a specific question or two instead of probing for some kind of bullshit self-analysis of his military career.
“I did two tours in Afghanistan and one in Iraq,” he said. Next question, please.
Morgan smiled when he didn’t elaborate. “That’s the way you want to play it, huh?”
Ryan shrugged. “Why don’t you ask another question, and we’ll see how far we get.”
Morgan propped both elbows on the table and rested her chin in her palms. “Some people think you were Special Forces, and that a lot of stuff you did would be classified. Is that why you don’t talk about it?”
“Not to get too technical, but they’re actually called Special Operations, not Special Forces—unless you’re referring to what people sometimes call the Green Berets.”
“Okay, professor.”
“Anyway, I trained for Spec Ops after Iraq. And you’re right that some of what we did is classified. But most of our time was spent training and making sure we were ready to go on a moment’s notice.”
She gave him a sheepish grin. “I will admit to spending some time on the Internet researching U.S. Special Forces—I mean Special Operations. I’m thinking you might have been Delta Force since they’re army.” She paused. “That is, if Delta Force even exists. Apparently there’s some doubt about that.”
“Ah, the good old Internet.” As far as Ryan was concerned, the Internet was often a cesspool, especially when it came to things military. He never talked about Delta or what he’d gone through to get chosen for that elite unit, nor could he ever reveal anything about the counter-terrorism missions he’d been part of in half a dozen countries.
“You’re not going to talk about Delta Force, are you?” Morgan said with a smile. “Mr. Enigma.”
“I can’t talk about any Spec Ops units I might or might not have been in. I can tell you I was a sniper in a Ranger regiment for a while.”
Her eyes popped comically wide. “A sniper? Really?”
If that revelation had bowled her over, it would be interesting to see how she reacted to some of his hairier missions.
“What was it like to be a sniper in Iraq? It must have been terrible over there.” She sounded torn between admiration and horror.
“It wasn’t as bad as you might think,” he said, shading the truth. He wouldn’t talk about all the overwatch missions he’d been on, covering army and marine units as they fought to clear out al-Qaeda-infested neighborhoods. “We patrolled at night and slept a lot during the day because it was so damn hot outside. Spent a lot of time playing volleyball and cards and working out.”
Morgan looked uncertain. “But . . . you killed people, right? That was your job as a sniper, wasn’t it?”
“Sure. Terrorists who were killing our soldiers and kidnapping and murdering journalists and any Iraqis or Afghanis that stood up to them. Real sweet dudes who loved to behead people.”
Ryan had no regrets about enlisting after 9/11 and heading to Afghanistan eight months later. Nor had he ever second-guessed his decision to join the Rangers and then Delta. But more than a decade on the front lines had been enough. His units had completed their missions with effectiveness and honor, never leaving a man behind.
She w
ent silent for a few seconds, a common reaction. “I tried to find as much information as I could about Double Shield Corporation too,” she finally admitted.
“You really should think about getting a PI license if you ever get tired of teaching. You’re a regular Philip Marlowe.”
She wagged a finger at him. “Sarcasm is not your forte, Butler, especially dated sarcasm.”
He shrugged.
“From what I read, it sounds like Double Shield’s main business is supplying mercenaries to dictators and big corporations around the world,” she said.
That unexpected shot hit him like a bullet to a ballistic vest. Her tone, while light, held a note of disapproval. He cautioned himself not to overreact. “Some people put that slant on it. Actually, we’re all about keeping people safe in dangerous environments and situations. I’ve helped a lot of good folks who would be in big trouble unless they had us to stand between them and the bastards who want to kidnap or kill them.”
Becoming aware that he’d tensed up and was leaning forward in what Morgan might interpret as an aggressive posture, he took a couple of deep breaths and relaxed back into his chair. But hell, his fun night was starting to go south fast.
She nodded, looking ultraserious. “I totally get that, Ryan, but how long can you keep doing something so dangerous? Don’t you worry that your number will come up sooner or later?”
Jesus, what was he supposed to say to that?
When he didn’t answer, she let out a sad little sigh and toyed with the base of her wineglass. “I was always worried that something might happen to you in Iraq or Afghanistan. Now it looks like I’m never going to be able to stop worrying about you.”
Ryan froze. His mother had said the same thing in almost exactly the same words. But from Morgan? Unless he was reading her all wrong, the kind of emotion he saw in her sky-blue eyes was a whole lot more than concern for a longtime friend.
And he wasn’t quite sure how that made him feel.
“I’m sorry, Ryan. I made it all about me when it’s about you. Just ignore me.”
He reached across the table and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “Morgan, you don’t need to worry about me. I just do my job, and if I do it right, everybody should end up safe.”