by Dale Mayer
“Tomorrow or the next day? Head back home to New Mexico. Then we’ll see. We need to go to California and get to the bottom of this Mouse stuff.”
“I wish I could come with you. But it’s not to be. At least not at the moment.”
“It would be more dangerous than ever to involve you in our mess,” he admitted. “You need to stay here and get your life together.”
She gave him a wry look. “Well, I already made a decision and took action that will change my life in a big way.”
“What did you do?” he asked, suddenly straightening on the bed.
“I handed in my resignation. As of two weeks from now, I’m done,” she said firmly.
He stared at her in surprise, then laughed. “When you make a change, you make a big one.”
She shrugged. “Only a big change will get me out of this hell.”
“But at least you’ve done it. Now what you need to do is figure out in the next two weeks where you want to go. Make that decision and follow through.”
She nodded. “I know. More big decisions. But just having handed in my resignation, I do feel a lot better. I’ve met a bunch of people over the years. I might contact some of them and look for job possibilities.”
“Do you want to return to your uncle’s in Maine?”
She shook her head. “No, I kind of feel like I’m done with that. I want to move on somewhere new, somewhere different. I was thinking California, but, after hearing about Poppy and Mouse going there, that’s the last place I want to be.”
“California’s a huge state,” he said with a big grin. “And there’s an awful lot more to it than just Coronado.”
She nodded. “But there’s a taint to it now for me.”
“Understood.”
Just then Geir called from the living room.
Laszlo reached over, gently squeezing her hand. “I’ll be right back.” He got up and walked out to the living room. “What’s up, Geir?”
She just barely heard the excitement in his voice as he said, “Heard from Levi. He and Mason both want to talk with us.”
“About Mouse?”
“Yeah. Both of them remember.”
She bounded off her bed and raced out to the living room. “That’s a talk I want to be involved in. Mouse was my friend too.”
The two men looked at her, then at each other and nodded.
Minx asked, “When will you talk to them?”
“In the morning. We’re setting up a conference call.”
She nodded. “For me, nine a.m. is good. I’m not going to work anyway.” She turned and headed back to her room; then she stopped and said, “It’s been hours since you guys ate. Do you need food?”
Geir smiled. “I’ll slip around the corner. I think I saw Chinese takeout. I’ll pick up enough food for all of us.”
She smiled. “That would be nice. In that case, do you mind if I go lie down again?”
Both men shook their heads.
Geir said, “I’ll be at least a few minutes anyway. I want to do a search around the neighborhood to make sure we don’t have anybody coming in who we aren’t expecting.”
She turned and looked worriedly at Laszlo. “Are you staying close?”
He nodded.
Geir got up, grabbed Laszlo’s keys and said with a backward glance, “I’ll be back in an hour with food.” And he walked out.
She smiled at Laszlo. “Definitely going to lie down. I’m really cold.”
“I’ll put on the teakettle and bring you a cup of tea. It might be better if you don’t sleep at this hour. You still need to get a decent night’s rest later this evening.”
She smiled and nodded. “That’s a theory. But thinking about all the things that have happened makes sleep hard to come by. Who knew meeting you—was it just yesterday?—would blow my world so far apart that it can’t be put back together again.”
“It can be. It can, just in a different way, a better way,” he promised.
She gave him a shuttered look. “But can it? I don’t have the group of friends you have. I don’t have that community. I felt terribly alone growing up. Mouse made my life so much easier. But I have to admit, coming back here, I’ve gotten a whole new perspective on Mouse too. And it’s not terribly pleasant.”
“Remember your childhood memories. And keep them happy, keep them contained. Don’t let all this taint that.”
“Too late,” she tossed over her shoulder. She could hear him in the kitchen putting the teakettle on.
A few minutes later he came to her open bedroom door. “Do you want anything in your tea?”
She shook her head. “I’ll just have a cup black, please.”
In her mind she wondered if she could do something to make this not quite so traumatizing. And she also had to figure out where to move to. Especially now that she no longer had a job. She had money in the bank, not tons, but she didn’t spend any, just paid her bills. And then there was the matter of what she was planning to do with the rest of her life.
“Pretty sad smile on your face,” Laszlo said gently as he walked in with her tea. “What are you thinking about?”
“About how everything I’ve done so far in life sucks, and now I’m looking at the rest of my life, wondering what to do.”
He gave a chuckle. “Yep, been there myself. Two years ago, the accident was a major turning point.”
She smiled and nodded. “I feel like I’m at another one.”
“You are,” he said gently. “But that doesn’t mean it has to be difficult or wrong.”
She snuggled deeper in the covers. “When you two leave, I’ll really be alone. How come I feel closer to you two than I’ve felt to anybody in a long time? It’s pretty unnerving.”
“We slipped in under your guard, touched a nerve, ripped a couple scabs off old wounds, made you take a good look at life.” His tone was serious. “And when you do things like that, you get to know people on a very deep level very quickly.”
“And what if I don’t want to lose contact?” She gave him a challenging stare. What she really wanted was for him to hold her and to tell her that it would all be okay. Yet that acknowledged a little girl was still inside her, looking for somebody else to fix her life, to fix all that was wrong. And she knew better. But, for just that one moment, she wished she could be that little girl again.
“You don’t have to. I fully expected to update you when we find out what happened with Mouse.”
“Do you really think it’s not the same man?”
He walked around the bed and sat at the headboard beside her. “I think we must keep an open mind. A part of me wants to believe there were two of them. So that the Mouse I knew hadn’t gone through all this shit. But I can’t be sure of that. His body was badly scarred. He resembles the photo you have of him as a kid. Maybe the conference call in the morning will bring us some answers. But I don’t know for sure.”
She nodded and curled deeper into the blankets. “Do you mind if I just nod off for a little bit? I’m so cold.”
He shifted and moved her gently closer against him. “Go ahead and sleep. When the Chinese food comes, I’ll wake you up.”
She smiled, let her head drop on his chest and eased into a restful sleep.
Laszlo gently stroked her back, his mind whirling with all the information they’d come up with. In fact, it had been a lot of information very quickly, and his mind still hadn’t really adapted or absorbed any of it. To think of all the things that he’d known about Mouse, it was pretty painful to hear the newest information. And yet how much of it was true and how much of it was an angry, spiteful outburst from a man who’d felt rejected by Mouse? And what the hell was going on with Mouse and this Poppy guy?
To think somebody could have cheated their way into the US Naval Academy was just something Laszlo couldn’t understand. Granted, Laszlo could see how an ace computer hacker could replace one guy’s face with another guy’s, even in a government database. But you still had to go through
all the physical exercises. So how had all that happened? The only way for it to work was if this new SEAL was coming in from another part of the country. Likely back East. But still, files had to be created, histories created, backgrounds, tests, all that stuff had to be forged. And yet what Laszlo did know was it didn’t seem to matter exactly what anyone did. Money always got you what you wanted. Even in the navy it seemed. As long as it was something tangible that could be purchased.
But Mouse would have had to overcome his fear of the water regardless.
Their unit had teased him and bugged him terribly but never about swimming, as far as Laszlo could remember. But then they had teased him about his days on leave all the time too. He’d been well-known for heading to third-world countries, and the guys had wondered at the time, why? What was the draw? But Mouse never really said. They figured it was just because it was cheap booze, easy sex. But there were no easy answers. The fact that there were so many unanswered questions no longer bothered Laszlo because he knew it was all about to break apart. As in wide apart.
The meeting in the morning should help a lot too. He needed his laptop to go over some of the information they got from Lance’s phone today and also the conversations with Carson. Laszlo needed to make sure Minx was no longer in danger from her ex-boss before Laszlo and Geir left for Santa Fe and beyond to California.
Laszlo loved it that she’d quit. Sometimes when life handed you lemons, the best thing you could do was make lemon cheesecake out of it. And, in this case, maybe it would be the best option for her. It was obvious she wasn’t happy, and she deserved to be. She’d had as shitty a life as Mouse had. Although she’d taken a better exit road than he had.
And how did Laszlo feel about her wanting to stay in touch? He grinned. He’d been trying to figure out how to suggest it himself. She was dynamite. And he had to admit, he had a lot of respect for somebody who had been where she was and how she’d handled herself even today. He figured they were probably a long way away from anything more than that, but it was hard to say.
Just then she twisted and whimpered beside him. He gently stroked her arms and back.
But she cried out, “No, no, don’t touch. Hands off. Get away from me.” Her arms flailed about. Suddenly she bawled like a little child.
His heart broke as he realized just how ugly her life must have been. He would wait to get his laptop; he couldn’t leave her like that. He tucked her into his arms until she lay across his chest, and he just held her. Over and over again he whispered, “It’s okay. You’re fine. It’s okay. You’ll be fine. Let it go. Just sleep.”
And finally she did. She took a deep breath and relaxed against his chest, her hand stroking his cheek and his lips, and she whispered, “Laszlo?”
He couldn’t help himself. He dropped a kiss on her temple and whispered, “Yes. You were crying out in pain, as if caught up in a nightmare. I couldn’t let you suffer like that.”
She shifted her head back, and her sleepy gaze stared up at him. There was such a sweet innocence there, and yet he knew how worldly her upbringing had been. “You look adorable.”
“Ha.” She didn’t try to move away. Instead she dropped her head back down again, wrapped her arms around him and said, “Thank you.”
“For what?” he asked, gently massaging her back.
“For sticking around. For holding me. For caring enough to make sure the nightmares didn’t grab me again.”
“Again?”
“Yes, a couple times I had to fight off being raped,” she whispered. “Even now, when I get super tired or super worried, the memories grab ahold and don’t let go.”
He could feel the rage catching the back of his throat.
She smiled. “It was a long time ago.”
“But you don’t forget, do you?” he asked with certainty.
“No. But then you don’t forget your accident either, do you?”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t.”
She rolled over, half-sitting, propped her arms on his chest and looked up at him. “We’re both the walking wounded. One of us physically and the other emotionally.”
He smiled. “You’re still very beautiful to me. I’m the opposite.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know about the beautiful part. That’s always made me very wary.”
He could understand.
“Beautiful children were always attacked first.”
“Well, you’re safe with me.”
She grinned, a twinkle coming into her eye. “And how safe is that? And what if I don’t want to be safe with you?”
And he froze, caught by her gaze and the heat she had absolutely no trouble letting him see. He stared down at her, his finger stroking her cheek. “Are you trying to seduce me?” he asked in fascination, heat unfurling deep inside his gut. “Because if you are …” He leaned forward, his lips hovering tantalizingly close to hers. “Then I’m definitely interested.”
She slid a hand up his chest, around his neck, making his toes curl in delight. Then she reached long fingers into his scalp and tugged him closer. “Then what’s stopping you?”
He closed the distance and kissed her.
Chapter 16
She knew it’d be like that with him. There was just no way it wouldn’t be. He was such a strong alpha male, it was seriously impossible to miss just how much passion and control, how much power he exuded. And she wanted to taste that. She wanted to know what it felt like to touch fire—controlled fire—and not be hurt. She kissed him with longing. Her arms wrapped tight around his neck. Holding him close. His arms crushed her ribs so she was flattened against him, her breasts plastered against his chest.
And she suddenly realized just how much she missed this. How alone she had been all these years. She’d had several relationships, but she hadn’t let herself care. Not really. She’d remember the loss and the betrayal of those she had cared for. And how quickly she’d learned they wouldn’t be here for her over the long haul. Relationships had become fast, simple, easy.
It wasn’t what she wanted this time. She’d heard him talk about his relationships with his buddies, and she’d missed that stage of life. She never had sleepovers with girlfriends. She never had shopping in the mall, getting her nails done, giggling and laughing about graduation. She’d graduated but hadn’t attended the ceremony. She’d never gone to a party; she hadn’t been tempted by any of that. None of it mattered. All she wanted was tonight with him.
His kiss deepened, his tongue sliding between her lips, dueling with hers.
A groan whispered through his chest to hang between them, before his lips closed once again over hers. He twisted her in his arms so she lay flat on the bed, and he rose over her. His kisses were hard, punishing, as if he wanted to do more but couldn’t start anything.
And then she realized it was something else. She opened her eyes. “What?”
He hesitated, then whispered, “Geir is coming back soon.”
She narrowed her gaze at him. “That would not be good.”
He kissed her hard again, whispering, “I know.”
Just then they heard the door, and he bowed his head, his eyes closed, and whispered, “I don’t suppose we could pick this up later?”
She grabbed his ears, pulled him up so she could stare into his eyes and whispered, “You better. As soon as he goes out to do whatever he’s doing on watch, you have an appointment here. Don’t be late.”
He chuckled and rolled off. Standing, he rearranged his jeans.
She smiled as she saw the size of the bulge in his pants. She gently stroked the material, hearing his gasp, seeing the shudder and the red roll through his cheeks as he threw his head back. And she whispered, “Hold that thought.”
“You’re a tease,” he ground out.
She hopped off the bed, walked toward the bathroom. “Nope, no teasing allowed. Only promises.”
In the bathroom she washed her face, brushed her teeth, and, when she was done, she studied her face
in the mirror and smiled. If nothing else, their interrupted foreplay had put a sparkle in her cheeks. The gaze that looked back at her had a luminescence she hadn’t seen before. She wanted tonight. She wanted it really badly. If any asshole came between her and Laszlo, she swore she’d take him out all on her own.
When she walked out to the kitchen, Geir was sitting down with a large bag of takeout food in front of him. “I don’t know if you want plates or to just eat out of the containers, but I bought lots.”
She sat down, reached for a fork that somebody had already collected and said, “Good, because I’m famished.”
Geir looked up, and she caught the twinkle in his gaze. She shook her head. “Not a word.”
He pinched his lips together in a mock show of being obedient and then chuckled.
Dinner was dispatched very quickly. The talk turned to wondering about various theories but with no complete answers coming. They were in a stage of waiting. With Carson, with Levi, with Mason, all these men were working on her case and on Mouse’s case, and still … she didn’t know anything yet.
At least the conversation was good, supportive. Lots of laughter, lots of friendliness. And through it all she didn’t dare look directly at Laszlo because she knew what she’d see. She felt bad for Geir. It was obvious he had interrupted them and planned to tease them.
Finally Geir finished his food, sat back and said, “Now, shall I go pick up coffee or do you want to put on a pot?”
She stood. “We didn’t stop and get any coffee to make a pot.”
“No. I’ll add it to my list.” Geir got up, collected all the garbage and said, “I’ll take this out. You might as well put the leftovers in the fridge for later. He’ll probably need it.” His tone was dry. “And I’ll head out. I won’t grab to-go coffee for you guys obviously, but I’ll pick myself up one, and then a pound for tomorrow and do a full sweep outside.”
That started a conversation as to what the rest of their plan was.
“I thought you would be upstairs,” Minx said.
“I will be once I’ve checked the area.” He gave them a brief smile, then said over his shoulder at the front door, “Enjoy yourselves.” And he left.