by Lynn Young
“You’re late,” Pepper snapped, although she let him kiss her.
“No, I’m not,” Cameron countered calmly. “It took us about ninety minutes from SFO to get up here, and that’s pretty reasonable considering evening traffic. Plus, you just started on your sauce.” Then he went over to Anna Marie and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Hello, Anna, sweetheart. You’re looking good.”
“Where’s your brother?” Pepper asked.
Cameron took out the pitcher of cosmopolitan, got down more glasses, and poured a
round of drinks. “He’s right behind me.”
When the kitchen door opened and Cameron’s brother, completely dressed in Navy
white, walked through it, Anna Marie’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open with absolute shock.
Oh, god, was her one thought, aghast at herself, this would not do at all. And then her mind went completely blank.
Secret Affair 18
Chapter 2
Cameron’s brother was an inch taller than him, with near-black hair that was closely cropped and sharp green eyes. His face was thinner, darker, and had just missed the prettiness of his brother’s looks. But he would still have been considered good-looking if there wasn’t a dark, menacing quality about him that seemed to set his features into a hard, uncompromising mask.
The deadly calm in his green eyes that chilled the bone dispelled even further any impression of easy attractiveness. His broad-shouldered body was much leaner than his brother, which was only natural as he probably kept his body in tip-top shape running missions for the military.
“Everyone, this is my brother, Dallas Trenton. Dal, you remember my wife, Pepper, and that’s her sister, Anna Marie.”
Pepper went up to Dallas and threw her arms around him in a welcoming hug. “Finally, Dal, I meet you again. You don’t come around often enough. How long are staying this time? I hope it’s more than a few days so that we can get to know each other better.”
Dallas took off his cap and courteously kissed Pepper’s cheeks. His eyes briefly slid to Anna Marie whose eyes were still glued to him with a stunned look.
Secret Affair 19
He smiled down at his sister-in-law, but it looked as if the smile took an effort because he didn’t use it often. “I’m afraid it’s only for one day, then I have to fly out again.” Pepper tried to hide her irritation. “Oh, do you have to go on another mission, already?”
“He means D.C., hon,” Cam said, handing Dallas a drink. “Where are the kids?”
“They’re upstairs in the romper room with the nanny.”
Cam saw the harassed look on her face. He put his arm around her shoulders and kissed her again. “Have they been giving you a hard time?”
Pepper blew out a breath. “Not more than usual.” In her husband’s presence, some of her high energy and tension melted away.
“I think I’ll go up and see them.”
“I’ll go with you,” Pepper decided.
Anna Marie watched with horror as they both walked out of the kitchen, leaving her
completely alone with Cam’s brother. “Uhhhhh,” she croaked, but it was all she could get out.
She turned and met Dallas’s green eyes as he watched her from beneath his lids, watching with a patient stillness her face as she frantically tried to think of something to say to break the strained silence that fell between them.
What in the hell do you say to a Navy SEAL, Anna Marie thought. How did your last
mission go? No, they didn’t talk about their missions. Do you like your job? No, that was lame.
Are you married? Any kids? No, that sounded like she was trying to pick him up. Then, because her nerves were at the breaking point from the extended silence, Anna Marie gulped down her cosmopolitan and ended up in a violent coughing fit, so that Dal had to thump her repeatedly on the back.
“Are you alright?” he asked, a hint of amusement in his deep voice.
“Yes. Yes, I am. Thank you,” she managed to choke out as soon as she could catch her breath. She moved away from his hand. She put the empty glass in the sink, then said, “Excuse me,” and hastily left the kitchen.
It was probably about the most cowardly thing she ever did, but she couldn’t help it.
There was just something about Dallas Trenton that made her feel that being alone with him was the last thing she should do. Perhaps it was his eyes, that waiting stillness that seemed to be lurking perpetually behind the cool green eyes that were always watching. Or the mouth that was set in a hard, uncompromising line that hinted of ruthlessness and cruelty. Or maybe it’s because Secret Affair 20
he was about the most devastatingly attractive man Anna Marie had ever seen, and that she found herself in a very untenable and very unexpected position of being violently attracted to him.
She stayed out of the kitchen, and only returned when she heard Pepper and Cameron’s voices.
At the stove, her sister was doing her hostess best to bring out her brother-in-law, and Dallas was not being cooperative.
“So, Dal, Cam tells me that you’ve been a Navy Seal for nearly ten years. You must
really like it,” Pepper said brightly.
Dallas’s voice was flat. “It has its moments.
“I understand that you are the one who goes on the most dangerous missions.”
“I pretty much go where my superiors tell me to go.”
“Your job takes you to all these exotic countries. That must be exciting.”
“It can be.”
“With all the danger and traveling, it sounds as if you don’t have much time for a social life.”
“It can be that way.”
Pepper cast a bleary eye in Dallas’s direction. Her face set with dogged determination, she tried again. “Cam tells me that you’re not married.”
“No.”
“Do you have someone special in your life?”
“No.”
Pepper blew out a breath and gave up. She turned her back to him and concentrated on her filets.
A cell phone rang. It was Dallas’s. He flipped it open. “Excuse me. I need to take this call.” He left the kitchen.
Pepper swung around to her husband, who was trying not to smile. “Does your brother
have something against civilized conversation, or is that a sign of a defective gene that I should be worried about because it might have been passed down to our kids?”
“Dal has never been one to talk a great deal,” Cam said ruefully.
Secret Affair 21
Whether it was deliberate or not, Dallas did not return to the kitchen. Instead, Cam went to go and find him and keep him company. For Anna Marie, she was heartedly glad of the reprieve. She found Cam’s brother much too disturbing, which was only exacerbated by her heightened awareness of him. She was so relieved that she didn’t even mind when Pepper again launched into one of her favorite subject, which was her sister’s lack of what she considered a meaningful life.
Close to an hour later, Pepper ordered everyone to the table as she and Cameron set the food. She ordered Cam to pour the wine. Dallas had taken off his jacket, looking not so trussed up in his white dress pants and shirt. All four sat down at the table.
“Cam, remember that you need to pick up Toby on Friday at two o’clock for his dentist appointment,” Pepper said. “And we must find a new dry cleaner. A button is missing on my coral silk shirt. The time before that, my lavender cashmere sweater came back with a spot on the sleeve that I know was not there when I took it to them.”
Anna Marie lowered her head to hide a smile. She thought she saw a twinkle in Cam’s
eyes. It was obvious that having had such a dismal success in engaging her brother-in-law in a normal social dialogue, Pepper dropped all efforts of civility towards him, and had decided to patently ignore him for rest of the evening.
“My publisher wants me to go to New York about the new book sometime next month,”
Pepper said, busily scoopi
ng mushroom risotto onto her plate. “I thought perhaps we could make a small family trip. The kids will have a Friday off next month. I don’t think it would do any harm to take the Thursday before, and we fly to New York. Do you think you can take off those two days, Cam?”
Her husband nodded. “I’ll have to look at the calendar at work, but no immediate case is coming to mind, so I probably can take off then.”
Anna Marie herself was not much of a conversationalist so that most of the talk was
between her sister and Cam. Cam himself was the quiet, thinking type, as well, who tended to listen more than talk, which was perfect for his wife who talked much more than she listened. As Pepper gabbled away from one topic to the next without a break, he nodded every once in while to show either agreement or that he was listening. Sometimes, Anna Marie would see his eyes take on a distant look, and she wondered if he were thinking about one of his cases.
Secret Affair 22
Anna Marie barely heard any of her sister’s chattering, because she was so painfully aware of the big, dark haired man in white sitting across the table from her. She had no beginning idea of how to sort out this reaction that she was having to him. She had never felt this way towards any man before, reacting so uncontrollably by just looking at him, all that danger and controlled wildness that was emanating from him blindsiding her. And being so near his tall, leanly muscled presence was creating enormous havoc to her orientation, leaving her feeling confused and not quite rooted to the present. She was appalled to find her breath coming in small rapid breaths. She felt as if she were engulfed in suffocating heat one minute and the next breaking out into a cold sweat. She was terrified that she would get a panic attack any minute.
Her nerves were being stretched dangerously thin so that she dropped almost everything she picked up, earning her repeated annoyed glances from her sister.
One time, Anna Marie cautiously raised her eyes, intending to sneak a peak at Dallas, and found, to her horror, his green eyes on her. Her face flushed unbecomingly, and she felt as if she had been caught red-handed, and quickly looked down. She took the risotto that Pepper held out to her. Not paying attention to what she was doing, she kept scooping the risotto onto her plate.
“Anna, really, leave some for the rest of us,” Pepper admonished.
“Wha…” She looked down and saw that she had filled her entire plate with risotto and had nearly emptied the bowl. “Oh, gosh, I’m sorry.” She hurriedly scooped it back into the bowl.
Determined to keep her eyes from straying for rest of the evening, Anna Marie forked some of the roasted asparagus to her plate. Spearing a steaming stalk with her fork, without thinking, she popped it in her mouth, and scalded her tongue. Immediately, she spat it out onto her plate, and then started guiltily when her sister said with sharp reprimand, “Anna! Honestly, you’re no better than the kids at the table.”
“Sorry,” Anna Marie muttered. “I didn’t realize it was so hot.”
She caught Dallas’s eyes on her again, seeing the hint of amusement in the green depths.
She flushed and quickly lowered her eyes.
Pepper continued to rant, about the kids and their devilish delight in playing her up, complaining of what she felt was the incompetence of the staff at her restaurants and studio, her publisher’s and agent’s greediness on her next show and books, and the insipid letters from her thousands of fans that her agent forced her to respond to on her show. As Pepper continued to run on, Anna Marie usual tolerance began to wear thin. Like her brother-in-law, she could most Secret Affair 23
of the time tune in and tune out. But tonight, Pepper’s non-stop tirade was driving her up the wall, and she began to feel impatience for her sister’s deep-seated self-centeredness.
The next hour was tortuous on Anna Marie’s nerves. She could actually feel them
stretching with each second that seemed to languorously tick by. Every time she discreetly looked down at her watch she would see that only a few minutes had passed. She was desperate for dinner to be over with so that she could make her escape to the safety of her small condominium and bury her head in the current book she was reading, where she would be far removed, hopefully forever, from the nerve-racking presence of a Navy SEAL.
With her stomach tied up in nerves, Anna Marie could barely force any of the food down, leaving most of her plate untouched. To settle some of her nerves, she drank more wine than usual, ignoring her sister’s look of disapproval when she poured her third glass of wine.
Pepper’s energetic monologue left little room for any other conversation. It didn’t at all occur to her that it would have been considerate to let her husband engage his brother so that they could get reacquainted, since Dallas’s visits were so rare. But Cam didn’t seem to mind, nor, for that matter, did his brother, Anna Marie noticed. Perhaps the two men had brought each other up to date and had gone over old times on their drive from the airport. Or, perhaps, Cam’s brother was just not one of those people who had much to say at all, she thought, no matter how long an absence. She carefully examined his face from beneath lowered lids. And she suppressed a shiver as she saw again the chilling detachment on his striking face and the flatness of his shuttered eyes. Whatever was in his thoughts, though, he was unfailing in giving the appearance of attention to his hostess, maintaining his eyes on her as she talked away about things that he could have no possible interest in. It was obvious that, like his brother, the Navy SEAL was much more of a listener than a talker. And he watched, she noticed. Everything and everyone.
Anna Marie imagined him perched on some rooftop in the dead of night, camouflaged in black, waiting with the infinite patience of a cat.
Were all Navy SEALs like him, she wondered, not revealing anything about themselves
but letting the other spill out their whole life story? If Dallas had been like most men, he would have been regaling his dinner audience with tales of his military prowess. But he wasn’t just in the military. He was in an elite force, the best of the best. He was trained not to talk about his career. Ever. To do so, would have meant death or dismissal.
“Anna. Anna. ANNA!”
Secret Affair 24
Pepper’s sharp, impatient voice snapped her sister out of her thoughts. When her eyes cleared, it was Dallas’s cool greens that she met. She realized that she had been caught staring at him again.
“Stop your daydreaming for once,” Pepper said imperiously. “Didn’t you hear Cam
repeatedly asking you to pass the salad?”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Anna Marie handed the bowl to Cam who gave her an understanding
wink.
After dinner, Pepper served chocolate flan with caramel sauce. She was so pleased with her desert that she decided that she should at least make another effort at politeness to her brother-in-law.
“It’s too bad that you’ll only be in town for one night,” she said. “Where will you be staying?”
“He’s staying here, of course,” Cam said.
Pepper at first looked appalled, then tried to look pleased and welcoming. “Oh, how
nice.”
“No, I won’t be staying here,” Dallas said. “I’ve a room at the Hilton.”
“That’s totally unnecessary when we have plenty of room here, Dal,” Cam protested.
“I have to leave for the airport at six o’clock tomorrow morning. I don’t want to wake up your household and, plus, it would be much more convenient for me since I can catch a shuttle to the airport from there.”
Infinitely relieved, Pepper smiled brightly. “That’s too bad that you can’t stay longer, Dal. We could have taken you out on the town, such as go to San Francisco and walk the Golden Gate Bridge, and take you on a wine tour up here,” she said, totally forgetting that he grew up in the area.
Dallas’s eyes flickered to her. “Perhaps next time,” he said with faint irony. He looked at his watch. “I think I better get to my hotel since I’m going to have an early morning.
”
“I’ll drive you,” Cam said, getting out of his chair.
“No. That won’t be necessary. I’ll call for a cab.” He turned to Pepper. “That was an excellent dinner. One of the best I’ve had. Now, I see why you’re restaurants, show, and books are such successes. You are a very good and extremely talented chef.”
Secret Affair 25
His words took Pepper by surprise. The lavish compliment went a long way to mollify
her from the earlier unfavorable impression of him. He might be defective in normal social interchanges but he obviously knew how to be gracious. She smiled with apparent self-satisfaction and with all the egotism of a driven artist. “Yes, I know. I dare say you won’t find better prepared dishes for hundreds of miles, thousands, I should think.”
Gratefully, Anna Marie grabbed the opportunity that Dallas’s leaving provided to take hers. “I need to get home, too. I have a busy day at the library tomorrow.”
Pepper suggested, apparently completely unaware of any undercurrent tension between
them. “Why don’t you drive Dallas to his hotel on your way?”
Secret Affair 26
Chapter 3
With his face completely expressionless, Dallas watched Anna Marie as her face turned white, her eyes looking stark in their horror against the paleness.
“I’m not quite sure…” Anna Marie choked.
“That really isn’t necessary,” Dallas said smoothly. There was faint humorless light in his eyes when he saw relief sweeping across her face.
“Of course it is,” Pepper said dismissively. “It’s ridiculous of you to go through all that trouble and expense in calling a taxi when Anna here is perfectly capable of driving you.” Anna Marie opened her mouth then shut it again. There was really nothing she could do or say to get out of it, because her driving Cam’s brother to his hotel made perfect sense, and it would have been extremely ungracious and rude of her to force him to get a taxi.
“Alright,” she said faintly. Good heavens, she thought, with both of them lousy at small talk, what in the world were they going to say to each other?