by Joss Wood
Flick started to tuck her hair back, glared at his amused grin, and lifted her wineglass to her mouth. After another very healthy sip, she spoke again. “We were talking about your friend.”
“Reagan? Oh, she was tired and opted for bed.”
“Yours?” Flick asked, as forthright as ever. Kai liked forthright people. He liked the fact that if she wanted an answer, she asked the question.
Kai waited a beat before answering. “Reagan is like our little sister. She’s in my guest room, Green Eyes. She’s—”
He opened his mouth to tell her that she was Mike’s sister, but shook his head instead, dismayed. Just like he never discussed his mother and his childhood, he never spoke about Mike, even to Sawyer and Axl, who had been there. Like so many others, Mike was an off-limits subject. Besides, he couldn’t change the past, so what was the point in talking about it?
Kai straightened his back and pulled in a harsh breath. The fact that Flick had the ability to loosen his tongue was just another reason why he needed to stay the hell away from her. Except that he was having difficulty getting up and off his barstool to walk away.
When her friends come back, he lied to himself. It would be rude to leave her sitting on her own. Even if she grew up in this town and knew practically everyone in here and her brother was behind the bar . . . still rude.
Liar, liar, Mogadishu’s on fire, he mocked himself. You just don’t wanna go. Not just yet.
Flick’s low laugh brought him back from his internal monologue. “Well, that was a hell of a side trip. I was asking whether you liked my baking and you went on a mental hike.”
“Yeah, sorry.” Kai rubbed the back of his neck.
“Getting back to the subject, you’ve got to be fast when there’s a box of my cakes or pastries in the room. Haven’t you learned that yet? And it was your fault for leaving without your coffee or cupcakes the other day. Sawyer didn’t save you any of those either?” Flick asked, amused.
“No, Sawyer didn’t save me any,” Kai replied. “Though, to be fair, I probably wouldn’t have saved him any either.” He looked her in the eye. “So, how much of an idiot did you think I was for thinking that your dog was your boyfriend?”
Flick’s eyes bubbled with mischief as she waved her hand in the air. “Actually, it was sweet, you jumping to my defense. And three months ago, it was highly possible that I would’ve been talking about a boyfriend and not a dog.”
Flick stared at her wineglass and tapped her nail against the stem. The laughter faded from her eyes and her mouth and jaw tightened. Playtime was over. When she looked up at him, through long lashes, her expression was serious and a little sad. “I have terrible taste in men,” she reluctantly admitted.
What was he supposed to say to that? “Okay.”
“And dogs,” Flick added. “I will always pick the man or a dog who will give me the maximum amount of grief in the shortest time possible.”
Ah, not exactly subtle, Ms. Sturgiss. “And you think I’m that type of guy?”
“Aren’t you?” she challenged before waving her hands in the air. “Don’t answer that! It doesn’t matter what type of guy you are. I can’t go there.” She looked around to make sure that no one could overhear their conversation. “We need to get rid of the purple elephant in the room. We hooked up, as adults do. It can’t happen again. For me, that was a one-time thing.”
She pulled in a deep breath. “I’m trying not to make more mistakes with men, and if we did that again, I suspect that you would be a huge one. I live here, my business is here, my family. I’m no good at no-string affairs, and I do not want a relationship right now. But we seem to spark off each other, so I think it’s better if we just keep our distance.”
Hadn’t Kai just been telling himself the same thing? His sixth sense, the one that had kept him safe for so long in so many bad situations, was screaming that he run, that she could have the ability to turn his life upside down and inside out.
She was also Sawyer’s old friend, and there were connections, loyalties that made this complicated. If they slept together again and she got hurt because he couldn’t, wouldn’t, give her anything more than sex, he’d have a lot of people pissed at him. Pippa, Jack, Sawyer. He had enough on his plate with Sawyer and the business without adding the complication of sleeping with his quasi-sister. Just run, dude. Seriously. Safer, cleaner, wiser.
Flick tipped her head back to look at the ceiling. “I promised myself that I wouldn’t do anything stupid . . . man-wise, for a while.”
She wanted him, he could tell. Her eyes were on his mouth and had turned deeper and darker with what he recognized as flat-out lust. Her body was craving the same thing his was, and they both knew that if they found themselves alone they’d get naked faster than C-4 detonated. But he could also tell she was dedicated to what she was saying. Kai rubbed his jaw, watching the emotions—confusion, lust, passion, fear—flash in and out of her eyes.
Her next question came from out of the blue. “You’re ex-military, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So you studied military strategy, then?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t military strategists say that not every battle needs to be fought? That we don’t need to take part in every skirmish? It would be wiser to walk away from this crazy heat. For me, at least. I don’t want to complicate my life.”
Complicated was a word Kai avoided linking with a woman. Any woman. He twisted his lips and ran a hand through his hair. He just had to say yes, agree with her, because she was making sense. That would be the smart thing to do. So why was he having such a hard time getting his tongue to form the words? Kai was irritated with himself—he was not a wimpy schoolboy who had the confidence of a wet hen. He was bigger and better than that.
“You and I, not a good idea,” Flick reiterated, just in case he didn’t get it the first couple of times.
He chose the smallest word he could find to get his point across. “Okay.”
“So we un-complicate this by walking away.” Flick bit her bottom lip before holding out her hand. “Shake on it?”
Kai looked at her hand and kept his exactly where it was, around his beer bottle, so that he wouldn’t reach for her. “Consider it done.”
Flick’s breasts rose and fell on her sigh as she dropped her hand. “Okay. Good, glad that’s sorted.”
Golden eyes clashed with sea green and Kai saw the relief and the regret. Yeah, this was a good decision, he thought. Best decision ever.
A little more enthusiasm would be a good idea, Manning.
Kai looked up, relieved to see Sawyer stomping his way over to them, an annoyed frown on his face. That could only mean one thing, and Kai had to grin. “She whipped you?”
“She beat me by a shot,” Sawyer said between gritted teeth. Kai couldn’t help his rough laughter at seeing his calm, easygoing friend so thoroughly pissed off.
Sawyer lifted an eyebrow. “Think you can do better, dipshit?”
With his hands tied behind his back. “I can, actually, play pool.” Kai placed his bottle on the counter and stood up. “What’s the bet?”
Because it wasn’t any fun unless there was a wager, something to lose, a hill to climb, a position to be won. “If you win, I’ll stop pressuring you to make a decision about buying the property. If you lose to her then you get into the ring with McDougal; no rules, no protective equipment, just balls to the wall.”
Kai held Sawyer’s eye but didn’t blink or give any other indication of his surprise. That was a hell of a bet. If he lost he’d end up bloody and blue—McDougal was a master at various forms of martial arts, and a genius at hand-to-hand fighting. He and Sawyer, no slouches themselves, regularly got their asses whipped in training by the intense Scot.
But there was no chance of him losing. Kai had been playing pool all his life, and he’d taking on opponent
s a lot better, and scarier, than Pippa. He looked toward the room where the pint-sized fairy stood next to the pool table, watching them.
Really, how good could she be? And how could he lose?
“She’s pretty good, Kai,” Flick said, her face serious. “Don’t take the bet.”
Kai shrugged, bent over, and brushed his mouth against her ear. “She doesn’t worry me.” He pulled back and didn’t speak the words on the tip of his tongue.
You, on the other hand, scare the shit out of me.
Chapter Seven
SawyersFutureWife: Sawyer, o Sawyer, where for art thou Sawyer? And when are you coming back?
AmysBooks: Okay, you really don’t understand that iconic scene. Juliet is not asking where Romeo is, she is asking why he has to be Romeo, a Montague, a member of that family, the Capulets’ arch enemies. It’s a common mistake . . .
SawyersFutureWife: Bite me.
***
With Sawyer gone, Kai’s office, which was usually seldom used, had basically become Grand Central Station. As he learned that first Monday in the hot seat, there wasn’t much that happened at Caswallawn that Sawyer didn’t have a hand in. So Kai approved a stack of requisitions, agreed that flowers should be sent to a client’s wife—he was a Brazilian billionaire who employed six of their PPOs—because she’d just produced his sixth son, and took a call from another client wondering if he needed protection to go to Kashmir. And, hell yeah, he did. Kai signed off on the payroll, looked over the staff schedules, and in between the interruptions, tried to look over the three-day training schedule for the group of corporate civilians who were arriving tomorrow for their team-building session.
Sawyer had decided that the sales team from Philadelphia—two women and six men—would spend the first morning on their state-of-the-art paintball course, break for lunch, and then have two hours of survival training. All under his supervision.
Oh, bliss. What joy.
Kai picked up his telephone and dialed the extension for Sawyer’s PA. When Jenny finally answered, he asked her to check on the lunch arrangements and whether their clients needed transport from their hotel to Caswallawn.
“Sawyer usually writes all of that down at the end of the schedule,” Jenny told him. Kai flipped over a page and squinted at Sawyer’s scrawl.
“It looks like they’re finding their own way here, but it doesn’t say anything about lunch,” Kai told her.
“I’ll find out,” Jenny told him. “Oh, and Reagan’s on her way to see you.”
As he replaced the handset on its cradle, Reagan rapped on the open door and half leaned into his office. “Hey! Have you got a minute?”
“No, not really but come on in,” Kai told her, leaning back in his chair and linking his hands behind his head.
“How are you enjoying being the boss?” Reagan asked, taking a seat in the only other chair in the room. Before he could answer her cell phone rang and, after looking at the display, she flashed him an apologetic smile. “It’s Axl.”
“Take it,” Kai said. Reagan placed a white box on the corner of his desk before answering her call.
He’d been the boss for three hours and he wasn’t enjoying any of it, Kai thought as she talked to Axl. He’d held rank in his military unit and had been happy to take command, to issue orders, to take responsibility—but that was in the hot zone, where adrenaline was pumping and lives were at stake. This was just boring. But until Sawyer was back and Kai left to join Mark in Aberdeen, this was what he’d have to do. He couldn’t change it, so there was no point moaning about it. When Kai came back to Mercy, he was usually able to distance himself from the day-to-day problems and irritations of Cas since Sawyer was so damn efficient. But now those problems and irritations were all his. He was very aware that he didn’t have Sawyer’s patience and charm, so he hoped that the staff and their clients would keep the drama to the minimum.
So what that he didn’t want to be here, doing this? He would because Sawyer asked him to. And he’d do it to the best of his ability; besides, he’d never run from a challenge in his life. He never gave up and he never gave in. He faced life, and every shitty thing it threw at him, back straight and chin lifted. His friend needed his help, so there was never any other choice than to step up and offer a hand.
He’d be nice to the clients, decisive with the staff, and he’d keep his distance from the woman with the eyes of a mermaid. He was still trying to forget what they did, how her eyes changed color with passion, her scent, the feel of her soft skin under his hard hands. Her husky laugh, the funny noise she made in her throat when she was turned on, the way she felt when he slid into her.
It was a one-time thing, Manning. We agreed on that. Right. Good. All he needed to do was what Sawyer had asked of him, and then he could leave Mercy.
Reagan ended her call and pushed the box closer to him. “That was Axl being the usual pain in my butt. I brought you a present.”
Kai leaned forward, dropped his hands, and smiled when he noticed the Artsy Tartsy logo. He flipped open the lid of the box and his mouth watered at the glossy swirls of caramel frosting of top of the chocolate cupcakes. He didn’t have many weaknesses—hell, weakness was not part of his vocabulary—but if he had to admit to one, then it was his obsession with sugar, specifically chocolate. Maybe it was because sweets and chocolate had been harder to come by on the streets—and later, in the system—than moon dust. His mother had liked to prioritize the little money they infrequently had; hard drugs and booze were higher up the list than say, food and rent. Filling his belly was a hope rather than an expectation, and sweets were a rarity.
He picked up one cupcake, pulled back the paper, and bit down, groaning when the sweet hit of sugar and cocoa spread across his tongue. “You are most definitely my favorite employee.”
Reagan grinned. “I walked down this morning. I saw that woman again—Flick? And I met her partner.”
“Pippa?”
“Mmm.”Reagan frowned. “Oh, and while I was there, some kid was asking directions to Cas.”
“Here? A kid? How old?”
“Seventeen, eighteen? Before I could ask her why she was asking, Flick gave her directions and she bolted. Have you seen her yet?” Reagan asked.
“Nope, and I probably won’t. She probably just wants some information for her boyfriend or brother on how they can sign up for one of our courses,” Kai replied, fast losing interest. There were, after all, cupcakes to be eaten. He was about to reach for the last one when Reagan swiped it from under his hand.
He protested, but Reagan looked thoroughly unrepentant. With that mischievous expression on her face, she looked like the young girl they’d all met when she was sixteen. She was Mike’s bratty sister and she’d had a crush on all three of his closest friends at one time or another. First Sawyer, then him, then Axl.
She’d grown up and grown out of all that nonsense when Mike had been killed on that disastrous mission to Somalia shortly before her twentieth birthday. She’d adored her brother. He was her hero—he was a hero to all of them—and she’d wanted to keep her connection to him through his best friends.
Axl had freaked when she’d signed on for one of the first personal protection courses they held. She’d been a natural, but Axl had still had kittens when Kai and Sawyer decided to employ Reagan as their first, and still their best, female bodyguard. He still bitched about her assignments and was meticulous in checking up on her. It drove Reagan nuts.
Neither he nor Sawyer were brave enough to point out to their partner that they had ten other female PPOs and Axl didn’t check up on any of them. At all. No, they rather liked their heads where they were, on top of their shoulders. None of them were Boy Scouts, but Axl could be a scary dude.
“So, Sawyer tells me you’re going to buy this building,” Reagan said, her eyebrows lifted.
Kai waited for the itch, and there it was,
not as hot and bright as it had been, but there nonetheless. “We’re still thinking about it.”
“You’re still thinking about it. Sawyer and Axl would’ve put the offer in already if they had their way.” Reagan finished her cupcake, crossed her legs, and linked her hands around her knees. “So, I’ve heard rumors that you boys have opened up another division within Cas, doing kidnapping and ransom response consulting.”
Kai frowned. That information was supposed to be just between the three of them. And they hadn’t just started up a new division—he, Axl, and Sawyer had been running missions to rescue kidnapped targets since they’d started the business, with Axl overseeing teams of kidnapping negotiators and investigators based in South America and Europe. As well as being a Special Ops ninja, Axl had wicked intelligence and computer hacking skills, and somehow, God knew how, always managed to quickly and accurately identify the kidnappers and the whys, hows, and, most important, whereabouts of the hostage.
In special circumstances, if the hostage was in danger and if the family approved the mission, then he, Sawyer, and Axl went in and carried out a snatch-and-grab and brought the hostage home. Clients ranged from the families of oil billionaires and South American soccer stars to governments who publicly maintained that they weren’t prepared to negotiate with terrorists but who occasionally availed themselves of their services to rescue their people held behind enemy lines. Again, and sadly, they had more work than they could cope with.
Kai leaned forward, his expression all business. “How did you hear that?”
Reagan tipped her head. “Is it true?”
“Fess up, Reags.”
“Before I got booted as Sir Perry’s PPO, thanks to his jealous new wife who didn’t like the fact that I guarded her new husband’s body, I heard that one of his billionaire Russian cronies—Sir P’s in oil, you know—had a son who was kidnapped. They employed an expert in kidnapping and recovery to negotiate with the kidnappers. Soon afterward the son was rescued, somewhere in Ukraine, in what sounded like a Black Ops mission, hours before the money drop was supposed to happen.”