by Anne Calhoun
Or last night with Sean.
She yanked her skirt up and fastened it, then hurried into her bra and blouse. Okay. Shoes, skirt, underwear top and bottom, shirt. Purse. She found that on the coffee table, dug her cell phone from the interior pocket, and checked it. Two messages from her dad. “Shit,” she said as she jammed her aching feet into the heels and bolted for the front door, searching her purse for her car keys as she moved.
Her mind registered the beautiful fall morning as she dashed down the driveway to the street, where her car was parked. Brilliant sunlight, a nice cool tinge to the air, a gentle breeze in the yellow leaves just beginning to turn. That’s why her sleep haze was tinged with gold. The bedroom faced the backyard, and two enormous golden maples rose skyward behind the house. Regret stabbed her as last year’s daytime possibilities flashed into her mind. A late brunch, sharing the paper, a walk in the park, a picnic, a movie, all in this light, this amazing light.
She unlocked her car, tossed her purse on the passenger seat, jammed the key in the ignition, and turned it.
Nothing. Not even the horrible rough growl the car had made off and on for the past couple of weeks. She checked her headlights and the overhead light. Both were off. “Please,” she said to the car. “Please, please, please start. I don’t have time for you to act up today. Okay? Thanks.”
Another turn of the key generated the same single click. “Not today. Not here,” she said warningly, but the engine ignored her and the key.
A knock on the driver’s side window made her jump. It was Sean, dressed in last night’s cargo pants and a gray long-sleeved T-shirt that said USMC on it. “It’s the alternator or the battery,” he said without preamble. “Pop the hood release and come on out of there.”
She obediently pulled the lever that would release the hood and got out of the car. He’d sandwiched the fried eggs between the two slices of toast, and still held the glass of OJ. “Eat.”
She took the glass and the sandwich from him and bit into it while he reversed his car into the street and parked it nose to nose with hers. He extracted jumper cables from the trunk, popped his hood, and met her where the noses sat just inches apart.
“How old is this battery?” he asked with a nod at her car.
She shrugged. “Came with the car, I guess,” she said around a mouthful of egg sandwich. She should know that. A grown-up would know her car’s maintenance schedule, or at least have it written down in the glove box. He’d peppered the hell out of the eggs, just the way she liked them, and the toast was saturated with butter.
He rubbed at the nodes on top of the battery. “The terminals are corroded. Whatever else is wrong with the car, you need a new battery.”
“Okay,” she said. She could use a second egg sandwich, too. One cheese stick at four p.m. didn’t get a woman through twelve hours of work and sex.
Sean leaned over her car, a red claw-shaped thing in each hand. “Wait a minute,” she said, and inelegantly wiped the sandwich grease on her bare thigh. “Don’t just do it for me. Show me how.”
Eyebrows up, he handed her the red claws. “Red is positive on most cables and batteries, but always check to be sure. Positive to positive on the dead car.” He pointed at the post with the + sign on her car, and she awkwardly attached the red claw to it. Then he turned to his car. “Positive to positive on the live car,” he said, and watched while she did it. “Good. The other color is negative. Negative to negative on the good car.” She attached that claw more competently. “The second negative goes to clean, unpainted metal on the dead car. Never to the battery, or it might explode when you start the car.” She looked over her engine block, which was pretty grungy, but eventually found a shiny bolt toward the windshield and clamped the last claw down.
“Positive to positive on the dead car, then on the live car. Negative to negative on the live car, then to bare metal on the dead car,” she recited.
He nodded.
“Then what?”
“Then I start my car.” He leaned through the passenger window and turned the key. The car started immediately. “Give it a minute to charge,” he said when she turned for her car.
She looked at her cell phone. Dad hadn’t called back yet, so he’d gone back to bed or he was struggling with the breathing treatment machine himself. Either way, he’d be in a bad mood when she got home.
“What class do you have today?” Sean asked neutrally.
“Microbiology,” she said, but offered nothing else. She planned to enter the accelerated degree program at the University of Texas Medical Branch’s nursing school, but she needed a year’s worth of prerequisites, including statistics, developmental psychology, an ethics course, and three kinds of chemistry, all with labs. She was trying for a scholarship because she was up to her cheeky-pantied ass in student loan debt already. She couldn’t afford to miss one class.
“When are you supposed to be there?”
“Ten minutes from now,” she said.
He looked at his watch. “Give it a try.”
She slid into the Celica and turned the key. A whir, then the engine turned over. “Yes,” she breathed, and got back out of the car.
“Reverse the order to disconnect the cables,” Sean said.
She gingerly reached out and disconnected the ground, then negative live, positive live, then positive dead-now-live. Sean closed each hood with a sharp clang. “It could be your alternator. I assume that’s original to the car, too, but based on the corrosion, you need a new battery. Get one, and see if that fixes the problem.”
“Today,” she said. “Right after class.”
There were wants, and then there were needs. Sean was a want. A new battery was a need, and she and her dad still had money for bare-bones needs. Her problem was the time necessary to get the battery installed. She was behind on her reading, and she needed extra sessions in the lab. She was a B+/A− student if she worked really, really hard, and it had taken every single second of her spare time to earn a B in a blitzkrieg course of Organic Chemistry over the summer.
She looked up at the man who graduated first in his class from the Naval Academy, then spent two years in England at Oxford University. “Do you know where to go to get a battery?” he asked gently.
“Sears,” she said firmly, and offered him the jumper cables. “Thank you.”
“Keep them,” he said. “If it’s the alternator you’re going to need them again, maybe later today, maybe in a couple of days.”
“I don’t even know what the alternator does, and I don’t have time to find out,” she said, but she wasn’t too proud to refuse the jumper cables. “I’ll get these back to you.”
“I assumed I’d see you again tonight.”
Longing shimmered inside her. It should be easier than this, blowing him off, using him for physical release, nothing more, but after last night, her body remembered exactly why she fell under Sean Winthrop’s spell at the snap of his fingers. It was better, even. Before he deployed he could have passed for a desk jockey with a crew cut, but a year of leading men in combat polished off the academic gloss and unearthed the air of command and masculine confidence she’d seen flashing under his surface, like a fish in the depths of a lake, steel glinting in the right light. Now masculine confidence draped over him with the ease of finely made chain mail armor. She remembered the rough texture in his voice when he told her to strip for him, and lightning splintered deep between her thighs.
“I’ll let you know,” she said as she got in her car and shut the door.
He bent down and folded his arms on her open window. “My work wasn’t up to your standards?” he asked. The words were mild, if she ignored the edge to his tone. “I can do better. I’m a quick learner.”
What was she supposed to say? Make it less hot? Make it less emotional? “It’s not about standards. I’m busy,” she said. “Some nights I want an extra hour of sleep more than I want sex. Are you working that odd-hours job when I get off work?”
�
��I’m home by then.”
“Then I’ll come by if I feel like it.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw, and his eyes were flat, assessing. Then he leaned in and gave her a quick kiss, nothing sexy or erotic to it, just the kind of quick, possessive good-bye kiss a man gave the woman in his life when they parted ways.
“Bye, Abby.”
She shifted into drive and pulled away from his house. She didn’t regret the sex, but she really regretted that kiss.
Forget about him. Take care of Dad, then get to class late. Better late than never. She pulled into the driveway and hurried up the steps into the house. “Hello?” she called.
The sound of a morning talk show, the kind of superficial crap her father had once despised, led her to him. He was in the kitchen, seated at the table, the nebulizer that delivered his medication in front of him. He didn’t look up as she set her purse on the table. “Let me do that, Dad,” she said quietly.
He wheezed through a couple of breaths while she connected the tubing to the nebulizer and the compressor. “Where were you?”
“I went out with a friend after work,” she extemporized.
“The same friend you were with last week?” he said.
She measured out each medication, carefully studying the prescription information from the pharmacy, and used concentrating to avoid answering his question. Because that answer was no.
“You’re going to be late for class.” Now the words were accusatory.
She offered him the breath mask. “I know.” She eyed the nebulizer but couldn’t take the time to clean it now. She’d do it when she got home, right before his night treatment. She ran upstairs for a two-minute shower, then clipped her hair back in a barrette at the nape of her neck. Cool air against her skin triggered the memory of Sean’s hot, sure mouth working over the same spot. She brushed it aside and hurried back downstairs.
“The lawn’s looking ragged,” her father said.
“It will have to wait until the weekend,” she said. “I’m working every night this week.”
“It’ll be too long by Saturday. You’ll have to bag it.”
She shoved her books in her backpack with a little more force than necessary. The lawn was her father’s pride and joy, meticulously seeded, fertilized, weeded, mowed, and edged. She could not possibly care less about the lawn, especially when prioritized with school, work, cleaning, and cooking. “I know, Dad,” she said, then bent over and kissed his cheek. “I’ll see you this afternoon. Go for a walk, okay?”
He grunted in response, and she took the sunny-side up view that maybe he would go for a walk. His breathing was a little easier, a little less congested today. At least he’d answered. Her car started with only the slightest hesitation. As long as it got her to class, she’d deal with it later. It was much the same strategy she was using with Sean…take advantage of him now, deal with the emotional consequences later.
Except it never worked.
Chapter Four
Sean pulled into Langley Security’s parking lot shortly after ten a.m. and parked the Mustang next to Ty’s big red pickup truck. He strode through the unoccupied reception area, into John’s generously sized two-room office. Ty leaned against a credenza at the back of the room. While John maintained the grooming standards, with his hair cropped close to his head and his jaw cleanly shaven, Ty’s blond hair hung nearly to his jaw.
“Get a haircut, hippie,” Sean tossed at him as he strode into the room. He’d thought about how to act around Ty, and the obvious answer was to pretend nothing happened and continue with the lame jokes about his hair. Ignore the ménage, Ty’s emotional meltdown afterward, all of it.
“Fuck you.” Ty threw back as he skimmed both hands over his hair to get it out of his face.
“Halloween’s over. You don’t have to pretend to be that pretty boy from Lost anymore.”
That got an amused grunt from John as he looked from Sean to Ty and back again, assessing the mood, the temperature in the room. Sean poured himself a cup of coffee, as much to have something to do with his hands as the need for caffeine, and said in a quieter voice, “Did you talk to her yet?”
Without looking at him, Ty gave him a single head shake, the movement discouraging further inquiry. Sean left it at that. Just because he’d gotten up Sunday morning with the gut-certainty that he wanted Abby back and developed a plan that would deploy every resource at his disposal to get her before he reported for duty didn’t mean Ty would take the same approach. Ty worked out of Galveston, the same city where Lauren lived and worked. He didn’t face the same pressures Sean did. Sean had less than a month to get back in Abby’s good graces, and he knew what he wanted. Ty needed time and space to think things through.
The team ran through the report from yesterday’s activity, adding notes detailing Richards’s sudden departure and trip to his house. Everyone signed the logs, then they divvied up the day’s surveillance shifts and duties.
“Stay alert,” Ty said, looking around the room and nailing each of the operatives with a glance. “Learn from my mistake. Never get distracted. Never let your guard down.”
Everyone’s spine straightened a little, and Sean covertly studied Ty out of the corner of his eye. Employees, team members, Marines, whatever you called them, they listened to Ty. There was just something about him. If he’d stayed in the Corps he would have made gunny for sure, maybe even gone through OCS and made the jump from enlisted to officer. Sean could see Langley Security’s leadership team coming together—John for the business side, the marketing and sales, the accounting, Ty for the personnel expertise. Between the two of them they could put together the strategy and tactics, if Ty made the commitment to the company.
Keeping Abby’s hectic schedule in mind, Sean took a later shift that would follow one of the principal suspects through his evening routine. “You make that appointment?” he asked Ty as the group split up.
“Wednesday afternoon,” Ty said. “John’s going with me.”
“Good.”
Next he drove to Sears and picked up the right battery for Abby’s Celica, then drove to the campus. Online he’d found the location for microbiology classes and the nearest parking lot. Finding Abby’s car was simply a matter of driving up and down the rows until he found the little red car, parked in the corner of the lot, under a tree. A rectangle of faded paint sat dead center on the back bumper. What the hell had she done to the paint? Backed it into a sponge covered in paint thinner?
He had a case of socket wrenches in the back of his car. Three minutes with a clothes hanger and he had the driver’s door open and the hood popped. Fifteen minutes, total, and Abby had a new battery. He closed the hood, relocked the door, and drove home, where several boxes of books from an online retailer waited on the front steps. He carried them inside, opened all the boxes, and stacked the books on the coffee table according to subject.
Stack the immediate: industrial espionage research, specifically the pharmaceutical industry.
Stack the future: Virginia and Washington, D.C., guidebooks, Civil War histories, memoirs, and relevant public transportation maps. Quantico was home to the Marine Corps Combat Development Command, where he’d apply what he’d learned in combat to strategies for the future. He’d never lived there, and the possibilities in a two-hundred-mile radius for history and culture were nearly endless.
Stack the potent: love poetry. The Persian mystic Rumi, anthologies of history’s greatest love poems, and Shakespeare’s sonnets.
Glass of tea in hand, he took the most recent espionage book and the sonnets to the back porch, and sat down to read until it was time to go to the business park. He was two hundred pages into the industrial espionage book and taking a break to wrestle with the structure of the sonnet when the side gate to the backyard opened, and Abby walked through it.
“Hey,” he exclaimed, surprised by her sudden appearance. He shoved the book of sonnets under the hardcover. “What are you doing here?”
“R
eturning your jumper cables,” she said, and held them out. He accepted them, watching her face, trying to make eye contact, but she transferred her attention to her purse. “How much do I owe you for the battery?”
“Excuse me?” he bluffed.
“You replaced my battery,” she said as she came up with a black leather checkbook cover, transferred it to her left hand, and began to dig through the shapeless brown bag again. “Unless someone else replaced it while I was in microbiology class. I took statistics last semester, so I can calculate the odds of some random stranger replacing my battery on the very day I discovered it was dying. The odds, if you’re interested, are vanishingly small. How did you get under the hood?”
“I broke into your car,” he said, giving up on all pretenses. She wore dark jeans that clung to her lean hips and legs, and what appeared to be three tank tops, layered over each other, in complementary shades of blue and green. It was the first time he’d seen her in broad daylight in over a year, and the sight made his heart skitter wildly in his chest. The shorter haircut left her neck and shoulders bare, and the sunlight filtering through the big maple trees dappled her freckled skin with fall gold.
She came up with a pen, opened the checkbook on the railing, and said, “That’s what I figured. How much do I owe you?”
He told her. “How did you know?”
“It started slowly when I left my house this morning, just like it did last night, but when I got in it after class, it started right up, like someone goosed it. Varrooooom,” she said as she tore the check out of her checkbook, then flipped to the register to make the notation. “Thank you.”
He accepted the check when she held it out, then folded it and put it in his wallet. “Abby, are you going to look at me once during this conversation?”
“I hadn’t planned on it,” she said, and turned to leave the way she came.