by Sybil Bartel
“Thanks.” It was what it was.
“Well, brother,” Luna said with meaning. “I can’t wait to work with you.”
He couldn’t see me, but I fucking nodded. “I appreciate it.”
“Feeling’s mutual, amigo. I got more business than I can handle, so you’ll be doing me a favor. I can’t wait to work with you again.” He half laughed. “But let’s hope it’s minus the long-range targets.”
André Luna was the best sniper I’d ever fucking met. It’d been an honor to be his spotter for two tours. “Hope?” His new business was personal security, and he was located in Miami. “What kind of clients are you protecting?”
This time he laughed in earnest. “All kinds, amigo, all kinds.”
Fucking great. “Can’t wait.”
“Copy that. I gotta run. See you in three months.”
“It’s a date,” I joked.
Luna sobered. “Stay safe, mi hermano.”
“Roger that.” I hung up and stared at the piece of shit hotel, wondering what the fuck I was doing.
I should’ve been at the hospital with my mom, but she didn’t recognize me anymore. Fucking dementia. Sixty years old and she didn’t know her own name, let alone that she had a son. Tomorrow she was being transferred back to her nursing home, but to a new wing where they could keep a closer eye on her and rehab her broken arm and collarbone.
I still wasn’t sure how she’d broken them. The staff at her nursing home wasn’t sure either. They’d found her in a bush on the grounds five days ago, unconscious. The fucking event had triggered a call to me, and twenty-seven hours of flights and a pissed off CO later, here I was. Supposedly to clean up the mess, but there was nothing I could do. Mom didn’t know who the hell I was, she didn’t know what had happened to her, and all she wanted was chocolate pudding and her TV tuned to a damn game show.
So I was fucking sitting outside some chick’s motel, trying to talk myself out of knocking on her door.
I had hours before I had to fly back out. I should’ve been fucking, eating a decent meal or sleeping.
But I wasn’t.
I was stewing over a black Mustang with stolen plates and a hot mess of a chick with bruises and trust issues so deep, she was un-fucking-savable.
Screw it.
I pulled the key out of the ignition of my Ford Raptor and stepped out just as the door to her room opened and she came out.
Wearing a backpack, she maneuvered the bike out then carried it down the stairs.
I got back in the truck.
She hit the bottom of the steps, but she didn’t get on her bike. She headed toward the office. Propping her bike outside, she walked in and thirty seconds later she walked back out and got on her bike.
I waited to see which direction she headed, then on a hunch, I got out of my truck and jogged toward the office.
An old man behind the counter greeted me when I walked in. “Welcome to Sea Court. Need a room?”
“No, sir.” I shook my head. “I want to leave a message for the woman in 2B.”
His smile was tired. “Well, you just missed her. She checked out. Sad to see her go. She was a good egg.”
“Thanks.” I was out the door and jogging back to my truck as I scanned the direction she’d gone.
A few minutes later, I caught a glimpse of her as she turned off the main road the hotel was on. I gunned it through a yellow light and drove ahead of her. Cranking the steering wheel, I pulled a few yards in front of her, cutting her off.
She stopped short, and the anger on her face turned to shock when I got out of my truck.
“You could’ve hit me,” she accused.
“Never would’ve happened.” I walked around the truck and reached for her bike. “Come on, you’re coming with me.”
She looked at me like I was crazy. “No, I’m not.”
“You checked out of the hotel, you’re lying about your name, and you don’t seem to have anything except the sack on your back and this bike.” I leveled her with a look. “I’m taking you to dinner. It won’t kill you.”
She looked perplexed for half a second then blurted, “It’s four o’clock.”
I was totally fucking aware of what time it was and how few hours I had left in the States. “I’m hungry, and you’re coming with me.”
“I’m not going to dinner with you,” she protested, but there was zero force behind her tone.
“You got somewhere better to be?” I challenged.
When she didn’t say anything, I urged her off the bike. “Come on. Free food.”
She swung a leg over, and I lifted her old-as-fuck ten speed into the bed of my truck, then I opened the passenger door for her.
She hesitated. “You’re a friend of Dax’s?”
For a second I wasn’t sure why she was asking. She liked Dax? She trusted Dax? A friend of his was a friend of hers? She didn’t trust me? I settled on trust. She was skittish as hell, and I figured she needed reassurance, so I pulled my cell out of my pocket and held it out. “Call him. Let him know you’re with me.”
She eyed the phone. “What’s that gonna do?”
Jesus. “It’s going to alert someone to your whereabouts.”
She didn’t take the phone. “I don’t know where you want to take me.”
In truth, I didn’t give a fuck where I took her, because I didn’t want to just take her for food. I wanted to fuck her. I wanted to spend hours getting personal with her smooth skin and sinking my hands in her hair. I wanted to figure out exactly where my tongue on her body would net me a moan that would break that locked expression she wore. And if I was being totally fucking honest, I’d admit I felt responsible for her. I shouldn’t, and there was probably a host of psychological bullshit behind the why of it, but I wasn’t gonna analyze shit right now. I was home for mere hours, and I didn’t give a fuck where I took her, as long as it wasn’t back to that shit motel.
I gave her a choice. “Do you want to go out to eat or eat at my place?”
She glanced down at her clothes.
Her gesture and the reason behind it hit harder than seeing my mom in the hospital. “You like burgers?” I tucked my cell back in my pocket.
She shrugged.
“What’s your favorite food?”
“What’s yours?” she countered.
“Anything not an MRE.” I didn’t give a fuck what I ate at this point, anything would taste better than what I’d been eating downrange.
Looking across the street, she didn’t respond.
I followed her gaze, but there wasn’t shit except an old strip mall and some rundown apartment complexes. A black Mustang with stolen plates was nowhere in sight. “Come on, get in the truck. I promise you’re safe with me.”
Inhaling, looking around one more time, she got in.
I closed her door and rounded the front of the vehicle before sliding behind the wheel. Pulling out into traffic, I tried to remember the last time I was on a date. The fact that I couldn’t was either fucking pathetic or a direct reflection on the women I’d chosen to spend time with. Probably both.
I took the corner and remembered there was a decent Italian place near the hamburger joint. “You like Italian over burgers?”
Studiously staring out the window, she shrugged again. “I don’t care.”
I fucking cared. She looked like she could use more than a few decent meals, and I wanted her to eat what she fucking wanted. “This a problem for you? Saying what you like?”
“I like being in air conditioning.”
No shit. “Me too.” Miami was hot, but it was fucking child’s play compared to Afghanistan in the summer.
“You don’t look like you need to worry about air conditioning.”
She didn’t say it with attitude, but my shoulders still stiffened defensively. “I don’t in Miami. Afghanistan is another story.”
Her gaze cut to me before she quickly looked away. “Is that where you came from?”
“Yeah.” I paused, wondering h
ow much to tell her. Fuck it. It’s not like I had shit to lose with her. “And that’s where I’m going back to.”
“When?”
Tomorrow. “Soon.”
“You’re deployed?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“But you’re in Miami.”
“To see my mom.”
This time she didn’t try to hide the fact she was looking at me. “I don’t understand. The military lets you come home from deployment to see your mom?”
“They do when it’s your only living relative and she lands herself unconscious in the hospital.” And you ask your CO for the favor of a lifetime.
“I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. She’ll recover from her fall, and the late stage Alzheimer’s I’ve had years to come to terms with.”
“Oh.” No intonation, her response was almost too noncommittal.
I let it go. “So burgers or Italian.”
She shrugged noncommittally. “Since you have to go back to Afghanistan, where do you want to eat?”
One hand on the steering wheel, I rubbed my hand over my chin. I needed a shave. “Honestly?”
“Is there any other way to be?”
I refrained from smirking. “I don’t think you want to ask me that question, Brookelyn.”
She shifted in her seat when I said her name.
I read between the lines. “You don’t like being called Brookelyn?”
“It’s my name,” she clipped.
Sure it was. “Collins isn’t my first name.”
“Is that what I’m supposed to call you?”
If I was being honest, I’d never had this bizarre of a conversation with a chick before. I picked up women in bars, usually Dax’s bar when I was on leave, and then we fucked and I went on my way. Stupid flirting, sex talk, empty promises about hooking up again, all of that I’d encountered. But nicknames and food choices and shit about honesty? This was fucking new. “Garrett is my first name. Garrett or Collins, take your pick.”
“I like Garrett.”
“Was that so hard?”
She kept her gaze glued to the window. “Was what hard?”
I glanced at her and smiled. “Telling me what you like.”
OUT OF THE CORNER OF my eye, I saw his smile, and I didn’t know what to make of him. I was still in shock he’d come looking for me.
He was bossy and alpha, but he was also kind of sweet. Except he wasn’t trying to hit on me, at all, which made me wonder what he was doing. Why follow me, why find out I’d checked out of the motel, why ask me to dinner, why do any of it if he wasn’t going to try to get me into bed?
Not that I was questioning his lack of flirtation.
I knew what I looked like, and it purposely wasn’t good.
But he looked good. Way more than good. He was the type of man who turned heads. Not because he was model beautiful, or even traditionally handsome. He was over six feet of muscled ruggedness with a calm, reserved manner of speaking that made you want to get closer. And when he’d smiled just now, even though I didn’t see it in full, it made my stomach do something it hadn’t done in a long, long time.
“So Italian or burgers or option three?”
I wondered what option three was. I wasn’t dressed to go to a restaurant, but pasta sounded pretty damn good. Heck, any hot meal sounded good. I’d been living on peanut butter and bread.
He glanced at me. “You’re taking too long to answer.”
I was scanning the streets for any sign of Nathan, but I didn’t see him or a black Mustang. I’d taken a roundabout route to the motel from the bar, and the owner of the hotel had said no one had come asking for me. Nathan had bolted when he’d heard Dax call out to me at the bar, so maybe, despite his warning he’d be back, he really was gone.
I focused back on Garrett’s question. “Pasta, but for comparison’s sake, what was option three?” Maybe I could just have a meal with this Marine. One meal, one evening of escape, then I’d be on my way.
Garrett’s smile came back. “Takeout, my place, cold beers and a large-screen TV with the game on.”
That sounded like the most normal thing ever, but I didn’t know normal. “What game?” I’d never spent an evening with a guy watching sports. I didn’t even know what sport he was referring to.
“Baseball.” He grinned. “America’s favorite pastime.”
I almost had the urge to smile. “Sounds like it’s your favorite pastime.”
Low and masculine, he chuckled. “Definitely not my favorite.” He winked at me. “But it’ll do in a pinch.”
I felt the heat hit my cheeks at his insinuation, and I cleared my throat. “Who’s your favorite team?”
“Don’t have one,” he admitted.
“That seems kind of un-American.” I meant it as a joke, but the second the words left my mouth I realized how stupid I was. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.” He served in the Marines. You couldn’t get much more patriotic. “I didn’t mean to insult you, or your… career.”
He nodded once as he pulled into the parking lot of a fancy-looking Italian restaurant. “No offense taken.”
I glanced down at my rumpled flannel shirt and my jeans with rips in the knees. “I’m not really dressed for this.” And my bike was in the back of his truck, where anyone walking by could just take it. Not that it was worth taking, I’d gotten it at a secondhand store, but it was all the transportation I had.
He cut the engine and looked at me with his golden-brown eyes. “Trust me?”
I thought about it. “You’ve probably been trained how to kill a man at least a dozen ways, you followed me to my hotel, found out I checked out, then you almost ran me over in the street.” I glanced at my hand, which was shockingly not hurting that bad. “Despite fixing my hand up with some fancy first aid, I really have no reason to trust you.” But as incomprehensible as it seemed, I trusted him… as much as I could trust anyone.
For a second, he didn’t respond.
Then a wry smile spread across his face as he leaned his head back in his seat and rubbed a hand over his face. “Okay, fair point.” He looked at me, and his expression turned deadly serious. “Straight up, no bullshit?”
My breath caught when he focused all his attention on me, but I managed to nod.
“I know someone pulled that shelf down at Dax’s and it wasn’t you. I know the black Mustang had stolen plates. Dax and I both know your name isn’t Brookelyn and you gave him a fake social when you started working for him.”
My heart rate slammed into overdrive, and I regretted my impulsive decision to get in his truck. No defense, I didn’t say a word.
“Personally?” He raised one eyebrow. “It’s not my bar. I don’t give a shit about the fake social security number. But what I do give a shit about is a woman who looks like she’s running scared.” He held my gaze. “That I can do something about.” He paused. “But you need to level with me.”
My heart racing, my hands suddenly sweating, I fought a full-blown panic attack. “I’m not running.” I’d already run. It didn’t work, and now I was sitting in a stranger’s truck.
“I have a friend who owns a personal security firm.”
So did Dax. He’d dropped enough hints about it when I first started working for him. Then a week later, a smiling, attractive Cuban guy had come into the bar, and Dax had introduced him as André Luna. He’d pointedly said he was the guy he’d told me about who specialized in personal protection.
I’d been so freaked out, I’d hightailed it back to the stockroom. I don’t even think I muttered an excuse. When I’d clocked out an hour later, the man was gone, and Dax never mentioned it again.
I wasn’t sure if Garrett was referring to the same guy, but it didn’t matter. No one could help me. “I don’t need personal protection.” Nothing could protect me from the past.
“Why’d you check out of the motel?”
The abrupt change in subject caught me off guard, and I paused
before answering. “You’ve seen the place. It’s a dump.”
“Where were you heading?”
“I got an apartment,” I lied.
“Where?” he challenged.
I put some indignation in my tone. “That I’m not telling you.”
Inhaling deep then letting out a long exhale, he focused his gaze straight ahead. “Okay, truce.”
I didn’t say anything, because this wasn’t an argument. Not even close.
He looked back at me, and I saw how tired his eyes were. The kind of tired you didn’t get from lack of sleep, and the kind of tired that was too weary for his age. I didn’t know how old he was, but his eyes? They were decades older.
He tipped his chin toward the restaurant. “We go in and order takeout. Have a beer at the bar while we’re waiting, then we’ll go back to my place and share a meal while we watch the game. After? I’ll drive you home.” He frowned, then amended his plan. “Or any time you want to leave, I’ll take you. Deal?”
I waged a silent war with a dozen responses, but I kept coming back to one thing. One night of escape. One night to be normal. One night where I wasn’t who I was.
I made my decision.
“Where do you live?” Not that I cared where he lived, but I wanted to come up with a plausible apartment complex I could have him take me to after dinner. Preferably someplace nowhere near him, and someplace big enough that he’d have a hard time following me.
“Miami Beach.”
Miami Beach was expensive, especially for someone in the military. Not that I knew how much the Marines paid. “Sounds nice.”
“It was my parents’ place before it was mine,” he explained, as if defending himself.
“They don’t live there anymore?”
“My dad’s dead, my mom’s in assisted living.”
“I’m sorry.”
He ignored my empty platitude and nodded toward the restaurant. “We doing this?”
I hesitated.
“I’m buying,” he added.
What was one meal? Especially one I didn’t have to pay for.
Against all my better judgment, I nodded.
THE BARTENDER WALKED OFF TO put our order in.
Brookelyn almost smiled as she stirred her Coke with the straw. “You ordered a whole pizza, a steak, a pasta entrée and three desserts.”