Lawson & Jill: Romantic Suspense (Night Storm Legacy Book 1)

by Caitlyn O'Leary

  Law gritted his teeth as his cheeks heated. “This is just ingrained. Hell, I was just following in Dad and my brother’s footsteps.”

  Jill immediately gave him a frivolous grin. “Okay, have it your way, you just blindly followed others into your current job,” she laughed. “How was your steak?”

  Lawson relaxed. “Good. Normally I would want some dessert, but I’ve got cookies at home. I might just share a couple with you before I follow you home tonight.”

  “Follow me home?” She looked delightfully confused.

  “Yeah, you come to my house for an hour, have a cookie or two. Then you leave to go to your house and I drive behind you to make sure you get home safely.”

  While he’d been talking she had taken a sip of water, and she choked on it at the last part of his sentence.

  “Law, you’re not serious, are you? I’ve been seeing myself home for years. Normally from downtown Houston. We’re talking from the Pendleton area to Laguna Niguel.” She set down the water and stared at him like he’d lost his mind.

  “It’s what I do,” he explained patiently. “Ready for some cookies? The woman who bakes them is really talented.”

  Chapter 5

  Despite three crises at work and having to bring home two PowerPoint presentations that needed to be redone to cover for the East Coast trainer, Jill was still in a good mood. That means Lawson Thorne has at least a forty-eight-hour residual effect! However, knowing what’s on my plate for tomorrow, the big question is, can the good feelings last for seventy-two hours?

  Jill got up from the floor in front of her computer and headed to the kitchen. She was hungry and there was a hot pocket with her name on it.

  Her phone rang and she went back to the living room to see if she wanted to answer it. If it was the East Coast trainer again, there wasn’t a chance in Hades. When she realized it was her boss, she answered it and plopped back down on the floor so she could pull up the files that Natalie wanted to go over. When Jill finally hung up, she looked around the coffee table for her hot pocket. Had she eaten it all?

  Darn it, she was losing it. She pushed back up and headed toward the kitchen again. When she finally had dinner humming along in the microwave, she growled when the doorbell rang.

  “Didn’t I make myself clear? I’m hungry.” She set her bottle of sparkling water down on the kitchen island and made her way down the long tiled hall to the front door. She frowned when she considered the fact that the guard at the community gate hadn’t called her. That was weird. Must be some kind of general maintenance or someone from the homeowners association.

  She looked through the peephole and saw a notepad and a tie. Bingo. HOA.

  “Hello,” she greeted the man. “I know I’m paid up, so this must be about something else,” she smiled.

  “I beg your pardon, Miss?” he asked.

  “What?”

  He repeated himself, only spoke slower.

  “I’m sorry, what were you saying, Miss?”

  “My HOA dues,” Jill clarified. “I have it automatically deducted from my checking account. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Something to do with the homeowners association?”

  He seemed to relax and then he smiled brighter. “Uhm, you’re right.” He rubbed the back of his neck and looked down at his notepad.

  Uh-oh, that didn’t look good. But then he looked up and gave her a big smile. No dimples. She so wasn’t interested.

  “I wanted to tell you about the upcoming Labor Day celebration. We’re looking to see if you or any other residents here in your home are planning on attending. It’s going to be at Founder’s Park this year. We’re putting on quite a show. If you have kids, we’re going to have face painting and a jump house. For adults, we’re having a lot of the local restaurants putting up booths and providing samples of the best of their menus with wine pairings.”

  Jill immediately thought of Law. Would he be up for something like that?

  “I have to check, but I’m pretty sure you can put me down for two.”

  “This is a pretty big house, do you have children?” he probed further.

  Jill laughed. “Nope, no bambinos. What about you?”

  He went silent for a moment, his eyes downcast. “No, I don’t have any children,” his tone suddenly flat.

  Jill cocked her head and gave him a kind smile. He looked like he could use one.

  “So, two?” he confirmed again.

  Jill grinned. “Yep, put me down for two.” She really hoped that Law would be up for this.

  He snapped his notebook shut. “Well, ma’am, I have the information I need.”

  He didn’t even say good-bye, instead he just turned on his heel and stalked down her walkway. They really needed to get someone with better people skills on the job.

  Jill heard her phone ring again.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake. Can’t I catch a break?”

  It wasn’t for another hour-and-a-half that she realized she was hungry again, and her last hot pocket was now the texture of a rock inside the microwave. She should have saved some cookies for herself. Time for bread and cheese. She really needed to stock up on mayo and mustard.

  Three grueling days of training in the dusty, hot shrubs of the Southern California wilds in the Camp Pendleton base and Lawson was ready for a beer, a shower, and time with Jill, not necessarily in that order. He’d told her that he’d be off the radar for three days, but to expect him to touch base on Wednesday night or Thursday morning. But after assessing the new recruits, he and his team had realized it was definitely going to take the additional night to get through to the boneheads.

  “Roger, how many times do I need to tell you to keep your belly to the ground?” Law shoved the kid’s ass onto the rough earth and grimaced with disgust when Roger let out an oof of pain.

  Seriously? That hurt?

  “When you signed on for this assignment, you assured me you wanted to learn SIGINT, but you sure as hell aren’t showing a willingness, let alone any damned aptitude.”

  “But, sir,” the recruit started.

  “Don’t call me sir. Do I look like a damned officer?” Lawson hissed.

  He heard Clancy laughing behind him. “You don’t have the looks,” his teammate joked. “You need to grow back the mustache, then you’re officer material.”

  Lawson flipped him the bird before turning his attention back to Roger. “Let’s try this again. I need you to, this time, accurately calibrate and read-out the spectrum analyzer and the directional antenna. We need to know who and what we’re up against, where and how far away they are. We need that information now!”

  Law watched as the kid once again fumbled three times to get the cord for the antenna into the analyzer. It took everything he had not to rip it out of his hands. When he finally got that done, the kid attempted to calibrate the machine with one hand as he held out the antenna. Law heard Clancy snickering behind them. He was going to kill his friend.

  “Roger, that’s the wrong sequence.” Lawson kept his voice even. He knew if he sounded mad the kid would really blow it. Besides having to train the kid, he wanted his team, the Blue Blades, to kick the other Marine Raider team and grind them into the dust. Law knew that they were at the same kind of disadvantage because they were training newbies—but they weren’t stuck with a Roger.

  “How about this?” The kid’s blond hair was stuck to his forehead. He kept licking his lips and his eye twitched. Law looked over his shoulder at Clancy and his trainee. He could see that both of them were having trouble keeping straight faces. It so wasn’t fair.

  Law looked down at the frequency range that Roger had put into the spectrum analyzer. “It’s close, but it looks like you inverted the six and the three. Try again.”

  As soon as Roger fixed it, the signal came in.

  Success. Finally.

  Now it was time to see if they could get a read on where the other team was broadcasting from and hopefully nail them. Law had been on his team’s ass
to keep radio silence. It would’ve made life a hell of a lot easier for them if they’d been able to contact the two tactical vehicles on their team, but Law forced them to stick to the plan and only report in if something went totally FUBAR. Which so far, it hadn’t.

  Law was hoping that McClellan, the SIGINT on the Red Smoke team, hadn’t been as much of a hardass.

  “I’ve got something,” Roger’s eyes lit up as he fiddled with the receiver. “Look at this. I think they’re about eight clicks northwest over that hill.”

  “Less thinking and more knowing,” Lawson growled.

  “Sorry. I know they’re over there. I triangulated three signals. One was from tactical vehicles, not ours. Another I could hear, and it was definitely Mikey from Red Smoke; he’s one of the guys that I went to boot camp with. The third signal is coming from two kilometers to the southwest of the others. It wasn’t clear, but they said something about our Lieutenant Hunt. Something about him buying beer.”

  “That has to be the Lieutenant of Red Smoke,” Clancy muttered. “Stork and Hunt had a bet on which team would come out on top.”

  “Should I radio the others?” Roger asked.

  Lawson thought his head would explode. “What part of radio silence do you not understand? Just for that, you’re the one who’s going to have to run—and I mean flat out run—your ass over to Pearson’s MRZR and tell him to get his ass over here. Then hitch a ride with him and gather Bashir. I want you all back here in fifteen minutes. If it’s sixteen minutes, your ass is grass. You got it?”

  “Now, sir?”

  “Jesus God, I’m not a sir.” It took everything he had to keep his voice down. “You’re now down to fourteen minutes. Get a move on and keep your butt down before Red Smoke tags your ass.”

  He watched as Roger scrambled away. He was going to kill the runt if they lost this war game.

  Jill pressed send on the third text that she’d sent to Law. One every day since Sunday. Monday was cookie and milk emojis. Tuesday was beer and limes. Wednesday was a hammock, and today was a smiley face. She really hoped that she was right about today being a day to smile and she would really get a chance to see him.

  She had googled Marine Raider since she’d met him. His job was crazy scary. She hadn’t heard of them before, because it seemed like Navy SEALs sucked all the oxygen out of the room. But Marine Raiders were uber special forces along the same lines. Reading up on them, Jill got the impression that they thought they were all that and a bag of chips. It must have something to do with being a Marine.

  Jill pushed her phone into the back pocket of her cut-off jeans.

  “But Law doesn’t seem all that egotistical,” she told her giant purple alliums as she pulled the weeds from around their base. She patted down the upturned soil, then moved onto another patch in the flowerbed where more stubborn weeds had popped up.

  “Law seems pretty nice. What do you think? It’s only been ten days.” she asked the pretty red zinnias. “Am I getting too excited too early, or are my instincts on track?”

  She dug in at another pesky weed and yanked it out. She sat back on her heels and looked at the colorful bed of flowers.

  “You know, considering how nicely I take care of y’all, the least you could do is answer me.”

  She saw movement out of the corner of her eye and realized it was Mr. Applegate from next door. She prayed that because he was retired and had white hair, that his hearing was not what it should be.

  “Hello, Jill,” he said as he walked across his lawn toward her. “How are you doing? I haven’t seen you in far too long. Edith and I were talking not so long ago about our grandson and how we really think we should introduce the two of you.”

  Please, deliver me. What did I do to deserve this?

  “I met Robin, remember? He was at Lorraine’s service.”

  “Oh, that’s right, you did. Maybe we can arrange to have the two of you over to our place for dinner some time?”

  Jill put her left hand behind her back and crossed her fingers. Whether it was for luck so that it was true, or to save herself from telling a fib, she did not know.

  “Mr. Applegate, I’m seeing someone.”

  “You are?” His eyes lit up. “That’s wonderful. Edith and I worry about you. Especially when we see you talking out loud to your flowers.”

  It took everything she had not to groan out loud. Time to change the subject.

  “So, will I see you and your lovely wife at the Labor Day festival at Founder’s Park?”

  Mr. Applegate gave her a quizzical glance.

  “You know, the one that the guy from the HOA was taking a headcount for?”

  “Jill, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t seen anything on the community website, and nobody has stopped by telling Edith and me about something for Labor Day.”

  Jill got up and brushed grass off the back of her shorts. “Were you home on Monday?”

  “All day. I beat Edith at Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy.”

  “Didn’t a man come to your house and ask you how many from your house would go to the Labor Day celebration? He was from the homeowners association.”

  “Jill, Edith, and I bought into this development thirty years ago. Nobody has ever come to our door and done a headcount. Maybe back in the day they would call us, but I’d have to ask her. Are you sure?”

  “That is so weird. Maybe it’s because he knew that the property has changed hands?”

  Mr. Applegate put his hand on her shoulder. “You need to call the guard at the gate. Something’s not right. Find out who came into the community on Monday. It sounds fishy to me, Honey.”

  How sweet is that?

  “Thank you, Mr. Applegate, I definitely will.”

  Her back pocket vibrated and she reached for her phone. She saw it was Law and grinned. “Mr. Applegate, give Mrs. Applegate my best. I’ll bring over cookies next week. Thanks for everything.”

  “Don’t forget to call the guard,” he admonished.

  “I won’t.” She smiled. It was so nice of him to worry about her; she was so lucky to have neighbors who cared. She turned toward the house and read the text.

  Whoo Hoo! He’s back!

  Chapter 6

  Lawson squeezed the bridge of his nose as he leaned back in his favorite chair. Today his brother Xavier would have been thirty-three years old. He and Asher had just done a joint call with their mother in Belgium.

  God, he loved the woman to the moon and back, and he ached for her. Losing a husband and a son was more than one woman should ever have to bear, but she did it with grace and dignity.

  He took another shuddering gulp of air and thanked God, and his brother Asher, that she didn’t know that Xavier had killed himself. Living thousands of miles away, that was one more burden she didn’t need to shoulder. Law knew Marie-Louise Thorne—she would somehow think she was at fault and she’d collapse in on herself.

  He got up. It was time for a run. Something that would drive away the demons. His phone vibrated with a text. From his brother Asher, of course. He looked down.

  Love you man.

  Mom loves you.

  Xave, wherever he is, loves you.

  Law gulped down another shuddering breath and typed.

  Back at you.

  Law pushed up from his chair and looked out the window.

  “Xave, I’m still pissed at you. But I mostly just miss you now. Happy birthday.”

  He turned away and tensed when he heard his phone vibrate against the coffee table. What was Ash texting now?

  Bought good beer, the kind that comes in a bottle. Limes are sliced. You tempted?

  And with those last two words, Lawson felt his world tilt back into place. He’d been seeing Jill for two of the best weeks of his life, and her humor, sexiness, and plain old niceness had gotten to him like no other woman ever had. Law texted back.

  I’ve been tempted since I met you.

  He waited for a response and luckily it didn’
t take long.

  Do I bring the beer to you, or do you come to me?

  His blood heated. If he said here, she’d take too long to get ready before coming over and he didn’t want to wait.

  I’m heading over now.

  He pressed send and grabbed the keys to his truck.

  When she opened the door she could instantly tell that something was wrong. Oh, he smiled and said the right things when she let him in and he followed her into the kitchen, but his dimple was gone, and the light in his eyes was dim. But at the same time, he was making such an effort to put on a front that everything was hunky-dory, Jill wasn’t going to ask him what was up. Nope, it was time to just give him some normalcy and comfort. This she could do.

  “I promised you beer and limes, I believe.”

  “You even said the limes were already sliced.” He smiled as he scanned the kitchen. “I don’t see them. I only see a bowl of chips.”

  “That’d be silly to leave them on the counter.” Jill chided. She went to the fridge and pulled out two Coronas, a bowl filled with limes covered with cling wrap, and a bowl full of homemade guacamole, also covered with cling wrap. “This concludes my level of cooking capability for a Mexican dinner.”

  “Do you want to go out after beer, chips, and dip?” She could hear his lack of enthusiasm.

  “Would you believe dinner should arrive in about ten minutes?”

  His eyes finally lit up. Still no dimple, but she’d take it.

  “No shit?”

  “Now, would I tease about something as important as a man’s evening meal?”

  “I sure as hell hope not.”

  She watched him take a swig of beer and consume a third of the bowl of guac with some chips. She slid closer to him next to the counter and hip-checked him. “Save some for me.”