Authors: Julie Miller
“Sir.”
“Sir.”
Even Tess snapped to at that commanding voice. “What are you doing?” she asked.
But her question fell on deaf ears. Travis had already circled outside and was handing down orders to the two off-duty Marines. “You are not to let her out of your sight. Do you understand?” There was no protest, no mention of leave or the fact he wasn’t their commanding officer. Captain McCormick spoke, and these young men fell into line. “If she gets in her car and goes home, you go with her. If she takes a coffee break and leaves the stand, you’re by her side.”
“Yes, sir.”
He turned to bark an order at her. “You see Kyle, you
call the cops. And then you get on the phone and call me. I do not want you alone with that man. Understand?”
Tess refused to snap a “yes, sir,” but she had no problem throwing her arms around his neck and pressing a quick kiss to his lips. “I understand. Go.”
His arms snaked around her waist and he lifted her off the floor, turning a simple peck on the lips into a heartbreaking, soul-stealing kiss. “Be here when I get back,” he whispered against her mouth.
“I will.” Her feet returned to earth and she bravely pushed him toward the door. “Say hi to Hal for me.”
He pointed one last, stern finger at the noncoms. “You watch her.”
“Yes, sir.”
“D
AD
?”
A crackle of static was Travis’s only answer.
With his wraparound sunglasses as the only shield to block the wind in his face, he kicked the light trawler up another 10 mph and steered around Beamon’s Promontory toward the next fishing cove. Longbow Island in the Atlantic was a good four-hour trip by speedboat, and he’d hit nightfall in half that time, rendering him nearly useless in finding his father without a radio contact to guide him. The Coast Guard would prove a more effective rescue team after dark.
Still, Travis knew more about his father’s fishing habits and favorite haunts than the Coast Guard. And until that last bit of sun lit the sky, he could trace his father’s meandering path through all the inlets and coves of Chesapeake Bay, where the fishing was best. If the Helena II had faulty equipment, his father wouldn’t risk
open water on the trip home, anyway. He’d find the nearest port and make repairs, and if that wasn’t feasible, then he’d limp along home at a safer route closer to shore.
That’s where Travis would find his father. He hoped.
“C’mon, Dad.” He went through the radio frequencies one more time. “Helena to Helena II. Dad, if you copy this, send up a flare. We’re looking for you. We want you home.”
He needed to get home. Kyle Black might not have anything in mind beyond watching and waiting and playing the game. But Travis doubted it. He was the injured man down now. Vulnerable to attack. If Black was smart—and the son of a bitch was—he’d target Travis now, while his future role in the Corps was uncertain. While he was home on leave—alone, without family or platoon-mates to back him up. While he was distracted with his father’s disappearance.
Kyle claimed that Travis had stolen Amy from him. She’d been more of a status symbol than a girlfriend, a possession rather than a partner. The prettiest girl in Ashton, the one all the men from OTS had wanted that summer. But Kyle had snagged her with his money and charm and handsome face. He’d been the victor.
But when Amy Bartlett had decided that ownership wasn’t to her liking, she’d tried to leave. Kyle had gotten verbally and physically abusive that night in the parking lot. Travis had sucker punched him and driven Amy away to a hotel to hide until Kyle had been returned to Quantico. Amy had slept on the bed; Travis had slept on the floor.
And now, ten years later, Kyle was going to finally take from Travis what he perceived Travis had taken from him.
The woman he loved.
Tess.
“C’mon, Dad,” he yelled into the radio. “Tess needs me.” He switched off the mike and admitted a truth that scared him even more. “I need her.”
How was the Action Man going to settle down with one woman? How was he going to make a relationship work with Tess? How could he be the hero she deserved if he couldn’t even track down his own father?
Travis slowed the Helena as he entered the next cove. A human-made jetty of boulders and steel helped control tidal washouts of the rocky beach, and also provided a mammoth feeding ground for a variety of fish, making it a popular destination for fishers with time to travel to the remote location.
He bounced over the waves and turned toward shore. The sun was half a red-orange ball just peeking over the horizon behind him. This would be his last stop before he had to call the Harbor Master and notify the Coast Guard.
The first thing he saw was Eileen Ward’s long auburn hair, flying loose in the breeze and flapping like a signal banner. She wore a fluorescent orange life vest at the helm of the Helena II. The trawler rode low in the water and plodded at a minimal speed—not a good sign. Then he saw Walter and Millie Craddock, dumping buckets of water over the sides of the ship.
“Dad?” he whispered. No silver-haired man in sight.
“Dad!” Travis shouted, adrenaline firing through his body. He gunned the engine and set the radio on bullhorn mode. “Helena to Helena II. Do you need assistance? Repeat. Do you need assistance?”
“That’s my boy!” Travis heard the shout before he
saw his father climbing up from the engine room. “That’s my boy!”
The familiar face needed a shave, but the heart seemed fine—and the spirits were far more buoyant than the boat. Travis pulled alongside as the Craddocks and Mrs. Ward exchanged hugs and handshakes with his father.
Hal McCormick’s report was brief. “We hit the rocks on Longbow during the storm. Cracked the hull and busted the radio.”
General Craddock’s report was even briefer. “Get us the hell off this boat.”
Travis tossed them a line and helped the ladies cross over to the Helena. “You want me to rig a tow-line, Dad?”
“Nah. I’ll anchor it and come back for it with the trailer.”
“If we’re lucky, it’ll sink,” was General Craddock’s opinion.
Millie pulled him down beside her on a seat in the stern. “Quit complaining, Walter. That was the grandest adventure we’ve had in years. Personally, I had fun sharing a pup tent with you.”
The two kissed and Travis politely looked away to wrap his dad up in a hug once he got him on board. “Good to see you, old man. You had me worried.”
“Good to see you, son.” Hal patted him on the back and grinned at Eileen when he stepped away. “We’re a little worse for wear, but nothing serious. And there was no chance of starving because Eileen here caught so many fish that we threw one back. I tell you that woman’s got a knack.”
Eileen’s answering smile softened her taut features.
Well, whaddaya know? Travis put the boat in gear,
turned on the headlight and bent his head to whisper to his father. “Dad, you sound as if you’re lusting after that woman’s ability to catch fish.”
“I’m lusting after that woman, period,” Hal whispered.
“Dad!”
Hal winked a smiling blue eye. “I’m sixty, son. I’m not dead.”
Hmm. The stodgy worrywart he loved so well was laughing, flirting, wrapping himself in the same blanket he draped around Eileen’s shoulders.
“How are
you
feeling, son?” Hal asked, once he had Eileen settled at his side.
“Good. Strong. I found you, didn’t I?”
“That you did.”
Travis picked up speed and headed for deeper water.
Funny how a man could change in just a few short days.
And he wasn’t talking about his father.
“H
EY, BOYS
. You ready?”
Tess’s two bodyguards, so eager to please a superior officer, flanked her on either side as she locked the concession stand and headed for the parking lot. Jaynes and Thibideux had not only given her a sense of security while Travis was gone, but they’d been good company. Once Jaynes had lightened up and Thibideux had gotten a little more serious, they’d volunteered to work beside her in the stand. When they weren’t flush with customers, they’d talked about everything from hometowns to cars to future goals and dreams.
But four hours of playing babysitter when Kyle Black was nowhere in sight? “Why don’t you go on and see if you can catch the end of the street dance,” she suggested as she continued toward her car. “Or have a beer at The Bounty.” She pulled a twenty-dollar bill from her jeans. “Here. They’re on me.”
“Oh, no, ma’am.” Thibideux touched her elbow to push her hand back inside her pocket. “The captain said to stick with you, and unless you’re having that beer with us, we’re goin’ wherever you’re goin’.”
Tess checked her watch for the fifth time in as many minutes. Where was the captain, anyway?
“I’m sure he’ll be calling soon, ma’am.” Jaynes had the insight to see how worried she was about Travis.
Had Trav gone all the way to Longbow Island? Had he found Hal, or had the search been tabled until daylight returned? Was Hal all right? Had he suffered another heart attack? Were the Craddocks and Eileen all right? And what about Travis? Was his leg holding up? Was he so worried about Kyle Black that he wasn’t following all those safety procedures he kept harping to her about?
Tess nodded a reassurance she didn’t quite feel. “I’m sure he will. So, are we having that beer?”
Ten minutes later, Tess was at a table at The Bounty, waiting for a pirate wench to bring them three beers. The bar was crowded and smoky. If she didn’t feel she owed her makeshift bodyguards a tangible thanks for giving up the last night of their leave for her, then she’d have skipped the skull-jarring level of music and conversation and headed for home and a hot shower.
The least she could do was give her bladder and eardrums a little peace. She slipped the twenty onto the table and pointed over her shoulder toward the ladies’ room in the back. “Remember, they’re on me. I need to stop at the little girls’ room.”
Thibideux climbed off his stool. “I’ll go with you.”
“No, you won’t.” Old, reliable Tess would have given up the argument and let the young man accompany her. Correction, the old Tess wouldn’t have come here in the first place. Though she felt a little like Mrs. Robinson with the two young studs in tow, she wasn’t interested in entertaining the troops herself. She spotted a pretty brunette tapping her foot at the bar. Tess pointed her out.
“Why don’t you go ask her to dance. If I’m not out in five minutes, then you can storm the john. Okay?”
“Okay. One dance.” Thibbs had to practically shout to be heard. “If you’re not at the table when the song’s done, I’m coming in.”
Tess laughed and gave him a tiny shove toward the brunette. “See if she has a sister for the corporal, too.”
The quiet of the rustic, tiled bathroom was almost painful as it rushed in on her eardrums. She waited until a young blond woman had exited and the empty spaces beneath each stall told her she was alone. Tess paused a few moments at the mirror to simply breathe and relax. She looked like she’d put in a full day. Tendrils from her ponytail curled loosely around her forehead and cheeks. Her Royals jersey was wrinkled from where she’d tied the carpenter’s bag for change around her waist. She had a spot of nacho cheese in the middle of the white
R
on her left breast, and she looked beat.
But as she leaned in closer to inspect the shadows under her eyes, she wasn’t thinking about how her work at the hospital and the concession stand had exhausted her. She was thinking of the night before, and how replete and languid and weary she’d been after making love with Travis. How proud and sexy she felt to know he was completely turned on by her.
Tess leaned in closer to the mirror and touched her lower lip. She gently tugged her mouth open, wet the tips of her fingers and traced the rim of her mouth. Was this the image Travis had seen at his window? She trailed her moist fingers down the length of her throat, slowly mesmerizing herself as she felt the same stirrings of electric energy that had pulsed through her last night.
Had he seen her eyelids grow heavy with passion? Her breathing grow shallow with desire?
Would she ever have another night like that in her life if Travis stuck to the deal they’d made and moved on?
He cared. He loved her as a friend. He wanted her as a woman. He’d given her everything she’d asked of him and more. But it wasn’t enough. Two weeks and a kiss goodbye would never be enough with Travis.
Curling her exploring fingers into a fist, she dabbed at the tears stinging her eyes. She couldn’t be his friend after this. She couldn’t want him this much, love him this way, and simply call him friend.
So what was she supposed to—?
A sharp ringing in her purse startled her from her heartbreaking thoughts. She quickly pulled out the phone and flipped it on. Relief surged through her. “Travis?”
“Uh, no.” Amy. “Hey, kiddo. Don’t you check the number before you answer?”
She didn’t need yet another lecture on personal safety. The last of her patience leaked out on a weary sigh. “I’m tired. What do you want?”
“I just wanted to call to give you a heads-up. Kyle Black was here at the house.”
Everything inside Tess tensed.
“Are you okay? Is Mom?” Now she could hear the stress tightening Amy’s voice. She hugged her purse beneath her arm, and even in the ladies’ room, she couldn’t keep herself from glancing over her shoulder. “Did he get into the house? Did he hurt anyone?”
“No. Morty yelled at him.” It was triumph, not stress, giving her thirty-five-year-old sister’s voice an almost giddy quality. “He threatened to call the police.
He said he didn’t give a rat’s ass what kind of rights Kyle had to park his car there. I could hear him through the front window. Morty said Kyle was terrorizing Mom and me, and that he needed to move his car now. You should have heard all the rights and regulations he rattled off. Morty cussed!”
Morty Camden?
“You know. If he asks me out again, I’m going to say yes. Heck, if he doesn’t ask me out, then I’m asking him.”
“Amy?”
“Oh, right. The main reason I called was to warn you. When Kyle left here, he headed straight into town. You’d recognize him, right?”
Black hair, blue eyes, handsome face? “The poster boy for the USMC? I’ll know him.”
After she hung up, Tess raised her gaze to the mirror. Her startled breath rushed out so fast, she couldn’t even scream.
Black hair, blue eyes, handsome face—standing right behind her in the mirror.
“Poster boy for the USMC. I’m flattered. Tess Bartlett?” The hand the man extended toward her held a knife. A jagged, wicked-looking thing that was no overture of friendship. “I’m Kyle Black.”
“A
RE YOU KIDDING ME
with this?” Tess left the ladies’ room with Kyle Black right behind her, his arm linked through hers, holding her close. He wedged the knife between them, close enough to cut a hole in her jersey and prick her skin. “I know who you are and what you did to Amy. Are you going to beat me up in the parking lot, too?”
“And give your friend McCormick the chance to
play hero all over again? I’m just taking back what he owes me.”
They circled the crush on the dance floor and she caught a glimpse of Thibideux’s tall head bobbing over the other dancers. She turned to make eye contact, but Kyle breathed a warning against her ear. “Don’t even think it. Both your sidekicks are occupied right now. It’s just you and me.”
The fresh night air, cleansed by last night’s rain, should have revived her, but a creeping sense of helplessness began to consume her as he led her farther away from the noisy throng. “Where are we going?”
“My car.” His grip on her wrist tightened with a painful pinch as he turned down a dark alley, taking a shortcut to someplace with lights and people, she prayed.
“My car’s closer.” It was worth a shot.
“Right. And your car has a bag of baseball bats in the backseat. I’m not arming you.”
“You went through my car?”
“You really are missing the point, aren’t you.” Kyle stopped at the darkest part of the alley, beside a trash dumpster, and pushed her up against the wall. The bricks felt cold and slimy against her back. Captain Black felt warm and slimy against her front. “We can do this easy, or we can do this hard.” He ran his hand up her thigh as he nuzzled her neck. “I can make this very nice for you.”
“That’s called rape, you bastard.” She slapped at his hand and squirmed to wedge her arms between them. “There is nothing nice—”
“Shut up.” He covered her mouth with a rough hand and shoved her head against the bricks. Stars swirled behind her eyes, but she breathed deeply and blinked to
keep his icy eyes in focus. “Believe me, this will be your choice,” he promised.
Her skull throbbed. Feeling dizzy, her feet stumbled beneath her as he pulled her along beside him. By the time her vision cleared, they’d left the alley and he was half carrying, half dragging her toward a low-slung red sports car.
“No!” Ignoring the threat of the knife, Tess jammed her elbow into Kyle’s gut. His grip loosened with a startled “oof” and she started to run.
But she had nowhere to go. Kyle snatched her by the wrist, slung her around and smacked her back against the car. A bolt of pain radiated along her spine, but it was his hips grinding into hers and the knife at her throat that scared her more.
“That wasn’t very nice.” He cut one button loose. “I thought Ashton was famous for its summer hospitality.” Two more buttons popped loose and her jersey gaped open. “Now you’re gonna get into the car, and you’re going to do what I tell you.”
His fingers bruised her arm as he jerked her to one side and opened the door. Tess’s foot rolled on something uneven near the curb. Something long and cylindrical. She braced her hands against the door and frame, resisting when he tried to push her down onto the passenger seat. “What do you want from me?”
“Satisfaction.” He breathed the word against her ear, trailed the knife blade along her nape. “Captain McCormick needs to come down a peg or two. You’re what he wants, so I will take you.”
“My sister didn’t want you. I don’t want you. You can’t force me to—”
“You don’t understand.” Kyle spun her around and backed her against the car frame. This time, he didn’t use violence, but he dropped his voice to such an icy, unemotional timbre that it coiled like a snake along each nerve cell, leaving plenty of fear in its wake. “You don’t want to mess with me. McCormick is going to lose one way or the other. You can kiss me, nice and real friendly-like. Or I can hold up his assignment to Special Ops. I can arrange for the paperwork to cross my desk and get lost for a very long time. He’ll be a desk jockey for the rest of his career—if he doesn’t wash out first.”
“He’ll never leave the Corps.”
“It’s your choice, Miss Bartlett—the kiss or the job?”
Tess’s right heel rolled across the cylinder again. She had to duck her chin to hide her urge to smile.
There was a third option.
Kyle Black’s artificially minty breath washed over her as she thought back to that very first night on the beach with Travis. With that impromptu game of stickball, a friendship had been rekindled, a love affair had been born, and a bond of love and loyalty that she would never break had been forged.
“Travis’s career means everything to him,” Tess whispered. “I won’t let you take that from him.”
“So it’s the kiss. The betrayal.” Kyle sounded pleased.
“Just a kiss, right? You won’t force me?”
“We’ll see how good you are.”
Tess slowly raised her head, using every seductive skill Travis had taught her to give her confidence. “I can be very good.”
Kyle laughed as he reached inside her jersey to cup
her breast. He slowly closed the distance between them and covered her mouth with his own.
Interesting. Not a single babble. When Travis kissed her, her thoughts scattered. With Kyle, every impulse was clear as a bell.
She concentrated on her right foot, on moving her lips, on sucking Kyle’s bottom lip between her own.
And then she bit. Hard.
“Bitch!” Kyle smacked her across the face as he jerked back and pressed a hand to his bleeding mouth.
Concentrating through the ringing concussion of pain, Tess let the momentum of the blow carry her to the ground. She grabbed the pipe beneath her feet and came up swinging.
A hit to the solar plexus. He doubled over with a raspy curse.
“Keep your mouth and hands…” The knife blade flashed. She swung again. “…and threats to yourself!”
“There she is!”
Kyle roared as the knife flew out of his hand and clattered into the gutter.
“Call 9-1-1!”
“I called as soon as I knew she was gone.”
Fear-charged adrenaline drove her now. She lifted the pipe to strike again.
“Tess!” A steel band of arms grabbed her from behind, cinching her arms to her body and lifting her off the ground to keep her from swinging the pipe.
She recognized Travis first by scent, then by the husky voice whispering in her ear. “You got him, babe. You got him. It’s all right. You can stop.”
“She’s a menace, McCormick.” The furious haze
began to clear. Kyle Black’s face swam in front of hers, his lip bleeding, two fingers hanging at an abnormal angle. “You deserve that ugly excuse for—”
“Hey!” Travis’s voice barked a threat. “You want me to let her go so she can practice her home-run swing on you again?”
Tess jerked in Travis’s arms and Kyle lurched back. But the poor man had no place to go. Jaynes and Thibideux had him pinned. “You keep her away from me,” Kyle protested. “She’s crazy.”
“You’re the one who needs help, Black. Kidnapping a woman from the ladies’ room?”
The warmth of Travis’s body seeped into hers, and Tess’s brain finally cleared. “Travis?”