But he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it.
He’d fallen in love with Teri that day she’d first come to his house. Before that, he’d been in lust with her, but on that day . . . He’d liked the way she needed him, he realized now. More than liked it. All his life, he’d been waiting to be needed like that. And all his life, he’d desperately wanted to be loved—he’d had no idea how much he wanted that, too.
And she loved him. There was no doubt about it. It wasn’t just loyalty that kept her by his side all these days. Although she had plenty of that inside her, too.
No, the woman loved him.
But he still couldn’t see it. Teri Howe—happy with him for the rest of her life?
And even though he had that ring and plenty of opportunities, he couldn’t bring himself to ask her to marry him.
She woke up, saw that his eyes were open, and smiled. “Can I get you anything?”
“I’d like a hot tub, please,” he said. “With you in it—naked.”
She laughed. “Feeling better?”
“More and more every minute.”
“Tom Paoletti came by while you were sleeping,” she told him.
“You should have woken me.”
“He came to see me,” Teri said. She was still sitting back in the chair, her position relaxed, but he knew her too well. She was tense.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“I got into a little bit of trouble for, well, unauthorized use of a U.S. Navy helicopter, for one thing. He’s been helping me get that ironed out.”
“Teri, you should have told me.”
“I was waiting until you were feeling a little better.”
“And until it all got straightened out,” he guessed.
“Lieutenant Paoletti’s pretty good at fixing things, too,” she told him. “Everything’s fine.”
But her shoulders were still tight. “What else?” he asked.
She wet her lips. “Tom’s been helping me look into, um, a lateral move. San Diego Coast Guard needs a helo pilot. I was looking to get back into the service full-time, but if I stay in the Navy . . .”
If she were regular Navy instead of Reserve, suddenly there’d be fraternizing issues. Shit.
“I didn’t realize you were hoping to get back in full-time,” he said. Suddenly he didn’t feel too good. “Teri, I don’t want you to screw up your career because of me.”
“I want to fly,” she said. “I’ll actually do more flying for the Coast Guard. I’m excited about it.” She paused. “It’ll keep me in San Diego.”
There it was. Another perfect opportunity to ask her to stay in San Diego with him forever. Stan nodded, his mouth suddenly dry. “Well, if it’s something you really want to—”
“It is,” she said, absolutely. “I’ve been thinking about it, and it is.”
When had he become such a coward?
Teri stood up. Stretched. “I’m going to get some coffee. Do you want anything before I go?”
“You,” he managed to say. “I want you.”
She laughed. “Yeah, in a hot tub, naked. I know. Just keep getting better and I’ll deliver.”
She went out the door and he nearly stopped her. That’s not what he’d meant. But instead he let her go.
Alyssa rarely wore more than just a touch of makeup. She rarely dressed up, and even more rarely went out of her way to look good.
But when she did, look out.
She stood in front of the mirror on the back of her closet door in her Washington, DC, apartment and was glad she’d borrowed this dress and these shoes from her sister.
“Keep the dress,” Tyra had said, claiming it was from her pre-pregnancy wardrobe and therefore something she’d never fit into ever again.
It was outrageously clingy. And short. With the heels and the makeup, and her hair down loose around her shoulders instead of pulled back tight in her usual ponytail, it made her look like . . .
Like a woman who was finally getting together with the man she wanted to get together with, in the euphemistic sense of the phrase.
Like a woman who wanted to make damn sure she was going to catch and keep that man’s attention, and not just for one night either.
God, was she trying too hard? Would he take one look at her and know she’d been thinking about him nonstop ever since he’d called her in K-stan and told her he had a family emergency. He had to fly back to San Diego, he told her, and that the flight was literally leaving in minutes. He’d said he’d call her in a few days to explain.
It had been weeks since she’d seen him, but he’d called. Repeatedly. Nearly a dozen different times—and always when she was out. He couldn’t have done a better job at missing her if he’d tried. He left short messages on her answering machine, telling her he’d call back.
He never left his phone number, but she was in the FBI after all, so she tried calling him and got his machine, too.
Forty minutes ago, that had all changed.
The phone had rung, she’d picked it up, and there Sam Starrett was, live and in person on the other end. The news just kept getting better, too. He was in town. At the airport. Could he come by?
She’d hopped into the shower. Put on this dress.
Alyssa looked at herself in the mirror again. She was breaking every one of her personal rules by doing this. But, hell, she’d started breaking her rules back in K-stan by asking Starrett to dinner in front of his team.
It was a huge mistake to become intimately involved with anyone she worked with, let alone an alpha male cowboy like Roger Starrett. It was a human tendency to define women by the men they were with, and she didn’t want her coworkers and her boss to start seeing her as the woman Lieutenant Starrett was screwing.
But maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to be defined as the woman Lieutenant Starrett loved.
Still, she was about to take off the dress and put on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt when the doorbell rang.
She nearly tripped in the heels on her way to the door. She caught her breath and composed herself while she buzzed him in.
She heard his footsteps on the stairs, but she waited until he knocked before she opened the door.
And then there he was. Sam Starrett.
Dressed way down in torn jeans and a grease-stained T-shirt, at least three days of beard glistening on his chin, baseball cap on his head, looking as if he’d just climbed out from working underneath his pickup truck.
“Oh, Jesus,” he breathed when he saw her. But he didn’t smile the way she’d imagined he’d smile. Instead he looked as if he might break down and cry. Or faint.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “You got some coffee? I could use some coffee.”
“Come in,” she said. “I’ll make a pot.”
He followed her silently into the kitchen. He didn’t say a word about her apartment. No “nice place” or other comments. It was almost as if he didn’t see it. What was going on?
“Are you sick?” she asked. Maybe that was the family emergency. Or maybe his father had died. She remembered he’d mentioned once that he and his father had never gotten along.
“No.”
He just stood there in the middle of her kitchen, taller and broader than she’d remembered, making what had always seemed to be a good-sized room feel small. She glanced at him as she got the coffee beans from the freezer. “Why don’t you sit?”
He sat.
And Alyssa measured out the water, turned on the coffeemaker. This was a strange experience even without his odd behavior—Sam Starrett sitting in her kitchen, because she’d invited him to her apartment. Who would’ve thought that would ever happen?
She got two mugs down from the cabinet and set them on the counter. And turned around to find him looking at her as if he wanted to eat her alive.
It took her breath away, that look in his eyes.
“You look amazing,” he said.
“I thought you might want to go out to dinner,” she said. “I guess I jumped the gun.”
“I’m getting married,” he said. “Probably on Sunday.”
She heard the words. They just didn’t make any sense. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re getting married?”
He nodded, pure misery in his eyes. “Her name’s Mary Lou Morrison. I went out with her for a couple of weeks, back about four months ago. She’s pregnant, Lys. And the baby’s mine.”
Oh, God, he was serious. Alyssa sat down across from him at the table. “Are you sure?”
“The test results just came back positive—for the second time.” His voice broke. “Jesus, I’ve got to do the right thing. She’s already more than three months’pregnant—I mean, she’s got to be. It’s been at least that long since I’ve seen her.” He leaned toward her, his eyes actually filled with tears. “I swear to you, Alyssa, I broke it off with her months ago. I had no idea she was pregnant. If I knew, I wouldn’t have let you into my room back in Kazbekistan.”
She nodded. “I believe you.”
“You have no idea how sorry I am,” he whispered.
“Actually,” she said, “I think I might, because I’m pretty sorry, too.”
“I have to do right by her,” he said, as if, like Alyssa, he wished they weren’t separated by the wide expanse of the table. As if he wanted her in his arms as much as she wanted to be there. “I have to do this.”
“Do you?” she asked, and then hated herself for asking it. God, she was shocked by her reaction to this news, by how badly she wanted to fall to her knees and ask him—no, beg him—not to marry this other woman.
Sam wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands, and she knew if he hadn’t, his tears would’ve escaped. He was crying. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I was working on my truck when the lab called. And they said it was positive. And then, Jesus, I was at the airport, because I knew I had to tell you and I didn’t want to do it over the phone and I’m sorry I didn’t even shower or change my clothes. I just got on the next flight. And all the way out here I was thinking maybe I shouldn’t say anything. Maybe I should just get you drunk and take you to Las Vegas and marry you.”
Great. Now she was crying. But she could pretend she wasn’t as well as any man. She wiped her eyes. “God knows I could use a drink.”
“I used protection,” he told her. “I know you probably think I’m always careless because I was that one time with you, but I did it right. I didn’t lose my head over her, not ever. Nothing broke. Nothing leaked. She shouldn’t be pregnant—but she is. And now I have to do what’s right.”
The coffee was ready, and Alyssa stood up and poured them each a mug, wishing she had something stronger to add to hers.
“Well,” she said, because she knew she had to say something, “we’re just going to have to pretend that night in Kazbekistan never happened. We’ve done it before—pretended it never happened. We can do it again. We’ll just have to . . . forget that you . . . said what you said to me, forget that I got all dressed up like this because you were coming over, and . . .”
She turned to put the mug on the table and found that he’d gotten to his feet. She set it down in front of him, but he didn’t touch it.
He was looking at her, his eyes hungry again. “I love that you got all dressed up for me,” he whispered. “I’m not going to forget that. I’m not going to forget you.”
Alyssa couldn’t stop herself. She took a step toward him and then another, and then, God, she was in his arms and he was kissing her.
He tasted like Sam, like everything she wanted but shouldn’t want.
She knocked his baseball cap to the floor as she kissed him, as she tugged his shirt free from his jeans and ran her hands up the smooth, broad expanse of his back. His skin was hot and he groaned at her touch as he pulled her closer to him, her skirt riding up all the way to the tops of her thighs as she opened herself to him, as she wrapped one leg around him and . . .
And he broke away. He stopped kissing her, pulled back, stepped free from her embrace. He was breathing as hard as she was as he held her at arm’s length, but he held her there.
“I can’t do this,” he gasped. “Jesus, I want to. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone. But I’m getting married on Sunday, and I’m not just going to play at it, Lys. I’m marrying her. I’m going to have a family with her.”
Alyssa stepped back from him as she pushed her skirt down, aware that he could see the red silk panties she’d put on just an hour ago with such anticipation and hope in her heart. “Then you better go.”
He went.
But he stopped in the kitchen doorway and turned to look back at her. “Thanks for getting dressed up for me, Lys,” he said quietly.
And then he was gone.
Alyssa heard her apartment door shut.
She’d wanted to get to know him. Well, she’d just gotten to know him a whole hell of a lot better in the past fifteen minutes.
She’d found out he was the kind of man who could resist temptation, the kind of man so intent upon doing what he considered to be the right thing that his own happiness came last. He was a good man. An honorable man.