SEALed With Love (DiCarlo Brides book 2) (The DiCarlo Brides) (24 page)

Joel watched her, saw her reserve melt away in moments, helped along by the half a beer she’d been sipping on for three hours. That was his girl—she was no big drinker. But she laughed as readily as the guys, snuggled close to Joel, and her eyes sparkled with delight with each new thing she learned about him, about his former life.

Sitting so close to her, hip to hip in the booth, kept Joel on edge, and he enjoyed every minute of it.

Finally Sage covered her mouth with one of her strong, tiny hands and yawned. “Okay, I know you’re all night owls, but I’ve reached my limit.”

Dave’s eyes strayed to her glass. “You still haven’t finished a single drink.”

“Hey, this is practically a drunken revel for me.”

The guys laughed and one called her a teetotaler, which she brushed off as she gave Joel’s knee a squeeze. “I’d like to go back to the hotel. You can stay here and gab for a few more hours, if you’d like. I can take a cab.” But her eyes held promises and she had to know he wouldn’t let her go alone—even if her stalker was more than a thousand miles away.

Joel shook his head. “Not this time. I’ll come along.” He squeezed her shoulder—the one on the other side of her, since he’d had his arm around her for hours to ‘make room’ in the booth for everyone. His arm was nearly asleep, despite the fact that she was so much shorter than himself.

Sage slid out and took his hand and the guys around them started shooting them knowing looks.

“Watts needs to go with his girl,” Riley said. “Couldn’t possibly let her go alone.”

“You should have heard the way he cooed at her over the phone. It was so sweet. He’s gone all soft on us,” Greg added.

“You’re just jealous because you know he’s the toughest one in this room,” Sage said, putting a hand on Joel’s arm. “It sucks to lose your best man. But that just makes me lucky, and you not half as good as you were before.”

There was plenty of hooting and laughter from the others. Joel pulled Sage tight, thinking surely, no man was as lucky as he was. “And with that, we’ll take off. You all keep in touch.” He kissed Trudy on the forehead. “I’ll call you in the morning.”

“Okay.” She squeezed his hand.

The drive back across town seemed to take forever. Sage kept up a light dialogue, asking him about his SEAL buddies and what training was like. All the time her hand rested primly on his knee.

Joel let her enter the hotel room ahead of him, then whirled her around, pressed her up against the wall near the bathroom door and slid one hand on her waist, burying the other in her hair. “You’ve been doing your best to keep me on edge all day, haven’t you?”

Her fingers went to the buttons of his blue shirt, sliding the top one loose. “Is it working?”

“Better than you could ever imagine.” He leaned down, resting his forehead against her. “Baby, this between us, it’s not like other relationships I’ve had. This is special. You’re special, and I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Then don’t.”

He groaned and buried his face in her wild brown hair, which she’d worn flowing around her face that night, teasing his skin as it brushed his hand and arm with every movement of her head. “You make it sound easy.”

She touched his jaw, pressed a kiss to his cheek, then said low, “It’s not as hard as you think. You’re sweet and thoughtful, yet your instincts are honed to take action, to react in a predetermined way. You’re stubborn and bossy, but you never smother me with it. Well,” she amended, “almost never. Follow your instincts and we’ll be okay. I keep telling you, Joel: I know you, I trust you, and I know we can make it work if it’s important to us. Give us a chance to be something more. Give me a chance to prove I can be more to you than a job, that this thing between us is important enough to open yourself up to the chance that we might fail.”

He lifted his head and met her gaze. “Honey, you’ve never been just a job.”

A smile bloomed on her face. “Good. You’ve never been just a body guard, either.” And she kissed him.

Joel didn’t know how he was going to be the man she needed, open up to her the way she wanted him to, but she was worth it. As he sank his hands into her wild mane of curls, he decided he’d work on that. Starting tomorrow.

Joel and Sage stayed in town for Trudy for one more day before returning to Colorado. They took the red-eye and after the long drive up the mountain, arrived home in time to shower and change for work.

It was a long day for Sage with treatments, checking paperwork from the previous two days, and preparations for the next week. She didn’t have time to take a lunch break, but Joel showed up at her door in the early afternoon with a salad from the restaurant.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey, I noticed you haven’t taken a minute to eat yet. I thought you might like something,” he said.

 She saved her spreadsheet and shifted the keyboard out of the way. “What did I do to be this lucky?”

He grinned. “I can think of a thing or two.”

“Yeah?” Sage slid the chair out from behind her desk and came around to greet him as he shut the office door. He set the tray on her desk, she tipped her chin up and accepted his brief kiss. She touched his arm, wanting to pull him into a comforting embrace when she saw the grief in his eyes. “How are you doing today?”

“I’ll live.” His eyed flashed over her desk. “It looks like you’ve been busy.”

“Yeah. It’s been a bit crazy. We have a full slate of clients all afternoon and evening, but I finish up here after my last appointment ends at five-thirty.”

“Then I’ll be back to pick you up.”

“Good.” She gave him another too-quick kiss and said goodbye. She sat to eat her salad, and ignored the curious looks Wendy shot her through the office doorway, though heat crept up her cheeks. Joel still hadn’t talked about his past, but he was being more open than before in little ways and she hoped when they had a chance to catch up after their trip, he would start to talk. He was sticking closer than ever now that they were home.

A shiver passed over her skin and her mind changed instantly to her stalker. He hadn’t made a move since Mr. Sunshine, but something was coming soon. All the more reason to stick to Joel’s side.

 Joel whistled as he entered his office a few minutes later, though that stopped when he found Mick sitting at the desk, leaning back in the chair and chatting on a cell phone as he stared at the video monitor.

Mick jumped up in surprise and backed out of the space. “I have to go. Call you later.”

“Did you need something?” Joel asked, narrowing his eyes.

“No, I’m good. I was just getting off my feet for a minute.” Mick looked nervous, shuffling toward the far end of the little room, as though he thought he would be out of arm’s reach there.

Joel tracked him and wondered if Mick knew how quickly he could be dead if Joel wanted it—without the use of his gun, or any spilt blood left behind. It was laughable that the weasel thought the corner of the room would be safe if Joel wanted to hurt him.

But while he considered firing Mick for laziness—the man had been caught “resting” or goofing off too often to be ignored—he had no desire to hurt the man. He’d send Harrison a note about looking for another candidate for the position, though. He didn’t want to fire him until there was a replacement—his current staff was overtaxed as it was. “Did you check on the conference in the past half hour?”

“Yes, just came from there.”

“Good. Lana said things could get a little crazy tonight after their dinner and drinks. Make sure to pass the word to Lars.” Joel shifted his gaze to the video monitor and smiled as he saw Sage munching on her salad. He flicked his gaze back to Mick. “You can go now.”

“Right. Of course.” He backed out of the room.

Joel tried not to roll his eyes as he pulled up his email and sent the note to Harrison.

Sage was running out of clothes and mentioned that she needed to pick up more things, so Joel swung by the girls’ house on the way home that night.

They went into the house and greeted Rosemary, who was stretched out on the sofa, looking like a truck ran over her. Sage ran up the stairs and Joel walked to Rosemary, his hands in his pockets. “Rough day?”

“You have no idea. I had to fire someone today. I
hate
being the boss. I can’t wait until the year is over and I can go back to cooking full time again. What was Dad thinking putting me in charge?” She had an arm over her eyes, blocking out the light.

“That you needed to stretch yourself and try new things,” Joel suggested.

“Yeah, I’m stretching, all right. And now I have to tell Harrison to put out a job opening, which means I’ll have to interact with him. That will be worse than actually having to fire Sarah.”

“What did she do?”

“What didn’t she do? I swear her credentials were forged. She burned several dishes today, got orders wrong and I found her tipping in the cooking sherry this afternoon—right from the bottle. That was the absolute last straw.”

“I’m surprised you put up with her for six weeks.” Rosemary didn’t strike Joel as being that understanding.

“She only started on Monday. I hired her to replace someone who got another—not nearly as good offer—in Denver, but it was closer to his home. Sarah was the best of my pathetic selection of applicants. I swear living in the back of beyond is the biggest curse Dad ever saddled us with.” Rosemary sat up, pushing her legs off the edge of the sofa. “No, just a minute.
Harrison
is the worst curse ever.” She stood and straightened her clothes. “I guess I should go send him an email. With any luck I won’t have to carry on an actual conversation with him.” She seemed to brighten at that suggestion and headed for the stairs leading to the basement bedrooms.

Joel smiled as soon as she was out of sight. He checked his watch and wondered how long Sage would take, then decided it could be a while. He pulled out his phone and began checking email messages.

After a moment he came across another one from the sender ‘Your Future Husband.’ He tasted bile in his mouth as he opened it and scrolled through the message.

Dear sweetheart,

I can’t tell you how disappointed I was to find out you’ve hooked up with that Watts guy. I knew you were friendly with him, but I kept telling myself that he didn’t matter, that you would always be true to me. And you could hardly be blamed for his interest in you.

Now I’m going to tell you that his fascination could turn really unhealthy for both of you if you don’t get rid of him. Especially for him. I saw you touching him and your hands belong to me, like your lips and your body belong to me. I won’t tolerate you spending time with any other man. What happened to the cat was a warning; you better heed it.