Military Heroes Bundle: A Soldier's Homecoming / A Soldier's Redemption / Danger in the Desert / Strangers When We Meet / Grayson's Surrender / Taking Cover. Merline Lovelace
another wound to add to the seemingly heavy scars she already carried.
His own actions had taken him by surprise, though. He usually had much better self-control, and he couldn’t imagine why she’d gone to his head so fast. Yeah, it had been a long time, but that was a poor excuse. He’d quit enjoying pointless sexual encounters many years ago. Lots of women were eager to hop into bed with a SEAL, and there’d been a time when he had been glad to oblige.
Not anymore. Not for a long time now. The hero worship, the sense that he was another notch on a belt, had palled ages ago. Nor did he have the least desire for notches of his own.
What he wanted was a connection. And he knew he couldn’t make them. As he’d already told Cory, he didn’t make them at all. Couldn’t afford them, sure. But couldn’t make them, either. And he’d long since given up trying to pretend he could. Best to just hold the world at a distance.
But trying to hold the world at a distance didn’t mean he could ignore that fact that Cory might need his protection. She seemed afraid in a way that suggested the threat, whatever it was, still lurked somewhere, that she had found no resolution.
It also fascinated him that while she had shared Marsha’s story of an abusive husband, she had shared nothing at all about why that phone call had terrified her so. Secrets meant something. And in this case, since her first call had been to the sheriff, he doubted she was on the run from a legal problem.
Which left...what?
And then something clicked together in his brain.
He sat up a little straighter as the circumstances he had so far observed came into focus. Moved here about a year ago, deliberately censored her speech when she spoke about where she came from. Her silences were more revealing than her speech. No offered comparison of her situation to Marsha’s. High-tech alarm system when she had little money. And terrible, terrible fear. Collapsing because some anonymous person had said, “I know where you are.”
WITSEC. Witness Protection.
He knew the protocols, had been part of WITSEC teams abroad. Usually the protected person was in some kind of trouble up to his neck, and was being protected because he’d agreed to inform against his own cohort.
But he’d bet his jump wings that this woman had never done anything more illegal in her life than speed on the highway. Which meant she had been an innocent witness to a crime and her life was in danger because of it. A crime that had yet to be solved. Nothing else would put her in the protection program. And nothing else would have caused the Marshals to spend so much money on that alarm system. Your average confessing criminal didn’t get that kind of care.
He swore under his breath and stared at the closed door of his bedroom. Every instinct and every bit of his training rushed back to front and center.
No wonder that call had terrified her. No wonder she seemed as jumpy as a cat on a hot stove. No wonder she hadn’t been able to create a life for herself here.
Then he remembered something from their walk home that afternoon, and gave himself a huge mental kick in the butt.
Without a thought, he jumped to his feet, dressed in his darkest clothes and his favorite boots. Then he switched off the motion sensors, wishing there was some way to silence the squeal, and headed downstairs. Six months of trying to be normal vanished in an instant.
* * *
HE BARELY REACHED the foot of the stairs before Cory came staggering from her bedroom, her eyes heavy-lidded with sleep, a blue terry-cloth robe held tightly around her with her arms.
“Sorry,” he said. “I just needed to move around.” Check the perimeter. “I didn’t think it would do much good for your sleep if I clomped around upstairs.”
Her brown eyes regarded him groggily. “What time is it?” she asked finally, smothering a yawn.
He glanced at the highly complex dive chronometer on his arm. He hadn’t worn it in months, but for some reason he’d put it on during the night. As if something had niggled at him, saying it was time to go on duty. “A little past five,” he answered.
“Good enough time to start the coffee,” she said, yawning again.
“I can do it. Why don’t you go back to bed?”
“I’m one of those people. Once I’m awake...” She gave a shrug and shuffled toward the kitchen.
“I’m just going to walk around the block,” he said.
“Fine.” She didn’t even look back, just waved a hand.
So he turned off the alarm and turned it back on again so he could slip out the door. He was going to hate that alarm before long. It hampered him. He should have been able to do this without waking her at all.
On the other hand, he was glad he didn’t have to leave her unprotected in there. Outside the sun was rising already, casting a rosy light over the world. He walked around the house, then set out to jog around the block.
He should have noticed it sooner, but the guy who had parked beside them at the store, then met them in the aisle had been the very same man who had driven past them on Cory’s street in a different car. Evidently he’d relaxed more over the past six months than he’d realized, because he never would have failed to notice that immediately when he was on the job. Now that he’d made the connection, he had to know if they were still being watched. Had to make up for lost time.
But neither the mystery man nor either of his cars showed up.
Which of course meant nothing except that if the guy was indeed shadowing Cory, his prey was in for the night. Reaching the house again, his breath hardly quickened by his fast jog over such a short distance, he stepped inside once more, tended the squealing, annoying alarm and made his way to the kitchen.
Cory sat at the table, chin in her hands, eyes half-closed as she waited for the coffeemaker to finish.
“Do you ever hate that alarm?” he asked as he pulled mugs out of the cupboard and put one of them in front of her.
“Sometimes.” She gave him a wan smile. “I never love it, that’s a fact.”
“I’ll get used to it,” he said as he reached for the coffee carafe and filled both their mugs. Then he got the half gallon of milk out of the fridge for her and placed it beside the carafe on the table.
“Thank you. You do get used to it.”
“Sorry I woke you,” he said again. “But I just couldn’t sit still another moment.” Not exactly as simple as that, but just as true.
“No need to apologize. I may not get back to sleep now, but I usually can manage a nap in the afternoon if I need it. I’ll be fine.” She poured maybe half a teaspoon of milk into her coffee, then raised the mug to her lips and breathed the aroma in through her nose. “Fresh coffee is one of the greatest smells in the world.”
“It is,” he agreed. He pulled out the chair across from her, but looked at her before he sat. “Do you mind?”
Something crossed her face, some hint of concern, but it was gone fast and he couldn’t make out what it meant. She waved toward the chair. “Help yourself.”
He turned the chair so he could straddle it, then sat facing her. “Looks like it’s going to be a nice day out there.”
“Probably. I miss the rain, though.”
“Rain?”
She covered her mouth, stifling another yawn. “Back in...back where I used to live, this time of year we’d be having afternoon thunderstorms almost every day. I miss them.”
“But you get some here, too, right?”
“Sometimes. Not nearly every day, though. In a way, they’re prettier here.”
“How so?”
“You can see