Protecting his Witness (HERO Force Book 9) Page 4

  She closed the door between them. He didn’t want to talk to her either, that much was obvious. For people who’d exchanged emails daily for months on end, they had very little to say. She hoped he didn’t want to eat together, already planning out her excuses if he did.

  She lifted her luggage onto the bed, unzipping it and pulling out clean leggings and a comfortable shirt before making her way to the shower. The hot water felt heavenly as it cascaded over her scalp and tight shoulders, so that by the time she got out she was feeling marginally better and much more relaxed. Luke knocked on the door just as she finished dressing, his hair wet, a bottle of wine in one hand and two glasses in the other.

  “You want to come in and watch Jeopardy while we eat?” he asked.

  She opened her mouth to refuse, but Jeopardy. “I love that show.”

  “I know you do. I found it on demand.” He shrugged. “Figured you could use a little downtime.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m going to kick your ass, so don’t get too comfortable.” He turned and walked toward the bed. His room was the mirror image of hers, but his drapes were pulled back to reveal the twinkling skyline of New York City across the Hudson River.

  She walked to the window. “I have a doctorate in aerospace engineering and a master’s degree in chemistry."

  “Well, I have a doctorate in trivial bullshit and a master’s in government rigamarole.”

  She fought a smile, checking out his reflection in the window. He stood with his hands on his hips, his height and physique making her feel small and feminine in contrast. “Sounds like an even match.” She watched as he uncorked the wine, the muscles of his arms standing out in the light, and felt a tingling down low in her abdomen.

  He wasn’t at all how she’d pictured him from his letters. This man was physically intimidating, whereas the Wiseman in her head was goofy and fun. She had a hard time reconciling the two of them.

  The Jeopardy theme song played and she settled on the bed he wasn’t using. He handed her a glass of wine and she closed her eyes, sipping the fizzing liquid. “Prosecco.” She smiled at him. “My favorite.”

  "I listen.”

  Alex Trebek read the categories in the background as Luke took the domed cover off the room service tray and passed her a plate of manicotti. Now she was impressed, her mouth watering at the dish. “I guess you do. I don’t even remember telling you this.”

  “The date with the chiropractor who took you to Rosini’s. You said he was irritating and subversively racist, but the food was amazing.”

  She laughed. “I’d forgotten all about that.” How could a shower, a glass of wine, and this man make her feel so much better? “He was such a nerd. I mean, I’m a nerd, but at least I have some social skills. That guy could barely carry on a civilized conversation.”

  "I don’t think you’re a nerd.”

  “Really?”

  "Not at all. They just wiped out the whole category on genetic engineering and you didn't hit your buzzer once."

  She gaped at the television screen. "That's my category."

  He grinned. “I’m sorry. Did I distract you?”

  I'll take football for 500, Alex.

  He sat back and smiled. “Well, look at that. That's my category."

  She considered throwing a pillow at his head but decided payback was a far more rewarding option. She dug into her manicotti as he answered all the sports questions correctly and waited for double Jeopardy to pummel him into the ground.

  By the first commercial break, she had a comfortable lead and a buzz. Luke was eating with the gusto and confidence of someone who rarely did anything wrong, and she found it fascinating. He even ate like an alpha male. He’d definitely be the leader of any pack you put him in, his height, physical strength, and good looks only adding to the package.

  “Why are you staring at me?” he asked.

  She looked away. “No reason.”

  “You’re turning red. It must be good.” He moved his tray to the other side of the bed.

  She was embarrassed, but there was no reason to be. It was simply science, and she’d always found science fascinating. She put down her glass. “I was just thinking you’re very much an alpha male.”

  He finished his wine, downing half the glass in one sip. “Okay. What does that mean?”

  “In every pack, there’s one—”

  “No. I know what an alpha male is. I mean what made you think that?”

  Your biceps that look like they could crush me in a heartbeat.

  Your wide shoulders and muscular ass that would look fantastic between my legs.

  Holy crap.

  Her face was burning up. “I don’t know.” Her voice sounded strangled. “Look, Jeopardy’s back on.”

  He chuckled. “No way. You’re not getting off the hook that easily. Tell me what’s going on in that ridiculously smart and snarky brain of yours.”

  She smiled, shaking her head. “No.”

  “Tell me now.”

  She covered her mouth with her hand, trying to stifle the laugh that bubbled past. “I can’t! Just forget it.”

  “Don’t make me come over there.”

  She burst out laughing, unable to stop. He was on her in an instant and she leaned back to get away, still laughing when he grabbed her wrists. “I’m not telling you!”

  “Maybe you’ll change your mind if I tickle you.”

  Her eyes went wide and she writhed against the mattress. “No!” Damn him for remembering every stupid thing she’d said. No one had tickled the truth out of her since the fifth grade. He let go of one wrist, going straight for her underarm as she shrieked, trying to push him away.

  Then they were wrestling, his big hands tickling her at every opportunity. “Tell me.”

  She was laughing and twisting against him, loving the feel of his body pressing her into the mattress as they fought.

  Was that his erection pressing into her leg?

  Was he hard?

  Oh my God.

  They stopped moving, their eyes mere inches from each other, breath coming fast. His pupils were dilated and his face flushed. Suddenly, she wanted to tell him, wanted him to know how attractive he was to her. “I was thinking you could crush me with those arms.”

  His stare dropped to her mouth, lingering there and making her ache to taste him. “What else?”

  A short, frustrated moan came from deep in her throat, her hips curling closer to his. They had already passed the point of no return. What was the harm now? Maybe if she told him, he’d press those full lips against hers and soothe the need that was building for him. “I was thinking how good you’d look on top of me.”

  He kissed her full on the mouth, releasing the wrist in his hand, and she wound her arms around his back as she fought the desire to spread her legs. Things were progressing much too quickly, in part because she knew this man better than almost any other. This was Wiseman, a guy she liked and trusted who was helping her in her time of need. Could anything turn a woman on more than that?

  It was time for final Jeopardy.

  “How much you want to bet?” Luke asked.

  She smiled decadently. Only a true nerd would get more turned on by Jeopardy bets during a kiss. “Two thousand.”

  “I’m going all in.” He trailed kisses down the column of her neck, making her groan.

  “You need to. You only have eighteen hundred.”

  “You’re keeping track?”

  “Hell yes.”

  This term was first used in an ice cream trade journal in 1937; it began to appear in the nuclear power industry in the 60s.

  His mouth was back on hers, nibbling, taking his time. “What is cold fusion?” he whispered, gently sucking on her skin.

  She arched her back. “Meltdown.”

  He laughed, a rumbling sound that came from deep in his belly. “You didn’t phrase it in the form of a question.”

  Damn.

  His phone rang and he cursed u
nder his breath before moving off her. “I have to get this. Hey, Mac, what’s up?”

  Summer refilled her wine again, just enough for a single glass now left in the bottle.

  Makes girls dance and drop their pants.

  She’d kept her pants on, but not by much, considering it was their first kiss. Probably good they’d been interrupted. If she had half a brain, she’d excuse herself for the night when he got off the phone to make sure nothing else happened between them. Hard to believe she’d never seen him before in her life until this morning.

  “I’ll tell her,” Luke said. “Hey, did you remember to ask Sloan to feed my dog?”

  Of course he had a dog. It was probably the size of a horse, wasn’t neutered, and ran around pissing on trees. She stood up just as Luke was getting off the phone. “Sounds good. Let’s swing by my place in the morning and pick the dog up on our way out of town. Thanks, man.” He hung up.

  “What time are we leaving tomorrow?”

  “Seven.”

  “I should get some sleep.”

  “Probably a good idea.” He put his arms around her waist like he did it every day. “You want to sleep in here or do you mean actual sleep?”

  Eek!

  Was he really inviting her to spend the night after one kiss? That, more than anything, proved he was in a completely different league than she was. “Actual sleep is probably a good idea.”

  He released her, taking her hand and bringing it to his lips. “Good night, Summer.”

  She went back to her room, shutting the door between them. Wiseman was an unexpected surprise. She climbed into bed, images from the explosion at Daniels Aerospace once again crowding her mind as if they’d been waiting for her.

  What is meltdown?

  She shook her head, settling beneath the covers. She never forgot to phrase it in the form of a question.

  Never say never.

  As she drifted off to sleep, it was Alloy 531 that was melting down, Steven Walsh laughing as it dripped from the rotating spheres of the oscillating friction accelerator straight into his pockets, the sound of the bomb overlaying the scene.

  A bomb and Alloy 531.

  Her eyes snapped open. The patent for 531 was pending, which meant Walsh would never be able to use it commercially, and he must have known it, too. “Oh, Jesus,” she whispered to the empty room.

  There was only one other thing an alloy like that was good for, and Walsh had already given her the biggest clue of all. She climbed out of bed and knocked on the adjoining door, Luke appearing a moment later without a shirt on. “Walsh isn’t going to use 531 for shielding supersonic jets. He’s going to use it to make bombs.”

  8

  Mac O’Brady stepped into the HERO Force locker room and stripped naked, his clothing steeped in the smell of battle. The scent hadn't come from a war zone this time, but it could have — the heavy metallic odor mixed with the aftermath of combustion a dead ringer for the smell of a shit storm of gunfire.

  It was the Daniels Aerospace testing lab that smelled like this, six hours in that space more than enough to fill his nostrils and his brain. He showered quickly, finding no comfort in the hot water and steam, longing only for a drink and the peace it could bring — the separation from reality he'd gone long enough without.

  But he wasn’t going to have one. Not today, anyway.

  He was never sure if he was going to drink or not, no matter the owner of the whole HERO Force organization was counting on him to be sober and trustworthy. Mac O’Brady was a drunk, and he knew as only a drunk could that the promise to stay sober only lasted as long as the words echoed in any given space.

  Still, he hadn't done it yet. Didn't intend to do it. He thought of his wife and kids, the only reason he was here and the only reason he would do his damnedest to remain. He needed to find them, needed them back in his life after so much time with them gone.

  They weren’t the only reason he wasn’t drinking. He had a message from Cowboy over at the original HERO Force in Atlanta, claiming he was just checking in, but that was bullshit. Cowboy was keeping tabs on him, making sure he was sober and fit to run this damn place, and with every phone call and well-meaning email, Mac knew it.

  Hawk probably put him up to it.

  Trevor “Hawk” Hawkins was part of that HERO Force team and a former member of Mac’s SEAL team in Afghanistan. It was Hawk who had looked Mac up in Paris and convinced him to come back and lead the New York office. Why the hell Hawk picked his drunk-ass former CO to do the job was still a mystery to Mac, but it meant Mac would have HERO Force’s resources available to him to find his family and he’d be able to help the men he’d served with who hadn’t adjusted to life after the military. Who were damaged in some way—broken like he was.

  Sure, some of the men were able to handle the stresses of war and physical disability, but far too many of them were damaged beyond simple repair. They needed someone to believe in them again. Needed a way to be useful. Mac knew it because he needed those things himself, if only to make him worthy of the family he was determined to locate and get back in his life.

  He held out his hand, staring at the gold band that shone in the overhead light. It had been there for twenty-six years. Ellie had been gone for five, and he wondered if she still wore hers. Hell, maybe she’d married someone else by now.

  He pulled his pants on over his prosthetic. It was seven and a half years since he came back from Afghanistan missing a leg and unable to do the job he had dedicated his life to. He’d been in the military since he was twenty years old and every vision he had for his future included the SEALs.

  Then everything was different. Months at Walter Reed had taught him how to walk again, but nothing could teach him how to live his life without the thing he’d valued most, his career. His identity in pieces and his marriage cracking beneath the strain of his return, he started drinking and never stopped. Ellie stuck by him another year and a half before giving up, leaving him and taking their now teenaged daughters with her, her absence a blow that shook him to his core.

  He was mad. Furious. Hurting.

  He railed against the emptiness inside himself, the emptiness in his home and life. When he was finished, he was so far gone he didn’t know how to get himself back. That’s when Hawk showed up, dangling HERO Force in Mac’s blurred line of sight like a carrot that had the potential to restore everything he’d lost that had ever mattered.

  So he was here, and he was sober. And he spent every available moment searching for Ellie and the kids. He’d gotten a short list of phone numbers using the HERO Force computers months ago, but the numbers so far had proven useless. He would need to go to Plan B, whatever the hell that might be. A private investigator, maybe—though the last one he called refused to help him, telling him it looked like Ellie didn’t want to be found.

  Hell, maybe she didn’t. But it wouldn’t stop him from looking. He'd been searching so goddamn long already. Fatigue pulled at him, a weariness that had nothing to do with sleep or wakefulness.

  He dressed in a clean khaki T-shirt, fitted to his chest like a second skin, and eyed himself warily in the mirror. An old man stared back, more than fifty trips around the sun under his belt, his muscular chest in sharp contrast to the deep lines at the corners of his eyes. He didn't like what he saw. Hadn't liked it in some time.

  Sloan walked into the locker room and leaned against the wall. “What’s the deal with Wiseman and Buckeye’s sister?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged. “There’s obviously a story there.”

  “Not my story to tell.” Sloan was a nosey bastard and always had been. He probably had his eye on Summer and wanted to know if Wiseman did, too. “We leave tomorrow at 0700 hours. We’re stopping at Wiseman’s cabin to pick up Zeke, then heading to Boston. I want you to take the chopper up to Worcester so it’s nearby when we infiltrate AGL Aerospace. I think we might need it.”

  “I can do that. Who’s coming along?”

>   “Fly with Trace. I’ll have Moto, T-ball, Razorback, and Wiseman with me in the vans.”

  “That’s quite an entourage.”

  It was an awful lot of manpower, but he had a bad feeling in his gut and he’d long ago learned to pay attention to it. “I’m expecting quite a scene. Make sure the bird’s fully stocked with ammo, gear, and first-aid supplies.”

  Sloan crossed his arms. “You want to tell me exactly what’s going down?”

  He walked past the other man on his way out, calling over his shoulder, “If I knew that, I’d be happy to. Just be ready.”

  9

  Luke’s large SUV careened down a winding snow-covered road an hour north of New York City, the last vehicle in the HERO Force caravan. T-ball and Mac were first, their van stocked with weapons and ammunition, then Razorback and Moto hauling their computers and tech equipment. The back of Luke’s vehicle was loaded with the rest of their gear and Summer’s suitcase.

  She’d felt so good against him.

  Stop it. Pay attention to the damn road.

  He was trying, but she was sitting in the passenger seat and her nearness was not letting him put the memories out of his mind.

  She was soft and strong, and the curves of her body perfectly aligned with his. Her hair smelled like flowers, the scent of her skin just beneath it, heady and weighty with temptation.

  Trees. Yellow lines. Asphalt.

  Come on, dumb ass.

  He loved how she didn’t wear any makeup, her easy style and grace. She was smart and funny and he enjoyed talking to her—which was funny since he didn’t like talking at all. They passed a clearing, the whipping wind pushing the SUV like a sailboat. His hands were steady on the wheel, driving in weather like this no big deal for a Boston boy like him, but he could tell Summer didn’t like it by the way she braced herself on the leather seats.

  “I’ve got snow tires,” he offered.

  “Do you have nine lives, too?”

  He smirked. “Just the one.”

  “I’m not going to watch.” She tightened her seat belt.

  The morning had been awkward between them and he was fighting a headache. He’d stayed awake for more than an hour and a half after she left last night, guilt washing over him like water dousing a fire.