Prologue

Three Years Earlier

“For gawd sakes! Can’t you walk no faster?”

Jake Weylin silently accepted the whining rant of his good buddy, Jamaal McCune, and picked up the pace. Both ex-Marines and down on their luck, Jamaal made the difficult street life he’d chosen worse by drinking his troubles away. This afternoon’s rant evolved from his hangover from the night before. It hadn’t lessened with the stubborn guy’s application of more alcohol. By ten he was long past inebriated. By noon he should’ve been flat on his back and snoring like the banshees of Jake’s ancestral homeland.

No such luck.

At two in the afternoon, Jamaal was falling-down-sloppy-drunk and crying because he missed his mama. When the big guy decided to put one away, there was no keeping up with him. Jake didn’t blame him. He’d drowned his sorrows almost as often as Jamaal did his, but the bigger problem at the moment was the two-inch gash on Jamaal’s right butt cheek, proving once again that even the smallest flask of cheap red-eye didn’t belong in a man’s back pocket. Why Jamaal had a mini-bottle stashed there was another story not worth telling.

“The place’ll be closed by the time we git there if’n we don’t hurry,” he grumbled while shuffling along, one big palm holding the wad of blue paper towels from the service station at the last corner to his bleeding backside. The Good Samaritan Free Clinic on Good Hope Road was five blocks away from their basement hangout in what used to be an IGA store.

With only two blocks to go, Jake knew every step of them would be painful. “The clinic never closes,” he offered meekly.

He didn’t fight or argue anymore. There was no sense in it. The wars in the Mideast had taken the last of his aggression and most of his self-confidence. He didn’t look people in the eye anymore, and the only reason he’d come to Anacostia was to find Jamaal. He’d never intended to stay, only to look up his buddy, talk about the could-have-beens, the what-ifs, and the whatcha-gonna-do-nows. Maybe see if Jamaal had a spare room to offer a buddy for a night or two.

Everything changed the day Jamaal opened his front door, blubbering his eyes out. He’d been evicted. Jake almost hadn’t recognized the once proud black man he’d deployed with. Jamaal had sunk into serious depression after his mother passed away, but numbing his pain with booze didn’t pay the bills.

They’d been on the streets ever since because the bond between brothers-in-arms ran strong. It all came down to the fact that Jamaal refused to leave his childhood neighborhood and Jake refused to leave Jamaal. It was an odd pairing at best: two bedraggled has-beens who’d once belonged in the company of ‘the few and the proud’. But there they were, one average-sized white guy and one bigger-than-life black guy, hanging out together in one of America’s toughest neighborhoods and drowning their sorrows every chance they got.

At first, Jake stood out like a sore thumb on the mostly African American side of the Anacostia River, directly south of the nation’s Oh-Say-Can-You-See capitol. But Jamaal set the local gangbangers and riffraff straight when he’d told them Jake was a trained USMC scout sniper who’d gone crazy during a firefight in Kabul, Afghanistan. He’d bragged that Jake could shoot a man’s head off at two thousand yards, that he’d killed four men with his bare hands in a sneak attack. That he was stark-raving crazy and could snap at any moment. Best watch your backs and be careful.

At least Jamaal got one thing right. Maybe not the stark-raving part, but Jake was pretty sure he was leaning on the down side of crazy. Wasn’t everybody who’d been in the sandbox?

Jamaal jerked to a stop and pointed his index finger on the hand not holding his big butt, at a gray Subaru parked alongside the clinic. “Who dat?”

Jake cringed. After a binge, Jamaal’s grasp of the English language deteriorated along with his good sense. But who indeed was that slender woman standing at the open door of the parked Subaru, clutching the car’s doorframe like a shield to ward him off? Or maybe she was afraid of Jamaal.

The chilly December breeze shifting through the alley alongside the clinic pulled a loose strand of her hair out from the big black clip on the top of her head. He saw the problem clearly. The clip was too small for the bounteous mounds of brownish, reddish, goldish curls she’d tried to restrain. Good glory in the morning! She was a sight to behold. His heart damned near forgot to beat.

She seemed frozen in place, so he stopped dead in his tracks, too. The stupid thing in his chest did a funny kind of sucker punch, shutting off his windpipe and wiping his mental whiteboard clear of intelligent words like ‘hello’ or ‘good evening’ or ‘hey there’.

Instead “huh” was what fell off his lips. Jake swallowed hard, certain that he was making a fool of himself. Like that was news.

She’d parked in one of the parking stalls marked Employees Only. Did that mean she worked at the clinic? He hadn’t seen her here before, and with all the trouble Jamaal got into, he was here plenty. Was she new? Just visiting? A man could hope.

Another puff of the breeze set the rest of her hair loose to billowing like a cloud behind her head. A halo shimmered around her delicate face at the same time her right brow spiked like the devil. Capturing her unruly locks with a quick handful at the back of her neck, her nostrils flared. Her shoulders squared and her chin stuck out with defiance. Was she making a stand? Against me? It sure felt like it. Damn. What a sight.

Just who was she, another mean volunteer nurse at the clinic or some fiery warrior goddess from Valhalla? The sun at her back added to the illusion of fierce, feminine power, the kind that could back a man up as fast as if she’d stuck an M40, bolt-action, USMC scout sniper special up his nose.

Without thinking, Jake took a step away, yielding the alley to this alpha female. She could have the street if she wanted it, too. He didn’t. Then he took another step back in case she didn’t believe his first gesture.

“Hell, Jake, I’m gonna bleed to death if we keep walking backwards like we is,” Jamaal complained, shifting his weight from one big flat foot to the other.

“Shut it,” Jake whispered, his hand on his buddy’s thick bicep to prevent any further altercation. “You ain’t going to bleed out. It’s just a scratch.”

This Amazon warrior already had Jake by the balls, and she hadn’t so much as said hello yet. Or go to hell and get out of my way, but hey. A guy could dream about that too. Right now he’d take a slap in the face if she offered it to him. “’Sides, you got plenty of blood. Let her get inside the clinic first where she’ll feel safe.” Nice and easy. Don’t scare her. I’m liking the view...

Jamaal huffed and grumbled but held his position.

The woman pulled a backpack out of the squat vehicle and shut the door without taking her eyes off them. Then, very deliberately, she tossed her head and came straight to them—like a torpedo. Jake stopped breathing for sure then, like he had a choice. The closer she came, the more certain he was that he might pass out. Hunter green eyes scrolled over him like he was actually visible to the naked eye, making him acutely aware that he needed a shave and a trim. A month ago.

He smelled like every other guy who lived in abandoned buildings. Bad. Real bad. Nonetheless, his spine straightened, and he didn’t break eye contact with his target. Dread itched up the back of his neck, warning him. Exactly who’s the target, you or her?

“Who are you?” she asked, looking at him as she broke the spell. “And what do you need?”

His gaze fell to where that simple question had come from. Had sincere concern just passed through those delectable, kissable lips that looked good enough to eat like the red roses on wedding cakes? The closer she came, the more breathtaking she looked.

It wasn’t merely hair on her head; it was some kind of exotic silk that refused to be ignored or controlled. Strands of it caressed the pink blush on her high cheekbone, twisting under her chin like tendrils of some loving red vine until she captured it and made it behave. The longest, darkest eyelashes fringed pretty green eyes, but it wasn’t welcome he saw glowing there. More like, ‘Who the hell are you and what do you want?’

He expelled the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Ah… ah… Sergeant Jake Weylin, ma’am,” his dumb mouth declared to diffuse the situation.

Jamaal grunted and groaned. He was such a baby when he got hurt.

“You’re ex-Marines,” she guessed correctly, stuffing her hair back into its clip, her sharp eyes cast to the street behind them. “Do you guys live around here?”

Jake nodded, not sure where she was going with that question. Would a woman like her ever deign to pay a guy like him a visit?

Of all things, the tragic love song from West Side Story showed up in his head with joyous exclamations of, ‘Maria! Maria! Maria!’ That tender refrain couldn’t compete with the boisterous USMC men’s choir belting out a raucous, ‘We are proud to claim the title of United States Marine!’ that showed up next.

His brain worked like that, forever lost in timeless ballads he couldn’t forget. That was the problem with a lot of guys who came back from the sandbox. They couldn’t remember, yet they couldn’t forget… stuff.

“We, umm, live over there,” he said, motioning vaguely toward the east behind him, where the broken down IGA grocery store stood like a skeleton in a graveyard of broken neighborhoods.

“Well, why are you waiting out here?” she asked bluntly. “Get inside. The last I heard Dr. Anderson doesn’t perform surgery in the alley.”

He would’ve snapped to at her brusque order, but a shadowy current of—something—shimmered between them. The woman gulped one very noisy gulp, giving herself away. Oh. Now he got it. All that bluff and bluster was more worry than challenge. She’s scared of me? That didn’t make sense. A has-been wasn’t anybody to think twice about, much less fear.

“My buddy here’s Jamaal McCune,” Jake offered quietly, making tentative eye contact so he didn’t come across as threatening. Small talk had always worked in delicate situations before. “He sat on some broken glass, and he might need stitches in his, umm, on his...”

The woman peered around Jamaal’s considerable rear end, her fingers nervously working at the straps of the backpack she’d kept between her and Jake. Back and forth. Back and forth. Yeah, he’d called it right. She was scared, probably because she’d been outnumbered by two halfwits.

Jake tried once more. “You’re new here.”

Her brows went up, but she extended a hand. “Yes, I’m the new CNA. Lacy Wright.”

Lacy, huh? That’s a pretty name. I like it.

“What’s a… C-NNNNN-A?” Jamaal slurred.

“It’s a Certified Nursing Assistant,” Lacy explained, the edge to her voice replaced with the pleasing lilt of professional patience. She almost looked friendly and it was obvious she’d worked with idiots before. What a difference a couple of minutes makes, huh?

Jake wiped his hand on his dirty jeans, ashamed that was the best he had to offer a lady. “Nice to make your acquaintance, Miss Wright,” he said very politely as he extended his hand, so damned thankful he wasn’t drunk. Come to think of it, he hadn’t had a drink for more than a week. That ought to count for something.

Her fingers felt small and breakable, a china doll’s hand caught in the callused confines of his. Her handshake was seriously firm and determined, though. She might be scared of him, but she meant to be taken seriously.

I can do that.

Loosening her grip, she nodded toward the clinic’s rear entrance and the flashing red sign that clearly said: EXIT when it should’ve said: EMERGENCY ENTRANCE, or something profound like that. “Let’s get your buddy inside where Dr. Anderson can treat him, shall we?”

We shall. Jake let go of her, instantly aware of how cold the wintery afternoon had grown. How lonely. His index finger rubbed the pad of his thumb, missing the satiny feel of her skin. The warmth.

But a man like him couldn’t resist the smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth. It had finally happened. A beautiful woman smiled. At me.