Chapter Thirty-Five

Chance relaxed in the easy chair in front of the fire, his stocking feet on the matching ottoman. Suede had gotten a burst of nervous energy and decided to launder the bed sheets from Chance’s room, then the blankets. She cleaned the bathroom, tub, and shower stall, then folded what she’d laundered once it dried. With all of her traipsing back and forth, he wasn’t sure where she was at the moment, but she had strict instructions not to leave the cabin.

Chance had a direct line to his brothers and Sullivan via his high-tech earpiece, so he’d purposefully stayed out of his office to keep her company, if she’d hold still. He had a remedy for her nerves. “Suede,” he called out.

No answer came back to him, and now that he noticed, Gallo wasn’t in his customary place by the fire either. The hairs lifted at the back of Chance’s neck. He pushed up, his throat dry and his hands on his knees. “Suede?” he called again, every fiber of his body tuned for her sweet voice.

Still nothing.

The easy answer for her silence was that she was intently scrubbing something else and couldn’t hear him, and Gallo was with her. Chance needed to see that to be certain, and she needed to cease and desist the Suzy Homemaker routine. It was driving him crazy.

He paused at his nearly shut bedroom door, not wanting to startle her. She was already uptight. Easing it open, his heart caught in his throat. There she was, sound asleep on his freshly made bed. The poor thing. She had to be exhausted.

That lazy scoundrel Gallo lay stretched alongside of her. He lifted his lazy head and gave Chance a, ‘Hey. Close the door. We’re sleeping here’ look. Chance snapped his fingers. The long-legged kid took his time slinking to the floor, but at last there was room for the real man of the house beside Suede.

She didn’t make a peep as Chance covered her with a light blanket, then eased in behind her. He came to rest in line with her body, spooning with his hand on her hip. His early defense warning had been quiet since this morning’s rumble, so he grabbed this stolen opportunity to hold the woman he’d fallen for. Who would’ve thought he’d fall this hard or so fast?

An errant thought wiggled its way into Chance’s wandering recollections. What would Bear think of Suede? Navy SEAL, Master Chief Petty Officer Barrett ‘Bear’ Knight. The only man Scarlett Sinclair had truly cared for besides her sons.

The name fit him. Bear was a mountain of a man, but as kind and as gentlemanly as could be. He’d not only treated Scarlett with the respect she deserved, but he taught Chance and his brothers things a man needed to know. Like gun safety. Deep-sea fishing out on the wild Pacific. Bear taught them everything, from how to steer his fishing boat to baiting hooks and wrangling rock cod, yellowfin tuna, and calico bass into the boat, all without giving the ever-present dogfish a snack on the way up from the deep.

The youngster barracuda that Chance had snagged one summer afternoon was the highlight of his teenage years. Somewhere in the cabin, he still had a picture of him holding that toothy baby beast and grinning like a fool. You’d have thought he’d nailed the record for largest catch of the day by the size of that grin. It might be time to dust that memory off and frame it. Suede might like to see it. Yeah. Good times.

Bear was the one who’d taken the photo. He was the only real man in the Sinclair boys’ lives. It stood to reason they’d follow in his footsteps. Chance lowered his nose into Suede’s fragrant mass of tangles, breathing her in. Loving this woman with all he had. It might be time to reconnect with Bear. He had to be grieving Scarlett’s death as much as her boys.

Chance found it odd that merely holding Suede while she slept brought his tenderest emotions to the surface. Everything about her was feminine and soft, and Heaven knew he’d been a loner for too long. He couldn’t help but wonder what he would’ve amounted to if his mother had deserted him like Suede’s mother did her. How does a kid survive without a soft place to land at the end of a bad day? Without a mom who stopped writing her novels the minute her boys showed up because she had to know everything they’d been up to since she’d seen them last? Without a mom with light in her pretty green eyes just because you woke up in the morning? Without love?

He’d managed to survive the six months since he’d lost her, but only because he’d thrown himself into building this cabin. Without working every twenty-four-seven like a maniac, he’d still have the nightmares. Jimmy Superman Olsen, Gerard Hot Shot Rowe, and Stokes Gunpowder Remington would still be visiting him when the cabin was quiet and the work crews were gone. Merrick Ears Wong. Kevin Chill Frost. Pete Ducky Newton… They’d gone through hell together. God, he missed his mom and he missed his guys.

But surviving wasn’t quite the same thing as living, was it? Chance knew he’d been hiding out more than just dedicating his time to his brothers’ future security. Who was he kidding? He’d become a coward for the first time in his life, slow rolling the commitment Sullivan and his brothers deserved. In truth, the cabin had been ready a couple months ago. It had taken an angel dropping from heaven for Chance to wake up and get his priorities straight.

He lifted a strand of her auburn hair just because he could. Then another, thrilled at this stolen intimate moment. Suede had beautiful hair, a cascade that curled and dripped off her shoulders like a ruddy mountain waterfall in spring, full of glints of red and gold and—life. That moment up top when she’d loosed her goggles and beanie to stare York down would be forever etched in Chance’s mind.

Despite great trepidation, she’d been the real hero up there. Right then, she’d looked like some warrior goddess out of a graphic novel, her hair the mane of a lioness, the silky strands whipping into her eyes like tongues of fire. Frightened yet fierce, she’d ruled the day when—like a gracious queen—she’d granted York another chance at life instead of taking the revenge she’d so righteously deserved.

Stretching alongside his queen, Chance let the cares of the world slip away. His nose came to rest at the now bare nape of her neck. His belly expanded with one delicious breath after another. If there were a heaven on Earth, Suede was it. He had no business loving her, but God knew he did. Patrone or Gonzales, or whoever’d sent that death squad, had best go home to Colombia where they’d be safe. If they thought for one second they were coming after Suede, they were Dead. Damned. Wrong.

*****

She heard voices. Pleasant male voices, but none of them belonged to Chance.

“Whatever happens next, I need one alive for questioning.”

“We’ll see how it plays out, sir. They won’t come willingly.” Pagan? What’s he doing here?

Suede shifted to her elbows, listening. She’d slept into the evening.

“Then drag the bastard in kicking and screaming. I’m getting to the end of this bullshit today, goddamn it.”

Shhhhhs hissed out of at least two male mouths, and Suede needed to know who was in the cabin with her, and where Chance had gone.

Gallo sat at the partially closed bedroom door with his ears cocked forward. Tiptoeing closer, she listened before she revealed her position.

“Son-of-a-bitch, he ought to be right in the middle of them by now.” Whoever that strange man was, he seemed wound as tightly as a spring. Every word out of his mouth was clipped and sharp.

“This is what you hired us for, sir. He’ll be fine.”

It sounded like a fist hit the coffee table in Chance’s front room. “Goddamn it, stop ‘sir’-ing me!”

When someone grunted, Suede eased Chance’s bedroom door open. Three men were in front of the fireplace, two in the easy chairs, their backs to her, the other seated on the leather couch facing her. She recognized Pagan by his shiny, tousled locks and his broad shoulders. The man seated next to him had to be Kruze. He had the same color hair and build, but the third man on the couch was gray-haired and dressed completely in green/brown/black camouflage like a hunter. He stroked his silvery moustache repeatedly. His bushy brows looked like they’d never slanted up, only down, matching the wrinkles etched into his weathered face. So where’s Chance?

Suede cleared her throat to make her presence known, then stepped around Gallo’s bushy tail and into view. The gentleman in camouflage sprang to his feet. “Ma’am,” he said as his eyes scrolled from her face to Gallo and back again. “I’m sure sorry if I disturbed you.”

By then Pagan and Kruze were on their feet as well, both headed her way.

“Hey, Suede. How are you feeling?” Pagan asked.

“Where’s Chance?” she fired at the three men.

Pagan drew up short. His gaze flitted to Kruze as the stranger spoke up from behind them. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Tennyson. I’m Senator McQueen Sullivan, and right this moment, Chance is two miles south of here scouting an incoming army that’s headed your way.”

“You’re Chance’s boss? A United States Senator?” She hadn’t seen that coming.

He gave her one curt nod and snapped, “Chance was supposed to read you in. Didn’t he tell you?”

Suede shrugged her shoulders, not sure precisely what McQueen Sullivan meant, but for the first time, acutely aware that Chance and his brothers were more than just former Navy SEALs if they worked under the direction of a US Senator. This man had an intensity to him that rivaled the alpha streak in Chance when he’d faced York.

“He told me enough,” she replied steadily. There was no way she’d be disloyal to her man by hinting that Chance should have told her more. Suede turned to Pagan, who was nearly at her side. “I thought you were in Portland.”

His shoulders came up. “Portland’s not that far away. Kruze and I hightailed it out of there this morning after Chance told us you guys had trouble.”

“And I wasn’t about to sit on my ass in D.C. while all hell’s breaking loose here,” the Senator growled. “I trust my operators, but there’s no sense throwing them to the wolves.”

A breath whooshed out of her. Suede swallowed some of the angst she hadn’t realized had been building inside her like a pressure cooker. “Are you gentlemen hungry? Can I get you anything to drink?”

By then she was close enough to Pagan that he grabbed her under his arm and hugged her into his side. “No way are you waiting on us. Have a seat by the boss, and we’ll fill you in first.”

Kruze smacked Pagan’s bicep. “Hold up. I haven’t been formally introduced.” He held out a massive callused hand, his green eyes dark and sizzling with interest. “The last time I was here, you weren’t feeling too good. Name’s Kruze Sinclair, ma’am. I’m the handsome one.”

Pagan groaned, but her brows lifted at that brag. “Hardly,” she shot back at Chance’s other baby brother. “Chance is much better looking than you, and he smells better, too.”

Pagan slapped his thigh and hooted with laughter. “Man, she told you! Told you to shower once you got here.”

The surprise on Kruze’s manly face made Suede smile. He lifted one arm and performed one of those disgusting smellfies, sniffing at his armpit. “Whatchu mean? This ain’t stink. It’s perfume. Ladies like it.”

Suede coughed, surprised how comfortable she felt with these two men. “Where? On the Planet of the Apes?”

“Oh, come on,” Kruze grumbled over Pagan’s rowdy guffaw. “This is what a working man smells like after a hard day’s work. You know you like it.”

She fluttered her fingers under her nose. “What I know is you need to step back. My eyes are watering and I can hardly breathe.” Cough. Cough.

Pagan grinned. “Watch your Ps and Qs around Chance’s girl, Kruze. She doesn’t take any crap.”

A genuine smile smoothed some of the worry wrinkles from Senator Sullivan’s stern face. “Chance’s girl, huh? Sorry, Miss Tennyson, but you’ll have to ignore Kruze a while longer.” He nodded to the cushion at his side. “Please, have a seat. We’ll bring you up to speed.”

Kruze grumbled as he and Pagan took their seats while Suede accepted her position at Sullivan’s side. He didn’t sit until she did, and Suede couldn’t recall ever feeling more at home. Smoothing her hands over her knees, she was more than a little thankful that her jeans and T-shirt weren’t too wrinkled from sleeping in them.

“My wife likes to shop,” Senator Sullivan said, his sharp eyes skating over her attire. “Hope you like what she sent. Everything looks like it fits.”

“Please thank her for me. I’ll repay you as soon as I get back on my feet.”

“No, you won’t. It’s on me.” The Senator’s gaze speared Pagan. “Goddamn, I hope Chance is smart enough to keep this one.”

Pagan winked at Suede as his face cracked with a grin. “Yes, sir. He’d better.”

Suede meant to argue about her not paying him back, but Senator Sullivan’s brows collided and one big hand smacked his thigh. “Will you two stop calling me ‘sir’? It’s McQueen. Just McQueen, Goddamnit.”

She extended her hand to diffuse the stress in the air. “And I’m just Suede. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Senator Sullivan.”

He took her hand in both of his. “You’re one helluva surprise, young lady.”

“You might not know it, McQueen, but we don’t cuss in Chance’s home,” she told him evenly. “Now where’s my man and why’s he out there all by himself?”