Chapter Seven

Damn it, her eyes are blue. Not just blue, but tropical blue, one part turquoise and two parts azure, just like the ocean off the Southern California coast. Chance hadn’t realized how much he’d craved that exact hue until now. Those colors and all of those lush curves hadn’t been photo-shopped. Even bruised and battered, Suede Tennyson was Just. That. Gorgeous.

She’d knocked the wind out of his sails and Chance found himself in the doldrums without a rudder. The sad glaze in those vulnerable blues was enough to derail a man’s purest intentions. This was no wily vixen skilled in the dark magic of seduction and sex, though. Not even close. There was no get-down-get-dirty gleam in those pretty eyes. More like fear. Panic. Calculated worry. More like the terror of a lost little girl who’d found herself face-to-face with the big bad wolf.

Chance cursed every last one of his scars for frightening her. The hero side of him wanted to save her all over again, to give her whatever she needed to feel good about herself, but the monster side wanted to shove off and run. Hide! There was no way short of copious amounts of plastic surgery that would restore him to a respectable sight pleasing to the feminine persuasion. Not like she’d stay if he did, and where that notion came from, he had no idea. He was only there to save her life. Who cared what he looked like.

He tucked his new, bitter reality down deep in his gut, took his own advice, and got over himself. This was about saving her, not him. Like a star-struck groupie, he wanted, no, he needed her to smile at him. Just him. But that wasn’t going to happen, and he was dumb to think it could. He was Disney’s Beast to her Beauty, a ragged man, face-to-face with a genteel woman of breeding and worth. Not a porn star. Not a tramp. If what his gut told him was spot on, Suede Tennyson was no porn star in the making. She wasn’t even close.

He groaned when she settled her hips against him, but when she lifted her left knee onto his thigh, no doubt because of her wounded leg, his heart caught in his throat. It was all he could do to not grab the cheek of her ass and mold her tender body parts to his. Or fill her up with every last ounce of all he had to give, his manhood and the rest of his life.

Where these feelings and thoughts came from, he hadn’t a clue, but this woman, this complex female, had changed everything the moment she’d taken that first frosty breath below Mother’s Day Falls.

She edged in closer, one hand trapped between their bodies, the other as soft as a kitten on his chest, and like it or not, Chance was her slave forever. And that slave wanted inside of her body. How disgusting was that? He wasn’t any better than that pig, York. Here she was, such a tiny little thing thrown to her death, and all Chance could think about was making her come. Putting a smile on her lips and a blush on her body. Every last inch of it.

Enough. Fighting the rowdy demands of his all-male body, Chance forced his mind off the broken yet seductive beauty in his arms. He sent his horny brain back to A-School, the fierce seven-week pre-BUD’S training. Then onto Coronado for another seven punishing months that ended in Hell Week instead of romantic fiction.

Not working.

He forced his stubborn mind to the twenty mile runs in full gear, then to scuba diving at all hours of the night. When those didn’t work, he focused on the underwater long-distance transit dives he’d made in frigid weather, and from there, to rigging underwater explosives in the midst of prowling hungry sharks with rows of razor sharp teeth. He re-lived weapons training on every caliber, make, and model he’d ever touched.

Shit. He was hard as a brick. This wasn’t working either, not with Suede’s warm breath on his neck, melting his finely honed military mind into a bucket of galaxy slime. Closing his eyes, Chance forced his fingers to loosen their hold on her bicep. Naturally, the impulse to stroke his way down to the flare of her bare, lush hips remained, but he triumphed over the temptation and stopped at her waist.

He’d dressed her in his favorite T-shirt before he’d settled her into his bed. She’d been unconscious then, but her legs and backside were bare and inviting and… my hell! This woman was made for sin and sex. It was no wonder she ran with the pack of animals she did. Down to her painted pink toenails, Suede Tennyson was the Grecian goddess Aphrodite come to life, a curvaceous woman made to be loved and loved hard.

Thankfully, Gallo picked that moment to whine, and Chance flashed back to his senses. Of course! He needs to take a leak too.

Glad for the distraction, Chance whispered, “I’ll be right back,” in case Suede was still awake, which he doubted. Her breathing had evened out, a good sign she was plenty warm. Who was he kidding? Warming her wasn’t the only reason he was still in bed with her, but damn. His fingers didn’t want to let her go.

Another whine lifted up from the floor, and there was no choice.

“I’m coming.” Gingerly, Chance eased one foot to the floor while he released his hold on the luscious woman in his bed. Moaning, she turned her nose into his pillow, so he drew the blankets up to her chin, made sure she was tucked in extra tight and warm, and left her to rest.

At his closet, he traded his nightwear for a pair of jeans and a black, long-sleeved Henley. A pair of warm socks completed his ensemble while Gallo waggled his body at Chance’s knees for attention. Closing the bedroom door behind him, he ruffled Gallo’s thick mane. “I know what you mean. She’s something else, isn’t she, boy?” He’d no more than closed his big mouth when his hackles lifted. They weren’t alone.

“I’m back,” a gruff male voice growled from the darkened room beyond.

“Pagan?” What a relief. “How the hell’d you get here?” In a blizzard?

“Easy. I was nearly to your place when the storm hit. It was either freeze to death in the timber or keep marching, so here I am. Coffee’s on.”

“Why are you here?”

“Apparently your cell phone’s out again, or you shut it off.” Pagan lifted a coffee mug in a half-hearted toast that didn’t reach his startling green eyes, so much like his mother’s. “We need to talk.”

Chance pointed to the charging station on the end table next to his couch. Under the towel he’d wrapped Suede’s head with. No wonder he hadn’t heard the phone he’d plugged in there. Damn. Not good. Was I that distracted? Guess so. “Let me clear a path for Gallo to go take a leak first.”

That proved easy. Pagan’s incoming boot tracks still marked a semi-decent trail through the drifts of snow and into the trees. Chance sent Gallo off to do his business with a stern, “Stay close,” while he waited at the door. Damn, it was still snowing and blowing. If this kept up, they’d be stranded for weeks.

A good dusting blanketed Gallo’s rump when he returned, his big ears perked up, and a smile on his face. “Good boy,” Chance told his buddy. Back inside, he stomped his boots quietly to not wake Suede before he joined Pagan at the kitchen table. “You’re looking tired, Baby Brother. When’d you get in?”

Pagan stretched his long legs alongside the four-person wooden kitchen table as Gallo moved in for a quick pat on the head before he returned to his spot at the hearth. “An hour ago.” Pagan nodded at Chance’s bedroom door. “Who’s your lady friend?”

Chance chuffed at the prying question. “You’re not going to believe this, but Gallo found Suede Tennyson half-dead in the pond last night. I resuscitated her and brought her home.”

Pagan’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Say again?”

“That’s right. She was camping up top when her asshole boyfriend pitched her over the cliff.”

“That boyfriend wouldn’t be Lionel York, would he?”

“Yeah, why?”

Pagan blew out a low whistle. “Because he’s my next mark. Sullivan tried to reach you. When he couldn’t, he tagged me for the hit.”

“So that’s why you’re here. To off York?” Chance asked, not entirely displeased with this new mission. York deserved to die for what he’d done to Suede, but why had he hit Sullivan’s radar, and why was Chance just hearing about it? He had a sat phone. Sullivan should’ve been able to reach him.

“You really don’t know, do you?” With a head full of shaggy hair as black as his eyes, Pagan’s lip lifted into a sneer. “Damn it, Chance, get your head out of your ass and re-engage, will you? It’s been months. You’ve got to let it go.”

Chance shut down, not going to discuss his feelings with his brother. Not yet. The months since he’d lost his team, his mother, and his career didn’t equate to a man being ready to jump back into work that could get other good men killed. Chance wasn’t hiding from life as much as trying to figure out where he fit in the equation. Or if he still fit. Losing his men had hurt, but losing his mom the same day? Karma had dealt him an unforgivably tough hand. Chance hadn’t processed much past the anger stage of grief. Didn’t think he could.

Pagan was right, but he made it sound easy. Chance knew better.

“The snow must’ve knocked out the satellite,” he told his brother, “or I’d have talked with Sullivan and put York down already. Now, I’ll ask one more time. What’d York do to piss Sullivan off?”

“There’s a reason York goes to Cuba every month, and it’s not to play tennis. He’s balls deep in the drug trade. Cocaine. He gets it out of South America and he’s opened shop in Oregon. You’d know this if Sullivan could ever reach you.”

Chance rolled the pinch out of his neck. “I just talked with Sullivan two days ago. He didn’t say anything about York then, but if he wanted me to off the guy, why’d he wait until this storm rolled in to assign the hit? He knew it was coming.”

A shadow shifted over Pagan’s already dark countenance. He looked away and flicked his middle finger off his thumb like he was brushing away a gnat. “Hell if I know, but I’m tired, Chance. Back-to-back overseas flights are ball busters.”

So were back-to-back hits. Pagan shouldn’t have had to accept two tough jobs in the same week, and that foul was on Chance. Now that the cabin was finished and safeguards were set in stone, he needed to step up and go active.

But something else was going on here. Leaning into his brother’s face, Chance peered closer. Pagan didn’t usually suffer over the loss of a few lowlifes in the world. He was known to throw back a few drinks and ask for another assignment, not drink. “What’s really going on? You’re not just tired.”

Pagan’s square head rotated on his thick neck. His fists clenched. Still wearing his boots and Gortex jacket, he’d present a formidable adversary to folks who didn’t know him. His fist hit the table, upsetting his mug. Coffee went flying. “Do you even know where I’ve been? Did you see what I had to do? Do you even care?”

Enough said. The Sinclair brothers had never fought each other. Chance didn’t want this to be the day they did. He cleared the table. Grabbing his brother by the nape of his neck, he jerked Pagan forward and into his shoulder. “I know, brother. I know. You were in Syria then straight onto Afghanistan. Trust me, I know, and yes, I care.”

“I had to kill him, Chance, in front of his little girl!” Pagan shoved back, but not getting out of his older brother’s grip. Anguish shuddered off him like heat off a radiator in August. “Shit, I had to off him before he made her take the first cut. Damn him!” He kicked at the tiled floor, the torment in his tone loud and clear. “I hate myself as much as I hate that bastard father of hers. Why couldn’t she grow up like any other little kid? What is wrong with those people?”

“They’re fucked up, man. Really fucked up,” Chance gave him the only answer he knew while he hung onto his over-wrought brother. Bad language was one of those things his mother abhorred, in her writing and in her home. Hence, the brothers grew up learning other ways to express themselves intelligently. Most of the time...

But this was the brother who’d buried Chance’s ’48 Willey’s Jeep to the floorboards in the sand dunes at Ocean Shores, Washington, on a joyride with his friends the night he’d graduated high school. This was the crazy-assed guy who’d jumped off the Narrows Bridge in Tacoma, Washington, on a dare, and who’d nearly broken his neck surviving the one hundred eighty-seven foot drop. Pagan could be bat-shit crazy, but he deserved respect. Most of all, he deserved a safe place to come in from the storms of this warrior’s life they both lived. No one said this after-five job would be easy, and by God, it wasn’t.

“And you’re right. It’s time I take my share of the assignments. Consider this one mine. I’ll take it from here.”

“Shit,” Pagan hissed, “I’m beat.”

“You need breakfast and a week of R&R,” Chance decided. That much he could provide, but what was truly eating at Pagan was unsolvable. Ideologically, the Sinclair brothers were cut out of the same cloth, but for whatever reason, Pagan came with a bigger, softer heart. Maybe because he knew what it was like to be his mother’s favorite son, to be the youngest in a family of three boys, to be loved and spoiled rotten, he wanted to save every child in the world. It just wasn’t possible.

Chance let his resistant brother go. “Bacon and eggs, then a twelve-hour rest. How long can you stay?”

“You tell me,” Pagan muttered. “You’re the boss of this chicken shit outfit.”

“You know the house rules. Stay as long as you want—”

“Just don’t leave a trail behind you when you go,” Pagan finished. “Yeah, yeah, is my room clean?”

Dragging his iron skillet to the stove, Chance fired up the front burners, threw on a side of bacon, and tossed together a quick batch of breakfast biscuits. He held off answering until the biscuits were in the oven and a dozen scrambled eggs sizzled alongside the bacon, filling the cabin with the best aroma in the world. “It’s as clean as you left it. I’m thinking either Sullivan’s got a mole on his staff who leaked my twenty, or York knows something we don’t. What do you think? Why else would he decide to toss his girlfriend off the mountain in my backyard?”

“My thoughts exactly,” Pagan agreed from his place at the table. Calmer now, he peeled out of his jacket and boots, creating a pile on the floor next to his chair and gear bag. That was Baby Brother for you, a born pilot.

“That or he’s making a point, that he thinks he’s untouchable.” By then the oven timer declared the biscuits were done, and the last of the bacon was extra crispy. “Which means he’s onto Sullivan and the SOBs. Orange juice? More coffee?”

Pagan held his mug out for a refill. “You got any of the good stuff?” He meant Bushmills, the pricey, single malt Irish Whiskey Chance kept on hand to warm his coffee on cold nights.

“You know where it is, help yourself,” Chance said as he transferred breakfast to the table. “But keep it down. Suede’s had a bad night. She needs to rest.”

“Suede, huh? Does Kruze know she’s here?” Pagan grunted from his haunches at the lower shelf of their mother’s cherry wood liquor cabinet, one of Chance’s prized possessions and the only real thing he’d wanted of her estate. Scarlett Sinclair might be gone, but her good taste in liquor lived on. Chance stocked it with nothing but the finest for moments like this. A brother come home from the wars was enough reason to celebrate.

“Not yet. You’re the first one I’ve talked to since Sullivan called.”

“That’s another thing. Why’d he call me instead of you? You’re already here.”

“Not sure.” Chance and Pagan settled back at the table, Pagan with the Bushmills at his plate. “When we talked, he asked if I was ready to come back online, and to be honest, I said yeah, in another week. It’s not like I’ve been slacking, you know. I pay the bills and I keep you guys safe while you’re out. I keep track.”

“I know,” Pagan admitted, the bottle between his knees as he popped the lid, then poured a stream of amber heat into his coffee mug. “You keep us safe. Forget what I said.”

“No worries.” Silence reigned as forks were lifted and the men ate. Gallo traded his favorite spot by the fire for one under the table, just in case. After five solid minutes of chewing and refilling coffee cups, the bacon was gone and the eggs were history.

Pagan stabbed the last biscuit, slathered it with butter, and eased back in his chair. He rolled his neck, the vertebrae cracking as he popped the flaky morsel into his mouth. His eyes closed. “Damn, I’m glad Mom taught one of us how to cook.”

“You ought to try it sometime,” Chance said pointedly, more to tease than to scold. Patting his thigh, he invited Gallo to come take the slice of crispy pork fat he’d set aside for him. “I’ll get in touch with Sullivan for more intel on York. In the meantime, take a load off and for hell’s sake, take a shower.” Chance guessed Pagan hadn’t had time for the simple amenities on his whirlwind week of plane hopping.

“Not ’til you tell me about your lady friend.” Pagan’s chair thumped all four legs to the floor. His eyes turned dark beneath his brows. “Did you consider this might be just an act to get inside our team? Inside the SOBs? Jesus, Chance, she could be a spy for York.”

Chance shook his head, amused at his brother’s suspicious mind. Kruze wouldn’t have asked that question. Forever the ladies man, he’d have been hands-on treating Miss Tennyson by now, holding her while she sipped a cup of broth and massaging her aching muscles as he regaled her with his adventures. Why that mental image irked the hell out of Chance floored him, but it did. No one needed to be putting his dirty mitts on Suede.

“Man, you’re cynical. She was as blue as a Smurf when I finally got her inside last night, and that was after I did chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth on her for a good five minutes. For all purposes, she was dead. If it hadn’t been for Gallo, I wouldn’t have known she was out there. He’s the hero. He found her, not me. And there’s no way she’s a spy. Poor thing’s got an ugly tear from here” —Chance stabbed his index finger in a line on his left thigh from knee to hip— “to here. This isn’t a ploy by Suede Tennyson to get inside the SOBs or to get at us. I think it’s a coincidence.”

His gut twisted the moment he said that word out loud. Was there any such thing as a coincidence? Pagan grunted, not believing it either. “Where’d you find her?”

“Dead center of the pond below the falls. She’d dropped through the ice. Again, it was Gallo who found her. He helped me drag her to shore, didn’t you, boy?” Chance tossed his companion the last crumbs of bacon. “She owes this dog her life, and I owe him a venison rump roast. All of it. Huh, boy?”

Gallo snarfed the tidbit, his tail thumping and his eyes bright.

Pinching his lips together, Pagan nodded. “You might be right, but it’s mighty odd she showed up at the same time I get called to off York. Damned odd.”

“I am right,” Chance declared, “and you’re too tired to think straight, now take off. Get some shuteye. I’ll take first watch.”

“That’s another thing.” Pagan’s eyebrow lifted along with the back legs of his chair. “The beacons weren’t on when I came in.”

“Duly noted.” Chance stared his stern brother down. The beacons were an early warning system of interconnected laser beams at the perimeter of his one hundred acre tract. Intended to alert him of any large animal’s approach, they emitted an ear-piercing, ultrasonic shriek that discomforted animal and man alike. At best, they were a redundancy to the security cameras he’d also installed along the perimeter. Both alerted him of incoming visitors/enemies, one with visuals, one with noise, but the beacons would’ve worked during the whiteout while the cameras would’ve been rendered useless. Pagan was right. If not for Suede, they would’ve been on.

“I was a little busy making sure our visitor survived,” Chance bit out. “My bad. It won’t happen again.”

His brother offered a chin nod at the closed bedroom door. “It’s not like you have a lot of visitors up here anyway, not in this weather. Guess it’s no big deal. How is she?”

“She’ll live.” But it was a big deal and Chance was worried. Pitching a woman, any woman, off that mountain might not be a ruse to infiltrate the SOBs, but it had created a distraction. Only Chance had been plenty distracted before he’d found Suede, so much so that he’d left his cabin unlocked and his defenses down when he’d gone after Gallo. He’d gotten lazy and lax over a dog and a woman. Things had to change.

Tired of the argument, Chance pointed at one of the two spare rooms. “Shower. Now.”

The Sinclair brothers’ bedrooms punctuated three of the four corners of the massive cabin. Each included an en suite bathroom, a wood-burning stove, and trap door that led to the escape tunnel beneath the cabin. Dug seven feet below surface, the tunnel held an armory of weaponry from guns and knives to flame throwers and gas masks in a vault at its entry. Its exit lay a half-mile due west and beyond another shale bed.

At the best, unexpected and unwanted company would be hard pressed to get inside the fortified cabin, but by the time they did, Chance, his brothers, and any guests would be long gone, if the beacons had been turned on. He rolled one shoulder, irritated at his lapse in judgment in the fury of locating Gallo and ultimately, of saving Suede’s life.

A sloppy SEAL was a dead SEAL. It wouldn’t happen again.