7. Chance
7
CHANCE
I couldn’t fall asleep that night. My mind stewed over Walter and why he was stalking Mandy. The next morning, I waited until after Mandy left for work, then I went to her house and implored—damn near begged —Pepper to give me answers. And she did. Mandy’s roommate swore me to secrecy and once I agreed, she unloaded.
“She acts like she’s fine,” Pepper said. “Like she’s got it all in hand. But I know she doesn’t. I know she’s scared.”
I could see Pepper was pretty scared herself. I was also willing to bet she knew a lot more than Mandy realized.
“I got held up,” Pepper said, dabbing at her eyes. “On my way home from work. The guy didn’t get much, just snatched my purse. But then he smirked, and he said, Relax, babe. This is just a warning, so chill out. And that’s when I knew, somehow, that he worked for Walter, and that he’d attacked me to send a message. He used me to hurt her. I almost?—”
“What?”
“I almost moved out, but I couldn’t leave her alone. It makes me sick, thinking she’s in so much danger. Knowing she’s struggling, and I can’t do a thing.”
I handed her another bunch of Kleenex. “Does she know you know all this?”
Pepper shook her head. “I’m scared if I tell her, she’ll do something rash. If she knows how freaked I’ve been, she might…I don’t know. Get herself hurt trying to protect me.”
I left Pepper with a lot of answers, but none of that made me feel any better. I drove to the garage and got straight to work, taking out my frustration on an obstinate tire. Pepper’s words kept replaying in my head. Her father was a gambler. A hopeless addict. It got to the point he was barely home nights, always finding a game or someplace to bet on sports.
She’d explained how George had fallen into serious debt, but she couldn’t give me details, only that George had taken out an equity loan against the house that didn’t cover even half of what he owed.
I muscled the tire off as the conversation continued to replay in my head. The debt transferred to Mandy. She’s been kowtowing to Walter since I got robbed. That’s how I know he was behind it. Probably to keep her from going to the cops. Pepper had stood and placed a hand on my forearm, forcing me to stop pacing like a caged beast. I didn’t tell you everything so you could make things worse by trying to play the hero. I told you so you would understand that anything you do could jeopardize her safety. Find a way out of this for her if you can, but don’t do something that blows back on her.
I set the tire aside. Pepper was right. I couldn’t go off half-cocked like an avenging superhero. I had to have a plan. A strategy to sever this bookie’s dangerous hold on Mandy.
My eyes darted to Mandy, and I nearly dropped my wrench. Son of a ?—
Creamy skin dotted with freckles greeted my eyes. She had removed the top half of her coveralls and tied the sleeves at her waist, much like I did to alleviate the heat. Russet-colored curls rioted around her gorgeous head, wet with sweat where they clung to her brow. The humidity had frizzed out the rest of her hair, and it floated like a halo around her lovely face. She wasn’t wearing makeup, and the heat of the day had flushed her cheeks, giving her a radiant glow.
She rooted inside one of the tall red toolboxes lining the back wall, and I couldn’t stop salivating over her erotic profile. Full breasts strained against a red and black sports bra that did nothing to hide her nipples poking against the spandex. The way my body still responded to her didn’t make this job easier either.
Another curse passed my lips. Six days, I’d been working here—six days caught between laughter, regret, and a raging hard-on. And just like in the past, the damn thing could give a damn about the barely dressed string of women parading through the garage. It only wanted one woman, and it wanted her bad. I’d needed all my SEAL training to keep from dragging her into the office and making a massive mistake.
She pulled out a digital meter and closed the drawer. Her hands weren’t delicate, but strong and adept. Just like her. I knew firsthand the strength of her grip. A phantom sensation teased me—those hands on my cock—and I imagined her squeezing and stroking him just how I liked.
As if sensing my savage hunger, she froze where she stood. Her gaze snapped to mine. Her eyes widened, then turned hooded.
I growled and her eyes darkened. I saw her shiver.
Refusing to break the hold, I kept staring straight at her, allowing my lust to show freely. It would be so easy to close the distance between us. Everything inside me begged me to do it. To satiate this hunger that had been growing all week.
Bad idea. Don’t do it.
I distracted myself with less pleasant thoughts: my new frustration with Mandy for not trusting me enough to tell me about Walter. My old, festering pain from when I’d walked away twelve years ago. The ulcer-producing fear that Walter might harm her, or try to force her to work the debt off sexually—I had overheard that, and I knew what the asshole was after. Just the thought spiked my blood pressure, so I cut it off. Could she see the turmoil tearing me up? I needed to help her. Didn’t she know? The instinct burned from deep in my soul, and I was helpless against it. Her refusal to let me in only stoked that fire.
A tractor trailer’s horn blasted up the street. Mandy looked away, and the tense moment shattered. She gasped, reeling back, her breasts heaving as she gulped in air.
I gasped as she did, mostly from the sight. Swiping my half-finished water bottle off the small parts shelf beside me, I guzzled it in seconds.
Mandy set the meter on top a Buick’s radiator and hunched over, resting her weight on the front end. “Chance,” she said, throatily. It made my cock twitch. If she kept this up, I’d have to look into anti-Viagra.
“Yeah?” I grabbed the new tire off the floor to hide my stiff condition.
“I, um,” she swiveled her face toward me, “I owe you a paycheck for the past week, but, I, uh…didn’t make it to the bank yesterday, and they’re closed on weekends.” She avoided eye contact, but I still saw the way the corners of her eyes tightened.
Five retorts flew to my mouth at her obvious BS excuse, but I reined them in and continued mounting the new tire onto the rim. “Don’t worry about it.” I shrugged to sell the lie that my body wasn’t strung tighter than a zip-line cable. “Listen.” I adjusted the valve stem. “I didn’t mean to cause you trouble yesterday.”
Her shoulders slumped, and I had to swallow the sudden anger souring my mouth. She should never look so defeated.
“Um, thanks.” Her spine snapped straight as if marshalling her defenses.
I wanted to applaud. That’s my Mandy .
My Mandy? Had I really thought that? Christ. But I couldn’t argue.
You’re mine , I told her silently. Shoving aside past hurt, unresolved issues, and the uncertainty of the true depth of my emotions, I still claimed her, and with that came my full protection. I’d let her think she’d kept me in the dark, but she’d soon learn that the eighteen-year-old who entered the Navy had retired a hardened SEAL.
And Walter, along with whoever he worked for, just became my prey.
I readjusted the sleeves tied around my waist and dropped onto the grass beside Mandy. Bumping her with my knee as I found a moderately comfortable position, I held a bottle of water toward her that I’d carried from the garage.
“Bless you,” she groaned, raising her arm straight up, not moving from lying flat on her back.
I smirked and uncapped the bottle before slapping it into her palm. A small stream spilled over the top and splashed onto her exposed collarbone— of course she had let down her coveralls the second we reached her backyard, hammering at my frayed self-control. The thin trail of water trickled over her smooth, freckled skin, and I wished I could follow it with my tongue.
Opening my own bottle, I guzzled the entire contents in one long gulp to keep from bending over and quenching my thirst with the water on her body.
Walking her home after work had become a ritual. At first, she’d balked, but after two days of me mulishly following her anyway, she’d given in. I didn’t trust Walter not to approach her once she got off Main Street, away from the protection of passers-by. After this morning’s revelations from Pepper, I was damn glad I’d insisted.
A squirrel chittered to his mate as he chased her up the immense oak tree beside us and disappeared within the full green leaves filtering out the sun. My eyes dropped to the woman lounging beside me, and the empty plastic bottle crinkled obnoxiously in my tightening fist. Having her splayed like an offering in the shade tested my restraint. Restraint I only had a tenuous grasp on at best .
Sliding my gaze to the six-foot wooden privacy fence I’d helped her father build, an argument raged between my brain and libido. The tree canopy covered us as much as the fence hid us from nosy neighbors…I could tear that sports bra off and?—
“What happened?” She brushed my scraped knuckles with her fingers.
Gritting my teeth against both the fantasy and the storm of electricity from the contact zinging straight to my cock, I grunted. Turning my hand, I purposefully moved away while pretending to study the scrape. “New tire installation.” I shrugged. No way would I admit I’d lost my grip on the tire bar when she’d dropped to her hands and knees to look under a Buick. The way her ass rose in the air as she all but rested her cheek on the floor had made me storm out of the garage and pace behind a row of cars until I reined in the urge to tear her coveralls off and give us both relief.
“Let me get the first aid kit.” Her abdominal muscles shifted, and she started to lift herself up, but I waved her off.
“No need.” I flipped my fist around to show her. “It’s not bleeding.”
She relaxed but bit her lip, her hazel eyes roving over my face. “Still. It’ll help.”
“Maybe, but…” I sighed and studied my freshly scrubbed fingernails, now free of grease. She had a damn good hand brush at the garage. I’d have to ask her where she’d bought it. Later. Right now, I needed to tell her what was really on my mind. More important than lust—more important than anything—was figuring out how to make her safe.
“Hell, I can’t think of a smooth transition for a subject change, so I’ll just be blunt. You don’t have to handle Walter on your own. I’m here. I want…no, I need to help.”
Mandy turned to granite before my eyes, her whole body stiffening, her eyes going hard. I could practically hear the internal battle raging in her head. After too many seconds of neither of us breathing, she finally set her empty bottle at the base of the tree. “What do you know about Walter?”
Unwilling to break my promise to Pepper, I skirted around answering directly. “I’m thinking he’s not an employee of Springwell Bank and Trust.” Her eyes flashed, and she didn’t hide her grimace well. “Yet he’s in your garage collecting money, so that tells me an alternate funding source is involved. Walter works for the, let’s say, lender who, I bet, is ruthless about repayment.” I watched for Mandy’s reaction, but she didn’t move. I leaned in instead and reached for her hand. “You’re in over your head and scared of him. I think that runs deeper than fear of what he’ll do to you. You don’t have a problem standing up for yourself…but you’d never put anyone else in danger. He’s threatened to harm people you care about.”
Mandy sighed, long and broken. A hundred emotions flitted across her face.
“I was planning to talk to you,” she said. “Planning to do it today, actually. I was going to cook you dinner so your mouth would be full. So I could get it all out without you butting in.”
I nudged her gently. “You learned to cook?”
Mandy’s lips quirked up, but she didn’t laugh. “I am in over my head and scared,” she admitted. She hugged herself tightly, and my heart ached. Her fear stripped the years away and made her look so young—just like the girl I’d loved with all my heart. “So much has happened since you left. I’ve missed this, missed talking to you…but you worry me, too. You’re so strong, so good . I knew you’d try to save me if I told the truth. And Walter, he’s just the tip of the iceberg. The loan shark he works for—even the FBI couldn’t…” She broke off with a shudder and squeezed her eyes shut. “What if you try to help me and it goes wrong? Your drive to save everyone?—”
“ Screw everyone,” I growled, tunneling a hand into the chaotic curls surrounding her head. Her silky tresses brushed the back of my hand, just like they had the first time I’d touched them. They were just as lush, just as soft, just as perfectly her —wild, uncontrollable, just like Mandy herself. My self-control snapped, and I gripped the back of her neck, pulling her closer, the need to taste her too much to fight. “The only person I care about is you .”
I crushed my lips against hers, and yes , this was love. Mandy was everything, and she always had been. She was my joy, my laughter, my breath, the first woman I’d been with and the only one I wanted. And, oh, how I wanted her, and everything she was. Everything that came with her. Anything. The world.