Chapter 6 #2
Sam peered at the security system, her nerves fraying by the second. “Hello.”
“Hi, it’s, uh, me.” The low and sexy voice flitted straight to her ears. “Owen, I mean.”
Anxiety bunched in her stomach and swept through her body.
“He is hot. Damn.” Emily observed the security screen. “Did he look this good ten years ago?”
Sam’s eyes widened. “Focus. What do I do?”
“Let him in.” She patted her on the shoulder and then started for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m leaving so you guys can have some privacy.”
“Right. Okay.” She closed her eyes and held down the button. “Hi,” she said softly.
“Hey, sorry to drop in on you. I was hoping we could talk.”
“He must know who I am,” she said to Emily. She had hoped to reveal the truth on her own terms, though.
“I was surprised he didn’t recognize you sooner.” Emily lightly shrugged. “Just get this talk over with.”
Different emotions stacked up inside of her like layers on a cake, but she wasn’t ready to cut through them all yet.
She needed more time to work up the nerve.
But she whispered, “Okay.” She pressed her finger back onto the talk button.
“Come on up.” She buzzed him in and shook her arms out at her sides to get rid of the sudden feeling of needles pricking her skin.
“Good luck.” Emily patted her shoulder. “Maybe I’ll get a sneak peek of him on my way out.”
“I’ll call you after he leaves.”
Emily nodded and left.
A rap at the door a minute later had her tongue pinned to the top of her mouth. She secured her hand on the knob and released a lungful of air before opening it.
Owen stood with a palm braced against the exterior of the doorframe, and her lips twitched into a smile when she noticed he’d cut his hair.
His hair was now tapered at the sides, with his beard connecting up and to his hairline. The top of his hair was still a little longer and maybe purposefully spiky—that, or he’d been running his fingers through it as if something was wrong.
He looked dangerously hot, and it had her stomach physically hurting at the sight of him, especially if he now knew the truth.
“Hi.” He looked over her shoulder and into her home, his eyes tracking the visible area from left to right. “You alone?”
She forced herself to step back and find her voice. “Yeah. Come in.”
He remained standing, though, with his eyes now positioned back on hers. It was like every ounce of his energy pinged off him, hitting her like a punch to the gut.
He tucked his hands in his pockets, jingling change or a set of keys. “You’re not wearing perfume.”
Even from that far he could tell? Wow.
She found herself smiling, but it faded quickly at the continued harsh look in his eyes and the tight line of his lips.
He knows. He knows! Everything inside of her screamed like a child throwing a tantrum, and it was all her fault.
The lie had been like silk, smoothly slipping from her tongue the moment they’d collided in Mexico.
Now, she’d have to grate out an explanation that made sense.
“I, uh, just got out of the shower,” she said and blinked away her thoughts. Her wet locks threaded between her fingers when she remembered she was makeup free and only in pajama shorts and a tee.
Emily had shown up right after she’d showered, forcing her to talk about what had happened on her trip.
Jason’s brother. She shuddered at the thought and turned away, expecting him to follow. But when she peered back at him, he remained standing in the hall.
He stared down at the change from the wood floors in the hall to the carpet in her home, as if there was some sort of red line he couldn’t bring himself to cross.
“Do you know who I am?”
She fully faced him, her arms dead at her sides.
“Do you remember me?” He finally stepped over the line and nudged the door shut behind him.
“I—” The rest of the words jammed up in her throat, and she couldn’t seem to free them.
He closed the gap between them in one stride, which had her pulse doubling. “Do you know I’m Jason York’s brother?”
Chills swept over her skin as he propped a palm on the wall in the mini foyer of her home.
She eyed his bicep, a few veins wrapping around the muscle like a rope. “Yes. Yes, I know.” She dropped her gaze to the floor.
A deep sigh blew from his lips. “When did you realize? On the boat?” The deep sexiness of his normal tone had been replaced by a harsh grit that was cutting.
“I knew before then.” She hugged her body and rubbed her arms, wondering if she should get dressed before baring the truth to him. “Maybe we could go for a walk?”
He took a moment to consider her words then nodded, and so, she hurried to her bedroom to get dressed before he changed his mind.
A minute later, she came back toward him like a nervous bride on her wedding day.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked once they were outside. “Why’d you let me believe we were strangers?”
She turned and faced him. “I, uh, tried so many times. I never meant to sleep with you. Or, whatever we did.”
“You knew that soon?” His brows slanted inward, and his lips remained parted in surprise.
She nodded. “I didn’t expect to feel . . .”
He shifted the weight of his stance as his gaze swerved up and over her shoulder. “Is there a reason why someone would be following you?”
“What?” She twisted around to find a guy standing on the other side of the four-lane road. He was in a dark sweatshirt and jeans, and the moment their eyes connected he lifted his hood and turned to go the other way down the street.
Owen reached for her arm and redirected her focus back to him. “I’d chase after him, but I’m not leaving you on the street alone. Not if he’s a distraction and there’s someone else nearby looking to grab you.”
“‘Grab’ me? Why would you think that? And how do you even know he was looking at me?”
“In my line of work . . .” He allowed his voice to trail off, then he shook his head. “Come on, let’s just get you off the street, okay?” He touched the small of her back and directed her toward the entrance.
Once they were back in her place, Owen locked up, sliding the chain in place. “You really have no idea who that was?”
“Who knows if he was even watching me?” But . . . She thought back to the description of the deliveryman Phillip had given her: tall, dark hair, dark eyes. He could be one in a million. “I don’t know, maybe it could be him,” she said as if he’d been following along with her line of thought.
“‘Him’ who?” A pair of hazel eyes were sharp on her.
She massaged her temples and took a few breaths before softly admitting, “I lied to you.”
“Yeah, I already got that part. You didn’t tell me who you are,” he rasped.
When she couldn’t find the words, he strode past her and approached the bookshelves that flanked her entertainment center. The muscles pinched in his back as he lifted a photo of her and Brad.
“You should’ve told me. You should never have let me goddamn touch you.”
“I’m sorry.” But would sorry ever be enough?
He handed her the photo and strode to the door, but instead of leaving, he placed his balled hands against it and hung his head. “Do you understand how wrong this is? How bad I feel now?” He tapped his head lightly against the wood before pushing back.
Her heart took a terrifying climb into her throat, and she inwardly groaned. “I-I’m so sorry. I was drunk, and I—”
He swiveled around. “And on the boat?” His jaw clenched as he asked through barely parted lips, “What were you then?”
“Stupid . . .”
He bowed his head as if he couldn’t stomach the sight of her.
“There’s something I have to show you to explain why I followed you to Mexico.”
He looked up at her, and his brows rose in surprise.
Had she left that part out? Shit. Before he could say anything, she turned and went to her desk to retrieve the photo from the envelope.
Clutching it to her chest, she slowly ate up the space between them as if she were walking toward him with a grenade in hand.
“Here.” She extended her arm and finally offered the photo, the reason why she went to Los Cabos.
His eyes narrowed as he examined it, bringing it close to his face the same way she had done the first time she’d seen it. “Where the hell did you get this?” An edge of darkness, of pain, wrapped tight around his words.
“A delivery guy dropped it off at my office and then took off. I didn’t see him, but it’s possible the guy outside .
. .” She rubbed her forehead, trying to collect her thoughts and make sense of everything.
“I haven’t been able to authenticate whether it’s real or not.
Anyone with Photoshop could fake this—but if they did, they went to a hell of a lot of trouble to do so. ”
He remained quiet, his eyes pinned to the image.
“This picture is a copy, though. I gave the original to my friend at the FBI.” She curled her fingertips into her palms. “After Brad died, I did my best to look into what happened. I couldn’t handle that he was just gone, and that the terrorist responsible hadn’t been captured.”
Her last few words were like an echo in the room, and it had him looking straight at her. He lowered the photo to his side with a grim twist to his lips.
“This picture doesn’t make sense, right?” she asked. “It shows Brad, Jason, and some other guy in Kiev instead of Ramadi, the day they died.”
“How do you know they’re in Ukraine?”
She came around next to him and touched the picture, her finger falling upon the large dome and five green cupolas, which served as the backdrop of the photo.
“That’s St. Andrew’s Cathedral in the background.
I was just in Kiev in July with my father.
” When he kept quiet, she continued, “You were a SEAL, right? You must know more than me about what happened to them.”
“How do you know that about me? Hell, how’d you know where to find me?”