Chapter 3
K ane leaned back into the jewel-toned throw pillows on Scarlett’s, and now Chris’s, couch since they’d recently moved in together and tipped his beer bottle toward Nic. “Are those gingerbread cookies on your ugly-ass Christmas sweater going at it?”
“Even cookies have needs.” Nic rose from the couch and glanced at the stairs. “Based on how long that shower has been running, I’d say Chris and Scarlett’s needs are being satisfied too.”
“They’d better hurry up. It’s almost time to go.”
“Can’t rush love.” He started for the kitchen. “Want a beer?”
“Nah, I’ll save it for later.” Unless he was on official leave, as Chris was for the next couple of days while he and Scarlett were on their “engagement-moon,” two drinks were his limit. He’d need them later to dull the pain in his hip where VIPER’s surgeon had attached his super leg. After the Mexico mission, he’d received a special concoction to help heal the bumps and bruises he’d sustained. The aches were nearly gone, but the wonder drug did nothing for phantom pain. His leg ached like it was still made of living muscle and nerves instead of an indestructible alloy invented in the VIPER lab.
Nic appeared back in the doorway, his phone to his ear. “I’ll meet you there.” He hung up and motioned for Kane to follow him as he strode to the front door.
Kane stood and pulled on his leather jacket over his navy-blue button-down. “What’s happened?”
“Someone stole Beth’s cake and scared the shit out of her.”
“What?” Kane sprang from the couch. Confusion about the first part and anger about the second raced through his mind as he scooped up his cowboy hat from the coffee table and jammed it onto his head.
Nic gave him a rundown of the incident at the bakery as they jogged down the steps. “Sounds like some asshole is fucking with Beth, and not in the way you would like to.”
“Shut up.” Who knew that when he’d signed on to be part of the nation’s first generation of super soldiers he’d not only gain his career back but also get a bunch of busybody brothers? Nic wasn’t wrong though. Beth starred in his fantasies.
Kane opened the door of his pickup truck and pulled his handgun out of the glove box. He couldn’t utilize his V-Strike technology if they encountered hostiles at Beth’s place. His weaponry was only active when VIPER headquarters gave the okay. He didn’t mind reverting to good old-fashioned firepower, though. Sometimes he missed the weight of a gun in his hand. “How far out is she?”
“Fifteen minutes.” Nic closed the door of his SUV and slipped the weapon he’d retrieved inside his coat.
“Good.” She lived around the corner from Chris and Scarlett in an identical townhome in Alexandria, Virginia, just outside of Washington, DC. There was plenty of time to secure the place before she arrived.
“Beth made me promise not to tell Scarlett. She doesn’t want her to worry during her engagement party. She also told me not to bring you.”
Nic’s words nearly tripped him up but didn’t slow his stride. “She what?”
“What did you do to piss her off?”
“I did nothing.” Well, nothing since a few weeks ago, and nothing she knew about recently. “We all can’t be Casanovas like you.”
“Someone in this familia has to be the charmer.”
Kane snickered as he secured his gun inside his jacket. “Whatever, brother.” He didn’t have to act like a ladies’ man with Beth. He’d only known her a couple of weeks, but enough chemistry naturally kindled between them to start a fire. But even if she hadn’t been giving him the cold shoulder lately, Beth wasn’t a one-night stand kind of girl. Until he got out of the military, he was a no commitment kind of guy.
He pulled in cold air as he picked up his pace. “Feels like we just did this a few weeks ago.”
“We did. Let’s hope tonight’s drama doesn’t send anyone into hiding. Or the hospital.”
“Let’s hope.” Although taking Beth to the ER after she’d hit her head during a break-in at Scarlett’s townhome less than a month ago had been one of the best nights of his life. At least up until their impromptu not-quite date went to shit.
Kane forced the memory from his mind as they approached Beth’s place in the middle of the well-lit block. All looked quiet from the inside. So did the neighborhood. Once he made sure her house was secure, he’d have a conversation with the pretty research scientist. She may not like him, and God knew he couldn’t pursue anything more than friendship, but she’d damn well tell him why Nic had been the one she’d called.
Beth glanced in the rearview mirror as she pulled into the parking spot in front of her townhome. One hand clenched the steering wheel. The other fisted the gun by her side. She hadn’t been tailed as far as she could tell, but what did she know?
She turned her attention back to the windshield. A familiar figure in a black cowboy hat and dark jeans that hugged his body like a sin jogged down her steps.
Kane.
As she switched off the engine and disengaged the door lock, she cursed. Heat flooded her cheeks, half from embarrassment that hadn’t abated from their first encounter and half from anger at his appearance. Before she could reach for the handle, he opened the door.
With one arm braced on the roof, the other on the frame, he leaned in. “Are you okay?”
She met eyes the color of a summer sky as she slipped her gun into her bag. “What are you doing here?”
The clouds shifted as if disturbed by the ire in her voice. A sliver of moonlight beamed from the heavens. The scant glow highlighted the hardness in his cerulean gaze. He cocked his head as if his question about her welfare was obvious. And it was obvious. She’d been hurt again. This trauma wasn’t physical like when he’d been tasked with taking her to the hospital after the break-in at Scarlett’s, but she’d been injured just the same.
No, worse. Physical pain went away. Tonight’s ordeal would leave scars that would plague her forever. Worse than that, it had stolen the precarious sense of safety—of normalcy—she’d struggled to attain.
There was nothing normal about living in fear, and certainly nothing normal about asking for help from some sort of super soldier trained to protect and fight.
Or die trying.
“You shouldn’t be here, Kane. Where’s Nic?”
Annoyance flashed in his gaze, half-hidden by the brim of his cowboy hat.
He straightened and held out his hand as he backed up a few steps. “We’ll talk inside where it’s safe.”
The only place she felt safe was in her lab at work. Armed guards, metal detectors, and access granted by biometric verification had a way of making a girl feel secure. The runner-up was her home with its top-of-the-line security system. Her holiday plans didn’t allow her to take refuge in the first. Tonight’s events compromised the second.
Ignoring his outstretched hand, she grabbed her bag and exited the car. The crisp night air did nothing to cool her aggravation. She’d worked hard to learn how to take care of herself. Relinquishing control over her safety meant she’d regressed to being a victim. She’d spent too much time in that role. A bizarre cake stealing wouldn’t banish her back, but the incident had scared her.
She wasn’t naive enough to turn down protection; she just couldn’t accept it from Kane. But Christ, the hard set of his jaw and the tension radiating from his wide shoulders blanketed her with the same sense of safety she felt at work. The gun she spied under his faded black leather jacket helped too.
He ushered her up the stairs and into her house, his head on a swivel, all business and coiled energy. This shift to protector, so at odds with the easygoing country boy who cracked jokes with a twang and talked about his horses back home like they were his babies, unnerved her almost as much as the mysterious cake stealer.
In a flash, he shut the door and locked it. She stared at him as memories of the last time he’d walked—no, carried her over the threshold—engulfed her brain. Clearing her throat, she shoved that night aside. “Where’s Nic?”
“Getting his laptop so he can check the security feeds from the bakery and the shopping center. We secured your house and the backyard. No sign of a break-in or any surveillance equipment. Whoever threatened you hasn’t been here.”
“I wasn’t threatened, just…” She crossed her arms over her chest.
Violated. Again. Although her fight-or-flight response agreed with Kane.
He peered through the light-up snowflake hanging in her window. “Someone arranged an incident to let you know you’re being watched. That’s a threat in my book.”
God, she wanted to tell him he was overreacting. Perhaps some weirdo really had scammed her cake, put it on the hood of a random car so he could check his phone, and then forgot it.
And maybe Santa will come down my chimney tonight.
Kane tipped her chin up with his fingers. “Do you understand that this is serious shit?”
“Yes.” All too well. “I also understand guests will be here soon.” She hung her bag on a hook by the door. As if remembering his manners, he removed his hat and handed it to her. A lock of sandy-colored hair fell onto his forehead.
She squeezed the brim of his hat to stop herself from brushing it back. “I need to get ready for the party.”
“Not yet, sugarplum.” He took the hat from her and hung it over her bag. On the hook next to it, he hung his jacket. “You’re going to tell me what happened back at the bakery.”
She shrugged an arm out of her coat and raised her brows. “Sugarplum?”
He winked and smiled as he slid the coat from her other arm and bunched the faux fur in his hands. “This coat reminds me of the sugarplum candy Gran makes at Christmas. A decadent treat rolled in purple sugar crystals.”
The silly nickname shouldn’t sound so familiar or so sexy, coming from his full lips in that West Virginia twang. Nor should his hat resting on top of her bag look so intimate. The worn black felt glowed under the white lights intertwined with garlands of fresh pine hanging over the doorway. Matching decorations on the stair rail, on the hearth on the adjacent wall, and on the Christmas tree next to the fireplace bathed the room with the scent of pine and a warm glow. The place looked as festive as she’d be feeling if tonight hadn’t gone haywire. “Is the ‘sugarplum’ thing going to go on all night?”
“It will. At least until you tell me what happened.”
She stared at his large hand and studied how it contrasted with the softness of her coat. Hell, all six feet of him was a study in contrast with his warrior-hardened face one minute and his easy, dimpled grin the next. She could imagine him on his family’s farm in West Virginia, riding horses in his cowboy hat and jeans as easily as she could picture him wearing a uniform and shouting orders. Even the rich, earthy scent that clung to Kane, like the land he left behind to join the military would always be woven into his fiber, hinted at a patient side that handled skittish horses and a fierce side that protected what was his.
She avoided his gaze and looked past the living room and into the kitchen. “Tonight is about Scarlett and Chris, not about my drama. ”
“You call what happened tonight drama?” He fisted his hands around her coat. “I call it scary.”
His grave tone deflated her denial about the gravity of the situation, but she held on to the one thing she could control. “Please, Kane, let me focus on the party. Nic knows what happened and is looking for clues. You made sure my house is secure, and I appreciate it. I’ll tell Scarlett everything when she gets back from her engagement-moon.”
“She needs to know now.”
“She has enough to worry about with her stepfather. I don’t know everything that went down when she was kidnapped a few weeks ago, but I do know it involved terrorists. I know Project VIPER was almost disbanded. And I know she worries about Chris each time you guys are called on a mission.” Beth cocked her head to the side. “Did I miss anything?”
He held up his hand. Something flashed in his eyes as if her rambling dredged up painful, maybe sorrowful, emotions he didn’t want to address. She’d seen that look flicker before but didn’t have time to search her memory for when and where.
“That about sums it up, sugarplum. In fact, it borders on divulging classified intel.”
“Scarlett’s like my sister.” She fiddled with the tips of her curls that cascaded past her shoulders. “Of course she told me everything she could.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What else is wrong besides the obvious?”
“Isn’t the obvious enough?”
“When you play with your hair, your mind seems to go elsewhere. Based on the pain in your eyes, it doesn’t look like you’re in your happy place.”
His accurate assessment jabbed her in the heart. They’d only spent one evening together, which ended in disaster. And when she met Scarlett and the VIPER boys for dinner, she sat as far away from him as possible. How had he picked up on her nervous tic so quickly? “Please, Kane. Give me a few hours to pretend I’m a normal maid of honor giving her bestie an engagement party. When it’s over, I promise I’ll tell Scarlett and call the police.”
He shook his head. “First, nothing about you is normal, Dr. Beth Parker.”
Oh, buddy, you have no idea just how abnormally screwed up I am.
“And second, no police. If we can’t identify the culprit on the surveillance feeds, the local PD certainly won’t be able to. They’re good, but our technology is far superior to theirs.”
“Fine.” She waved her hand, refusing to admit she agreed with his logic as she stepped around him. “I have to get the cake from the car.”
He clamped his fingers around her arm. “You didn’t bring home the stolen cake, did you?”
“Of course not. I’m stuck with a boring replacement, not the masterpiece I had custom made.” Her lower lip trembled. She captured it between her teeth and stared at the white and green plaid pillows on her red couch until her tears stopped threatening to spill. Scarlett’s night would not be ruined by some creep with a cake fetish.
Kane slid his hand up to her shoulder and squeezed. “Hey, it’s just a cake.”
Beth shrugged him off. “It’s not just a cake. Tonight is my best friend’s engagement party, which I’ve been envisioning since we were kids. I should have had months to plan it, but no, Scarlett needs to get married quickly because she fell in love with a super soldier who might not come home from dangerous missions nobody can talk about. Forgive me if I want to make tonight perfect. ”
He flinched as the pained, sorrowful look flared in his gaze again.
“You’re right.” He dropped his hand from her shoulder and stepped back. “We need to make tonight perfect for Chris and Scarlett. They…” His gaze trailed to the door, along with his thoughts. “I’ll go get the cake.”
Beth stared at him as she concentrated. She still couldn’t place where and when she’d seen that look in his eyes. Although it had lasted less than a second, it managed to break her heart. Abandoning her effort, she sighed. “Thanks. I’ll get the food out.”
“No. I’ll take care of that too.” He placed his hand on the small of her back and nudged her to the stairs. “Go get ready.”
“I got it. The eggnog needs rum and cinnamon and there are certain bowls things go in.”
“And I saw earlier that you have sticky notes on each of them. If the government can trust me enough to attach millions of dollars’ worth of technology to my body, then you can trust me with the food.” He tapped his super leg and winked. “Although I might need some help figuring out the pasta salad goes in the Santa dish labeled ‘pasta salad.’”
She couldn’t help but smile at his sarcasm or those damn dimples. “Fine, but don’t eat anything until the party starts. I want everything to look perfect when Scarlett gets here.” As she turned to leave, her gaze landed on the security console by the front door. “How did you get in my house?” She’d made sure to engage the system before she’d left.
He shrugged. “You have your secrets; I have mine.”