Breaking Away (Military Romantic Suspense) (Book 3 of the SEAL TEAM Heartbreakers) Read online

  Joy laughed. “Mommy’s wheels were flat, like that.” Joy trust her hand palm out and slammed the other one down on top of it. “They’ll be all better today.”

  “They will?”

  Joy nodded, her expression solemn “She promised. I don’t like that ol’ truck.”

  “You don’t?” He eyed the rattle-trap vehicle parked in the driveway.

  “It stinks.” Joy pinched her nose. “And goes squeak, squeak squeak.”

  Flash grinned. It did burn some oil. And sounded like things might start flying off at any moment. But it ran and it was only temporary.

  “Well maybe today will be the last time you have to ride in it.” He waved good-bye and went back to finish the alarm system installation.

  A few minutes later, when Sam and Joy came out of the house and got into the truck, he was on the ladder again with both hands occupied. Joy waved good-bye and he smiled at her. Sam had her head turned looking for traffic. Or was she avoiding having to acknowledge him? He’d been doing the same with her. They were both doing the wise thing.

  He couldn’t get involved. It would be dangerous to get too close—for them both.

  Samantha sat at the dining room table and attempted to focus on the assignment for her online class. She was not going to look out the window. She was not going to spy on Tim Carnes. He was just her tenant.

  But her head kept turning of its own volition. She glanced out the window toward the garage. Tim’s forearm muscles bunched as he carried two large stacked boxes up the steps to the apartment. His legs looked tanned and firm in black shorts that hugged his thighs. Try as she might, she couldn’t drag her attention away from him. With one part of her mind she dispassionately recognized he was gorgeous. Thick brown hair with a hint of wave, straight, even teeth, strong, masculine features, just enough beard to be fashionable, and despite how the geeky dark-rimmed glasses he wore partially hid them, eyes so pale a blue… She slammed the breaks on her thoughts, bringing them to a screeching halt. Being attracted to a man was way, way down the road. If it ever happened again.

  The nightmare she’d woken from at four this morning emphasized how remote the possibility was. She ran her hands over her face, trying to scrub away the tired ache behind her eyes. It had taken her nearly an hour to calm down. She’d rushed from window to window, checking to make sure the house was secure.

  And now Tim had moved in. She wasn’t sure how she felt about having him just across the drive. He’d given her his cell phone number and told her to call if she had any problems. When he’d said it, the serious frown he’d given her had been clear enough.

  But Tim didn’t know Will, or how violent he could be. She couldn’t put him in the middle. She had to solve her own problems.

  She glanced at the clock. Almost time to pick up Joy. She forced her attention back to the screen, reread the question, deleted the answer she’d been in the process of writing and tried to formulate a better one. She’d have to spend some time studying when she got back.

  And tomorrow was her first day as a receptionist-secretary at a lawyer’s office. Nerves danced the rumba in her stomach. She’d learn everything she needed to. She had the basic skills, and they’d seemed to like her at the interview.

  The check Tim Carnes had given her for his first and last month’s rent had covered the cost of new tires and given her a couple of month’s breathing room on her utilities. The money couldn’t have come at a better time. But his presence here…

  A knock sounded at the door. She rose from the computer and paused to look through the peephole. If thinking about Tim Carnes had drawn him to the house, she was going to have to control her wayward thoughts.

  His shoulders stretched the fabric of his shirt and defined the musculature of his chest.

  Will was strong but not as fit. The thirty extra pounds he carried had settled in his chest and stomach. There was no extra fat on Tim’s frame. Her mouth grew dry just looking at him. He could probably hit just as hard as Will. She flinched from the thought.

  He tapped again. Her hands shook as she turned the dead bolt and opened the door.

  “I have to make one last run to the office to load my bike. I thought if you needed me to, I could drop you at the garage to pick up your car.”

  She stared at him, suspicious. “How did you know about the car?”

  He grinned. “Joy.”

  When had he spoken to Joy? More than likely it was the other way around. Sam shook her head in exasperation. “She has a tendency to tell everything she knows.”

  “There’s an upside to that. You won’t ever have to worry about her becoming a super spy,” he quipped.

  Sam’s laugh slipped free. “But she may dress like one.” She’d wondered how she was going to manage Gran’s old truck and her car. His giving her a ride would solve that issue. Could she trust him? She studied his even features and bit her lip. “I have to go by to get Joy first and speak to her teacher for a few minutes before I pick up the car. I don’t want to inconvenience you.”

  “It won’t be an inconvenience. And you’ll have to have a ride to retrieve that old truck if you drive it to the shop to pick up the car.” He nodded toward the rust-scarred pickup.

  She’d been surprised it still ran, but at least it got them to and from Joy’s preschool. She studied Tim’s expression.

  “It’s really not as bad as it looks.”

  “Uh-huh.” His deadpan expression tempted another smile.

  Were men really this protective? She’d never known them to be. But then, Will was the only man she’d been around for an extended time. She’d mistaken his possessiveness for protectiveness. Something she wouldn’t do again.

  She searched Tim’s expression. The police had checked him out. They knew he was living here. If something happened it would come right back on him. He’d be stupid to hurt her. And he didn’t strike her as unintelligent.

  She did need the ride. “You’re sure you don’t mind?”

  “No, I don’t mind.”

  “I’ll get my purse. I just have to save something on the computer.”

  “I’ll wait here. Take your time.” He sat down in one of the rockers on the porch.

  Had he sensed she was anxious about letting him in the house? She hadn’t invited him in and had kept the screen door locked between them. Though he hadn’t done anything to awaken her fears, trust wasn’t something they had established yet. Probably never would.

  Sam rushed to save her work to her Drop Box, and then shut the computer down. She unplugged it and stuffed it in her backpack.

  How did she know she could trust him to just give her a ride? What did she know about him, even after calling every one of the references he’d given her?

  She knew he was patient with Joy. And Joy was fascinated with him. But that was probably because she’d had so little exposure to any men besides Will, and Chaney, her grandfather.

  Sam knew Tim was organized, professional, and an expert on security systems. She’d seen how he’d systematized a vanload of equipment on the shelving unit he’d set up in the garage. He’d also installed a security system in the apartment and garage. He’d deemed it a business expense and said it wouldn’t do for his customers to know he didn’t have one installed in his own place when he wanted them to buy one.

  By renting the apartment from her, despite the issues she’d had in the past with Will, she’d discovered he wasn’t put off by the possibility of trouble.

  There was definitely more to Tim Carnes than his tall, well-built body and sexy smile.

  She shouldered her backpack and grabbed her keys. Tim stood up when she came out the door and secured the lock, then gestured for her to precede him down the steps to his van.

  He opened the door for her and offered her a hand up into the passenger seat. After a momentary hesitation, she placed her hand in his. His old-school manners and warm grip triggered a tiny blossom of feminine awareness she hadn’t felt in years.

  To keep from watc
hing his every move as he walked around to the driver’s door, she looked around the cramped space inside the van. “How on earth did you get all the equipment in the garage in here plus your motorcycle?” she asked, when he settled behind the wheel.

  “The equipment I’ve organized in the garage is stuff I ordered and had shipped to the post office downtown. The system that alerts the police to a security breach is all computerized. And we only have to have two people answering calls if an alarm goes off, which is someone else’s responsibility. So I only have to deal with assessments and installations.” He buckled his seatbelt, started the engine, and pulled out.

  “You’re going to be very busy.”

  “I hope so. I did two assessments the day I arrived. I’m due to install those systems this week.”

  “How long have you been in town?”

  “Before moving into the apartment, four days.”

  Sam shook her head. “You don’t let the grass grow under your feet, do you?”

  “Can’t afford to with all the other systems out there competing against us.”

  “How did you get into this business?” she asked.

  Tim shoved his dark-rimmed glasses up his nose. “I was between jobs, which gave me some time to take stock of all the skills I had to offer. I decided this would be the perfect fit. I have a friend who thinks I’m a good risk, so we went into business together.”

  Someone trusted him, depended on him to run this business. That meant he had to be dependable. “It never hurts to have someone who believes in you.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  Sam lapsed into silence, her throat tightening with grief.

  “I’m sorry about your grandmother.”

  How had he guessed? She studied his expression until he glanced in her direction. “I am, too.” The words hurt her throat.

  “It must have happened very fast. When I talked to her, she sounded fine.”

  “She put the house in my name. Just in case. She had two more chemo treatments. I tried to talk her out of taking them. She seemed—There was something not quite right. They insisted she go ahead with them. Gave her the spiel that they couldn’t be responsible for her health if she didn’t take the treatments. She died half an hour after they gave her the last one.”

  “Jesus!” His throat worked as he swallowed. “Are you going to file a suit?”

  “It wouldn’t do any good. Ultimately it was her decision to take the medication. She’d signed consent forms saying they’d gone over the risks and she accepted them.” She ran a hand through her hair and beat back the rage that threatened to consume her again. “I didn’t know until later that cancer patients have a one in ten chance of the drugs killing them before the disease. They tell them, take this or you’ll die. And they want to live, so they do.”

  “There has to be something…someone needs to be held accountable.”

  His outrage mirrored her own and gave her some comfort. “It wouldn’t bring Gran back. And she wasn’t about lawsuits and blame. She was all about living.” The chance she’d get any money from a suit that would probably drag out for years was very slim. The hospital would blame the chemo company and the chemo company would blame the person administering the drug. It was a cycle that would go on and on and take up time she didn’t have.

  She had to keep going, to support her child and herself. But she’d live with this soul-deep ache of loss for the rest of her life.

  Her only family was gone. She was alone, except for Joy. Every time she thought about it panic threatened to overwhelm her. But she’d made a promise she’d keep putting one foot in front of the other and move on.

  A warm hand on her arm tugged her back from her thoughts. And she gazed up into Tim’s pale blue eyes as his thumb ran over her skin in a small show of comfort. His eyes had an uneven area of gray around the pupil, and a darker ring of blue around the outside edge of the iris. Being able to look directly into man’s eyes without feeling fear was an accomplishment. Her stomach tumbled. The hot rush of need that accompanied it was amazing.

  And terrifying.

  Flash swallowed against the breathless feeling of arousal that zipped straight to his groin. Her gray-green eyes homed in on his face and pulled him in. His attention dropped to her mouth. Would she taste like the home-baked cookies he’d smelled when he knocked on her door?

  He released her arm and put his hand back on the steering wheel. He should never have touched her. But she just seemed so alone. A feeling he identified with more each day.

  He had to stow that shit and move on. He couldn’t afford to get close to anyone. “Where to from here?” he managed, his Boston accent thick with reaction.

  “Turn right, and go seven blocks.”

  He turned the van. The noisy shift of the components stored in basket shelves along each side of the vehicle sounded loud in the silence between them.

  How long since he’d gotten laid? He’d had a brief encounter with an ex-girlfriend after returning from Iraq. But after that he’d been swallowed up by the FBI crap, and though Javier and Josh had tried to fix him up while he was in Baja, he’d avoided anything but casual meetings.

  It had been almost eleven months since he’d been with a woman.

  He was just horny.

  Who’d have thought a woman who smelled like honeysuckle and crayons would set him off? He usually went for the free-spirited kind who didn’t expect hearts and flowers. The kind just out to have a good time. Being a SEAL, he had little time for anything other than temporary hook up.

  But the female sitting next to him wasn’t temporary. She had permanent, hearts and flowers, forever and ever emblazoned across her freckle-dusted nose in letters visible to him a mile away.

  He’d done some research on Sam since their first meeting. And the story behind her divorce wasn’t pretty. Life, and her stalker ex-husband, seemed determined to knock her down. She just kept getting back up and moving forward.

  But she was emotionally bruised. Her distrust was right there, staring him in the face every time he spoke to her. Her SOB ex had really done a number on her.

  And she certainly didn’t need a Navy SEAL on the run from a crooked FBI guy and a drug cartel to add to her worries. He had to remember that. If shit hit the fan and he was arrested, he might put Sam and Joy in the crosshairs. Sam didn’t deserve that after everything else she’d been through.

  But he couldn’t walk away, either. Not with her sneaky, abusive ex making things as difficult for her as possible. And he was going to have to talk her into allowing him to put a security system in her house. He’d sleep better if she had one.

  He’d sleep better if she were in his bed.

  Shit, he had to get his mind on something else. Because that wasn’t happening. No matter how hot she was.

  He spotted the kids on a fenced-in playground and pulled to a stop. Joy broke away from a cluster of kids, ran to the fence and waved to him. He smiled and waved back.

  “I’ll only be a few minutes,” Sam said, opening the door.

  Sam was a mom, for God’s sake. He didn’t sleep with moms.

  “Take your time.” Please. So maybe he’d have his head on straight by the time she came back.

  CHAPTER 18

  James stalked through the outer office and paused beside Seaman Crouch’s desk to pick up his mail.

  “What is all this, Crouch?” he asked when his aide handed him a stack of forms as thick as a dictionary.

  “Requisition forms, sir. It would seem quite a few requests have been denied lately, and the team commanders wanted to draw your attention to the problem.”

  James bit back an expletive, carried the tome into his office, shut the door and slammed the stack of papers onto the desk. After returning to light duty following the attack at his home, he’d caught up the unit’s paperwork while he waited for the bones in his face to knit. And now all those orders were coming back at once. It was the habit of team administrators to request their dream list of equipment, t
hen later settle for what they could get. But this barrage of paperwork was ridiculous.

  He jerked up the phone and pushed the button. “Crouch, get Chief Stewart in here.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Twenty minutes later Chief Stewart left James’s office, the bundle of requisitions under his arm. His sole purpose would be to check through each one and discover why it had been denied. Every order for a new weapon or safety equipment would be returned to James to deal with personally. Chief Stewart would handle the rest.

  James turned on his computer and brought up his email. He answered the first two messages, then noticed a subject heading reminiscent of the last mission one of his teams had participated in, in Iraq. He opened the message and the attachment. His stomach dropped.

  Flash had surfaced. He was alive.

  James read the short note then clicked on the link. It took him to a private message board where several service men discussed being approached by the FBI to smuggle artifacts from Iraq. Each man used a call sign to protect his identity. But the scenario followed was the same in each instance.

  The next seven links were videos of a man named Gilbert. The first one involved an altercation between Flash and the man. The next, two thugs came in, beat Gilbert up and cut him loose. James’s pulse drummed in his ears at the blatant way the man set Flash up to take the fall for the beating. What the fuck?

  The next four clips were phone conversations taped from a camera partially obscured by a mesh screen of some kind. They were meets being arranged between Gilbert and a man named Caesar. The last one was time-stamped in the corner a month ago. All the videos appeared to have been taped in the same location.

  James clicked on the next link and another video loaded. It was Flash. He looked healthy but thinner, his features more chiseled, his hair longer. “I hope you receive this. I tried to contact NCIS when this mission first went to hell, but all they were interested in was arresting me for being AWOL. Knowing my history, sir, you know why I couldn’t come in.” He swallowed and looked away from the camera, then back. “I am not a quitter. I never wanted to leave my team. I am innocent of everything but believing the bullshit I was fed by Special Agent Eric Gilbert. He used me, just as he used the other men whose messages you’ve just read.