The Promise of Love (13 page)

He laughed and felt the tension ease from his shoulders. “Princess, no one has a bigger gun than me, and you shouldn’t have been peeking at another man’s gun.”

“David,” she whispered and shook her head. “I’m serious. Those were big guns.”

“AK-74 millimeter, illegal in this country.”

“See?”

“Come on have some faith. I was a SEAL. I can do more than some guys on a snowmobile who didn’t know I was ten feet away.”

“You were a SEAL? Oh, God,” she muttered and covered her mouth with her fingers.

“Well, it wasn’t that bad.” He didn’t even earn a smile at that, so tried another angle. “We’ll get you down to the hotel and I’ll bring you some dinner, okay?”

“I’m okay! David, it’s
you
I’m worried about.” She added an exasperated huff to her words.

“Oh ho! I knew it. I’m growing on you after just a few days.”

“David,” she sighed. “You
are
growing on me and it hasn’t even been a day.”

“It’s been a full day, about an hour ago,” he informed her.

She froze then shook her head. “Just don’t get hurt, okay?” She’d stopped under a pine tree and looked so pretty with her light blue hat on and her blonde hair tied back in a braid he couldn’t resist tugging it.

“I won’t. I try damn hard not to ever get hurt because I’m a terrible patient.”

For some reason that made her wince and hug him tightly. Amazed, he held her, wondering what he’d said right, or maybe wrong, this time. She exhaled and pulled away and smiled softly, but it didn’t match the worry in her eyes.

“Okay, so no getting hurt, and if you’re wondering, that scared me.”

Hell, he was an ass, wasn’t he? “Sorry, Paris. If I’d thought—”

“Shh, really, I’m fine, you’re the one going to do… What? Wait, don’t tell me, okay?” She patted his chest with both mittens and smiled brighter, but it was forced. “We’d better go.”

“Yeah, but I can stop, you know, get you something for dinner, something warm to eat—”

“David, the hotel has a dining room,” she said with a little more of that heat he thought was damn cute.

He didn’t want her down there, alone, eating. That was a single guy’s dream—meeting a lonely hottie in the hotel. No way, no how was that okay.

“Yeah, but I don’t want you down there alone.”

“What? Do you think those men will be there?” she whispered, as if they might be nearby and scoop her up.

He cocked an eyebrow and grinned. “You watch a lot of movies, don’t you?”

She ducked her head but he saw her smile. “A little, maybe.”

“Those men are long gone. I simply don’t want any other guys thinking you’re available.”

That sank in for two seconds then she turned on him and pointed a mitten at the center of his chest. “Just because I went off with you and Will doesn’t mean I—”

“Whoa there, take a breath. I didn’t think it did, but I don’t want you alone eating dinner either.”

“Oh?” She arched a pretty eyebrow, and put a whole hell of a lot of oomph in it for such a sweet woman.

“Yeah,” he muttered and turned her around to get her moving. “I’ll leave the sandwiches and we’ll have a picnic in the room when I get back, okay?”

She didn’t respond, but when he glanced at her she was smiling, pretty damn happy about that. The anxiety in his gut eased off and he let out a slow breath. He might suck at this communication shit, but he was more than willing to try, especially with Paris.

“You can’t leave all the sandwiches, you didn’t really eat. But a picnic in the room sounds fun,” she said, after a while of walking quietly. “I think we might have to, because look”—she pointed to the left, where the trees broke a little—“it’s snowing. Maybe we
will
get snowed in.”

She sounded so happy about that, and when she hugged his arm she laughed, that the rest of his worries went right out of the window. One thing was for certain, she liked him. So what if he had to rush off for more of this damn mission? He’d hurry and maybe they would be snowed in together.

“Yeah, I imagine that would be all kinds of fun. You’d probably beat me in strip poker, huh?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.” She laughed then added, “But there’s some good movies we might watch. Or just, I don’t know, we’d think of something,” she said with a sigh he wanted to ditto because he hoped that something meant she was as horny as he was.

He curled his arm around her waist and brushed a kiss to her temple. She fit him.

“I like something. I bet I can think of a whole lot to keep you entertained with something,” he added, caressing up her ribs to just below her breasts.

She stiffened then trailed her hand down to pat him on the ass. “I bet you could.”

Jesus.
How could he walk away from this and go chase down men on snowmobiles?

“Princess, you keep that up and I’m not going to be able to leave, you know that, right? Then I’ll have even more work to do tomorrow.”

Reluctantly, he thought, she nodded, but with an evil little smile kept her hand in his back pocket.

Chapter Seven

Will glanced up from filling out the last of his stack of forms and frowned. “Jansen.”

“We have some complications.” David threw his gloves down and shrugged off his jacket.

“You’re right. We do. I ran into Sara, Paris’ friend.”

David paused half way out of his jacket. “And?”

“She was pretty freaked out, but seemed to calm down when I offered her a ride to town.”

“Wait.” David got the jacket off and sat down. “You took her to a hotel?”

“Yeah. Not the same one, she wanted near where we had the car.” Will shrugged then spilled the rest of it. “She was given the drug. She was pretty upset, but by the time we got to town, she’d gone quiet. I think she might have had only a small dose, but unasked for. I talked to the boy. He’s aware how wrong that was.” Will left off the ass kicking he’d given the younger man. Sara was sweet, much like Paris, but…somehow different. He’d dropped her off and left, not trusting himself around her.

“She’s okay, though?”

Will nodded.

David exhaled. “Paris will be—”

“She knows where Paris is, and was glad you were with her. Said to let you two have some time, even.”

“She did?”

Will ran a hand over his hair. Sara had smiled only the one time—when he’d informed her that his buddy was staying with Paris. She’d been genuinely happy, he could tell. “Yeah, she said she’d be fine in town and since the car isn’t ready, she’d simply wait.”

“Hell, that’s nice of her. Sure she doesn’t want to talk to Paris?”

“She said no.”

“All right.” David rubbed his face with his hands. “Look we got something else to worry about. I ran into a team of six, armed, and on snowmobiles. North side of town. About five miles out from here.”

“Shit, and who were they?” Will asked, tossing his pencil down on the desk and stretching his back.

“I have no idea. Not trained too well. I was ten feet from them and they had no clue. Paris was with me.”

“What?” he asked, startled that Jansen would ever take the girl on a hike, in the snow. He knew David had it for her, but did his buddy have it this bad? Paris was a keeper, though. He’d not considered his friend—who steered clear of the type—would go down that road. But one glance at David and he’d known the man wanted Paris to himself. He hadn’t needed the subtle—or not so subtle
—
rebuff on his offer to join them.

Jansen grimaced and ran his hands over his face again briskly after. The signal meant he had his head in his ass. The fact he was this screwed up he showed it surprised a laugh out of Will. Hell, Jansen was sunk, hook, line and all.

“Damn, you sorry bastard, you have the worst timing. Hands down, the absolute worst timing.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Jansen snapped and jerked a chair around and sat down in it with his arms hanging over the back. “She’s in the hotel now, but we have to go check this out and there’s what? Two hours of daylight left.”

“Did you even sleep last night?”

“Yes, I slept, what do you think? I fucked all night?”

“Well…” Will considered the pissed off expression on Jansen’s face and held his tongue. He’d left when the two of them had made it pretty clear they’d forgotten all about him. Not that he’d minded. Jansen needed some downtime. The man was too intense most of the time to loosen up. Not that meeting Paris had lessened that. “No, I guess you’re playing it slow, trying to show a bit more…tact?”

“Paris isn’t the point. Besides, if we go out now, we might be able to follow them in the snow. The tracks are pretty clear. You set?”

Will stood and rubbed his buzz cut. He needed to get it trimmed, but he could maybe go a few more days. “I’m ready. The men are useless. The facility is good, though, and with some training we could have them mission ready in six months.”

“Hell, really? That long? What are they? Gym bunnies?”

“About,” he agreed. “What do we need?”

“Just what we’ve got, not a big deal, I think. We follow this and find out what’s going on. Should we ask Duke if it’s his damn men out there?” Jansen asked.

Will paused and thought about the men he’d seen so far. None of them could navigate the mountains, and they sure couldn’t handle a firearm. “We can, but I doubt it. Let’s call en route, because that storm and the sunset are fast approaching.”

“Right.” Jansen grabbed his jacket.

The rooms were warm, almost too much warm. It was probably because a lot of the men were training in the gyms and wore shorts, but the place must all be rigged for one central heating system, because it was damn uncomfortable. He’d marked that up as an issue, along with the gym. He didn’t plan on being here long enough for it to be a real problem though.

Jansen scanned the room, then him. “Looks like your day sucked,” Jansen commented with a smirk.

“It was my turn, I guess.” Will smacked Jansen on the back. “I did have that babe down south, so maybe this is payback.”

“Paris is more than a babe, Will.”

Will lifted his eyebrows and scanned Jansen’s profile as they walked. “Right, about that. You’re sore about last night?”

“What?” Jansen asked, shoving the door to the garage open. “No, hell no, that was hot, besides, you know as well as I do that we pushed her.”

“But it was only last night,” Will remarked, earning a frown. He agreed they’d pushed, but she’d gone, and willingly. His bet was because of the man scowling at him right now. David had been her focus. He might as well have been a couch for all she’d noticed. Although she hadn’t been rude, or even aloof, just consumed with David to the point he’d watched the two of them and gotten himself off on the show.

“Maybe, yeah, unless something comes up,” David said vaguely.

“Like what? My dick?”

Jansen slugged him, hard, in the arm, but Will grinned and took it. “Sorry, but hell, you never go hot after a girl, it’s a bit, well, fucked up.”

“Why? Can’t I find someone that’s more than a one-nighter? And weren’t you the one just telling me you were tired of this shit and wanted to hand in your gun, find a nice girl and all that?”

“Sure, hell yeah, you’re due yours, man.” Will took the passenger side so Jansen could drive and wondered what had Jansen so jumpy. “How’s it going, then? You still dig her?”

“It’s been a day. Sure, I like her.”

“Nothing coming up as a red alert?”

His buddy scowled at him as if he’d lost his mind and started the truck before he shook his head. “Not a damn thing.”

Jansen said that as if it that was bad, which Will could understand. Jansen was a loner. They were close, but there were things about his buddy he didn’t know, and things about him he knew he was the only one
to
know. Jansen had been raised in the foster system, and that kind of shit had left a mark. He trusted very few, held on to every damn thing he ever bought, or earned for that matter, or found, and he didn’t form tight bonds with many. Will was one of the very few men who could say David Jansen was a friend. But David would come to anyone’s rescue. In a fight Will knew that Jansen would have his back without question.

If he was turning that toward a woman, well, Will considered the implications and hid a grin. Paris better be ready for what she got because Jansen when he did go in, he went all-in and he didn’t believe in candy coating a damn thing.

Will glanced at the tight grip Jansen had on the wheel and wondered how that approach was working with the lovely Paris. She wasn’t either of their typical women—she was sweet, and her shyness wasn’t faked—if he had to guess what motivated her to let them share her, it’d been too much alcohol, their personalities and maybe a sadness he’d seen in her eyes. A break-up maybe, but that wasn’t all, maybe it was David. She’d been drawn to him in an obvious way, maybe even too obvious for David to see.

“So she’s not upset with you having to drop things to come back here?” he asked.

“Naw, she didn’t appreciate the guys on the snowmobiles, though.”

Will guessed that was an understatement.

Paris was a pretty, a gorgeous woman really, with a sweetness about her that made him more than a little jealous of Jansen. He was also man enough to appreciate that he got to have a small slice of the whole.

“I’m glad for you, man. Don’t blow it,” he cautioned.

“What makes you think I will?” Jansen growled.

“Well, you’re you.” Will laughed then felt sorry for the poor bastard. “If you’ve not scared her off by now, I’m guessing she’s into you. Even your damn habit of asking whatever the fuck pops into your brain, so don’t stress out so much. Relax. It’s not many guys that get what you’ve been given—a chance with a real keeper.”

Jansen glanced over as if checking out if he was pulling his leg. He seemed to soak that in, even loosening up enough to relax on the steering wheel.

After a minute or so he sighed. “Yeah, she’s kinda all of it, isn’t she? I mean, hell, I held her last night, just kinda watched her sleep.” He shrugged and smirked. “It was damn nice. I mean, no wonder all those suckers called home every chance they got back in the SEALs. Those guys were nuts though,” he added.