The SEAL’s Secret Lover (13 page)

*   *   *

A negotiator from the State Department defused the hostage situation, leaving Keenan at loose ends in Istanbul. It took him a minute to identify how he felt when the call came through. He felt relieved. So he took Rose’s copy of
The Odyssey
and sat in cafés in the spring sunshine, drinking cup after cup of Turkish coffee and reading the other Homeric epic, about Odysseus’s journey home. Thoughtful, he closed the book at last and sat back in the metal chair warmed by the sun to think about the examples he’d followed as a young man. But at Troy, he’d come face-to-face with the reality that wars came and went, cities rose and fell, and everything he’d built his life on would be buried under the layers of earth and time. His father’s way was one way of living. It consumed Hector, Achilles, Patroclus, Paris, Agamemnon, and the men who fought with them. But Odysseus, the wily trickster with a strong, smart woman waiting for him, found a way home.

If Odysseus could do it, so could he.

He checked Field Energy’s website. The job for Director of Security was still open, interviews happening on an ongoing basis. He spent the day updating his résumé and letters of recommendation, the ones he’d drafted when he applied for the job with Grey Wolfe Security. Maybe he’d get the job. Maybe he wouldn’t. Either way, he’d show Rose he was ready to come home.

TWO WEEKS LATER

Rose slipped into the only empty seat at the far end of the conference room table, right next to Patrick Field, the company’s founder and CEO. Anticipating a long afternoon of interviewing final candidates, she nodded to the other hiring committee members and took the lid off her coffee to add a couple of sugar packets. Kelly, the VP of HR handed her a packet of paper on her way out to collect the first candidate.

“We got a good one for Director of Security,” Patrick said with a wink. “Last-minute thing, but the best we’ve had so far.”

The candidates had to have either cyber security experience or law enforcement experience, and there was no way Rose could cram any pertinent details from the CV into her head, so she didn’t even bother. Coffee adequately sugared up, she set the paper aside and opened her laptop to take notes. As the newest member she functioned as the group’s secretary, recording the candidates’ specifics answers to compare with other members’ impressions. She had just a moment to spare to look out at the blue spring sky. She was beginning to wonder if any sky could compare to the almost royal blue of the days in Ephesus and Troy, or if that color was unique to that particular spot on earth.

Kelly brought in the first candidate, ending her reverie. She turned her attention from the sky to the door at the far end of the room just in time to see Keenan walk through.

Her jaw dropped at the same time her heart skipped several beats. He was dressed in a navy suit, crisp white shirt, and a subtle blue-and-red striped tie, his beard neatly trimmed.

“This is Keenan Parker, formerly of the United States Navy SEALs,” Kelly said, then rattled off the names and titles of everyone at the table.

Patrick nudged her while Keenan was exchanging firm handshakes with the other committee members. “I want this guy,” he said. “He’s smart. He’s tough. For damn sure no storage facilities will get blown up on his watch. I want this guy.”

I know the feeling
, Rose thought.

“Ma’am,” Keenan said. His hand clasped hers.

“Hello,” Rose heard herself saying, praying her cheeks weren’t as red as they felt.

Everyone waited while Keenan seated himself. “Before we begin,” Rose said, “I must clarify that Mr. Parker and I know each other. He and my brother served on the same team in the SEALs, and he served as our guide on my grandmother’s recent trip to Turkey.”

“I know,” Patrick said. “He said you mentioned the job to him. This is good. You already know how you work together.”

I will not blush. I will not blush. I did not make Senior Director by thirty to blush like a schoolgirl at a hiring committee meeting.

“Keenan and I will work very well together,” she said. Did the company’s nepotism policy allow for colleagues with no direct reporting relationship to work together? Field Energy was privately held. That helped. Keenan wouldn’t report to her, nor she to him, and their career paths followed separate arcs. Besides, maybe he didn’t want to start up with her again. Maybe he just wanted the job.

“Don’t piss her off,” Patrick said to Keenan. “She’s the best in the business.”

Kelly cleared her throat and picked up her pen. “Keenan, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself?”

*   *   *

When she walked out of the building at five, Keenan was leaning against her BMW 3-series. He’d loosened his tie just enough to expose his throat, and he was staring off into the distance, hands shoved in his trouser pockets. He looked just like any other bearded millennial office drone.

He looked like the man she loved.

“How did I do?” he asked when she stopped in front of him.

“Your phone hasn’t rung yet?” she said, surprised. “Patrick wants you, and what Patrick wants, Patrick gets.”

“He seems like a good guy.”

“He got his start in the oil fields, and works harder than anyone else in the company. He’s a straight shooter and appreciates the same in his team. He values competency over flash, and loyalty above all. You’ll get along just fine. But,” she said, pursing her lips, “I’m guessing you did some research before you walked through the front door.”

“I did,” he said. “I know a few guys in the industry who provide security for oil rigs. I made a couple of calls.”

“You could have told me,” she said.

He turned his face to hers, his eyes were unreadable behind the mirrored blade shades, the slightest hint of hesitation in the twist of his mouth. “I thought about it,” he said, “but I wanted to see your face when you saw me. In case you’d changed your mind.”

“I haven’t changed my mind,” she said. “I’ve been researching jobs in Istanbul, truth be told. But something inside me said you’d get here, one way or another.”

“So you still want me.”

“Of course I still want you,” she said. “But I have one more interview question for you.”

“Go.”

“There’s no right or wrong answer, but if you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?”

He considered the question for a moment. “That’s a good one. I’ve lived all over the world, in all kinds of circumstances. But this is where I’d be.”

“Not in Istanbul, or Virginia Beach. In Lancaster,” she confirmed. “The world’s most boring city.”

He pointed at the asphalt beneath their feet. “I’ve been driving around all afternoon. Lancaster’s not all that boring, but I meant right here. In this parking lot, with you.” His face sobered. “I fell in love with you the moment you walked up to me and said you were jet-lagged as hell. I’m coming home, to you.”

She knew she shouldn’t stand in the company parking lot and kiss the newly hired Director of Security with greedy hands and tongue. She shouldn’t luxuriate in the shift of fine wool against her bare legs, in the tensile strength of his shoulders and torso under a fine cotton shirt. Nothing about this was ordinary, average, white picket fence, and perfectly spaced kids and maybe even a golden retriever.

Keenan was everything she didn’t know she wanted, and more.

“I’ll tell Kelly about us tomorrow,” she said when he came up for air.

“Okay,” he said, brushing his thumb over her lips, her beard-scraped chin. “Jack’s going kill me.”

“No, he won’t,” Rose said, completely confident. “Want to know why?”

He grinned at her. “Why?”

“Even Navy SEALs answer to their big sisters.”

His grin widened, then he backed her into her car and kissed her again.

Welcome to Eye Candy, the East Side’s hottest nightclub where the bartenders are hot, the cocktails are fancy, and danger lurks just under the surface …

READ ON FOR A PREVIEW OF
UNDER THE SURFACE
!

ONE

Sex on a stick, Lord, that’s all I need … walking, talking sex on a stick. If he can mix a decent drink, so much the better.

Eve Webber shifted two boxes of limes to the far end of the bar and considered apologizing to the Almighty for making the risqué request. Not a single lesson in eighteen years of Sunday school covered petitioning the Lord for a good-looking man. But with a location on the edge of Lancaster’s struggling East Side and nine people depending on her for their paychecks, Eye Candy’s success depended heavily on gorgeous male bartenders who lived up to the bar’s provocative name. She’d take all the help she could get.

“Drop dead sexy, knowledgeable, with just a smidgen of honor. That’s all I need,” she muttered.

She picked up her iPhone and scanned for chatter on Facebook and Twitter. A couple of posts from women in her target market, young professionals, about meeting up at Eye Candy after work, which was very welcome news. She replied, tweeted her drink specials, then set the phone in the portable speaker unit for background music while she finished prepping the bar for the evening rush.

The heavy steel door swung open. She looked up from the limes and saw a lean figure silhouetted in a rectangle of thick August sunlight that cloaked his head and shoulders, shrouding his face.

“Chad Henderson?” she said, and if her voice was a little breathier than usual, well, he’d caught her off guard.

“Yes, ma’am.”

The two words ran together, automatic yet without a hint of deference, not a drawled opening to flirtation. “Come on in,” she called, consciously steadying her voice.

She moved out from behind the bar to meet him. He didn’t offer any of the small talk applicants often used to connect with her, so she leaned against the end of the bar and watched him scrutinize Eye Candy’s interior as he wove his way through the tables toward her. The walls were black-painted cinderblock, and tables and stools surrounded the oak-parquet dance floor on three sides; her DJ’s booth comprised the fourth side and backed one short wall of the rectangular room. The solid oak, custom-crafted bar she’d purchased for a pittance at a bankruptcy auction ran along the other short end of the rectangular room. The place was empty and echoing now, but in three hours couples would pack the dance floor and every table would be occupied.

Chad stopped in front of her and slid the earpiece of his Revo sunglasses into the V of his shirt, exposing surprisingly hard ridges of pectoral muscle, given his lean frame.

“Eve Webber. I own Eye Candy.” She offered her hand and got a firm grip in return as she took inventory. Maybe six feet tall, because her heels brought her to five ten and their eyes were just level. He wore running shoes, faded jeans too loose to draw attention to anything underneath, and a dark green button-down with the top two buttons undone. Reddish-brown hair long enough to show finger-combing ridges curled at his ears and shirt collar, and hazel eyes met Eve’s assessing look without a hint of expression.

“Thanks for the interview.”

Definitely not anxious, or eager, or any of the other adjectives normally used to describe a job applicant in a tough economy, but she liked the cool confidence. It made him very watchable. Some women liked to flirt openly with a sexy-yet-safe bad boy. Others wanted to watch, and wonder. He wasn’t exactly sex on a stick, but if he had any skill behind a bar at all, Chad would round out the eye candy quite nicely.

“Make yourself comfortable,” she said as she leaned against the bar and gestured to one of the bar stools.

He braced himself against the stool and crossed his legs at the ankle, effectively trapping her between his body and the bar. After another glance at her, one that seemed to take in every detail of her face and body, he folded his arms across his chest and scanned the room again. “Nice setup.”

“Thanks. I’ve only been open a couple of months but business is good so far.” She’d made a high-stakes bet on a building on the edge of the proposed Riverside Business Park, an urban renewal project due for a vote in the city council in the next few weeks. If it passed, Eve’s lifelong neighborhood on Lancaster’s East Side would get a much-needed influx of money, jobs, and attention.

She wasn’t going to think about what it would mean to her and the East Side if the vote failed. She’d poured her life savings and a hefty small business loan into the interior. Any hint of insolvency and her family would pounce on the excuse to send her back to a desk job.

The way Chad blocked her in left no other option than to use the heel of her boot to hitch herself onto the stool next to his. She crossed her legs, and his gaze flickered over their length, displayed to their best advantage in the short skirt slit to the top of her thigh. His gaze slowly returned to her face, and when that green-brown gaze met hers, she felt a heady charge flicker across her skin.

“Tell me about your experience,” she said, trying to focus because each second of silence amped up the current crackling between them.

“I’m at Gino’s.”

Not good. A neighborhood bar south of downtown, Gino’s was a cop hangout, a laid-back, low-energy, peanut-shells-on-the-floor-ESPN-on-the-TV kind of place, where local law enforcement went to unwind, not raise hell. As bars went, it was about as far from Eye Candy’s high-energy dance club vibe as possible.