Too Hot to Hold

Stephanie Tyler

1

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

—Friedrich Nietzsche

The car wasn’t moving fast enough. Eighty miles per hour would be fine for most men, but Nick Devane wasn’t most men, and never would be if he had anything to say about it.

The midnight black Porsche Turbo shook when it reached 110 and skidded onto the curved expanse of highway on two wheels. His breath came in short gasps, heart slammed in his chest, fingers curved around the steering wheel. The rush spread through him like a fever until he was no longer thinking, the possibility of danger vibrating his soul, the catch in his throat urging him to push past the brink of fear.

Some people might say he hadn’t changed a damned bit from the wild kid he’d been. Built for speed and trouble, and his pulsing drive for adrenaline seemed to feed on itself, increasing exponentially through his early years and culminating with an outlet as a member of the elite Navy SEAL Teams.

It was a job he planned on keeping until they threw him out on his ass. A job he’d gotten because of his need for speed and trouble.

Hotwiring a judge’s car and taking it for a joyride ten years ago might not have been the smartest idea, but Nick had to say it was the best thing he’d ever done.

Seventeen, cocky as hell and without a care in the world, he’d pushed the borrowed Porsche Carrera to the limit on that darkened stretch of highway along the Virginia-Maryland border, pushed it so hard the gears groaned and the chassis shook and he’d been sure the car would either explode or take flight off the pavement. At that point, he wouldn’t have given a shit either way. If he’d had to make an honest assessment of himself as a disowned teenager of wealth and privilege, death would’ve been an easy option.

But it would’ve made things easier still for the man he refused to call
Father
anymore, and that special brand of screw-you Nick had been born with, and continued to reserve for authority, had been too deeply ingrained in him to quit anything. Especially living.

That night, he’d slowed the car, turned off the engine and rolled the sleek silver baby up the long driveway. He’d been prepared to leave it ridden hard and put away wet where the judge had parked it, no worse for wear—save the near-empty gas tank.

He’d never expected Her Honor, Kelly Cromwell, to be standing there as though she had all the time and patience in the world. Which, he would discover later, she did.

“End of the line,” he’d muttered to himself, had gotten out of the car and swaggered over to her, because he did not run.

Not anymore.

When given the choice between jail or the military, he’d chosen wisely.

Tonight, the black Porsche was his, but there was also somebody waiting for him when he slammed into the back lot of the diner and eased into the last available space.

No, nothing had changed inside of him. But on the outside, the facade, the carefully concealed past was a tightly woven secret that he refused to let unravel.

Which was exactly why he needed to meet Kaylee Smith and do what he’d promised six years ago to the man who saved his life.

Don’t get yourself into trouble
, his CO had warned earlier that evening. Nick had almost said,
Too late
, but figured the wiseass remark was better kept to himself.

A brutal, three-month mission overseas and the team’s combined injuries—consisting of a bullet wound, two broken ribs and a broken nose, none of which were his—added to one week stateside, and a twenty-four-hour window of RR practically screamed for a night out.

He had expected to get into trouble that evening—hadn’t expected the trouble to actually find him.

When his CO put him in charge of the team’s behavior, his enthusiasm lessened considerably, but didn’t change his opinion that drinking, dancing and the loudest music known to man were still the night’s best options. He’d planned on heading to the Underground, a place senior officers rarely frequented and where he could be semi-assured none of his team would get into a brawl. Although with most of the team in tow, including his two adopted brothers, the odds weren’t on his side.

Trouble always comes in threes
, Kenny Waldron, the only man Nick called
Dad
now, would always say when Nick, Jake and Chris were together in the same place.

Nick’s plans had been altered when Max, a captain in Naval Intelligence, called with an urgent message.

Hey, Devane, someone’s been running your name. What the fuck is that all about?

Max was the man who brought the teams home—all the SEALs owed him a hell of a lot, and somehow the chits seemed to come up in Max’s favor even when the teams were on dry, safe land. Relatively speaking.

With Nick’s blessing, Max had gotten in touch with the guy from the Department of Defense who’d initiated the search on Nick, put the fear of God into him and gave Nick the name and number of the woman who’d been hunting him.

Kaylee Smith.

Nick hadn’t heard of her.

She’s heard of you. Find out why and shut it down
had been Max’s final words.

He knew why now. Shutting it down was the final step.

Kaylee Smith had come to the diner early, to have dinner and to frame out some of the stories she had on deadline—a piece on a cache of weapons found at a women’s shelter, and another piece where she’d gone for a ride-along with undercover policewomen. The investigations had been exciting—the writing not as much, although if she was in the right mood, she could get that partial sensation of still being in the moment.

Tonight, she couldn’t get herself to that place. She hadn’t eaten, was on her third cup of coffee as she tapped her pen restlessly and stared out the window that faced the back parking lot where she hoped Nick Devane would pull in. She wanted to see him before he saw her, to assess who was coming at her. To attempt to know her target on sight, since the only way she could identify him was by his voice.

“Who is this?” The voice on the other end of the line was a rough growl, had made her start initially
.

“Who is this?” she asked back, even though she suspected exactly who it was, with a more than sinking pit in her stomach. Her search for Nick Devane had triggered something in the system, especially since she’d had a friend in the DoD search for his birth certificate. Her friend had come up empty
.

According to the information Kaylee had, Devane was Special Ops. Navy SEAL. That was six years earlier—he could be discharged by now. Working for the CIA or FBI was a definite possibility for a man with his background
.

Either way, he was a man who didn’t want to be found
.

He didn’t answer her question—not fully. “You’ve been looking for me. I need to know why.”

“Your name … it’s on Aaron’s list,” she said quietly. There was silence on the other end, so long that she’d checked the display screen on her phone to make sure they were still connected. The call had registered as an unknown number on her cell phone’s caller ID. Untraceable
.

“You want to meet me,” he said finally
.

“I want to meet you,” she agreed. “To talk about Aaron.”

“City Diner, on Maple Street. Tonight, 2300.”

Military time. He was still in. “I’ll be there. Don’t you want to know my name … or how to recognize me?” she asked before he could hang up
.

“That won’t be a problem.”

What Nick didn’t realize was that anything to do with Aaron was a problem—a large one that threatened her career, her past … her life.

Nick had known more than her phone number—he’d known what state she lived in. And he was coming to her.

“Honey, can I get you some more coffee?” The waitress didn’t bother to wait for an answer before she topped off Kaylee’s cup. And when she walked away, Kaylee noted that a black Porsche had pulled into the lot during that brief interruption, and the most handsome brick wall she’d ever seen in her life was standing directly in front of her.

She’d called Aaron’s entire list, man by man. Each had come willingly to meet with her. Each of them told her that Aaron had been alive when they’d left him, that her ex-husband had saved their lives.

That Aaron had refused to answer questions as to whether or not he was affiliated with the U.S. military.

Nick was the last man on Aaron’s list, and he was definitely not least. If she’d been writing an article about him, she could already picture the opening paragraph:

Every bit the warrior. Tall, broad shoulders, an aristocratic face—handsome… and it is as though Nick Devane should be modeling menswear instead of running around the world with weaponry
.

But she knew differently. Underneath the calm, cool and collected man who stood before her was a hint of the fire inside he couldn’t control. The heat in his belly that drove him to hit harder, fly higher, to risk his life for the sheer need of it.

It was something she both understood and hated. And right now, with Nick standing in front of her, she was convinced that she hated him as well.

For being on Aaron’s list. For being a part of the same military that had taken so much from her.

For turning her world upside down in the space of mere seconds.

So yes, Nick was the last man on the list. The last one to see Aaron alive.

And maybe the one who knew how he died.

“You must be Nick.” Her voice was thankfully calmer than she’d expected. He merely nodded in response.

The men she’d met over the past days had been succinct as well, but this man was a whole different animal. Taciturn. Not the buttoned-up type who called her
Ma’am
and expressed sincere apologies for her loss.

Yet, somehow, she had little doubt that whatever came out of his mouth would be sincere.

“Thank you for agreeing to meet with me. Please, have a seat.” She motioned across the table to the empty half of the booth, a booth she’d picked specifically to watch both the entrance and the lot. A place where her back could stay against the wall—the first rule of combat in the world according to Aaron.

“Not here” was all he said before he turned and strolled out.

She had no choice but to follow. Hurriedly, she threw money on the table to cover her bill, then caught up with him halfway up the street.

He didn’t turn to acknowledge her presence, had assumed that she’d follow him to wherever he was going.

And he’d been right.

Yes, he was definitely proving to be the most arrogant of the bunch.

“Aaron was your husband,” he said once he finally stopped at the entrance of an alleyway between two buildings at the corner where the lamppost had blown out. Then he gazed at her and corrected himself. “Ex-husband.”

She was going to have to give answers to get answers from this one. “Yes. He was my ex for a long time before he died.”

“You were young.”

“Too young,” she agreed. “Just eighteen when we married.” Aaron had been a way out. She hadn’t known that she’d been running into more of what she’d left behind, after being deserted by her mother and left with a grandmother who neither wanted nor had any love for Kaylee.

Her life was so much different today. She’d molded herself into a cold, ruthless undercover reporter who was both respected and feared.

No guts, no glory.

No emotions, except when it came to Aaron. Her first love. Her first everything. And most of those emotions ran between nostalgia and hatred.

“I met him in Africa,” Nick said finally. His rough voice shot up her spine like a direct caress, the way it had on the phone this afternoon. But it was so much better in person.

“I know. In the DRC—the Congo,” she said. If he was surprised that she had that information, he didn’t show it. She hadn’t expected him to anyway, but just as she wondered if there was anything that could break through the facade, he swallowed hard, then rubbed the base of his throat with two fingers as he stared at the night sky as though reliving that time in Africa.

“Aaron saved my life.”

“The list of men he left for me to find—he said that he’d saved all their lives. Except for you.”

Nick looked at her with eyebrows raised, waiting. So patient, but somehow impatience radiated off him in waves.

“He said you would’ve done fine without his help,” she finished. “Is that true?”

“You want me to use twenty-twenty hindsight on something that happened six years ago?” he asked, his voice tight. “Hell, I don’t know how to answer that.”

He stuck his hands in his pockets, the leather jacket flaring out to the side, and she half expected to see a gun holster.

“I tried to get him to come back with me, on the helo,” he said. “He refused. He said that there wasn’t a way back for him. And then he gave me this—told me to give it to his girl when she came looking for me.”

She felt the tears jump to her eyes, hot and too fresh as Nick took a hand out of his pocket to place a worn circle patch, a gray background with a black symbol crudely sewn in, into her palm. “You’ve kept it all this time?”