Wait for Morning (Sniper 1 Security #1) (14 page)

“Hey, girlie! How are you do—?”

Marissa jumped, damn near launching
herself right out of her chair as she stared wide-eyed at her best friend, who
was standing stone still in the doorway to her bedroom.

“Oh, shit, Marissa! What’s wrong?”

What was
wrong?

Seriously?

Marissa’s heart was lodged in her throat,
her eyes peeled back as she watched Courtney lower her arms slowly, as though
she were dealing with an injured animal. Two seconds before, Courtney had
barreled through the
door
, her chipper
voice echoing through the spacious room as if she’d introduced herself using a
freaking megaphone.

Unable to get her voice to work, Marissa
cleared her throat. Only then did she manage to croak out, “You almost gave me
a heart attack.”

Realizing she was still clutching her
chest, Marissa did her best to fight off the hysteria, forcing her hands back
to her lap.

Shit. She really needed to get a grip.

“I. Am. So. Sorry,” Courtney said
dramatically, drawing each word out slowly, her nearly colorless eyes wide as
she
gaped
at Marissa. “Still shaken up
after last night, huh?”

Leave it to Courtney to dismiss something
as serious as an intruder attempting to break into the house. Since the woman
was a powerhouse, it
shouldn’t have
surprised her, but it did. Sometimes Marissa wished she were as brave as
Courtney.

Marissa wanted to tell
her that she was still shaken up from the first time—nearly a year ago—when
some asshole had attempted to snatch her from the mall, or the second time he’d
successfully drugged her and put her in the trunk of his car, or even when he’d
tried to blow her up in her own house, but she didn’t.

The last thing Marissa wanted to do was to
make her best friend believe she’d been sitting there feeling sorry for
herself. Because she hadn’t. Not much, anyway.

“It’s okay,” Marissa reassured her friend.
“It’s my fault.”

“The hell it is. Good grief, woman. Here I
am, barreling through your door like I did when we were teenagers. I wasn’t
thinking—”

Marissa
cut
Courtney off before she apologized any more. “Seriously, I’m good.” Granted,
the squeak in her voice probably wasn’t all that convincing.

She
was
good, though. Now anyway. Her heartbeat was somewhere in the
normal
range, or relatively close to it, and
the roaring in her head had ceased. All good signs.

Courtney held up her cell phone, waving it
at Marissa as though the small electronic device was actually the culprit. “I
was giving my brother shit.”

“Which brother?” Marissa asked. All three
of Courtney’s brothers were older and deserving of her wrath, at least
according to Courtney.

“Trace. Who else?” Courtney retorted as
she flopped down into the empty chair across from Marissa. “You remember him,
right? The guy you spent so much time with recently.”

Marissa rolled her eyes.

“Are you really all right? I mean, I know
I scared the shit out of you and all, but seriously? Other than that?”

There wasn’t an easy way to answer
Courtney’s question, so Marissa forced a smile as she continued to breathe
steadily. If she told Courtney that nothing was wrong, first, it would be a lie,
and second, Courtney would see right through her.
Because of the fact there were only eleven days’ difference in their
ages—Courtney being older—and they’d practically grown up in the same house,
Marissa couldn’t very well lie to her best friend.

At least not well, anyway.

Keeping a weak smile pasted on her lips,
Marissa forced her muscles to relax. Although Courtney’s entry left something
to be desired, Marissa couldn’t help but welcome the distraction from her
pressing thoughts. She’d spent the last hour ping-ponging between an
inconvenient depression and soul-wrenching fear—a direct result of the
nightmares that had started up again.

Courtney tilted her head,
clearly
studying her, a mischievous grin
forming on her lips. That damn smile was like a beacon, calling out to the
answering one inside of Marissa and demanding she return it. Unable to help
herself, a real smile formed on Marissa’s lips, relief engulfing her as she let
all of her previous worries temporarily dissipate into thin air.

“
What?
”
Marissa asked with a chuckle after a lengthy staring contest that she
apparently
lost.

“You’re not telling me
something,” Courtney stated, tilting her head to the opposite side, her
perfectly plucked eyebrows slanting downward, her lips pursed as she appeared
to be trying to read Marissa’s mind.
“You have one
minute to tell me what it is,” Courtney finally demanded.

God, the
woman
was bossy. Courtney Kogan liked to order people around, and even Marissa had to
admit she generally got her way.
Probably because
she was the youngest of four kids—the only girl, on top of that—and she’d had
twenty-six years of practice wrapping her entire family, and Marissa’s, around
her little finger.

“I’ve told you everything I know,” Marissa
assured her, although she had absolutely no idea what Courtney might be
referring to.

“Yeah? I don’t recall getting the details
of the time you recently spent with my brother. Care to share?”

No, she really didn’t. There wasn’t much
to tell, anyway. Nothing had happened. Nothing at all.

“Wait a minute,” Marissa stated, purposely
changing the subject. “Why’re you here? Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”

Courtney grinned, straight white teeth
flashing brightly back at her. “Nope, not today. First Friday in, like, six
months that I’ve had off.”

“Slacker,” Marissa mumbled, pretending to
be scoffing at her friend.

“I know, I know. I’m working on that,
actually,” Courtney said in mock seriousness. “It’s tough, but I’ve been tryin’
my best to improve that skill, and I figured hangin’ out with you would
definitely increase my chances of mastering it.”

“Oh, shut up,” Marissa said without much
heat, trying to scrounge up her stern tone of voice but failing. “I know you
aren’t calling
me
a slacker.”

“Never,” Courtney grinned, her white eyes
sparkling with humor. “Although, if my eyes aren’t deceiving me, you’re still
in your pajamas, you haven’t brushed your hair—probably not your teeth,
either—and you’re practically still in bed.”

Marissa laughed at Courtney’s
not-so-far-off description. Okay, fine. So she
was
sitting in a lounge chair with a blanket draped over her legs,
staring out her bedroom window, but she
was
dressed. Although some people would argue that yoga pants and a sweatshirt
weren’t exactly daytime attire. Her hair was haphazardly clipped on the top of
her head, and yes, she had brushed her teeth, thank you very much.

“Who let you in again?” Marissa questioned,
frowning. “I need to know who I should talk to about the house rule of keeping
the riff-raff out.”

Courtney smiled. “I let myself in today.
Surprisingly, Trace wasn’t guarding the front gate like a Rottweiler seeking
fresh meat.”

Trace Kogan. The much too tall, much too
sexy shadow that Marissa had acquired ever since he’d dragged her ass out of
the safe house in Connecticut and driven her back home to her parents’ house in
Texas. The very man who’d spent last night in her bedroom—sleeping in the very
chair Marissa was sitting in, in what appeared to be an incredibly
uncomfortable position for less than an hour.

“I’m kinda surprised he didn’t find a way
to keep me out,” Courtney tacked on, glancing down at her phone.

“You’re his sister,” Marissa stated
unnecessarily with a rusty chuckle. “Then again, you are a brat, so I could
definitely see why he might keep you on the far side of the fence.”

“Me? A brat?” Courtney tried to act
offended, but the huge grin that lit up her face belied her attempt. “Have I
mentioned how happy I am to have you home?”

No, she hadn’t—not in so many words—and
the sincerity in Courtney’s voice gave her pause. Now that Marissa thought
about it, she felt as though not a single day had passed since this whole
nightmare that was now her life had begun nearly one year ago. Well, minus a
few changes. Like the permanent bodyguard she’d acquired recently and the fact
that said
bodyguard
was keeping her
locked in her parents’ house, under his thumb.

Other than that, everything was the same.

Okay,
that was a huge lie, too, but Marissa was going to continue telling herself
that so maybe it would become the truth.

Courtney belted out a laugh as she stared
down at her phone. “God, can he be
any more
pathetic?” she asked,
apparently
talking
to no
one
in particular.

“Who?”

“Geez, woman. Weren’t you listening?
Trace. He told me that he’s gonna hijack my cell phone if I don’t leave him
alone.”

It was nice to hear that Trace was at
least joking with someone, because he damn sure wasn’t showing his lighter side
around Marissa. Ever since they’d gotten back to Texas, Trace had been more
closed off. It seemed that when they were in the same room together, the man
was always fiercely focused, as though he expected the paintings on the wall to
morph into bad guys and jump out and snatch her. Ever since the night he had
held her in his arms, he’d been … different. Even more
serious
than before.

She knew the man well enough to know he
wasn’t always this uptight, but she was beginning to wonder whether he’d lost
that side of himself somewhere along the way.

Aside from being her best friend’s
brother, as well as intensely focused on his job, Trace was the definition of
alpha. Light brown hair, white-gray eyes, perfect white teeth—except for a tiny
chip on the left front one—and those damned dimples. His no-nonsense approach
to life wasn’t the only quality Marissa was attracted to, but she wouldn’t
admit that to anyone. Not even Courtney.

Marissa looked up to see Courtney staring
at her, that devious grin tilting her lips knowingly.

Ugghhh!
He infiltrated her thoughts at the most inopportune times.

“Did you know that you blush when you think
about my brother?”

“I do not,” Marissa disputed, her actions
contradicting her denial when she reached up and touched her warm cheeks.

Courtney merely laughed, but like always,
she fluttered on to a different subject. “So, how are you
really
feeling? If you don’t mind my saying, you kinda look like
hell.”

Without missing a beat, Marissa said,
“Disappointing to
hear
since I was just
thinking I could easily be
runner-up
in a
beauty pageant. Hey! Are those what I think they are?” Marissa’s attention
locked on to the white paper bag Courtney had sitting on her lap.

How in the world had she missed that?

Another mischievous grin came from
Courtney as she picked up the bag and swung it teasingly between them. “Maybe.”

Reaching out to snatch the surprise, Marissa
wasn’t fast enough, but then Courtney, bless her, was tossing the sack her way.

“You went to the office today?
I thought you said it was your day off,” Marissa
stated as she roamed noisily through the bag, desperately seeking the one
thing—other than her best friend—that was guaranteed to put a smile on her
face.

Chocolate.

And now Courtney was there to distract her
from the unwelcome depression that was hanging on like a wet blanket, one she
couldn’t seem to crawl out from underneath. The damn nightmares could take the
wind out of her sails faster than anything.

But give her chocolate and Courtney, and
the world suddenly looked bright again.

Little things.

“Not the office, but yes, I stopped by
Percolation. Just for you,” Courtney told her as she continued to text
something on her phone.

“Have I mentioned that I love you?”
Marissa said with her mouth full.

“Not enough lately,
no.
” Courtney smirked as she pulled her feet up
underneath her and got settled in the oversized chair opposite Marissa. “Oh,
and Ally said to tell you hi.”

“How is she, anyway?” Marissa asked when
she swallowed, handing the last muffin in the bag back to Courtney.

Marissa couldn’t even
remember the last time she had seen Ally Shaffaer, the beautiful owner of the
coffee shop located on the bottom floor of the office building that Sniper 1
Security worked out of, and one of Marissa’s good friends.

“She’s good. Or so she says. She couldn’t
chat long because they were busy.”

“I need to get over there and see her,”
Marissa said absently, knowing that wasn’t likely going to happen in the near
future. If Trace had his way, Marissa wasn’t sure she’d be outside for quite
some time.