Waiting for You (2 page)

“Look, you just need some time to recuperate ok? Crystal Valley is the perfect place to do that.”

“I don’t even know how long I’m going to stay though. Just being in this place is makes me feel like I’m in a whole other life.”

“You will know the right course of action when the time comes. For now, it’s just one day at a time,” Laila repeated the mantra. “I’ve got to dash now though, I have court in ten minutes. I’ve mailed you the official divorce papers though, should be at your local post office within a few days or so.”

“Thanks Laila, I appreciate all you have done.”

“I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Take care, Aud.”

“You too.” She ended the call as she heard a soft knock on the door.

Her grandpa walked in sheepishly, “Sorry, I heard you were on the phone. I’m going to stop at the local store for some groceries, would you like to join me?”

“Sure grandpa, I’ll drive.”

The last thing she wanted to do was drive around the town, the noose choking her air supply, but she had better sense than to let her eighty year old grandpa drive around with his waning eyesight.

****

Adam Parker stretched and rolled his shoulders, trying to get out all the kinks. It was hot out and sitting in an air conditioned office wasn’t an option. Not when he had to finish up the carpentry for Mrs. Naylor’s cabinets. The local biddy was old but she sure was bossy and pedantic down to the last detail. Not that Adam minded, he appreciated that quality in people. Mrs. Naylor’s problem was more that she kept changing her mind about the details and it was driving Adam bat shit crazy.

So now, on his day off, instead of going for an hour long ocean swim to cool off, he was out in the sun, sanding down the cabinets. He was used to the harsh elements though. Nothing could compare when you were used to twenty hour days in one hundred and four degree heat with no form of shelter. Heat so thick, the humidity suffocated you as you gasped for air.

Many had dropped out or been terminated over the course of the BUD/S training but Adam had been one of the few in his team that had made it to the end.

He’d been pushed to swim over a thousand yards and then do pushups, pull ups, and run for miles. There’d been moments when he had thought he was defeated, like his body literally could not take another day but then he was reminded of what was back waiting for him in Crystal Valley and he had trudged on, pushing and pushing to be the best.

Being a Navy SEAL had taken him all over the world on top secret, covert government missions. The Special Forces unit was his team and he’d been the best at the distinctive missions, parachuting. He’d parachuted from planes and diving miles underwater. He’d zip-lined across mountains for some of his missions, climbed cliff edges with his bare hands and yet he reached his level of patience with a little old lady who couldn’t make up her ever loving mind.

“Are you still at that?”

He turned when he heard the familiar voice. Oliver Kyle, a longtime friend, walk up the driveway. Adam lived at the top of Crystal Valley, overlooking the ocean below; the benefit of living high up was he had his privacy to himself – mostly. Living in a small town had its limitations.

He and Oliver had been friends since Adam had moved to Crystal Valley during his senior year. They had raised so much hell and even more eyebrows together in that year alone. Trouble somehow cemented friendships and theirs had been solidified further through their college years. It had stood the test when Adam enlisted and still when he returned, proving nothing had changed between them. Oliver had been the only friend who knew Adam as well as Adam knew himself. He was the only one who had been through it all with him and had come out on the other end. Oliver was like a brother to him and he would take a bullet for his friend. Good damned thing. Oliver was currently the chief of his specialty police department at Crystal Valley PD.

Oliver appeared relaxed and easy going on the surface but Adam was almost certain that he was there on official business. Oliver headed up the intelligence unit at the local police department and often used Adam as a consultant on high profile (aka dangerous) missions. Since he was honorably discharged from the Navy, Adam was only too happy to get involved; it saved his sanity at the best of times.

“Old lady Naylor never can make up her mind,” he shot back at his friend, pausing to dig into his cooler for a beer. He tossed one to the other man who deftly caught it, cracked the seal and took a long swig. “So what brings your ugly mug out here today? Any updates on the Perelli case?”

“As a matter of fact Sherlock, there is,” Oliver countered. “We are ready to make the bust. We have his location and we want to make a move in a few hours. We think he won’t suspect us if we infiltrate in the light of day. Plus he is likely to have the full shipment of cocaine on his property when we barge in.”

“Good. This sounds pretty stock standard though, what do you need me for?”

“Back up,” Oliver flashed Adam a toothy smile, promising all kinds of crazy. “The son of a bitch has far too many men and even more escape routes. One of which is via the marina. I need you stationed there. I don’t just want to catch Perelli, I want his main henchmen too.”

“Got it.”

“So I’ll catch ya down at the precinct in two hours. Get suited up and ready for action.”

Adam nodded, still idly sanding the wooden surface.

“Oh and Adam?” Oliver grinned again. “We are taking these assholes in, any force necessary.”

Adam returned the grin, the familiar adrenaline flowing through his veins. Just the way he liked it.

Chapter 2

A
udrey drove Grandpa Joe’s truck into Town, taking note that nothing much had changed since she left. The post office was still in the corner of the street, a few diners and restaurants were spattered about. There was a new bakery smack in the center, though, and she made a mental note to check that one out. Cream puff pastries were her weakness.

She turned left into the grocer parking lot and took in the refurbished building beside it, the local police department. It certainly had an upgrade in the last few years.

Audrey walked into the grocery store with her grandpa and grabbed a basket. Her old faithful claustrophobia was creeping in again, like a dark passenger holding her hostage.
Just breathe, just breathe
, she cautioned herself.

She inhaled deeply and exhaled, until the oxygen starting to circulate again.

“You ok?” her grandpa asked, over his shoulder, his thick gray eyebrows drawn together in concern.

“I’m fine, Papa, just the heat is a little overwhelming,” she fibbed, running a reassuring hand down his frail arm.

She followed him through the store as he picked items off the shelf. She allowed herself a small treat and added a box of chocolate chip cookies to the basket. Everyone had a vice and Audrey’s was chocolate. That and cream puff pastries. And maybe some double fudge brownies too.

“You go ahead and queue to cash up,” Grandpa Joe directed. “I’m just going to get some stuff from the back aisle.

Audrey nodded her agreement and stood in line at the cashier.

Surprise, surprise, even the cashier was still old Mrs. Naylor, a nosy body of note and Audrey was glad that her attention was too focused on another customer to have noticed her yet. The patron was tall, probably six-foot-two and built like a line-backer. Audrey overheard Mrs. Naylor saying something about him finishing up her cabinets. Her tone was bossy as hell as she peered at the man over her horn rimmed glasses, mimicking the quintessential cheeky principal’s assistant she had been back in the day.

“Yes ma’am,” she heard him say. His voice, gruff and deep and there was oddly something very familiar about him yet she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

She transferred her weighted basket from one arm to the other as he turned around and their eyes met. Her brown to his green. She sucked in a small breath and somehow had to prompt herself to keep breathing. Standing before her in all his sexy glory was none other than Adam Parker himself. The star of all her teenage fantasies and the reason for her reckless abandonment years ago. Well, one of many.

He smiled at her in recognition and she felt her knees go weak.
Bad knees!
She chastised.

“Audrey?” he took a step toward her and Audrey just stood there, frozen to the spot. “It’s Adam. We used to be neighbors.”

As if she could ever forget. “I remember who you are,” she managed, sounding snooty and aloof even to her own ears. You could take a girl out of the city but there was always bound to be some bit of New York stuck up the girl’s backside.

Something flickered in his eyes and then it was gone as quick as she had seen it. His mere presence was unnerving her.
God, he was bigger than I remembered and where the hell had all those muscles come from?
The years had just made him nothing but hotter. How unfair!

What did she care anyways? He had just used her all those years ago. She was simply a notch on his bedpost.

She watched his gaze roam her body from the tips of her toes all the way up to her coiffed chocolate colored hair. That erogenous half grin never faltered. “What are you doing back in the Valley?”

Her neck warmed as an unfamiliar heat crept up. “Just here to see my Grandpa.”

Another guy walked into the grocer and called out, “Parker, it’s go time.”

Adam nodded in acknowledgement and turned back to her, “You look good.” He then retrieved his soda off the counter and headed out.

Audrey chided her heart for racing.
Stop it! He’s a jerk! A drop dead gorgeous jerk but a jerk nonetheless. You are done with men – remember that!
A man who used her body then turned to the nearest heifer before his bed was even cold did not deserve her time.

“You ok,
filho
?” Grandpa Joe asked as he re-joined her, studying her face. “We need to get you cooled off.”

The warm flush sneaked up her neck again and prickled the tips of her ears. “Yes, I’m fine, Papa.”

“Then why are you frowning?” his eyebrows scrunched in concerned and she hated herself for worrying the older man.

“I’m not frowning, that’s just my face,” she joked and threaded her arm through his. Damn that Adam Parker. She hoisted the basket up to the counter as Mrs. Naylor began checking the items out.

“Well, look at this, who do we have here?” she regarded Audrey over the brim of her too-large glasses and Audrey braced herself for the reminder of her failure, of returning to Crystal Valley with nothing. “Audrey Kelly, look at you dear. Aren’t you just the picture of perfection?”

Huh?

“I hear you are quite something back in New York. Really made a deal of yourself.” Had she heard about Michael? The thudding in her chest beat heavy as she started to feel the room spin. “So proud of you, honey,” Mrs. Naylor continued, unaware of her internal battle. “Such a great thing to see our locals take on the big world.”

The clamp released and her lungs could function again. Nobody knew. Her mind was simply over-reacting.

“Thanks, Mrs. Naylor,” Audrey managed when she could find her voice. “Happy to be back with Grandpa though. How are you?”

“Oh, this old biddy?” She swiped item after item on the scanner. “The kids have moved up and moved out two cities over but that’s ok. Finally got all my space back so I’m renovating. That Parker boy is something else with his hands so he’s doing the remodel for me.”

Oh how she knew about Adam and his hands.
So wait, he lives here in Crystal Valley? And he’s into carpentry?
Well she never would have guessed. Not that she cared one way or the other.

“Pity about his Daddy, such a shame when he died…” Mrs. Naylor continued and somehow Audrey’s brain was processing it all in slow motion.
Mr. Parker died? When? How? Was that why they no longer lived next door to her Grandpa?

The older woman handed her the grocery bags and Audrey and Grandpa Joe walked out to the car, her head still spinning. She loaded the bags in when a commotion in the driveway of the building next door caught her attention. The police department. There were black armored police SUVs lining the street and about fifteen men suiting up with Kevlar and holstering weapons. Amidst all the commotion, Audrey recognized the guy that walked into the grocer calling for Adam earlier. He was built and had on full uniform. He appeared to be the man in charge.

What completely threw her, though, was Adam standing beside him, strapping down his standard issue black PD Kevlar. She watched mesmerized as his fingers pulled back on the Velcro, tightened and flattened it down, ensuring his vest was in place, making him appear even larger than he already was. He took a handgun from his hip, slid out the magazine and then shoved it back in and replaced it in his holster like it was second nature to him. The other guy threw him a rifle and Adam caught it in mid-air before he did some checks on it and handed it back.

What was going on? Was Adam a cop too? Carpenter, cop, and all around resident goody-two-shoes?
Audrey felt like she was in a twilight zone. Where was the trouble maker she once remembered? She squinted at the guy beside Adam as recognition sparked. Wasn’t that Oliver? Adam’s teenage partner in crime? How did two of the biggest trouble makers in history make it into law enforcement? The irony was baffling.

Adam glanced up and at that moment, their gazes caught from across the lot. The gape reflected all kinds of trouble that she knew he spelled out and the awareness sizzled all the way down to the tips of her toes.
How could he still do that to me?
The side of his mouth tilted up into a half smile and hell if that didn’t just send her hormones racing again.
Did he remember that night?

He focused only on her eyes; the spark was a feather-light touch throughout her body, heating its way along the path it touched. Her nipples started to pebble and she caught herself from allowing Adam to have any effect on her.

His gaze shifted then and the moment broke. She needed to get a grip.

Audrey climbed into the driver’s seat and turned on the ignition.

Grandpa Joe chatted on during the drive back home, but Audrey was still lost in her own thoughts when they got back and off-loaded their bags. Her mind drifted back to when the Parkers had moved in next door. It had been just Adam and his dad yet Audrey hadn’t really seen much of them, they usually kept to themselves. Adam though, he was a hard one to miss. He had been eighteen at the time and had always gone looking for trouble. He was two years older than Audrey and had everything that appealed to her. He was the quintessential bad boy. He and Oliver had often rode out in Oliver’s Mustang, the deep hum of the engine waking her up at night to peer out her window and watch as they sped off in the night. Everyone had heard the stories about the illegal racing or the drunken parties the two boys had crashed. If not for those then the numerous and sometimes illegal pranks, like when they had supposedly broken into a local butcher shop just to use the frozen lamb carcasses as punching bags. Adam managed to stir up all kinds of trouble in his youth.

He had mostly ignored her as the girl next door yet there had been moments when he had engaged her in brief conversations in their yard. Audrey remembered the devil may care grin that had just about set her panties alight. She was just becoming aware of her hormones and he had them in a total erratic spin. Audrey never really knew how to behave around him and had usually ended up as a geeky, awkward mess.

He had moved away to college that year and had come by intermittently to visit his dad. She felt like he was in a whole other league to her and she had clearly been out of her depth. He had a world of experience and she was just a homely girl in a small town. When he was visiting in Crystal Valley she’d noticed a slew of women that he’d have over to his house. Audrey would watch as he snuck them in late to crawl out his window hours later, looks of satisfaction on their faces. It had broken Audrey’s fragile teenage heart.

‘Til she turned eighteen and was ready to head off to college herself. She had decided to seize the moment and was going to seduce him, not wanting to go to college a virgin, always playing the role of the good girl. She wanted him to be the one to give her that moment – that one worldly experience.

Audrey had snuck up in through his window that night and he’d been lying on his bed listening to music. He seemed amused to see her crawling in with her knee-length trench coat wrapped around herself. He didn’t appear surprised.

He sat up and watched her approach. “Hey Aud,” he kicked up that suggestive half smile with the edge of his supple mouth.

Oh God, the desire was pooling within her. She didn’t know what to say. Was she losing her nerve?

He stood and walked toward her, eyes slowing roaming over her body. A body that had finally (Thank you, God) come into its own and filled in and puffed out where it was supposed to.

Adam stood before her, focused on her golden brown eyes. “What are you doing here?”

With slightly trembling fingers, Audrey untied the belt on her coat and let it drop to the floor, revealing the small cream swatch of fabric that passed as a negligee, just barely covering her essentials.

Adam stared at her with a look of surprise, taking in his fill and yet still not touching her.

Self-conscious, Audrey almost reached up and covered herself when he stepped toward her. Damn, he was so close that she actually felt the waves of heat just roll off his fiery flesh.

He raised his hand and slowly trailed his fingers across the tender skin at her collar bone. Her nipples instantly pebbled in response as he continued to trail his fingers across her clavicle and down her arm, leaving shivers in its wake.

“Audrey, what are you doing here?” his breath whispered against her neck before he lifted his gaze to meet hers, the heat mirrored back. In its depths, she also saw his confusion with his own internal battle warring.

“I want you,” she replied boldly. “I don’t want to wait anymore. I want to take what I know you can give me.”

His eyes flashed with a wicked promise and his lips parted as his breathing shallowed. His fingers reached her waist where he held her with both hands. “You’re a nice girl, Aud,” his thumbs massaged the inside of her small waist, sending jolts of electricity through her body, settling within her core, making her dizzy with desire, “but I don’t think—”

“Then don’t think,” she interrupted, stepping closer still as she placed her hands on his chest, slowly caressing his firm chest as her fingers landed on his neck and inching into his hair. “I’m a big girl and I know what I’m doing. I don’t want to be the nice girl tonight.”

Adam stared at her in his lustful haze as he lowered his mouth to hers. The last thing she heard before his lips touched hers was “Your grandfather is going to skin me alive.”

When their lips connected, Audrey was on fire. She had been kissed before, Adam wasn’t her first, but he certainly was the first to actually make love to her mouth.

He tilted his head and barely touched his lips to hers, outlining her lips with just the lightest touch of his tongue. When he delved into her mouth, he utterly consumed her, his hands cupping her face to bring him even closer to her.

Adam eased back and peppered kisses around the corners of her mouth before trailing his mouth across her neck and onto her heaving breasts. Everywhere his mouth touched scorched her skin and left her panting in need. Her brain could barely comprehend the sensations with the trail of his fingers muddling any thought she could have had.

He lifted his head and stared at her in reverence, “You are so beautiful Audrey.”