Navy Seal's Deadly Secret

Brett heated up a can of baked beans and poured them over a couple of slices of toast. He was just sitting down to eat the makeshift grub when headlights flashed through the window. Reggie growled beside him.

“Now who’s come to bug us?” he grumbled at the dog.

Reggie merely glared at the front door and growled again, low in his throat.

A door slammed outside, and a familiar voice called, “Brett? You home?”

Oh dear Jesus. His mother. The original Morgan hurricane. No way in hell would she go away quietly after a few not-so-subtle hints like Anna Larkin had. And he couldn’t very well pretend not to be here. Miranda would have to walk right past his truck, parked out front as proud as you please, to get to the front porch. Swearing under his breath, he opened the door.

“Of course I’m home, Mother. My truck’s parked out front and the lights are on in the cabin.”

“I heard there was some excitement down at Pittypat’s today. Are you okay, sweetie?”

He ground his molars together at being called sweetie. He was a freaking commando, for crying out loud, and had killed dozens, or maybe hundreds, of hostiles over the years. Only Miranda Morgan had the gall to call him something so childish and insulting.

“I’m fine. Thanks for coming up to check on me.”

She stomped up the steps like a freight train gathering momentum. Nope. Not gonna take the hint to go away. Dammit. She barreled inside the tiny cabin, filling it up with her huge personality. “This place is a dump. You really should have let me redecorate it before you moved in here,” she announced.

“It’s fine for me. I don’t need anything fancy. Just a roof over my head and a dry place to lie down at night.” What he did most nights didn’t actually qualify as sleep, truth be told. He tossed and turned in between nightmares that woke him sweating in cold terror, most nights.

“Is that what you’re eating for supper?” she demanded. “Come down to the main house and let Willa cook you a proper supper.”

“Willa Mathers? Hank’s daughter?”

“Correct. She helps me out around the house and does some bookkeeping and filing for your father when she’s not studying. She’s going to school, you know. Working on a PhD in counseling or something.”

Good for her. Daughter of the ranch’s longtime foreman, he remembered Willa as a skinny kid with long black braids and a magic touch with horses.

“Seriously, Brett. I’m not letting you sit up here starving yourself to death.”

“Do I look like I’m starving?”

“All this time you’re spending alone isn’t good for you. Come down to the house and eat supper with us every day.”

Brett’s voice went flat. “No.”

He was not putting himself in the way of his father on a daily basis. No way. John Morgan was a born-again son of a bitch, and he could do without his father’s judgment and condescending crap, thank you very much. Just because his father was a decorated war hero didn’t mean his sons had to be the same.

Hell, he didn’t know if he was a hero or a traitor, anyway, after that last mission. If only he could remember—

“You sound as stubborn your father when you talk like that.”

His gaze narrowed to a cold stare. He would take that as a compliment, this time. “Don’t push me, Mom. I’m only here until I figure out what I’m doing next. If you can’t leave me alone like you agreed to, just say the word, and I’m gone.”

Miranda scowled back at him, no less stubborn than him or his father. Silence stretched between them as Brett refused to be the one to give in, and Miranda did the same. Even Reggie felt the tension, for the dog eventually whimpered and came over to bump Brett’s hand. The mutt seemed to be looking for reassurance more than a scratch, so Brett let his hand rest on the dog’s back.

“Fine. Be like that,” Miranda huffed.

He didn’t deign to speak or to let her off the hook.

She flopped down on the ratty sofa and threw up her hands. “So what happened at Pittypat’s? Joe called to tell me you broke a guy’s nose and arm.”

He ground out, “The guy was a punk who tried to rob the place. I stopped him.”

“By half killing him?”

“Trust me. If I had tried to kill him, he would be dead.”

Miranda rolled her eyes, not fazed by the remark. But then, John Morgan was an ex-Green Beret who’d killed his fair share of Vietcong.

Brett picked up a knife and fork and dug into his meal, such as it was. He didn’t invite her up here, and he felt no obligation to entertain her.

“What about the waitress? Joe said she got roughed up but you saved her.”

He shrugged, but his shoulders felt unaccountably tight. It still pissed him off that the punk had slammed her into the counter like that. The fear in her eyes—he would be dreaming about that in his nightmares for days to come. And that other thing in her eyes… He could swear it had been a death wish. What the hell was that all about? “What about her?”

“Is she okay?” Miranda asked in exasperation.

“Of course. I saved her.”

“What’s her name?”

He didn’t want to share her name with anyone. He wanted to hold it close within himself. A secret. His secret. But Miranda was, well, Miranda. Sometimes it just wasn’t worth fighting her. He mumbled, “Larkin. Anna Larkin.”

“Didn’t she go to Hollywood a while back or something ridiculous like that?”

His gut clenched at Anna being labeled ridiculous, which was weird. He hardly knew her. It was none of his business what the locals thought of her. He shrugged. “How the hell would I know what she did? I’ve been overseas for ten years.”

Miranda tapped a front tooth with a short, neat fingernail. “I think she went west with a boy. Her mother was fit to be tied. Disowned her.”

Indeed? That sucked. Although, right about now, he wouldn’t mind being disowned by his own intrusive, pushy mother. He ate in silence, not tasting a bite of his beans and toast.

“Is she all right?” Miranda startled him by asking.

“Who? Anna Larkin?”

“Of course Anna Larkin. Was she hurt today? Was she struck? Did she fall? Hit her head?”

An image of her pitching off his porch earlier leaped to mind, and he winced at the memory of her hitting her head on the ground. He really wished she would’ve stuck around for a little while so he could’ve been sure she was okay. But it wasn’t like he could have bodily dragged her into his cabin and held her against her will.

“I wonder if she’s been to a doctor. She could have a concussion or broken ribs or something.”

“She would know if she had broken ribs,” he replied drily. Lord knew, he still felt his when he exerted himself too hard, four months after he’d broken them. Of course, he’d gotten off easy. Four of his men had died.

Apparently his scowl of self-loathing finally did the trick and convinced Miranda that he had no desire whatsoever to be social with her tonight.

“Don’t stay up here too long, Brett. You need people around you. Your family loves you.” She came over to force an unwanted hug on him, which he tolerated uncomfortably.

She left, and he listened to her truck retreat down the mountain. Blessed silence settled around him once more. He didn’t deserve a family. And certainly not one that loved him.

Grimly, he gave the leftover beans to Reggie, who lapped them up eagerly and finished with a loud smack of his lips. Dogs surely had the right of it. Live completely in the moment, no past, no future. Just the simple pleasures of right now.

He turned on the television for background noise but didn’t bother to watch whatever flashed across the screen. Instead, a memory of Anna Larkin’s sweet face came to him. Her smile. Her embarrassment when she’d spilled water on him. Her terror when that kid slammed her into the counter…and her bizarre disappointment when he’d come charging to her rescue like some damned knight in shining armor. Who the hell was he kidding? He was nobody’s good guy.

He was the jerk who’d let her go away without finding out if she had a concussion.

He downed a couple of beers but didn’t much feel like getting drunk tonight. Which was a first for him since he’d come home. Maybe all the excitement had taken more out of him than he’d realized. He should call it a night early and get some sleep. Except when he eyed the bed through the open bedroom door, fear came calling, ugly and insidious, crawling inside his gut and gnawing at his insides until he doubled over in pain.

The walls began to close in on him, and his breathing accelerated until he might as well have been running for his life.

And that was exactly what he did. He bolted outside, unable to stand being confined any longer. Reggie had already settled down on his fleece bed in front of the wood-burning stove for the night, so he didn’t go back for the dog.

He climbed into his truck and pointed the heavy vehicle down the mountain without any destination in mind. Maybe he should check out the Sapphire Club. It was a strip joint that had opened up on the edge of Sunny Creek sometime since he’d joined the Army. But he had no appetite for crowds and smoke and drunks, and instead pulled over by a curb in the ramshackle part of Sunny Creek down by where the old lumber mill used to be. The neighborhood had gotten significantly more ramshackle since he left a decade ago, and a bunch of the houses were boarded up and had waist-high lawns of weeds.

He pulled out his cell phone and did a quick internet search on one Anna Larkin of Sunny Creek, Montana. Nothing. Crap. She must not have been back in town long. He debated starting a rumor, but ultimately risked calling Joe Westlake.

“Hey, Joe, It’s Brett Morgan. Can you tell me where Anna Larkin lives? I want to stop by and thank her for returning my Saint George’s medal to me.”

“Yeah, sure.” Joe rattled off the address. “She’s single, by the way.”

“Eff off, Joe,” Brett bit out. He hung up on his cousin’s laughter.

He drove past her place with the idea of just taking a quick look. Making sure she was okay.

How his truck ended up parked at the curb in front of her house, he had no clue. And how his door opened and his boots crunched down into the frosty grass, he couldn’t say. He really shouldn’t be heading up the cracked sidewalk to the wreck of a house in front of him. A pile of torn-out drywall at the end of the driveway announced that construction was ongoing inside the bungalow. That, and light showing around the cracks in the plywood covering the front windows announced that someone was home.

Turn around. Go back to the truck. Get the hell out of here. Run!

And yet, his feet kept moving, one reluctant step at a time. What was he doing? The rational side of his brain answered that he was only checking on her health, doing what he should have in the first place. The other side of his brain, the skeptical side that knew his BS for what it was, informed him he was lying to himself.

He watched in disbelief as his fist knocked on the wooden door frame.

Please, God, don’t let her answer the door, he begged her.

Light footsteps sounded behind the panel, coming close.

So much for God giving a crap about him.

The door opened, and there she was, outlined in light spilling from behind her, strains of bad disco music blaring in the background. Her hair fell in two messy braids over her shoulders, and her shirt was covered in fine brown dust.

“Oh! It’s you! What are you doing here?” she asked.

That was a hell of a good question. “You hit your head earlier,” he mumbled. “At my place.” Damned if he didn’t feel like scuffing a toe against the doorjamb. He refrained, however, mumbling, “Wanted to make sure you don’t have a concussion.”

She stared at him like he’d grown a second head.

“Should’ve done it before,” he muttered lamely. He risked a glance up from his scuffed boot toes and was blown away by how clear and soft her brown eyes were, even when filled with skepticism. And fear. He swore at himself. Coming here had been the mother of all dumb ideas.

He was careful to make no sudden moves, to keep his hands at his sides, to do nothing to spook her further. He even leaned back, even though his impulse was to move closer to her, to provide the bulk of his body to protect her from whatever was scaring her so badly. Thing was, he suspected he was the thing scaring her.

Up close, her skin looked like the finest velvet, impossibly smooth, dewy and flawless. He felt like a scarred old relic in comparison with her.

“How does one check for a concussion?” she inquired.

What? Oh. Right. His totally transparent excuse for stopping by to see her. “Pupils,” he choked out. Crap, he couldn’t even find the simplest words. Language had all but deserted him. “Uneven dilation,” he managed.

When he didn’t say any more, she finally asked, “Are mine even?”

He glanced up unwillingly once more. “Can’t tell. Too dark.”

“Oh.” She stared back at him, looking as confused as he felt.

“Porch light?” he managed.

“Not working yet,” she replied. “It has to be rewired. I, um, haven’t gotten around to that.”

It was his turn to mumble, “Oh.”

“Come inside?” she offered reluctantly. “There’s light in the living room.”

“Uh, sure.” Geez. He hadn’t been this awkward around a girl even when he was sixteen and picking up Suzy Niblock for his very first date.

His gaze drifted to that pert derriere of hers as she led him over to a work light pointing at a stretch of partially sanded wood wainscoting. Actual sweat broke out on his brow as he watched her rear end twitch temptingly. Day-um. He exhaled carefully. She might be diminutive, but she had one fine body.

How long had it been since he’d been with a woman? He couldn’t remember the last time, truth be told. It wasn’t that he was a monk by any stretch. He just hadn’t been anywhere near any women other than female soldiers who were strictly off-limits in, well, forever.

Abruptly, his hands itched with the remembered feel of soft curves, smooth skin, and the yielding strength of the female body. He remembered the scent of a woman, sweet and lightly musky, each one slightly different. The taste of clean, fresh flesh, the warmth of a woman’s arms around him, the delight of a woman’s mouth opening beneath his—

The memories flooded back so fast and hard, slamming into him like a physical blow, that he stumbled behind Anna and had to catch himself with a hand against the wall.

How could he have forgotten all of that stuff?

Anna stopped abruptly in what looked like a dining room and turned to face him, tipping up her face expectantly to the light. The curve of her cheek was worthy of a Rembrandt painting, plump like a child’s and angular like a woman’s. How was that possible?

“Well?” she demanded.

“Uh, well what?” he mumbled.

“Are my pupils all right?”

He frowned and looked into her eyes. They were cinnamon hued, the color of a chestnut horse in sunshine, with streaks of gold running through them. Her lashes were dark and long, fanning across her cheeks as lightly as strands of silk.

Pupils. Compare diameters. Even or uneven. Cripes. His entire brain had just melted and drained out his ear. One look into her big, innocent eyes, and he was toast. Belatedly, he held up a hand in front of her face, blocking the direct light.

She froze at the abrupt movement of his hand, and he did the same. Where was the threat? When one of his teammates went completely still like that, it meant a dire threat was far too close to all of them. Without moving his head, he let his gaze range around the room. Everything was still, and only the sounds of a vintage disco dance tune broke the silence.

He looked back at her questioningly. What had her so on edge? Only peripherally did he register that, on cue, the black disks of her pupils had grown to encompass the lighter brown of her irises. He took his hand away, and her pupils contracted quickly.

“Um, yeah. Your eyes look okay,” he murmured. “Do you have a headache?”

“Yes, but it’s from all the sanding I have to do and not from my tumble off your porch.”

He frowned at the wood paneling as high as his chest and extending the entire length of the long wall, not to mention the intricate molding outlining it. “You’re planning to refinish all of that by hand?” he asked dubiously.

“Power sanders are expensive, and I’ll probably never use one again after I finish renovating this place.”

His frown deepened. “You’re fixing this house up all by yourself?”

Her spine went straight and rigid. “Yes. I am. Have you got a problem with that?”

“No. Not at all. I’m just impressed that you took on such a big job by yourself.”

She shrugged. “I inherited the place. Which is to say I didn’t volunteer for this. And my needs aren’t great—a roof, a bed, a place to cook my meals.”

He tilted his head, studying her more closely. Men in his line of work were trained observers, and he used those skills now. She wasn’t lying to him. She truly didn’t want anything beyond the basics. And she craved safety, if he wasn’t reading her wrong.

“You still got any family in Sunny Creek?” he asked.

“No. My mother died about six months ago. She was the last of my family.”

She was alone, then. Lucky dog. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“I hadn’t seen her in a long time. We had a falling-out about—” She broke off. “Well, a falling-out.”

Awkward silence fell between them, and he didn’t have a clue what to say next. Thankfully, she broke the silence. “I appreciate you stopping by to check on me.”

Humor pricked at him. She was getting rid of him the same way he’d gotten rid of her earlier. Turnabout was fair play, he supposed. Admiration for her spunk passed through him. Not too many women in Sunny Creek would be in this big a hurry to kick one of the Morgan boys out of their house. Of course, it was no less than he deserved. Not only was he unworthy to breathe the same air as someone like her, but he’d also been a jerk to her earlier.

He nodded as much to himself as to her, and spun on the heel of his cowboy boot. He muttered over his shoulder, “I’ll show myself out. Good luck with your sanding.”

Anna stood in the middle of her dining room, breathing hard. She couldn’t tell if it was fear or something else stealing the oxygen from her lungs. It had been nice of Brett to stop by and check on her. She wasn’t sure what to do with nice, however. It made her nervous. Jumpy. Mistrustful. Did he have an agenda of some kind?

But what could he possibly want from her? He came from a rich, powerful family, and she was a broke waitress.

Her better self kicked in. The entire world wasn’t made up of men like Eddie. Decent men no doubt existed out there. She shouldn’t read too much into Brett’s visit. Maybe the man truly was just making sure she was all right. Which was kind. Thoughtful. Totally nonthreatening.

She had to admit that man was beautiful. His eyes, when he’d stared into hers, had been so blue it almost hurt to look at them. And that jaw. Wowsers. His hair was a shade shaggy, just messy enough that she’d actually felt an urge to reach up and push it off his forehead.

Which was insane. She never wanted to touch another man as long as she lived. And she sure as shooting didn’t want a man to touch her. She’d barely managed not to flinch when he reached up toward her face.

Restless and disturbed by Brett Morgan’s visit, and by his overwhelmingly male presence invading the sanctuary of her home, she threw down the sandpaper and headed for the big, old cast-iron soaking tub that had been the very first thing she restored to its former glory when she moved into this place.

She filled the big tub with hot water and eased into the steaming bath, which was almost too hot to stand. Perfect. She leaned her head back and let the bath do its magic, unwinding the tension of the entire day, starting with the robbery and ending with her late-night visitor.

Strange man, Brett Morgan. Not much for talking. Not much for social interaction of any kind, in fact. How was it that a man as beautiful as he was seemed so totally ill at ease with women? From what she remembered of him in high school, he’d always had girls hanging all over him. She also remembered him laughing a lot and being plenty gregarious. How had he turned into the awkward, taciturn man in her dining room tonight?

It was a mystery. And God knew, she was a sucker for a good puzzle.

Except he was not her problem. She had enough of those in her life without some hard-luck cowboy messing with her head.

Eddie had been nearly as pretty as Brett, but he’d been completely self-centered. It was all about his desires, his pleasure. She had always been merely a means to his ends. But Brett—the way he’d stared so deeply into her eyes, the way his nostrils had flared when he’d stepped close to her—struck her as the sort of man who would take an interest in pleasuring the women in his bed.

She knew the sex with Eddie hadn’t been a shining example of how it could be. Problem was, if she was going to experience decent sex at some point in her life, that would entail an actual relationship with another man besides her ex-husband. No way sex was worth that. Brett Morgan might be nice to look at, maybe even to fantasize about, but that was as far as that was ever going to go.

She closed her eyes, careful not to let herself drift off to sleep and drown, which would be just her luck. To heck with pleasure. If only there was a way to wrest some peace from the wreckage of her life.

It had been a huge mistake to come back to Sunny Creek. Her need for self-destruction ran a lot deeper than she’d realized until today—when she actually was relieved to face death. Until Brett Morgan apparently appointed himself her guardian angel.

How was she supposed to pay for her sins with him on the job?

Chapter 4

She dreamed of Eddie. Or to be precise, of his ghost. He haunted her dreams most nights, terrifying her and accusing her, never letting her forget, never letting her move on. Not that she deserved to move on. She was already in hell. A hell of Eddie’s making that was never going to let her go.

She woke up breathing hard, as if she’d been running for her life. Which she was in a way. No matter how far she ran, she would never escape Eddie. Not now. Not ever.

While she lay huddled under the covers trying to catch her breath, she heard the new furnace working hard. But the tip of her nose felt like an ice cube. Until she got something more permanent than plywood and duct tape to seal the window openings, she supposed no furnace could possibly keep up with subfreezing temperatures outside. Urgency to solve the window problem was the only thing that got her out of bed this morning and rushing into jeans, a T-shirt, sweatshirt, thick socks,and sheepskin-lined boots.

She was huddling over a mug of hot coffee, stealing its warmth with her red, chilled fingers and willing away the unpleasant memory of Eddie, when a knock on the front door startled her into nearly dumping the scalding drink on herself. Who on earth was banging on her door like they wanted to knock it in?

“I’m coming!” she shouted. She paused with her hand on the door handle. “Who’s there?”

“Brett. Brett Morgan.”

Her stomach leaped in anticipation, then fell back in dismay.

She threw the front door open, and a burst of frigid wind gusted around her, making her shiver violently. The shape of a man wearing a cowboy hat was silhouetted against the bright white of the year’s first snow turning the weeds in her front yard into a blanket of white.