Joe Harris.
She sighed. Joe Harris was so something she should not be thinking about. Focus on something else. Focus on...that cute little pup trying desperately to dig in the flowerless flower beds. He was making it his life’s mission. His mistress was pulling so hard on the leash he rose on his two hind legs, the two front legs scrabbling in the air.
Isabel laughed. She nearly looked around to see who’d done that, it felt so weird. She’d done it. The laugh had come from her. You’d have to be dead not to laugh at the pup, tongue lolling out its smiling mouth, scampering to leave its mark on the park.
Its mistress—a young girl with golden hair tucked up in a Peruvian Chullo hat—was bending over, finger raised, doing her best to teach her pup etiquette. The pup barked and licked her finger. There was very little etiquette-learning going on.
Isabel laughed again. The pup rolled its eyes toward her and barked. Their eyes met and the pup barked again, grinning and slobbering, straining now in her direction.
Was that dog flirting with her?
Isabel was not far from the small enclosed doggy section of the park, a square filled with sand where dogs could play and do their business. Owners took them off the leash to enter the small enclosure. The girl walked the puppy over to the doggy section. At the entrance, she bent to unsnap the leash.
Instead of heading into the doggy park, the pup took off like a rocket, making a beeline for Isabel, fur rippling with speed.
The girl straightened, gasped, called out to her dog. “Freddy! Freddy! Come back here right now! Bad dog! Bad dog!”
Freddy paid his mistress no attention at all, leaving the ground several yards from Isabel, leaping straight at her.
Isabel froze. The pup was heavy. It was going to be a big dog. It was big now. Hurtling straight at her, it was going to knock her to the ground and she didn’t have the reflexes to get out of its way.
The dog barked, hit her in the chest, trying to lick her face. Isabel slipped on an icy patch, stumbled back and...
Didn’t fall.
Something big and strong caught her, kept her upright.
She looked up, startled.
Joe.
Freddy was barking and writhing at her feet. He barked enthusiastically, put his paws up and wriggled, trying frantically to lick her.
“Down, Freddy,” Joe said sternly. “Sit.”
Freddy sat, butt wriggling on the ground.
Joe had barely raised his voice.
The girl came running up, face scrunched in apology. She held her hand out to Isabel. “Oh gosh, I am so sorry! Are you okay?”
Was she? Isabel patted herself down. She’d expected to hit the ground hard, but hadn’t. It had happened in a flash. The dog jumping on her, guaranteed to bowl her over and then whoosh, like magic—Joe was suddenly there.
“Yeah,” she said cautiously. “I’m, um, fine.”
She looked up, way up, at Joe’s grim face. Sober, harsh features, standing there like a rock, big hand holding her arm.
“Thanks,” she said and he nodded.
Her voice seemed to unlock something in the puppy. It scrambled up, tail wagging furiously, body language clear. It wanted to jump on her again.
“Down,” Joe said firmly again and Freddy plopped back down.
The young girl looked at Joe wide-eyed. “How’d you do that? Freddy doesn’t obey me at all. How’d you get him to sit?”
Isabel took pity on her. Being female, the girl was probably blaming herself for a ton of dog-training inadequacies.
“Joe here is a former navy SEAL,” she explained kindly and the girl’s face smoothed out. Clearly she wasn’t inadequate. No one could expect her to show a SEAL’s ability to command.
“Oh.” She looked up at Joe. “That true?”
He nodded seriously. Isabel looked carefully and saw that Joe was biting his lips not to smile.
“You’re not—you don’t...” The girl took a deep breath and blurted it out. “You’re not a dog trainer, are you? Because man, I would pay anything to get Freddy to obey me like that.”
“Sorry,” Joe said in his basso profundo voice and the girl slumped. “Not in that line of work.”
The girl sighed and bent down to clip the leash to Freddy’s collar. Freddy shook, hindquarters up, front paws extended. His hindquarters braced. The girl pulled at the leash but it was a big puppy and she had no hope of stopping another jump at Isabel.
And then Joe worked his magic, this time with one sharp movement of his big hand. Freddy subsided.
Isabel exchanged glances with the girl.
Yep. You had to be a SEAL to be able to do that.
With a smile, the girl walked off, an obedient Freddy trotting alongside her.
Isabel looked up at Joe. “Thanks,” she said again and he shrugged.
* * *
Fuck, that was close.
Joe had excellent balance, always had. Even after being injured, he’d never fallen, not once. He also had superb spatial awareness. When that rambunctious pup made a leap for Isabel, Joe had been able to see the consequences exactly as if it was a game of chess. Isabel was standing next to a steel post holding the wooden slats of the enclosure. She was in the exact right spot to ensure that she’d bash the back of her head against the steel post, drop and smash her head against the concrete piling. Maybe bounce off the wood, too, and get sharp splinters while she was at it.
He’d seen it, as inevitable as geometry. Which was why he broke land speed records getting to her and breaking her fall.
Joe knew how to make his face a mask. Nobody saw what he didn’t want them to see and he knew he wasn’t betraying the absolute panic he’d felt at the thought of Isabel cracking her head open. He’d watched one helmetless marine die when he fell and cracked his head on a rock.
Isabel, dead. Fuck. Not going to happen, not while he was around.
She was pale but she sketched a smile. “That puppy needs some manners.”
“She’d better hurry up and teach him some because Freddy’s going to grow up to be a big dog,” Joe said sternly.
He had no patience for those who acquired animals they couldn’t handle. That woman could have cost Isabel a bad concussion, or worse.
“So,” he said, holding her elbow. He’d rather put his arm around her waist, but one way or another, he was going to be touching her. Isabel looked pale and shocky. She was not going to fall. “Since I’m here, do you want to walk around the park or are you ready to go back?”
“Back,” Isabel said immediately. She peered up at him, frowning. “How did you happen to be here at exactly the right time? Are you Superman or The Flash?”
“I didn’t go for my run and I wanted some exercise. I like this park and I just happened to see you and see that dog come running at you,” Joe lied cheerfully.
Because the truth would have sounded too creepy. You looked unsteady on your feet so I followed you, and made sure you couldn’t see me.
“Well, you showed up just in time, like a superhero.” She smiled at him. Her smiles were rare and they lit up her face. Joe should have felt bad about lying to her, but he didn’t. She wouldn’t have been smiling at him if he’d told her the truth.
“Ma’am?” He stuck out his elbow at an exaggerated angle and she put her arm through his. “May ah have the honah of accompanyin’ you home?” He laid on a thick ole-timey Southern accent. Rhett Butler offering Scarlett his arm.
“Why, sir.” She batted her eyelashes extravagantly. “It would be mah pleasure.”
He was playacting but...whoa. It wasn’t hard to imagine her in some big ball gown, curtsying. She had such an old-fashioned beauty to her, made up of fine features, huge eyes with eyelashes that were like fans and perfect ivory skin. Those eyelashes of hers were so long they could create a breeze when she fluttered them.
She frowned, the playacting completely dropped. “Joe?”
Whoa. He’d been standing there staring at her like a total moron. The playacting
had allowed him to study her face. He rarely looked at her for long because he didn’t want to come across as creepy because really? He knew he could stare at her for hours and wouldn’t that scare her away.
“Raht here, ma’am.” He nodded and tipped an imaginary top hat. “Okay, let’s go.”
They walked back slowly, because Isabel wasn’t a fast walker and because he wanted to stretch out their time together. And it was no hardship walking slowly. Not with Isabel by his side.
She was watching the ground. Yeah, he recognized that. He’d spent two months walking carefully, watching every step. But he knew exactly why he had to watch his feet for months after being able to finally get out of bed.
He’d been blown up. He’d died and come back. He’d been really messed up there.
Why was she watching the ground so assiduously? Why was her balance so off? Why did she have to walk so slowly?
What the hell happened to you?
The words were there, on the tip of his tongue. She’d been wounded, hurt in some way. That was clear. But how? He’d caught that one glimpse of a scar on her forearm and that was it. It was a nasty one but not life threatening. She always wore long-sleeved sweats in the house and outdoors she was dressed for cold weather so basically he had her face and hands to judge by and they were...perfect.
Maybe her bad wounds were covered up. He’d have to see her naked to know.
And bam, just like that, the image of a naked Isabel rose up before him and his dick stirred in his pants. His very first hard-on since almost dying.
Oh...shit. His dick had been dead meat between his legs since the IED. Nothing had stirred it to life. When he’d discreetly asked Metal, he’d gotten a hard stare. Dude, you nearly died. As a matter of fact you did die and they shocked you back to life. That’s major trauma and you’re lucky to be alive, you ungrateful fuck, Metal had said. And then Joe got a long lecture about how penile erection was one of the last functions to return and that he was an ungrateful shithead who by the merest chance wasn’t bones in the ground and...
Metal started getting heated up and Joe had held his hands up and never asked again. And truth was, there was no time for women in his life after the IED, there was just long, painful rehab.
And then Isabel showed up and she fascinated him and intrigued him and he was vastly attracted but his dick basically stayed down. There was the added factor that she was clearly a traumatized woman and he wasn’t going to come on to a woman who looked so vulnerable.
So it was like this balance they’d achieved. She didn’t flirt and he didn’t push because neither of them was in a position to do something about it.
Except now...
Shit. It was just his luck that his dick surged to life at the wrongest possible moment. Before being blown up and dying, Joe would have said that an active dick was never a bad thing, but right now it was.
True, his parka reached midthigh and he had on heavy cold-weather camo pants from his navy days, but still. He had to work not to walk funny.
He couldn’t even think of something else, something to make it go down, not with Isabel right there, holding his arm. That was boner material, just her touching his arm through about a billion layers of clothing.
Christ, a dead man would get a boner with her around. The fact was that he hadn’t died that day. He’d lived and now his entire body was on the same page.
The top of her head reached his shoulder and, looking down, he saw absurdly long lashes, high cheekbones and an impossibly lush mouth. She was wearing a knit cap rimmed with pale mink fur, shiny mink-colored locks escaping from it.
Silvery gray eyes moved to look up at him and he shifted his gaze just in time. He didn’t want her to catch him staring at her.
“Are you having a poker night tonight?” she asked with a slight smile.
“Not tonight.” Shit. “Do we make too much noise? Sorry.”
She shook her head. “Oh no! Not at all. I don’t hear much, just the occasional shout or groan. I imagine they correspond to a win or a loss. Do you do much losing?”
“Nah.” He’d always earned extra money with poker. He could beat the pants off Satan himself. “But I’m sorry if we bother you.”
“It’s actually kind of...nice hearing you guys.” She bit her lips as if she’d already said too much. Her voice sounded wistful.
Was she lonely? Wow, that was a thought. And yet—she had to be. To Joe’s knowledge, he was the only person she saw. It seemed so outrageous to him that a woman as beautiful and as nice as Isabel could be lonely, but there it was.
Joe was really lucky. His company, Alpha Security International, was like a big, extended family. He’d been blown up at the end of his deployment in the military and ASI had carried him on its payroll since then, even when he’d been in a coma and had begun the series of operations that put him back together. ASI was mainly made up of his BUD/S buds who had shown their support in every way.
He had his teammates and soon would join them full-time in the job. They were like a family, tight and strong. Anything he needed, he got. And as soon as he was fully functioning, he’d be there for them, too—no question. He knew he was soaking up help, but that was the way families worked, wasn’t it? When you reached out for a helping hand, it was there.
His family hadn’t been like that, his old man would have been more liable to knock Joe down than extend a helping hand but Joe was no dummy. He’d seen how good families worked and it was like a little miracle.
Where was her family? Who cared for her? Why was she so isolated?
He burned with questions he wanted to ask her. Who are you? What happened to you? Where are your people?
“You can come over anytime you want,” he blurted. “Poker game or not. You play?”
She smiled and shook her head. “I’d lose every cent I had if I played poker. I don’t have much of a poker face and I can’t keep the cards straight in my head. Clearly, you can.”
Oh, yeah. After a day or two, he’d be kicked out of any casino in the country for card counting.
“You can sit beside me and be my good luck charm,” he said and she closed up. Bam. Just like that. Face as blank as that of a doll.
“I don’t bring anyone good luck,” she said softly.
Well, fuck. If a beautiful classy woman considered herself a jinx, what could he say?
They were back home. He walked her up to her front door. He opened his mouth to say something, anything—do you want to come over for the lunch you cooked for me? Do you want to go for a drive? Do you want to go to bed with me?—but before he could put his foot in it, she smiled at him, thanked him again and disappeared into her house.
Joe was left staring at the wooden door that was exactly like his until he snapped out of it and entered his own house. He had some paperwork to get through—he had to read through a contract ASI had signed with a local bank and which would be his first job for them at the first of the month—and he had some laundry to do.
What he did was head for the shower. He needed a long, cold one after his walk with the most beautiful woman in the world, Isabel Lawton.
But first, he had to check his email. There might be another contract for him to look at.
He shucked off his parka and sweater and boots and socks, standing barefoot in front of the keyboard.
There was an email from Jacko—We’re on for tomorrow! Metal’s bringing beer.
So—poker night tomorrow was confirmed.
And another email from an address he didn’t recognize. In the subject line: READ ME. It smelled of spam but if it had passed his spam filter, it was worth a look.
He clicked it open and felt his face tighten as he stared at the message.
PROTECT ISABEL
* * *
Do you want to come over and watch while we play poker?
Oh, God yes. Isabel had had to bite her lips to keep from saying that. She’d lied a little. The guys did make a lot of noise but she just lapped it up. Sometimes
she sat in a chair close to the living room window that faced his house and listened to the rumble of deep male voices, closing her eyes and imagining she was home again, with Jack teasing their father, the twins, Teddy and Rob, chiming in.
Joe and his friends swore like the sailors they were. She heard more four-letter words in one evening than she normally did in a year. They were profane and funny and something else. There was affection there as they called each other names. It was absolutely unmistakable. Affection and fraternity. The kind of affection and fraternity that had existed among the Delvauxes.
The men were all close friends, a tight and unbreakable union, like her family had been.
And just like that, it took her. The room swirled and her head went light and her knees wobbled. She sat down heavily, still in her coat and boots, and bent her head low between her knees. In the very beginning, when thoughts of her family made her dizzy, she’d have to head as fast as she could to the bathroom, where she’d vomit the contents of her stomach together with her misery into the toilet bowl.
Maybe it was a mark of progress that she no longer vomited, but just felt dizzy. She sat, head bowed low, trying to ease out her breathing until the room stopped spinning. No tears, though. At times she thought she’d cried out all the tears her body could possibly hold. It had been months since she’d cried. Not because she didn’t want to but because tears wouldn’t come. The tears had dried up inside her, just like all the other emotions. Now she felt as dry and shriveled as a husk of corn. Most days she was surprised the wind didn’t just carry her away, she felt so insubstantial.
She wasn’t here. She was a ghost. She had already died only her body hadn’t noticed yet.
The only thing that told her she wasn’t actually dead were those flashes of heat when she was near Joe Harris. He seemed such a nice man, but she didn’t dare tell him he reminded her that she wasn’t dead.
It sounded so weird, so incredibly neurotic. Yes, she’d lost her family. But he’d been blown up. In battle. Her own physical injuries paled next to his. Her spirit had broken, not her bones. His spirit hadn’t broken at all.