Marine for Hire (Front and Center) Read online

  He gave her a smile that made her belly twist pleasantly. “I think we’ll both find the arrangement mutually satisfying.”

  “Good. That’s good.” She stood up and started down the hall, conscious of Sam following closely behind her. “Well, I’ll show you the room I’d prepared for the nanny. I hope you’re okay with apricot walls and pastel yellow sheets. I decorated before I knew you’d be more Bruce Willis in Die Hard than Maria from Sound of Music.”

  “I can try to remember some of the words to ‘My Favorite Things’ if that helps,” he said, grinning. “Wasn’t there something about raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens—”

  She laughed and halted in the doorway of his room. “Here we are. If it makes you feel better, the sheets are very high thread count, so they’ll be soft and luxurious on your skin.” She swallowed, feeling like an idiot as she imagined his big, warm body sliding between the cool sheets, his thick legs twining with hers, his arm slung across her breasts as he pulled her close and—

  “Air-conditioning,” she squeaked, striding across the room to grab the remote control. “Use this to change the temperature if you get too hot, or you can opt for the ceiling fan and open windows like I do.”

  “I’ll be fine,” he said, his massive hand closing around hers as he accepted the device and smiled. “Thank you.”

  She nodded and tried to smile back, but her heart was slamming hard against her rib cage and her whole body ached with the need to feel those massive palms moving over her body.

  “Okay then,” she said, stepping back and reluctantly pulling her hand from his. “Let me know if you need anything.”

  He looked at her, and Sheri felt her stomach do a big, swirly flip in her abdomen. He held her gaze, his blue eyes boring into hers. Even if she’d wanted to look away, she was frozen in place. Her face felt hot, her toes felt cold, and somewhere in the middle she felt deliciously warm like she’d just swallowed a quart of melted butter.

  “If I need anything,” he murmured, “you’ll be the first to know.”

  Chapter Four

  For two hours, Sam lay awake staring at his apricot walls and listening to the chirp of crickets and the occasional crow of a rooster who had no sense of time. On the shelf beside the bed, the baby monitor offered the soft swish of hushed breathing.

  He thought about Sheri sleeping soundly in the next room, just on the other side of the wall. He imagined her lying tangled in the sheets with all that curly hair spilling across the pillow and her nipples puckered from the air-conditioning. His heart clenched. What did she wear to bed? Was it silky and soft, or did she skip nightwear altogether in deference to the Hawaii heat?

  He rolled over and tried to refocus his brain on the job he’d come to do. Mac’s sources had confirmed that Jonathan Price had returned to Hawaii, but he was all the way over in Honolulu.

  For now.

  He was glad Sheri made no mention of her ex trying to contact her, but he needed to be on high alert. For the next two weeks, Lieutenant Limpdick could show up at any time. Sam needed to be ready.

  After Sheri had gone to bed, he’d done a thorough scan of the house. He’d found no trace of broken locks on windows or doors, though it was clear she could be lax about remembering to lock up. He made a mental note to be extra vigilant there. He’d found no unsecured guns or electrical outlets without child protectors. Nothing more threatening than a personal massager with a slightly frayed cord tucked behind her nightstand.

  He tried not to dwell too much on that image, rolling over again and commanding his mind to go somewhere else.

  He hated sneaking around and lying, especially after what she’d said earlier.

  Lying is the absolute worst thing. Worse than riptides and parking tickets and pubic lice combined.

  The least he could do was keep the lies to a minimum. Okay, so the chicken cordon bleu had come from a box at Costco. Gonsalves wasn’t a Japanese culinary school, but the Jungle Warfare Training Center in Okinawa where he’d been as a young Marine. And he’d done a few shifts in the mess hall, just like he had on the base in Sigonella in Italy.

  And he’d told the truth about the emotional impacts of his last job, even if he’d been vague on specifics.

  He closed his eyes again, but opened them quickly when he saw the face. A boy no more than ten years old looking up at the birds. Or at something else overhead, Sam still wondered. The boy’s eyes flashed with fear or determination—which had it been?

  Just a boy—

  “Enough,” he said out loud, and sat up in bed. He smoothed his hands through his hair, then lay back down, flipping over to his other side and searching for a cool spot on the sheets.

  He punched his pillow and didn’t sleep.

  …

  The next morning, Sam got up early. It was an old habit from years of early drills in the Marines. He hopped out of bed, eager to get started on the day. Breakfast he could handle. He might not be the best cook in the world, but he knew how to make bacon and eggs without burning down a house.

  He made his bed with perfect hospital corners, remembering the sergeant who insisted on bouncing a quarter off the recruits’ tightly tucked sheets. He frowned at his handiwork, recalling what Mac said about masking his rigid inner Marine. Sam bent down and untucked one of the corners, pausing to rumple the quilt before doing the same to his own hair. He thought about shaving, but decided to skip it. The rumpled look was part of his disguise.

  Within twenty minutes, he had bacon sizzling on the stove. The babies were awake when he checked, so he changed them both and set them in their little bouncy chairs to watch him work. Instead of sitting quiet and smiley like babies in a diaper commercial, they took turns shrieking and banging their little plastic stacking cups against each other.

  “Shhh, keep it down,” he murmured. “You don’t want to wake up your mom.”

  The babies looked at him and shrieked louder, one of them blowing a big snot bubble his brother tried to grab. Sam turned around to focus on mixing a pitcher of orange juice from a can, wondering if he could convince Sheri it was freshly squeezed.

  No. Keep the lies minimal. Keep things simple.

  “Morning,” Sheri said, and Sam spun around.

  Her hair was in loose ringlets around her shoulders and she definitely wasn’t wearing a bra under her thin cami top. She looked sleepy and disheveled and so deliciously fuckable, Sam dropped his spatula.

  “M-morning,” he stammered back, stooping to pick up the spatula and tossing it in the sink. He grabbed a clean one from the holder beside the stove, and used it to flip the bacon.

  She slid her fingers through her curls, and he ached to know what it felt like to have all those ringlets twisting around his hand.

  “You don’t have to do that,” she said, yawning a little as she shifted from one bare foot to the other. “On days I’m not working, you aren’t obligated to—”

  “You want one egg or two?”

  She blinked, then nodded. “Two, please.”

  “Mac said you like ’em over easy. That still the case?”

  “Yes, thank you. That would be wonderful. Can I at least make you some coffee?”

  “I don’t drink coffee, but there’s a pot brewing right now.”

  “Christ, did you paint my house, too?”

  He grinned. “That’s next week.”

  He set the plate down in front of her, then strode to the fridge to pull out a pair of gummy teething rings.

  “Here you go, guys,” he said, handing each twin a chilled ring. Blessedly, they stopped shrieking, and Sam felt a surge of pride at his own dumb luck. He smiled at her. “My sisters’ kids loved these things.”

  Jeffrey and Jackson stuffed the goo-filled rings in their mouths, drool running onto their bibs. Sam watched with relief as they gummed the toys with enthusiastic glee.

  He grabbed his own plate and sat down beside Sheri. “I hope it’s okay that I already fed them. They were up early, and I didn’t want to wake you.
The guidelines you wrote up were really helpful.”

  “Good,” she said, picking up her toast and taking a bite. “I didn’t want to flood you with information, but I tried to be thorough. Sorry, I guess some of it doesn’t apply to you. I wrote that whole thing when I expected someone a little different as a nanny.”

  “Not a problem. The section on the best places for manicures and the discount coupon for the bikini shop should be helpful.”

  She laughed and took a bite of eggs. “Speaking of bikinis, I was going to take the boys to the beach today. You’re welcome to come along, get the lay of the land a bit.”

  His brain got so hung up on the words “bikini” and “lay,” he almost didn’t register the rest of what she said. “The beach?”

  “Probably Poipu. I have a little tent I set up to keep the sun off their skin, and it’s a nice day to get outside and relax a little. My schedule’s going to be nutty after I start the new job, so I figure it’s my last chance to lie in the sand and read a book and splash around a little with the boys. You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. I just thought—”

  “I’ll go,” he said, a little too quickly. “I wanted to check out the area. I’ve never spent time on Kauai.”

  “It’s a lot different from Oahu. That’s where my ex-husband was stationed the last couple years. Kauai is much smaller, more lush and green and scenic, without as many people.”

  “Think you’ll ever return to the mainland?”

  She shrugged and shoveled up the last forkful of eggs. “I was planning to move to Oregon or maybe California after Jonathan left. I have a lot of friends there. But then I got this job with the Pacific Missile Range Facility, and it’s pretty much my dream job. I couldn’t leave. Besides, my father’s a general stationed in Honolulu, so this way they get to see their grandkids on occasion.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes I wonder what the hell I was thinking.”

  She didn’t specify what she was referring to, and Sam was so fixated on watching her lick egg yolk off the back of her fork that he didn’t think to ask.

  She used her toast to scrape up the last of her eggs before standing and clearing her plate.

  “I’ll finish up the dishes and then take a quick shower before I throw a few things in a beach bag,” she said. “Think you’ll be ready in thirty minutes?”

  “Absolutely,” he said, tearing his eyes off her mouth.

  Thirty minutes turned out to be more like an hour and thirty minutes, not that Sam was complaining. He liked watching her bustling around the house, hunting for the boys’ sun hats and smearing their little bodies with sunscreen that made them glow like mutant pink slugs. He tried to help, but she nudged him aside.

  “This is what normal mothers do,” she’d said, so he gave up and went outside.

  He picked up the newspaper in the driveway, glancing at the headlines before setting it on the rickety little table just inside the front door. Figuring he had time to kill, he walked back out into the sunshine, studying Sheri’s car.

  It was a late-model sedan, nothing fancy, nothing to attract attention. The bases of the twins’ car seats were buckled into the backseat, looking secure and tidy in spite of the kid gunk streaked on one of them below where the carrier would latch into place. He studied the apparatus carefully, assessing how to operate it.

  He peered through each window, taking inventory. Sheri’s sunglasses were tucked into the cup holder, and a small white shopping bag sat on the floorboard of the passenger side. He shielded his eyes, scoping out the safety features, making sure everything looked okay.

  Satisfied with the car’s interior, he dropped to the ground beside it and peered underneath. Everything looked pretty good. A little corrosion on the undercarriage, but no ticking bombs or loose wires or anything.

  For crying out loud, he chided himself. You’re performing a bomb sweep in a Hawaiian suburb? Get off the ground and start acting like a manny instead of a Marine.

  “What are you doing?” Sheri called, and he sat up so fast he smacked his head on the undercarriage. He crawled out from under the car, trying to look nonchalant.

  “Thought I saw a little oil on your driveway,” he said as he got to his feet. “Just wanted to check for leaks.”

  She smiled and pushed a double stroller toward him. The boys’ carriers were latched into place on it, and Sam marveled at the technology that created such an apparatus. He’d seen tanks less cleverly designed.

  He looked at Sheri, marveling even more at how she was designed. How flawlessly beautiful she was. She was dressed simply in khaki shorts and a blue T-shirt that matched the straps on her flip-flops. Her eyes sparkled in the midmorning sun, and her hair was piled in a topknot he wanted to tug free just to watch the curls tumble over her shoulders.

  “So you’re a manny mechanic?” she teased.

  “Nah, it’s just a male requirement to crawl around under automobiles every now and then and grunt a few times. They take away our jockstraps if we don’t do it.”

  She laughed, a sweet, warm sound that reminded him of calypso music. As she reached the car, Sheri flipped the button to unlock the doors, then popped one open. She clicked Jackson’s carrier off the stroller and latched it into place on the base in the backseat. Sam watched closely, then followed suit with Jeffrey, patting his warm, squirmy body to make sure he was secure.

  “All set?” he asked.

  “At least until we get two blocks away and I realize I forgot my water bottle. Or my sunglasses. Or my book. Or my cooler. That’s kinda my thing.” She smiled, and Sam felt his gut turn to melted chocolate.

  The drive to Poipu beach was lovely, with tree tunnels and lush fields rolling past in a blur of green and blue. “Right here is the turnoff,” Sheri said as she turned the car onto a narrow side street and continued toward a large parking area. “It’s easy to miss if you don’t know where you’re going.”

  “Right,” he said, and hopped out of the car to unbuckle the babies. Loaded down like pack mules, he and Sheri made the slow trudge across the sand. He let her lead the way, already conjuring up a delicate way to redirect her if she chose a spot that left them with too many people at their backs or no easy escape routes. Instead, she picked a quiet stretch of sand backed up against a low hedge near a footpath leading to an outdoor shower. Two potential escape routes.

  There’s nothing to escape from.You’re on a beach, not a battlefield.

  Sam relaxed and began setting up the canopy. He thought about removing his shirt, but decided against it. His right shoulder blade bore an elaborate tattoo of a bulldog—a devil dog, or teufelshunde as the German soldiers had dubbed the US Marines in the Battle of Belleau Wood in 1918.

  The design was pretty generic, and didn’t reference the Marines or “Semper fi.” Still, Sheri came from a military family. He couldn’t risk her recognizing the significance of the symbol.

  “I hope you put on sunscreen,” Sheri said. “It might not feel that warm, but you’ll burn fast even on a day like today.”

  Sam nodded, keeping one eye on the beach. “Better safe than sorry,” he said.

  His eyes swept the sand, looking for threats, looking for anything out of the ordinary.

  Stop it. It’s just a goddamn beach.

  But he couldn’t do it. He went back to studying his surroundings, cataloging every piece of driftwood, every stranger around him. At the edge of the shoreline, a young Hispanic couple with matching infinity tattoos on their wrists clasped hands and splashed into the waves. To the right, a bald guy fought to don his snorkel mask and swim fins, looking like an overcooked sea creature. To the left, a small crowd gathered around a makeshift barricade marking a sandy strip where a large sea turtle had crawled ashore to snooze in the sun. Sam breathed in the scent of sunscreen and ocean air, watching for anything out of the ordinary.

  Suddenly, he saw it. A man walking alone with a bulging duffel bag slung over his right shoulder. He wore a hat with t
he brim pulled low, hiding his face. Something long and solid poked through the duffel.

  Sam froze, every muscle in his body tense. Behind him, Sheri fussed with the twins, kneeling in the sand to offer juice cups and kisses. He reached instinctively for the pistol strapped to his shoulder holster.

  Shit.

  He’d locked his gun in a desk drawer back at the house, knowing a holster might raise questions on a beach outing with two infants and a woman who had no idea he was anything other than the football-playing manny he claimed to be. He studied the man walking toward them and memorized his gait, the suspicious duffel, the averted gaze. Sam stared, unblinking.

  The guy was getting closer, and Sam moved into position, putting his body between the man and Sheri. A glint of metal flashed at the edge of the duffel, and he watched the guy’s hand drop as he reached for it.

  Slowly, the man brought his hand up. Sam’s heart leaped to his throat as he recognized the cold steel, the familiar shape of the rifle, the sudden burst of adrenaline in his own veins.

  “No!” Sam yelled, and dove for Sheri.

  Chapter Five

  The feel of Sam’s massive, muscled frame pressing her into the sand was so foreign, so unexpected, so deliciously welcome, that it took Sheri a few beats to ask the obvious question.

  “Um, Sam?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Is there a reason you just tackled me?”

  He sat up and straightened his dark sunglasses, pausing to brush sand off her arm as he scowled down the beach at an old man sweeping a metal detector along the edge of the water. She watched him stare at the guy for a few beats before he turned back to her.

  “Sorry about that,” he said, brushing more sand off her shoulder. “I thought you were headed for the water, and I had to stop you. It hasn’t been very long since you ate breakfast, and I don’t want you to get leg cramps and drown.”

  She struggled to sit up, feeling oddly disappointed not to have his body pressed against hers anymore. Was she out of her mind? Was he?