Caught by Surprise (16 page)

Millie understood enough Australian slang to know that she’d just received a glorious, if somewhat earthy, compliment. Her mouth gaped and her grip faltered.
Whump
. He won easily, before she even noticed.

Gulping for air, she withdrew her hands. A proud glow came into her eyes. “You think I’m
sexy
when I arm wrestle?” she asked in amazement.

He was breathing hard himself, so he simply nodded. Even though one corner of his mouth teased her, the desire in his eyes was utterly sincere.

Millie stood up, poised on the balls of her feet. His gaze became predatory. His eyes never left hers as he slowly rose to a crouching position, his hands flat on the coffee table. She watched the muscles tightening in his powerful torso. Her heart thudded in anticipation.

Millie spun around and raced for the kitchen. She heard the lithe padding of his bare feet as he leaped after her. She heard a living room chair scrape back harshly as he shoved it out of his way. She opened the door to the back porch, and he was right behind her.

She nearly knocked the outer door off its hinges in her hurry to leave the porch. Millie ignored the steps and bounded gracefully to the grassy earth. She flung her arms high with victory. Brig grabbed her around the waist, and they went down on the soft ground in a heap.

It was all over in a matter of seconds. Their clothes lay scattered within throwing distance of their naked bodies. The white light of a huge summer moon cascaded over them, casting erotic shadows on the contrast
between male and female. The night animals ceased speaking in the forest around them, enthralled, perhaps, by the low, intriguing sounds of laughter and passion.

Humming. He was humming against her stomach. Millie woke up as the husky vibrato in Brig’s throat sizzled through her belly, warming her. She was smiling as she opened her eyes to the morning sunlight that streamed across the bed. A breeze from the open window flickered over her bare skin, and she realized without looking that the only thing covering her body was Brig. He had both arms around her hips.

With a sigh of delight, Millie lifted a hand and wound her fingers into his hair. Their life together would be perfect if it could just stay like this. “G’moming, love,” she whispered.

His voice rumbled against her navel. “Since it’s your day off, I figured I’d sing you awake slow.”

“How about a duet?”

He chuckled. “Aw, me little Melisande, you’re as pretty as a canary, but you sing like a buzzard.”

When she laughed, he pressed his mouth to a tender spot several inches below her navel. Millie stopped laughing and made a soft whimpering sound. “I had a different kind of duet in mind,” she murmured.

“Now
that
sounds promisin’.”

He moved upwards slowly, kissing as he went. As he settled his body between her legs, she smiled at his half-shut eyes and sleep-rumpled face. “There is nothing sexier than the way you look in the morning, sir.”

Brig winked. “You should see yourself.” His eyes roamed over her greedily. “About this duet …”

“I can’t sing, but I have other talents.”

He stroked one of her breasts. “Show me what that mouth of yours is good for then.” Millie cupped his face between her hands and drew him to her for a long, intimate kiss. “Oh, I like this kind of talent.”

Millie arched against him, seeking the hardness that kept nudging her. “Let’s start the concert.”

Some time later, when the concert had ended, she ventured the opinion that their duet rated a standing ovation. He dutifully got out of bed and applauded. Then he bowed to her return applause and lay down again.

Millie pulled a sheet over him as he burrowed into a pillow and yawned lazily. “After a performance like yours, you deserve a nap,” she said. “I’ll fix breakfast.”

“Grand idea, love.”

“I thought you’d think so.”

Millie put on a faded print sundress that flopped loosely around her body. Barefoot, she went into the kitchen and started a pot of water, then walked outside to pick flowers from a bed at the edge of the yard.

A battered blue van pulled into the driveway and stopped. Millie left her flowers in a pile and straightened warily, eyeing the unfamiliar vehicle. Two scruffy-looking men got out and ambled toward her.

Millie bent quickly and scooped up several hard clods of dirt. “Get off my property,” she hissed.

One of the men laughed. “We want breakfast,” he told her in a commanding tone.

“Bacon and eggs, toast, grits,” his companion instructed.

“Get your own bacon. Go kiss a pig.” Millie drew back her right arm and began throwing dirt clods with a speed and strength honed in years of playing baseball with two brothers. She caught one of the men in the chest, the other on the side of the head. They cursed loudly and ran toward her with the powerful strides of natural athletes.

Screeching like a banshee, Millie swung around and raced for the backdoor. What she lacked in size she made up for in speed. She passed her bedroom window a dozen feet ahead of the men.

They never got passed the window.

Millie heard the harsh sounds of two bodies colliding and hitting the ground. She whirled around and stared
as Brig, in a pair of cutoffs, rolled off the stomach of one downed pursuer. He had a pistol in his hand, and he leveled it at the other man, who simply stopped and gazed at him with fascination.

“Budge an inch and you’ll need a doctor,” Brig told him in a calm, lethal tone.

The man on the ground held his pummeled stomach and squinted from Brig to Millie. In a cold, deep voice he demanded, “Who the hell is this bastard, Millie?”

Brig gave the men a look that was half-frown and half-bewilderment. “Who the hell are you bastards?” he growled.

Millie clasped both hands to her mouth to keep from laughing. “My brothers.”

It was amazing that three men could be so different and yet agree so much on one thing—that she should fix breakfast while they lolled around her kitchen table recovering from their introduction.

Ordinarily Millie would have rebelled and demanded help, but this time she didn’t want to disturb the cautious interplay between Brig and her brothers. Jeopard and Kyle had long ago acknowledged that she was a normal, mature woman entitled to male companionship, but they had never seen living proof before.

They propped their chins on their hands and questioned Brig with smooth, deceptive politeness. Kyle, a country music fan, was somewhat mollified. Jeopard, who avoided music and other gentle things as if they could hurt him, had no idea who Brig McKay was, other than being the man who had tackled him from his sister’s bedroom window.

Brig kept a half-smile on his face and gave as good as he got. Millie’s chest swelled with pride, and she could tell that Jeopard and Kyle were grudgingly impressed.

As she scrambled eggs, she affectionately studied her brothers. Neither was more than six feet tall, but they had an almost palpable air of confidence that made them seem much larger. Kyle’s hair was nearly the
same sunshine blond as hers, but Jeopard’s was much darker.

Both men had inherited their father’s clean, strong features, but women never described Kyle as handsome. The lack of conventional good looks had never stopped him from successfully romancing half the women in the known world, however.

Jeopard, on the other hand, had the kind of spell-binding handsomeness that belonged on a movie screen, though people took one look at the reserved, almost angry glitter in his eyes and never suggested that to him personally. Millie chewed her lower lip and frowned anxiously at her older brother. She worried about both him and Kyle, because their undercover work for navy intelligence had taken its toll over the years. But at least Kyle could still laugh. Jeopard had lost that ability.

She knew they’d seen death up close on more than one occasion. She suspected, though they’d never told her directly, that they’d killed men in the course of their work. They’d both been wounded; they’d both lost friends; worst of all, Jeopard had lost a lover, a civilian with whom he became involved during a mysterious mission in Europe.

Sometimes they worked as a team, but just as often they went separate ways to the far corners of the world. Their work was highly classified, so she rarely knew where they were or when they might come back. She didn’t know why they were in Florida now, or what undercover work dictated that they wear grubby, faded jeans and old work shirts.

She
did
know, however, that they were treading on thin ice as far as her personal life was concerned.

“So, you’ll go back to Nashville soon,” Jeopard stated flatly, his mouth a grim line as he waited for Brig’s response.

The picture of calm, Brig leaned back in his chair and sipped a cup of tea. “Yep.” He scrutinized Jeopard silently, his eyes narrowed.

Millie watched her brother’s expression register respect. Few men responded to Jeopard’s authority with such nonchalance.

“Been puttin’ it off,” Brig added. “Can’t wait much longer.”

“And what about my sister?”

Millie smacked a spatula onto the stove top. “Your sister will be thirty years old this fall. She looks after herself.”

“We know that, Millie,” Kyle said. “But we also know that you take relationships seriously.”

She slapped eggs and bacon onto a platter with quick, angry little motions. “I should imitate my big brothers and play the field.”

“Melisande, don’t get riled,” Brig urged softly.

“
Melisande?
” Jeopard repeated.

Millie glanced up and saw his mouth twitch as he tried to suppress a smile. She raised her chin proudly and told both him and Kyle, “I’ve started using my full name sometimes. If you don’t want to wear your breakfast for a hat, you’ll pick another subject.”

“Good girl,” Brig commented. Then he set his mug down, leaned forward, and looked from Kyle to Jeopard slowly. His eyes were intensely serious. “I’m gonna many your sister.”

Millie dropped her spatula on the floor. After a stunned moment, she said firmly, “No, you’re not.”

He acknowledged her protest with a lazy wave of one hand. His gaze still on Jeopard and Kyle, he added, “She just hasn’t said yes yet.”

“I haven’t been asked yet!”

He glanced at her. “But you figured on it, didn’t you?”

Millie picked up the spatula and threatened him with it. He sighed and looked at her in mild exasperation.

“Melly, I know it’s gonna be a while before you quit worryin’ that you’re not right for me, but after you relax, we’ll get married. I’ll do the real proposin’ when the time comes.”

Kyle and Jeopard shared a look. Kyle began to laugh, and even Jeopard managed a smile. Millie swung the spatula toward them. “It’s not funny!”

Jeopard frowned at her. “If you take a man to bed, you ought to at least consider marrying him.”

“
Damn
, Jep, don’t you dare lecture me!”

“Why wouldn’t you be right for him? What are you worrying about?”

She threw the spatula in the sink with a force that sent it bouncing out again. “I’m not very domestic!”

“Well, we can certainly see that,” Kyle noted dryly.

“You guys and Dad made me this way! I don’t fit in with traditional female behavior. I don’t even
want
to sit in, and Brig thinks we’ll be fine despite that!”

Brig stood up, his eyes troubled. He came over to the stove and got a plate full of toast. “Which is for you and me to discuss alone. Bring the rest of the food over and let’s eat.”

“Our future can’t be reduced to the level of scrambled eggs.”

“Our future doesn’t have to be decided in front of your brothers.”

“Eat without me. I’ll be in my bedroom.” Millie started toward the door.

“You walk out, I’m comin’ after you.”

“Bring my brothers. You’ll need help.”

She left the room. Brig looked down at Kyle and Jeopard. After a moment, Jeopard said, “You have our blessings, pal. You’re a helluva fighter, but I think you’ve met your match.”

Brig nodded and sat down. “What the devil did you blokes teach her when she was a kid?”

Kyle cursed softly. “Not us. The old man. Dad used to tell her that women only need men for one thing—protection. Financial, emotional, and physical protection. He didn’t want her to need anyone that way.”

Jeopard agreed. “The old man was bitter toward women. It has to do with the fact that our mother planned to divorce him after Millie was born.”

Brig whistled under his breath. This was a story he’d never heard. “But she died,” he noted. “Didn’t it have something to do with Melisande’s birth?”

“Not really,” Jeopard answered. “I was only seven when it happened, but I remember that Mother was always frail. She caught pneumonia a few months after
Millie was born.” He paused. “She couldn’t take military life, and the old man never forgave her for being so weak. I think it just tore him up that she didn’t love him enough to keep trying.”

Kyle added, “So he made sure there’d be nothing weak about Millie. Jep and I didn’t know any better—we were just kids ourselves. Dad treated Millie like a son, so we treated Millie like a brother.”

“Well, I’ve gotta find a way to convince your
brother
that I like her just the way she is,” Brig said flatly.

Kyle arched a brow. “You’ll have to let her protect you then. And you better learn to like it—or
Jake
liking it.”

Brig chuckled ruefully. “I should let her wrestle a mugger while I just watch?”

“Something like that,” Jeopard admitted.

“That’s what ruined her romance with that guy in Birmingham,” Kyle reminded his brother.

“Good. Political geek.”

“Amen,” Brig added. “I
like
Melly’s spirit. He didn’t.’ He paused, thinking. “But she’s so damned little. She takes too many risks. I’ve seen her do things she oughtn’t do, and I couldn’t resist helpin’ her out. Even so, I’m damned proud of her. And she’s startin’ to believe me when I tell her so.”

“She’ll believe you until the day she does something that scares you so much that you forget to be proud ot her,” Kyle warned. “Remember that.”