Fierce Protector: Hard to Handle trilogy, Book 1 (6 page)

“Hey, how’s about we eat during the seventh inning stretch?” suggested Tyler, always the one to combine sporting enthusiasm with thoughtful party planning. “You’ll have to holler the play-by-play through the window.”

“I’ll get it, Tyler, don’t worry,” said Zack, rising to his feet.

“You sure?” Tyler asked, more than prepared to take his usual role as grill
meister
.

“I know one end of a barbeque from another,” Zack assured him.

Mitch chimed in, “Dude, the man can handle anti-tank missiles and scuba gear,” he announced, rather artlessly. “I don’t think grilling will stretch his capabilities.”

Zack gave his old friend a stern look but decided – guest in a new friend’s home as he was – to let it go. “I’ll help,” said Eva with a measured enthusiasm she hoped wouldn’t betray just how critically urgent it was that she hang out with Zack. “Want another of those funny bottles?” she asked cheekily.

“Not just now,” he chuckled, as she followed him out to the grill. “Do you cook much?”

They found the grill nicely hot and began planning the little feast. “I actually work at Cheryl’s as a part-time baker,” Eva told him.

“No way! I love that place. Best coffee and cake in the state. I stop in there sometimes after the gym, even if it means driving ten miles out of my way.”

Zack brandished tongs and got the steaks sizzling promisingly on the grill. “So how do you know these two?” he asked, thumb pointing back at the house, from which noisy complaint greeted Josh Donaldson’s home run.

Eva unpacked the franks and laid them out, ready for grilling. “Trish and I were at girl scout camp together when we were 13,” she recalled. “It turned out we were actually at the same high school. We were inseparable for years.”

“Important to have friends like that,” Zack said. “I’ve known Mitch in there,” he thumbed back at the living room once more, “and my buddy Flynn for twenty years, nearly.” He paused. “Wow, that made me feel
old
!”

“You don’t look a day over twenty-six,” Eva said, not stretching the truth at all but bringing a hearty laugh from the grill chef. “What? I’m serious!”

“I’m thirty-one just before Christmas,” Zack confessed. “And you don’t need to flatter me. I spent damned near two years in scuba gear, and the mask does nothing for wrinkles.”

“Yeah, I heard Mitch mention that. What did you do?”

Zack flipped the steaks with practiced ease, thoroughly impressing Eva both with the neatness of his movements and the obvious, understated strength of his forearms. They really were
something
. “I was in the Navy,” he said simply.

“A sailor?” she asked, extremely curious but trying not to show it. Zack shook his head. “Submarines?”

He closed the grill and looked at her. “Don’t get too hot under the collar or anything,” he warned, “but I was a Navy SEAL.”

Slack-jawed amazement was not an unusual female reaction, so Zack was used to it, but Eva was thunderstruck. “Wow, that explains the muscles,” she said
sotto voce
.

“Huh?”

“Erm . . . did you train in the jungles?” she asked, feeling the bucket of embarrassment being tipped over her head.

 “I was in a few different places,” Zack replied with a gracious smile, not fooled in the least. “There was a lot of time away, training and on operations.”

Eva adopted a more serious tone. “So, you were . . .
over there
?”

The first set of steaks were ready, he judged. “Four times, all to Afghanistan. They must have thought I loved the place.”

“And did you?” she asked, her stomach fluttering at her own sudden audacity.
Oh God, please don’t be offended.

Zack stopped grilling for a moment, looked at Eva and said, “It’s a very beautiful country. Especially in the winter. If things were better there,” he said rather heavily, “it would be a tourist hotspot.” More steaks hit the grill with an impressive burst of flame. “With the situation so unstable, it’s hard to see where development money might come from. We’ve certainly thrown enough cash at the place, but it doesn’t seem to have done much good.”

“Do you think you’ll be going back?” she asked.

Zack managed to laugh, shaking his head. “Forgive the profanity, Eva, but
hell
no!” She giggled, finding that her fingertips had landed on his upper arm for some reason. “They’ve had quite enough of me. I left the service at the end of my last tour there, and there ain’t no way they’re pulling me back in,” he said, mimicking Al Pacino’s gathered fists.

 “Trish’s daddy was in the service, back when we were kids,” Eva told him. Aiming for a medium-rare steak this time, Zack flipped the meat a little earlier than before. “They transferred him down here to Laughlin Air Force Base where she says he was helping to train pilots.”

“Yeah, it’s a big training facility,” Zack remembered. “I think I probably flew in and out of every military base in the country at some point.” He mimed this shuttling back and forth, his face capturing the exasperation - experienced by so many in the armed forces - of ceaseless change and uncertainty. “What about you, how come you’re down here?”

The steaks were done; Zack threw the remaining franks onto the grill. “Well, I guess I’m just . . .” She paused, looking up at him, willing to tell him about herself after his own openness and honesty, but somehow scared that he’d judge her. It would be easy to sound like a rootless vagrant, but she quickly reminded herself that her life’s journey had, thus far, largely been decided by others. “I was born near Chicago and we lived in different places in Illinois growing up, but in the last couple of years, most of my reasons for being there disappeared.”

“I know what you mean,” Zack said compassionately. “Sutherland is getting less attractive by the week.”

Without thinking, Eva said, “You’re not going to up and leave right after I’ve met you, are you?”

He chuckled, that carefree sound, deep and resonant, like a California redwood laughing. “Not likely,” he explained. “I have friends here, my doctors are all in San Antonio, and I haven’t finished renovating my house.”

“You don’t look like you need a doctor.”

Zack raised an eyebrow. Eva immediately loved this curiously amused facial expression; she began to think up ways to provoke it. “If you could see my lungs, you’d think different,” he confided. “I was involved in an explosion, and the pressure wave just beat the hell out of my respiratory system.” Eva was thunderstruck, yet again. “They did some repairs and I was very lucky. These days, I run more to exercise my lungs than my legs.”

“Is that why you left? You were injured?” she asked quietly.

Zack used tongs to transfer the last franks to the serving plate Eva held for him. “That, and other things. Four combat tours was enough. Plus, I wasn’t sure any more that we were doing the right thing in Afghanistan.” He seemed comfortable enough discussing these things, Eva noted, but she was very wary of opening old wounds, both the psychological and the physical.

They walked together back into the house, where Tyler was near inconsolable following a calamitous fifth inning. In the kitchen, Eva leaned close and said, “I’m sorry if it upsets you to talk about what happened over there. I don’t mean to.”

Zack turned, and what Eva saw simply melted her heart. It was the most beautifully serene, compassionately forgiving smile. It seemed to come from deep within, a place which held great patience and love. In one simple smile, he had told her not to worry, that he wasn’t offended, that he enjoyed talking with her, that he liked her. “You’re a sweetheart,” he said simply, and brought a big plate of food into the living room.

Eva let her head spin for a while and then decided to head to the bathroom and collect herself a little. She breathed deeply and looked at herself in the mirror, trying to will her brain back to reality and away from thoughts of Zack’s muscular arms. How easily, how quickly, she thought to herself, he could have picked her up and pinned her hard against the wall outside while he kissed her . . . Or against the sink she was now leaning on, with her legs wrapped around his waist and his mouth moving hungrily from her lips down to her neck, while his hands slid up under her shirt . . .

God, girl! Just pee already and get back out there before people start to wonder what on Earth you’re doing in here!

The Texas Rangers were rallying, she found as she returned, slightly jelly-legged, to the living room. Glued to the TV, literally on the edge of their seats, the three men were willing their team to the startling comeback needed to overhaul the Athletics’ early lead. Eva took her seat next to Zack, who smiled quickly at her before returning his laser-beam focus to the game.
Please
, prayed Eva silently,
let some miracle arrive to make everyone except Zack and me disappear.
Was there a patron Saint of hot men, she wondered? Or one who brings comfort to women who think they might explode with desire? And how could anyone smell
that
good?

She heard the soft ringtone of her cellphone and scooted into her room, but it was Hank – yet again – and she sent it to voicemail and slid the phone into her pocket. He wasn’t due to call for another three days, and being early wasn’t a good sign. She shut out the inevitable worry that he might be in trouble, and reassured herself that he could take care of his own business, as he somehow always managed to.

“Jesus
Christ
, come
on
,” whined Mitch as Jeff Baker struck out. “Two lousy runs, that’s all we need. The
fuckin’
money these motherfuckers get . . .” Tyler shot him a look. “Shit, sorry . . .” Zack shot him a much angrier look. “Apologies, everybody,” he chuckled nervously, “I just get a bit too passionate.” There was also the considerable stack of empty cans by his armchair; Trish shrugged it off but Zack scowled at his friend, the closest to chastisement she had seen from him.
You ain’t in the bar, knucklehead,
the look seemed to convey.

“Don’t worry on my account,” Eva said to him quietly. “I have a brother, and his friends were over a lot at my parents’ house in Illinois. They could get pretty animated about their video games,” she remembered.

Zack came at the issue from a more traditional point of view; he had never seen a good reason to allow profanity in front of women. “It’s good that you’re OK with of it, but if we all tolerate behavior that damages people, and it becomes normal, and then where are we?” he asked rhetorically.

Eva’s text ringtone sounded in her pocket. It was Trish, messaging from the kitchen, and it instantly made her laugh:

He’s hotter than a heatstroke in hell. Seduce him and be happy!

“Just a high school friend,” Eva said, without actually lying. Zack smiled and then joined the group in another disappointed groan; the game had begun to slip away from the Rangers. With only a couple of at-bats remaining, they needed two runs to win, and it was hard to see them pulling it off.

Eva sidled through to the kitchen, escaping the tension and despair of the living room crowd, and found Trish cleaning up. “Look, I haven’t dated a guy for a while,” Eva whispered. “I don’t want to rush into anything.”

“Who said anything about dating?” Trish grinned as she slid plates into the dishwasher. “I bet he’s just
huge
 . . .” she said.

“
Shush
!” Eva squeaked, turning crimson. “I’m just getting to know him. He’s been through a lot, with the Navy and his injuries, and I don’t want to scare him off.”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding, calm down,” Trish said, hugging the red-faced Eva close. Trish would have gone a deeper color still had Eva been honest about her afternoon voyeurism. She could still hear the pleading tone of Trish’s repeated requests to be penetrated; her only regret now was that she had been able only to hear, and not to see. She silently rebuked herself for the thought;
get a hold of yourself, Missy.

A wave of depressed complaint emanated from the living room; the Rangers had lost, unable to chalk up the runs needed, even after a great comeback. Zack stretched and then ferried empty cans into the kitchen; Eva loved how helpful and mature he was around the house.
Please God, let him ask for my number. Please.

The group chatted amiably and helped clear up, before it was time for Zack to drag a drunk and inconsolable Mitch to his car and head on home. He stood at the front door, tall and dark and irresistible, his large, muscular hands enfolding Tyler’s in a big handshake, then delicately cradling Trish’s back as she gave him a kiss on the cheek. Eva felt her tininess as he approached her; he was well over a foot taller than her, and although Eva was a slender girl, quite used to men with bodies far broader and thicker than hers, Zack’s body seemed to overwhelm her. He put out his arms and brought her to his torso for a hug, his hands slipping down her back to rest on her flanks, then gently pulling away and letting her kiss his cheek. His amazing scent filled her nose and then her mind, distracting her almost to the point of forgetting to say goodbye.

“It was really nice to meet you, Eva,” he was saying. All she could think of was kissing his face again. “Listen, I don’t know if you’d enjoy it as much as I do, but I’m involved in a small, informal martial arts tournament tomorrow night and I’d love if it you could be there.”

“Really?” was her staggered response.

“With me, it’s not all sitting on the sofa watching sports, you know?” He grinned and promised to text the details to everyone. His hands left Eva’s sides – with a slight but genuine reluctance, she felt – and she watched as he escorted Mitch to Zack’s highly polished Chevy Colorado and pulled away.

Tyler cleaned the grill while Eva and Trish finished up inside. “Holy Mother of God,” Eva managed. “It’s been a long time.”

Trish hugged her friend again. “Honey, he’s just a million dollar man. I wasn’t even really
talking
to him, and still, I’m gonna need to change
my
panties. Yours must be soaked.” They giggled together for a moment before Eva’s straightened face and twinkling eyes told her friend the truth. “I knew it, you juicy slut.”

Eva brushed off the mockery. “He’s fighting tomorrow,” she said, still taken aback by the invitation. “Do you think I should go?”