McKenzie, Cooper - Her Knight in Dusty BDUs [Men Out of Uniform 2] (Siren Publishing Classic) (8 page)

Eden’s stomach knotted and the muscles across her shoulders tightened in preparation for the big kiss-off. This was it. He was about to tell her he was married or engaged or that she had been a pleasant diversion while his girlfriend was out of town visiting relatives. After all, men like Bailey did not fall instantly in love with women like her, no matter how much she wished differently.

“Yes?” she said, drawing the word out as she crossed her arms, hugging her clipboard close to her chest, hoping to hold herself together as he broke the news of his infidelity. The last thing she wanted was for the Marine Corps to come after her for murdering one of its officers.

“Remember how I told you I understood how soldiers could fall in love and get married all in a few days?”

“Uh-huh.”

He looked at her as if trying to read her emotions, but she forced herself to keep her expression blank, though she felt tears pressing hard against the backs of her eyes.

“Right now I’m on leave before I deploy to Iraq next week.”

Eden blinked and swallowed as his words cut through the buzzing that filled her brain. “You’re leaving town next week?”

He maintained eye contact as he nodded. His expression remained wary as he watched her.

“So you’re not married or engaged or dating some woman who’s coming home the day after tomorrow?”

He looked stunned for a moment then frowned at her, his expression fierce. It was enough to make her nervous even before he stepped out from behind the counter. “I don’t cheat, no matter how long I might be separated from my woman. There has been no one in my life for a while now. I figured I’d stop looking until I got back. Then I met this beautiful damsel in distress standing by the side of the road.”

The nervousness knotting her body immediately relaxed as she took a step forward. “So how long will you be gone?”

“Six months,” he said as he took a step.

Before she could ask her next question and confirm that she was his woman, the front door of the shop slammed open with a loud jangling of bells. Eden cursed under her breath as the last person on Earth she wanted in her shop walked in as if he owned the place.

Instead of the man she had thought herself in love with and married only to find out he was abusive and self-absorbed, Eden saw a lank-haired stranger. This person was someone she wanted nothing to do with, no matter how much he thought things between them should be different.

“Hey, babe, miss me?” Wade Owens said as he looked around, his beady eyes widening when he saw the contents of her store.

Chapter 8

“Babe?” Bailey looked at her with one eyebrow cocked high, appearing more than a little jealous.

“My ex-husband who never could remember my name,” Eden explained before moving toward the front of her shop. There was no way Wade was getting farther into the store than he already stood. She would die or go to jail first.

She stopped several feet away from him but positioned so that he would have a hard time getting past her. “What do you want, Wade?”

Instead of answering, Wade closed the distance between them and pulled her against his chest for a hug. The scent of alcohol and cigarettes surrounded her, making her gag. He had been drinking again. She would have thought two DUIs would have taught him that he and alcohol should not share the same space at the same time.

She heard a low rumbling growl behind her, and her insides warmed knowing that for once she was not facing her ex-husband alone.

Maybe now she could make Wade understand what she had told him time and again since she had moved out. She wanted nothing to do with him and did not owe him anything, now or at any time in the future. All at once, the anger toward him that she usually kept tightly caged broke free. She could do whatever it took to get Wade out of her life once and for all.

When he tilted his hips forward, pressing his erect cock against her, she shifted her weight to her left leg. As usual, Wade wrongly interpreted her actions, misreading defensive preparation as interest. When he slid his hands down her back to cover her ass, she slammed her right leg up between his, catching him full force in the groin.

As she lowered her leg, she took a step back and easily broke away. As she continued to retreat, he made a strangled sound and collapsed, curling into a fetal position on the floor, gasping for air. She hoped he did not throw up or piss himself as she did not want to have to clean up the mess. This was her fight, and she would come out the victor.

“What the fuck?” he asked nearly three minutes later as he slowly climbed to his feet. “Why the hell did you do that?”

Her anger still racing through her bloodstream, Eden growled then took a deep breath to calm herself. Otherwise she might have kicked him again.

“I don’t like to be touched by drunks who don’t listen. Now what the fuck do you want, Wade?” she asked through teeth clenched tight together.

Wade ignored her insult. “What am I supposed to do when you won’t answer your phone or respond to text messages or e-mails? Why are you ignoring me? I thought we were friends.”

Eden had to take two more steps back to keep from jumping on him and beating him to death. Turning away, she tried to figure out how he made it sound like he was the injured party here.

Bailey shifted and drew her attention. He wore a serious expression and seemed bigger than he had until now. He looked like a man who would happily go to battle for her. All she had to do was give him a sign. The anger that had been expanding in her to homicidal proportions drained away like water out of a bathtub.

When Bailey lifted an eyebrow in question, she gave a quick shake of her head. Eden took a deep breath and turned back to find her ex-husband looking around with interest with both hands still cupping his groin. In protection, or was he masturbating right there in her store?

“Wade, our divorce was finalized more a year ago. It states quite clearly that I don’t have to talk to you, e-mail you, text you, or even acknowledge that you were ever a part of my life. That’s just the way I like it.” Eden tried to keep her cool, but found her voice growing louder as her anger mushroomed. “Now I am going to ask this one more time before I either throw you out that closed door or call the cops and have them take you away for your third DUI. What. Do. You. Want?”

Wade stared at her, and in the blink of an eye, the good-time, always smiling, used-car-salesman, public persona slid away and his expression hardened. The angry, verbally abusive side she seemed to bring out just by walking into the room emerged just that fast.

He became the man she had feared for most of their short-lived marriage. The man who never had to raise his fists to hurt her because his words cut deep enough. The man who could cut her down with a look and make her cry with an offhand criticism.

“I’m here for my money,” he stated flatly.

“No.”

“Excuse me?” He blinked and looked startled.

“I don’t know where you got the idea that you could tell me to give you money and I would just hand it over, but you need to go back to Crazy Town and ask for a new one.”

With that, Eden turned away, hoping he would drop the subject and go on his way.

When a hand clamped on her shoulder, she squeaked at the pain as he spun her around.

“No, babe, you don’t understand. You will give me my money. You seem to be doing real well for yourself here, so it’s only right you give me back what’s due me.”

Wade stared at her with an angry, wild look in his eyes that she had never seen in him. Before she could respond, Bailey plucked Wade’s hand off her shoulder. In a move so fast Eden could not process it, he twisted Wade’s arm behind him so his hand was pushed up between his shoulder blades. Wade began squealing like an unhappy pig. Bailey looked at her with a warm smile then angled his head toward the front door. Eden hurried across the store ahead of the two men to pull it open.

“Now Eden has asked you very nicely several times to go away and leave her alone. How about I help you to your car,” Bailey said, his offer not a question but a firm statement as he walked Wade toward the now open door.

“Eden, who the fuck is this guy?” Wade sputtered as Bailey pushed him out the door.

“My name is Bailey Hawks, and I’m the man in Eden’s life now. From now on, if you want to talk to her, you’ll have to ask me first, understand?”

Bailey continued talking in what Eden recognized as his Dom voice. It remained deep and deadly soft as the two men walked to the car parked closest to her shop’s entrance. Just like her ex to not abide by the posted handicapped sign. After all, it was the space closest to the door, and her ex was nothing if not lazy. She could not hear all that Bailey said, but did hear something about how Marines take care of their own and since she now belonged to him, by extension, the Marines, all Marines, would be watching out for her.

The fact that he claimed her sent a tingling happiness through Eden, and she couldn’t help grinning. Three young women who walked in at that moment pulled her attention away from the showdown in the parking lot. As the women looked around, she kept one eye on them and one eye on the two men.

She saw Bailey release Wade. Her ex turned around swinging, but Bailey easily dodged his fist. In the next second, he planted a fist deep in Wade’s middle, doubling the other man over. Bailey then helped him into his car. He leaned into the car and spoke for several more minutes before returning to the front porch where he pulled out his cell phone and made a call.

“We’ve heard you host sex toy parties?” the bravest of the young women asked, dragging her attention from the tall, powerful man standing just beyond the window.

“Yes, I do. What kind of party are you interested in?”

By the time Bailey finally came inside, Eden had scheduled a surprise bridal shower for the woman’s cousin. After the women walked out giggling with excitement, Eden trailed after Bailey to the back of the shop.

“So what did you say to Wade?”

She wanted to throw herself into his arms, wrap herself around him, and hug him for about an hour. But he was still frowning and looking too serious, so she stopped a foot away and crossed her arms over her middle while looking up at him.

“I pointed out that the next time he came back without an invitation, he might find himself facing a platoon of pissed off Marines. He wasn’t happy, but that’s not his biggest problem. He is about to meet up with a police officer and field sobriety test.”

“You called the cops on him?”

Bailey shrugged, and his hard expression softened somewhat. “He’s the one driving drunk. I just called in an anonymous citizen’s tip about a dangerous driver on the road.”

“Thank you for talking to him, but I doubt he’ll listen. He doesn’t hear or remember anything that doesn’t fit with his plans, no matter how twisted they are,” she said.

“What did he mean about wanting his money?” Bailey asked as he closed the distance and slid his arms around her back.

Eden snuggled closer and wrapped her arms around his waist, relaxing into his embrace.

“He thinks because he made some renovations on the house we’d bought after we separated that I should pay him back for them. I tried to explain that since he lived there and I had moved out that I don’t owe him squat, but he doesn’t listen. Adam told me that he’s lost his job, so I’m sure that’s not helping the situation either.”

Bailey rested his cheek on the top of her head. He took a deep breath and sighed as he canted his hips forward, pressing his long, hard cock into her belly. Though the action was identical to what Wade had done to her earlier, Eden’s response could not have been more different. With Wade, all she wanted was to get away. With Bailey, she just wanted to get closer.

“Let’s go upstairs,” she said, shifting her hips left and right, causing Bailey to inhale sharply.