Playing Dirty (2 page)

Ford’s breath stilled as he stared at the photograph. God, she was just as beautiful as he remembered her. Petite and curvy, she had a bombshell body and the sweetest smile. But her eyes...God, she could make him hard with a single look.

His wife
.

At first glance, she hadn’t changed, but upon closer inspection, he noted her hair wasn’t fashionably cut into the short, layered style he remembered. Instead, she’d let it grow long, the rich, dark-brown strands straight and teasing the middle of her back. She stood in the center of what looked like a playground, supervising a group of kids he guessed to be no more than four or five years of age.
 

He looked closer, examining the faces of each child, hoping to spot one who could be his son or daughter. Mattie had been eight months pregnant when he’d shipped out on his last assignment. Neither one of them had been happy about it, but as Matt had reassured him, she wasn’t the first military wife to give birth without her husband by her side, and she wouldn’t be the last. He was a Navy SEAL. They’d always lived with the uncertainty of when he’d be shipped halfway across the world to some hot spot on a mission he could never discuss. Unfortunately, neither of them could have predicted it’d take him five years to come home again.

Guilt ate at him. He should have been there. They’d lost five years, five years of their lives they could never have back. Not for the first time, he wondered if he’d made the right choice. His mission may have been quietly labeled a success, but at what cost? Was it worth the expense of five years of their lives?
 

The answer filled him with self-loathing.

The springs in the chair squeaked when Paul shifted in his seat. He leaned forward, bracing his arms on the desk and gave Ford a direct look. “Things will be different when you get home.”

“Different how?” he asked cautiously. There was something Paul wasn’t telling him. He could see it in the superior officer’s eyes. “What do you know?”

Paul’s expression remained grim. “Mattie believed you were dead, Ford. She’s a young, vibrant woman. Surely you didn’t expect her to mourn you forever.”

Ford tensed. “What are you saying? That she moved on?” The combination of guilt and Scotch burned his gut, along with the knowledge that his deepest fear had been realized. During his long captivity, he’d always thought of the possibility of another man in her life. He’d prepared himself to accept it, at least he’d thought he had. Hell, he’d been “dead” for nearly five years, what did he expect?
 

For her to mourn you forever
.
 

Mattie was
his
wife. She’d promised to love, honor and cherish
him
.
 

Until death do
us
part
.
 

Shit.

“I’m sorry, Ford.”

Paul lowered his gaze. Ford stood, dropping the photograph on the desk. He crossed the gray linoleum to the window and looked out at the cloudless, Brussels sky. God, what if she’d actually married someone else? He made a sound, somewhere between a self-deprecating laugh and a grunt of pain. “Who is he?” Ice crept into his voice, seeped into his soul.

Mattie belonged to him. She’d been his since he’d first set eyes on her, shortly after he’d relocated with his mom to Hart, Texas when he was a sophomore in high school. The attraction between them had been immediate, and by the time they’d graduated, there’d never been any question they would spend the rest of their lives together. Against the advice of their families, and before they’d left for college, they’d gotten married.
 

Those first few years of marriage had been spent working and taking classes. After the first semester, they’d decided he should take the fast track so he could graduate in three years, while Mattie worked full-time and only took classes part-time. The plan had been for him to join the Navy, attend OCS and flight school, while Mattie stayed in Waco at Baylor University to finish her degree, then she’d join him wherever he’d eventually be stationed. When he’d been invited to join the SEALs, he’d signed up for the specialized training program without even discussing it with Mattie.

That had been his first of many mistakes, something he’d had five long, hellish years to realize. He’d had no right to enter into a program like the SEALs without talking to her about it first, but he’d been young and full of himself, not to mention a selfish bastard. But she’d hung in there with him, despite everything, even moving halfway across the country to San Diego’s Coronado Island, far from her family, friends and everything familiar to her.

“His name is Trenton Avery,” Paul said, pulling Ford back to the present. He slipped another photograph from the file. “He’s a lawyer out of Dallas. Big firm. High profile clientele.”
 

Ford ignored the photograph. There were more pressing matters at hand. Like how in the fuck he was going to get his wife back. “How long have they been seeing each other?”
 

Paul leaned back in the chair. “Ford, you should sit down.”

A buzzing started in his ears. He didn’t want to hear this. He didn’t want to hear that his wife was involved with another man. That some hot shot lawyer was putting his hands on
his
wife. Touching her, kissing her, making love to her. “How long?”

“Mattie remarried two weeks ago.”

Ford turned back to the window so Paul couldn’t see the pain ripping through him.
 

“I’m sorry I had to tell you this. I think it’s best if I dispatch a courier to let her know you’re alive. It’s going—”

“No,” he said, his voice as cold as the ice settling around his heart. “I’ll be the one to tell my wife we’re still legally married.”

“That’s not a good idea,” Paul argued. “You do realize this is going to be a shock. She’s going to need time to absorb the information.”

“No.”

“Ford, protocol demands—”

“Fuck protocol,” he roared. “She’s my wife.
Mine
.”

“Was,” Paul said, his gravelly voice hard. He came out of the chair, his brows pulled into a disapproving frown.

“Like hell.” Ford crossed his arms over his chest and braced his feet apart. “Mattie is
my
wife.”

“Think about what you’re doing, Ford,” Ravelli continued in a more placating tone. “I’ve known you for a long time, buddy. People change. After what she went through when she heard you were dead, she can’t possibly be the same woman you left behind five years ago.”

“She’s still
my
wife. And I’ll be damned if I’ll let her go without a fight.”
 

* * *

All Mattie Avery could think of as the driver of the rented town car pulled up in front of her modest ranch house, was how she’d never been so utterly exhausted in her entire life. The two week, whirlwind honeymoon trip across Europe was one she’d never forget, and had been everything her shiny new husband had promised. The crazy schedule, not to mention a serious case of jetlag after a full day of travel, had apparently caught up with her and she was beat. She didn’t care that it was nearing dawn and the blistering Texas sun would be riding high in the sky shortly. All she wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep for a week.
 

“You go in,” Trenton told her as the car pulled to a stop. “I’ll see to the bags.”

Mattie looked over at her husband and offered him a half-hearted smile. “Thank you. It’s been a day,” she said, then leaned toward him for a quick kiss.
 

He obliged, which made her smile widen. Eighteen months ago, when they’d first started dating, she quickly learned Trenton didn’t go in for public displays of affection. After time, he’d loosened up, a little. While her groom wasn’t exactly a stuffed shirt, appearances were important to Trenton, something she tried to keep in mind.
 

She pulled her keys from her purse before she left the car, then headed up the walk to the front door. Heavy humidity already hung in the air, stifling and adding to her exhaustion. As she slipped her key into the lock and turned the knob, she was hit by a blast of cool air and silently thanked her sister, Griffen, for taking the time to come by and fire up the air conditioning for them. Her sister and brother-in-law, Jed Maitland, the former star quarterback of the Texas Wranglers, would be over later in the afternoon to bring her daughter, Phoebe, home. Until then, she planned to shower and sleep for the next eight hours.
 

She flipped the switch to light the small foyer, then headed to the kitchen for a cool drink. As she rounded the corner into the family room, she caught a movement in her peripheral vision and stopped cold.

Her heart pounded so hard all she could hear was the blood thrumming in her veins. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t scream as a tall, imposing figure slowly moved toward her.
 

“Hello, Mattie.”
 

Instantly, she recognized the deep, smooth voice, a voice she’d heard only in her dreams for the past five years. Reaching behind her, she smacked the wall as she frantically searched for the switch. Light from the kitchen flickered to life and spilled into the family room. She stared in disbelief at what could only be a figment of her imagination.
 

This wasn’t real. She was overly tired. She’d fallen asleep on the plane and would wake up any minute now when they landed in Dallas.
 

She closed her eyes, then opened them again.
 

He was still there. Standing less than three feet away—and he was
alive
.

“Ford?” she managed on a strangled whisper. Shock, surprise and an uncontrollable sense of joy raced through her as she drank in the sight of him. “My God, is it really you?”

Somewhere in the back of her mind she was amazed that her legs still held her. He was thinner than she remembered, his thick and wavy sable hair was still cut in the same, standard- military style, but now a hint of gray peppered his temples. He wore his khaki uniform, pressed to perfection, the breast pocket laden with medals and brightly colored striped bars, evidence of his valor in service to his country. The two silver bars on his collar had been replaced with a gold leaf, indicating he’d also received a promotion in rank from Lieutenant to Lieutenant Commander.

Her throat clogged with hundreds of emotions, making breathing difficult. Her mind swam with even more questions. Tears of joy filled her eyes. The man she’d loved heart, body and soul had been returned to her. By some crazy miracle of fate, Ford was still alive.

“Oh God,” she whispered. With tears flooding her vision, she lifted her hand toward him, afraid if she blinked, he’d be gone.

“I’m home, baby,” he said, his voice a choked whisper. Closing the small space between them, he pulled her into his arms.
 

Mattie clung to him, finding comfort in the strong, vital rhythm of his heart. If she let go, she feared he’d disappear and she’d wake up crying from another dream. For too long she’d hoped and prayed that the news of Ford’s death had been a mistake, that someone had lied to her, but after years of wishful thinking, she’d finally come to terms with the fact that he’d never come back to her. He was gone. Dead. He’d been killed when his plane had been shot down over the Mediterranean Sea, forcing her to deal with the reality that she’d never be held by him again, never hear his smooth, deep voice whisper hot against her skin as they made love. Never see his laughing eyes simmering with desire whenever he looked at her.
 

Somehow that had changed—Ford was alive.

He was alive, he was holding her, his scent, his hardness wrapping around her, his arms holding her as fiercely as she held him. She pulled back to look at him, slowly lifting her hand to cup his cheek. “How is this possible?”

He turned his face against her hand and kissed her palm. “Later,” he whispered. “First, there’s something I’ve been dreaming of doing for five long years.”
 

He dipped his head, capturing her lips in a hot, open-mouthed kiss. Without hesitation, she opened to him and his tongue swept inside, demanding, savoring, as if to seal his homecoming in reality. The sweet rush of desire instantly flooded her body. She drank, quenching a thirst that had been unfulfilled for far too long, then greedily drank some more as she pressed her body against his. Time defied existence, only Ford and the feel of his rock hard body registered in her mind.

Until she heard the click of the front door, followed by the sound of Trenton’s footsteps crossing the tiled foyer.

Trenton
. Her
new
husband.
 

Two

MATTIE STIFFENED AS reality came crashing down around her. Those few sweet moments when her world had been miraculously righted after five long, heartbreaking years, shattered. Reluctantly, she pushed at Ford’s shoulders and eased out of the warmth of his familiar embrace, all the while sensing his own unwillingness to let her go.
 

Hadn’t it always been like that between them? Hadn’t they always been able to read the other so well? Almost from the moment they’d met, they’d shared a deep connection, a special rhythm all their own. Apparently the years apart hadn’t affected that aspect of their relationship. She really shouldn’t be surprised that for those first few minutes, nothing had changed.