Tangled Pursuit (4 page)

Alexa sat next to Matt, her fraternal twin, not caring too much one way or another where she sat. After all, she was an A-10 Warthog driver, flying in one of the most protected cockpits in the world. The Air Force didn’t have to work on the ground with the troops, Tal thought. Her red-haired combat-pilot sister, who radiated a dazzling, bright energy, never saw life and death up close, just through the sights and computers on board her Warthog. This was a huge difference between the air and ground war. Alexa used the Gatling gun on the nose of her A-10 and dropped serious ordinance on the enemy, often at very close range and well within reach of enemy gunfire. The A-10 pilots like Alexa were highly respected by the ground troops because of their ability to swoop down low level, well within range of enemy bullets, and attack the enemy, pushing them back to save their lives. A-10 drivers, regardless of gender, among the troops were regarded to have the biggest sets of balls in the Air Force because every time they flew, there was a helluva good chance they could get killed protecting those on the ground.

Tal reflexively rubbed the back of her neck, a warning bell going off. This wasn’t something she ignored, so she twisted to look over her shoulder. Her mouth turned downward as she met the friendly gray gaze of Wyatt Lockwood. Damn it to hell!

Tal jerked around, scowling darkly, her lips tight. Matt, aware of the immediate change in her attitude, looked beyond her to find out what had generated this response. Then he grinned.

“Hey, Gunslinger!” he called, rising from his seat, thrusting his hand across the table toward Wyatt. “Good to see you, bro.”

Wyatt stopped about two feet away from Tal, who stared down at the food on her tray, deliberately ignoring him. He gripped Matt’s outstretched hand. “Hey, Culver. I thought I’d come over and say hello since I was in the area. Who’s this pretty little redhead sitting beside you?”

Tal snorted derisively. Wyatt’s soft, easygoing Texas drawl always got to her. She wanted to tell him to leave, but she knew he and Matt had been like brothers for many years. Alexa lifted her head and beamed up at the SEAL. Tal squirmed. Lockwood was too close to her! She could literally feel the male heat rolling off him.

“This is my twin sister, Captain Alexa Culver,” Matt said, gesturing toward her. “She just flew in with her A-10 and we met by accident here in the chow line. Alexa, this is Chief Wyatt Lockwood, a SEAL and a good friend of mine.”

Alexa stood and offered her hand. “Hey, nice to meet you, Chief Lockwood.”

Wyatt nodded and smiled. “Believe me, the pleasure is all mine.” He grinned back and then released her hand as she sat down.

Matt said, “Hey, why not join us? Sit down, bro. I need to catch up with you.”

Wyatt leaned over just enough to catch Tal’s disgruntled stare in his direction. “Ma’am? Do you mind?” He gestured toward the empty chair about a foot and a half away from her.

Tal gritted her teeth and glared at Matt, who gave her a confused look. “Sit down if you want,” she growled at him, cutting into her breakfast steak. Of all things! She
knew
Wyatt would somehow find her! He was a damned SEAL and they had that all-terrain radar.

She saw Alexa give her a questioning look because of her sour reaction to Wyatt. Her sister knew nothing about Lockwood’s three-year campaign to woo her into his bed, and she sure wasn’t about to tell her right now. Not with this Texas cowboy sitting down next to her.

“I’m a little worse for wear,” Wyatt drawled, gesturing to his dusty uniform.

“Aren’t we all?” Matt said with a grin, sitting down. “How are you, Wyatt? What’s going on over in SEALdom?”

Wyatt took a coffeepot and a clean cup from the center of the table and poured himself some. “Been up in the Hindu Kush, Af-Pak border area. Doing a little HVT huntin’.”

“Did you get the guy, Chief?” Alexa asked between bites of her scrambled eggs.

“Yes, ma’am, we did, although it took six days longer than we’d planned.” He shrugged. “We’d estimated six days for the DA, and it turned out to be twelve. Ran out of MREs at day six and bought a goat off a Shinwari farmer so we could run and gun on meat.”

“Wow,” Alexa murmured, giving him an impressed look. “You SEALs rock.”

“We think so,” Wyatt agreed smugly with a nod and grin in her direction. He heard Tal Culver choke and press her hand against her chest. When Wyatt gently patted her on the back like a mother might a child, she gave him a “get your hands off me” look that even a SEAL had to respect. He quickly lifted his hand away, wrapping it around his mug of coffee in front of him.

“Do I need to give you the Heimlich maneuver here?” he asked with a slight smile.

“Never happen,” Tal choked out.
Damn it!
Lockwood was sex on a stick, whether he was dirty, coming off a mission, or clean. And she’d seen him both ways often enough. Only now, he looked like Bigfoot, a tall, hairy ape, his beard making him look more animal than human.

In Termessos National Park, in the Antalya province of Turkey, as a seventeen-year-old, Tal had seen a rare Anatolian leopard. She’d snapped a photo of it, riveted by the huge cat that roamed the mountainous region. Alex and Matt had not seen the animal, but she had a photo of it to prove her story.

Wyatt Lockwood reminded her of that elusive, powerful, rare leopard. Quiet. Dangerous. An apex predator, king of the jungle. Only this one had two legs, not four, and a set of balls on him that ran his brain.

Now Wyatt was sitting so close to her that she could smell him—a combination of sweat, goat odor, and dust. But what made her breasts tighten was his male scent. She could smell it! God! What was going on with her? Her body was a total traitor to her, and Tal felt panic deep in her gut. She had loved Sergeant Brian Collier, one of the best snipers in the cadre. And she’d given her heart, her soul, and her body to him. He’d done the same for her. Why was her body betraying her now? In all the years since Brian’s death, she’d never been attracted to another man. But her thoughts always strayed to Wyatt Lockwood, which unsettled her greatly and made her feel guilty. She only had room in her heart for one great love. Tal could never stand the loss of a second man. She just couldn’t.

She was aware that Wyatt was offering her a glass of water, holding her stare, patient as an Anatolian leopard waiting for his prey to move past so he could leap upon it.

Tal couldn’t understand why, despite her dislike for him, she felt her walls threaten to crumble as a flow of hunger burned within her lower body. She wondered what it would be like to be kissed by this brazen Texas cowboy. God, he was confident of his appeal to women! The man reeked of naked sensuality that dripped off him, and he’d never even touched her—at least not that way.

But the look in those stormy gray eyes and his tough predator intelligence shook her reserve whenever she saw him. No man had ever done that to her. Not even Brian Collier, much as she’d loved him.

“Come on, darlin’, you need to take a sip or two of this water to clear up whatever’s stuck in your throat,” Wyatt urged, lifting the glass in her direction.

Heat flooded Tal’s face as he again offered her the glass, and to avoid an extended hassle, she grabbed it. Their fingers momentarily grazed each other, sending a shiver through her. Keeping her expression blank, she brought the glass to her lips and gulped the water, agitated. Tal swallowed convulsively, choked, and coughed violently.

Wyatt grasped the glass before it spilled, and a moment later she felt a sharp, concentrated blow between her shoulder blades. It was strong enough to push her forward. Stunned, she blinked and sat up.

“There, darlin’,” Wyatt drawled, “no more water in your windpipe. Feel better now?”

There was an honesty in his stare that shook her.

“Okay?” he prodded again.

“Y-yes . . . okay . . . ,” Tal managed hoarsely, rubbing her throat. She’d swallowed wrong for sure, and his remedy—slapping her back hard enough to dislodge the water stuck in the wrong pipe—had worked. Swallowing a couple of times, Tal tore her gaze from his concerned one and took several smaller sips this time. Her heart was hammering, and she felt shaky, like a teenage girl in front of her idol.

“Gunslinger” was a good name for him. She wondered if Wyatt had notches on his SIG Sauer to show how many conquests he’d made. God knew he had a reputation for it.

Matt reached across, touching her hand. “You all right, Tal? You look pale.”

She set the glass down, frowning. “Of course. I just swallowed the wrong way.”

“It was more than likely my fault,” acknowledged Wyatt. “The lady seems a bit spooked whenever I’m around,” he confided to her siblings with a regretful grin.

Tal’s brows drew down. “I’m not going to dispute your observation, Chief Lockwood.”

He gave her a crooked smile and rubbed his beard. “Hmmm, you think it might be a little bit of rivalry between the Navy and the Marine Corps, ma’am?”

It killed Tal that he was so polite, even courtly, toward her. He was never angry or nasty. He just kept behaving like a patient Anatolian leopard stalking its prey.

“Given,” she snapped, “that you’ve screwed up more than three of my operations in the past, Chief, yes, I’d say there’s some friction between us.”

Tal saw Alexa’s arched red brows move up in surprise. She had stopped eating, her gaze riveted on them. Matt was studying Tal, too, his game face in place. But she was his big sister, and she could read what was in his eyes very clearly. Matt was upset that she’d been rude to Lockwood.

She was sorry for a moment, and then thought,
Too bad.
Matt didn’t know their history, or that Lockwood was always stalking her, whether close or from a distance. It was wearing her down and her nerves were jangled. She was only able to confide about her personal life to her sympathetic mother and her doting uncle Ihsan.

Her Turkish uncle was a treat to unload on. In his early fifties, he was a Sufi who believed that love and compassion were his primary guidelines for living a good life.

Wyatt straightened up, taking his hand off the back of Tal’s chair. “Hey, bro, I gotta mosey on down the road. Have to write up a sit rep, situation report, on that twelve-day boondoggle of ours. You gonna be around for a few days?”

Matt grinned. “Yeah, let’s get together over at the canteen. I’ll buy your team a round of beer.”

Wyatt rose. “You got it, pardner.” He smiled over at Alexa. “Nice meeting you, ma’am.”

“You too, Chief. Please stay safe out there.”

“Count on it,” he said, and winked at her.

Wyatt turned his attention to Tal. He laid his hand briefly on her hunched shoulder. “You try and take it easy for a few days, ma’am. I think that op was rougher than you let on. A few nights of good sleep will do wonders for you. See you around.”

Tal didn’t even bother to look up at Lockwood. She gave him a curt nod of her head and shook off the flames that flared up when his large, callused hand rested briefly on her shoulder.

“Goodbye, Chief,” she bit out, her eyes straight ahead.

Alexa gave her a confused look after the SEAL left. “What on earth is going on between you two?”

“What?” Tal played dumb, pulling her tray over.

“Why were you so snooty toward him, Tal? That isn’t like you.”

Matt sat back, assessing her. “Yeah, Tal. That’s not like you at all. You’re a nice person and you always bend over backward to be pleasant to everyone.” And then he suddenly grinned. “Unless, of course, they’ve got a rifle pointed in your direction. Then all bets are off.”

A grin edged Tal’s lips as she ate her now-lukewarm food. “That’s so true.”

Matt leaned his elbows on the table, clasping his hands in front of him. “Seriously, sis. Why were you so cold toward Wyatt? He’s a good guy, even if he is a SEAL. I’ve known him for years and the dude is built solid. He’ll have your back, no question.”

Tal stared at her brother and sister. “It’s not that easy to explain.”

“He likes you,” Alexa pointed out, suddenly having an epiphany.

Her mouth tightened and she scowled in Alexa’s direction.

Matt raised his brows, glancing over at Alexa. “Aha! That’s it!”

“Wyatt likes you, Tal, doesn’t he?” Matt baited her, grinning hugely.

Her skin itched where he’d laid his hand on her shoulder, and she longed to change the subject. “Stop being my inquisitors, you two!” she snapped at them. She saw Matt sit back, a silly grin spreading across his bearded features.

“He’s really a hunk,” Alexa sighed. “You have good taste, Tal.”

“Oh, come on!” Tal pleaded. “Alexa, I’m just not interested! I have no time for a personal relationship out here! Do either of you?” She gave them each a penetrating look.

Matt shook his head. “No way.”

“No,” Alexa said slowly. “But clearly, Wyatt likes you. A lot. A whole lot, Tal. He looked really concerned when you started choking. For a moment there, I thought he was going to haul you out of that chair and give you the Heimlich maneuver.” She chortled, clapping her hands. “I’d love to have seen that!”

“Oh, you’re such a teenager sometimes, Alexa.”

“I’m only two short years younger than you, Tal. At twenty-seven, I’m all grown up.”

Her sister could needle the hell out of her when she wanted to. “I don’t like him, Alexa. Okay? It may be hard for your starry-eyed romantic brain to compute. But that’s it in a nutshell, so give it a rest, okay?”

“Ouch,” Matt said, holding up his hands. “This is getting way too personal.”

“Oh, stay out of it, Matt. We’re women, and we’ll deal with it in our own way,” Tal growled.

Alexa smirked. “I just love this! I was wondering when you might fall in love again, Tal. Three years is a long time between relationships, you know?”

Tal wanted to deny all of it but couldn’t. Did she feel like she lived in a barren desert when her hormones raged monthly, clamoring for some really great sex with the right guy? Hell, yes. But she had yet to find a great guy in this godforsaken country since Brian Collier. He’d been a quiet, thoughtful person, listening well without interrupting her. Brian had allowed her to dream. To be a little girl once more, as she was growing up. He loved it when she could shed that officer cloak she had to wear. And he encouraged her, in some ways still a boy himself. Brian had made her laugh, and he saw the world in simple, black-and-white terms, unlike her. And then, Tal had her own epiphany. Damned if Wyatt Lockwood wasn’t a lot like Brian!