The Promise of Love (3 page)

“You scared me,” she said breathlessly. But she must have thought two guys wearing snow BDUs were safe, which really made him want to grin for some insane reason.

“Sorry,” Will murmured next to him. Thank God, because David couldn’t get his tongue working.

He’d never been good at being so easy with a woman like this—a pretty, sweet woman. He stopped when he got close enough and waited, but when Will didn’t go on, and neither did the girl, he walked over to her car and tried to jump-start his brain.

“What’s the problem?” he managed. He played like he was studying the car, when he really knew jack shit about automobiles. He could change oil, fix a flat and a few other things, but he hated working on cars. “Car died?”

“Yes, it just, well, it did this.” She gestured to the smoking hood with a blue mitten, giving the car tire a disappointed kick with her boot.

“Damn, that’s too bad, but we have a truck—we can take you into town, if you want, or Will knows a thing or two about cars,” David offered.

Will stepped forward, and she took a step back, a little wide-eyed, then hurried to say, “It’s not my car. It’s Sara’s. Maybe I should go back and well, tell her.”

“Sara’s the friend you dropped off?” Will asked quietly.

“Yes, she, oh…” She paused and seemed to think of something more distressing than the car or meeting two strangers out in the middle of nowhere. She bit her bottom lip and winced. “She might be busy,” she whispered with a shy smile, blushing pink to her blonde roots. “So, maybe that’s not an option, oh, for… A while?”

David coughed hard to cover his laugh at her words. Clearly she knew what her friend was probably already doing.

Will ignored him and focused on her like David maybe should have instead of laughing at what she
wasn’t
saying—her friend was having sex with her boyfriend. By the sound of it, she thought they might be going at it like bunnies for a while, too.

“I’m William, Will Bryson and this is my buddy, David Jansen.”

“Oh.” She appeared even more nervous and took a few steps backward again. Her boots crunched in the fresh powder until she seemed to realize she was retreating. Her gaze bounced from Will to him and back again nervously. “Right, well, um, I’m Paris—”

“Hey, we’re safe, promise.” David kept his voice low, wanting to ease the nervousness he could feel coming off her. “Really, you can trust us. Besides, it’s cold out here. Let’s take you to town after Will sees what’s wrong. They’ll have an auto store in town and we can get what we need to fix it.” She seemed uncertain so he grinned and said, “I’ll even let you buy us dinner.”

“
We’ll
buy dinner,” Will said sternly, making David’s unease settle. Will always knew what to say. “Can you open the hood?” Will asked, indicating the driver’s side door. “And I’ll fix it while Jansen tries to entertain you. I can see what’s up, no problem. It won’t take long.”

She shifted from foot to foot. The move had his heart doing an odd jump and he felt a laugh building.
How long has it been since I’ve laughed so easily, not because something was shit and I need to laugh or lose my mind, but really laughed because I felt good?

“You know there are horror stories that start out this way,” she said.

Her comment surprised that laugh right out of him.

“We’re not gonna hurt you, promise,” he offered. They were out here alone, and there were two of them. He knew they looked like the badasses they were, it was hard not to, besides, she was alone. It had to freak her out to face them, but she was, and she was able to joke around, too.

“Those horror stories are all at summer camps, right?” he reasoned. “Not in some mountain in Wyoming in the snow. And I swear to God I don’t own a ski mask, or what was that? An old hockey mask maybe?”

Will snorted. “Hockey mask. There was that crazy Red Rum one, right? Jack Nicolson movie. Classic. It was in the snow.”

“Oh.” Her eyes widened. “I’ve seen that!
The Shining
. What a horrible movie, really, that scared me for weeks.” She examined them, relaxing a little as she did.

His face warmed under her scrutiny before she switched her clear gaze to Will. A smile tugged at her lips probably because of Will’s not so patient posture. He’d been waiting for her to pop the hood for a while now. She finally stopped shifting her feet, so David thought the wait worth it when she gave them another sweet smile.

“Okay, but if you can’t fix it, that’s totally okay,” she said, giving them both a hopeful smile that made it clear she was going to be much happier if they
did
fix it. Hell, maybe he needed to learn a bit more about the mechanics of a car, instead of a gun.

“I’m sure someone in the town”—she waved off behind her—“can fix it. Really.”

He grunted at that. No way would they let some town mechanic win a smile from her. He speared Will with an impatient frown that got his buddy grinning but at least moving toward the smoking car.

“Can you release the hood? Let’s see what’s wrong, first,” Will said.

“Oh, yeah, sorry, forgot.” She blushed again, a cute pink. She opened the car door and bent to find the release.

Will caught his eye and David knew his buddy was interested in her. They’d shared women before, but Paris—she was going to be different. For one, he wasn’t so on board with sharing—a first for him. In his life, sharing a woman notched the sex up to sky rockets going off.
Paris is obviously nervous, shy and beautiful, but is she into us?

“All right, sorry, but I can’t find the hood thingie.” Paris gave them a frustrated frown.

David tried to pick out something about the woman he didn’t like, and not a thing surfaced. He felt awkward around her, as if he’d suddenly been shifted back in time to when he’d been a teenager with his first girl. Shoving the anxiety aside, he grinned his normal smile, one usually reserved to hide his unease, and walked over.

“Here, they’re tricky to find, let me help out, okay?”

She nodded and moved back to let him in. This close he could smell something citrus and warm woman on her—soft and sweet. He imagined she tasted just like that. The thought had him twitching below the belt. He ignored the response and ducked in to find the latch, pulled it and winked at her. “See, always hidden, these things,” he assured her.

“Why do they do that?” she asked, but she seemed grateful he’d had some trouble finding the latch, too.

“Messing with you is my guess,” he teased and stood.

She grew nervous again and headed over to where Will was. Will stopped her with a hand out on her arm, freezing her in place. “Not too close. If it overheated it might release hot air when I raise the hood. You could get third-degree burns.”

“Oh,” she whispered. “And you won’t?”

For some reason that tiny response made David grin. “Hey now, he knows what he’s doing. Come over here and we’ll see what Will finds out.”

She nodded and backed over next to him then did the oddest thing. She gave him a head to toe glance, shaking her head. “You two are really tall, aren’t you?”

Will snorted but shot her a smile—something his buddy hadn’t done much in the past few years. “It helps being guys, you know?”

She nodded seriously, as if that made sense to her.

David had the irresistible urge to hug her. He shoved his hands into his parka to keep them off her. For some insane reason when she did that he wanted to haul her in close. Maybe because she was so damn cute taking Will seriously.

“You’re in the service?” she asked. “American military?”

“We were,” he told her, because Will was already tinkering with the engine, clearly only half listening. If David had to guess, Will would not only fix the car, he’d make it run like new—all to impress one little blonde they’d just met. Or maybe her friend—David considered recalling how intense Will had checked out the other girl.

“Yes, that would help, wouldn’t it? Being so…” She tilted her head to examine them again. “Big.”

“Not always. Some of the other guys are bigger. I’m only six-three. Will’s what? Six-one?”

Will nodded.

“Well, compared to five-two that’s pretty tall,” Paris offered.

“Yeah, well, size doesn’t always matter.” The comment went completely over her head.

Will shot him a cool-it frown. Since neither of them were lacking in that department, he couldn’t offer to see if the saying was true or not.

“Besides, I know a woman that can hold her own in anything and she’s about the same size as you,” he admitted.

“Really?” she asked, sounding interested.

“Absolutely.” Will stood. “It’s a belt. We can get one in town. I should have you back on the road tomorrow. Do you want us to take you somewhere? Home?”

“Oh,” Paris murmured, shifting her feet again. “I don’t live here, but yes, if you don’t mind, I rented a hotel room in town. I could use a ride, and I guess you two are safe enough,” she teased.

David ducked his head to hide the rush of anticipation he experienced. Would he be able to interest her in more? He wanted more. He wanted
a
lot
more and he knew, without asking him, his buddy would be on board as well. Again, David felt a rush of anxiety at the thought of sharing her, but more, his brain seemed to spin on the possibility of there not being a chance at more after the heat settled.
What if I go for sex and that is all I get from her? Sex.

Why does that bother me? Isn’t sex the goal?

It was
always
the goal when it had been this long without it. He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his jacket sleeve and thought about that. Hell, that made him sound like some guy only after a girl for one thing, like Walters. He wasn’t that kind of man, but when he met someone he was interested in, he pursued. It might not be for more than a brief time, a few weeks, maybe longer, but sometimes he was too engaged in a mission to offer more.

Suddenly that didn’t sit well. And it wouldn’t work with her—Paris.

What the hell is wrong with me? Now, out in the middle of the freezing wilderness, I’m getting a conscience about sleeping with women—women who only want to sleep with me?

“
We can take you into town, no problem,” he offered, trying to dislodge the misgivings.

“That’s right,” Will said, shutting the hood. “You’re never gonna be safer, right, Jansen?”

David swallowed and got his head back on straight. She would be safe. He’d never pushed a woman into anything, no matter that he suddenly felt wrong about never having had a real relationship with one. Paris wouldn’t be safer, and for some reason he wanted to be the man who made sure of that.

The thought had him staring at her, trying to figure out what it was about Paris that made his head spin faster than any jump from a plane into enemy territory he’d ever made.

Chapter Two

“There are ten things in this world I can’t live without,” Savage said and tapped his cigar on the crystal ashtray. “Duke is messing with the top two. Money and Sex. Tell me you have some answers for me, Martinez.”

Juan Martinez blew smoke out on a big exhale and shifted the bleach-blonde with jugs the size of cantaloupes he had on his lap to reach his drink. His enormous belly interfered with the move, but he managed to keep the woman in place while he sipped his vodka. No one would have guessed Martinez had once gone through the toughest Special Forces training on the planet—the Russian
Spetsnaz
. They’d been hand-picked then given training that wouldn’t be allowed in the U.S. where everything was ruled by law and order.
Human rights and blah, blah, blah.

They’d both survived and look at them now.
Living the American dream
.

“I have more than that. I’ve set up a team outside of Duke’s location. He shuts us out of his deal, and we simply take what we want.”

Savage narrowed his eyes to see Martinez through the dim interior of their private club. The strobe lights out on the dance floor lent a soothing background for him, but made it difficult to gage his long-time partner’s expression.

“You’ve set up camp in Wyoming?”

Martinez grimaced. “I didn’t set it up. My men are camping out with a group of gun crazy lunatics, but”—he laughed—“they are a perfect cover. If anyone finds our location, we simply blend in with them.”

“America. Only here can such men exist,” Savage muttered in Russian.

“True. They have a few AK-74M rifles.”

“Really?” Savage murmured, impressed. Weapons like that were highly sought after and highly illegal. He stroked the back of his own woman at the memory of the power in such a weapon.

“When do you meet with Duke?”

“A few days,” Savage replied, not happy with the time it was taking to get a meeting with the elusive billionaire. “He will send someone to DC in a few days. Then he will meet with me personally.”

“If Duke pulls out, then we simply take it.” Martinez lifted his glass and Savage joined him. “Then we even a few scores, brother. I have word from sources that the men we want are in the area. They’re undercover, hovering over Duke, ready to take him out.”

Savage clenched his fists. “We can’t let that happen before my scientist gets his hands on the formula.”

“Oh, we won’t. Your scientist is also there, waiting for his chance to get a sample.” Martinez made a face and tapped his cigar on the floor. “He is an odd one, no?”

Savage agreed. The young MIT graduate wasn’t normally the kind of man he would ever associate with. But money talked and oddities could be forgiven—to a point.

“He can make us richer than our wildest dreams, brother. Remember, money first, then we settle some scores,” Savage cautioned. “Duke will come here. He’s too greedy and too much of a show man not to parade his genius for us to see. If he does not”—Savage shrugged—“then we will still gain what we want with your men. But first we wait. Remember, always the money first, then the scores.”

* * * *

Paris laughed and shook her head at David’s joke. He was a surprisingly fun guy, and way more honest than anyone she’d ever met. His friend, William—Will—was nice too, but David had a way of saying things most people just didn’t. She liked that about him. And, she just
liked
him.