[When SEALs Come Home 04] - Heated (2 page)

Which would be a bummer, because his semiweekly encounter with the deputy sheriff’s speed trap was just about the only interesting thing that happened to him now that fire season was over. Doing ride-alongs with the local fire departments wasn’t cutting it. A barn fire couldn’t compete with the adrenaline rush of parachuting out of a DC-3 and three thousand feet down into a forest fire. Smoke jumping with Donovan Brothers was the only thing keeping him sane.

Lecture. Ticket. Threaten him with the cuffs and a night in Strong’s one jail cell. Check, check, and check. He’d been doing one hundred fifty, and while there was no one else out here on the road, there could have been. He didn’t need Deputy Sheriff Hernandez to point the truth out to him. That it was one thing to kill himself with his need for speed and another thing altogether to drag in an innocent third party.

Behind him, the car door opened and then closed. He twisted around to watch the law officer stride toward him. This part was fun. He liked looking at her. Deputy Sheriff Hernandez wasn’t a tall woman, but she had plenty of presence, particularly when she was pissed off. Despite her best efforts to hide it behind a mask of stern professionalism, her face danced with life. His favorite part was the happy gleam her brown eyes got when he said something particularly ridiculous, like she enjoyed laughing even if a belly laugh was off-limits in her current occupation. Tonight her dark hair was ruthlessly braided into some kind of fancy twist thing. He wasn’t supposed to notice she was a woman because she was acting in her professional capacity, but her uniform failed spectacularly to hide her curves. He’d fantasized more than once about those buttons on her uniform shirt either popping open on their own or with an assist from his fingers. He knew better than to tell her how good she looked. She’d only chew him out harder.

“Mr. Carter.” As always, her voice sounded husky and certain, and when her dark eyes met his, parts of him shot to attention. Unfortunately, those weren’t the parts she was interested in. “We need to stop meeting like this.”

“You finally accepted a job offer somewhere else.” He sighed dramatically and gave her his best smile. She glared back at him. She’d been doing the serve-and-protect thing for Strong for the past year or so. The rumor was that she’d be tapped for a bigger position somewhere else before another year passed. He’d miss her. Her buttoned-up, starchy attitude made him want to unbutton her. Muss her up some.

She glared at him, although not half as badly as she would have if she’d known what he was thinking. “I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “You, on the other hand, apparently have somewhere to be that requires you to travel at Mach 10.”

“You know all my Saturday nights are yours, sweetheart. I’m not busy unless you’d like to get busy.” He winked at her and waited for the gleam.

Instead of acknowledging his tease, however, her gaze dipped, eyes running over his body and cataloging what she saw. He’d bet she could make a bullet-point list of every article of clothing. She was always precise like that. Usually when she pulled him over, he was wearing jeans and boots, a leather jacket, and a T-shirt. Today he still sported the boots, but Will Donegan’s funeral had required a suit. He’d ridden away with the jacket unbuttoned and his shirt open at the collar, so he wasn’t entirely put together. Plus he’d stashed his tie in his pocket because he’d never gotten around to putting it on. Did she like a man in a suit? Or did she prefer the rougher types? It was hard to tell with his deputy sheriff.

Inspection finished, she nodded her head like two plus two plus suit added up to four. “You were at the funeral. I saw you leave.”

He hadn’t noticed her.

“You weren’t paying attention to anything but the road,” she told him, apparently having learned how to read his mind since the last time she pulled him over. “I had to escort the hearse from the church to the cemetery, so you had a head start on me.”

“You’d pull me over in front of the church?” He grinned at her. “That’s not nice at all.”

“I can’t let you drive like a madman.” The authority radiating off her should have pissed him off. He didn’t take orders anymore. Instead, it was... hot. The guys on the jump team had teased him about the game of hard to get he was playing with her, but those had been
jokes
. Maybe. Or not.

“You can’t stop me, sweetheart.” Challenging her would be child’s play. He was straddling a motorcycle built for speed while she was out of her car. He also had at least a foot and a hundred pounds on her. Unless she shot him, she couldn’t stop him.

None of which explained why her presence and her ass-chewing were strangely comforting. A moment of deep introspection would have benefited him, but screw it. Instead, he planned on having fun.

With
the good deputy sheriff.

She sighed. “I have a name. Use it.”

“Deputy Sheriff Sweetheart.” When he grinned again, because damned if she didn’t make him smile like a loon, her eyes went right to his mouth.
Score one for him
.

“You knew Will Donegan,” she said, clearly determined to talk about where he’d come from.

“We jumped together.” His head decided now would be a good time to suggest what his buddy must look like. The funeral had been closed casket because Will’s wife had cremated what was left of Will since Mother Nature had gotten a jumpstart on that process and then the funeral had been postponed until Will’s brother could get leave of absence from his SEAL team unit. Abbie Donegan hadn’t even had a chance for a last look or a last kiss. Shit. It should have been him and not Will. Will had a wife and a junior Will on the way. While he was pretty much a me, myself, and I guy, especially since his sister had reunited with her husband and was now on a belated second honeymoon.

“Did you know him?” He didn’t want to talk about how he knew Will.

“I know his wife.” She tightened her fingers on her notepad. “She’s not going to have an easy time of it.”

“We’ll be there for her.” And if he wasn’t exactly sure what a pregnant woman needed, he could learn. His sister had to know, and half the smoke jumpers had wives who’d be happy to tell him what to do and how to do it. He could make things work for Abbie Donegan, even if he couldn’t be Will.

She shook her head. “Some things a woman has to do on her own.”

He had no idea what she meant. Could have been sex, for all he knew, but her face looked as serene as ever, without a hint of naughtiness. Which wouldn’t have been appropriate, he reminded himself. Will Donegan was dead.

“Come on.” She headed back toward her car, supremely confident that he’d follow. Part of him realized that she was right. Going after her just seemed like what he wanted to do, even if he’d never been one to buckle under to authority figures. Somehow, though, when he looked at Deputy Sheriff Hernandez, he didn’t see an officer of the law. Or rather, he saw someone more. Hell, he didn’t even know her first name, an oversight he intended to remedy.

Reaching inside, she killed the flashing lights. He blinked at the renewed darkness. The only light now was the cone of yellow from her headlights.

“Are you arresting me?”

Her eyebrows rose. “You’d know if I was.”

True. Arrests usually involved Miranda rights and handcuffs, neither of which seemed to be happening right now. He didn’t like the off-balance feeling she woke in him. Either she was writing him a ticket—or she was doing something else. He needed to know what that
something else
was. Instead of explaining herself, however, she popped open the passenger-side door and gestured for him to get in.

Right. Like he’d voluntarily park his ass inside a cop car.

“Get in. I’ll give you a ride home.”

When hell froze over. Did he look like he wasn’t capable of getting himself home? “I’ve got a perfectly good bike.”

“I’ll bring you back out tomorrow if you want, but you’re done driving for tonight. Sit.” Then she touched him. Her hand on his shoulder was gentle but firm, pushing him down toward the leather seat. He let her have his way, his legs bending and his ass planting where she wanted him.

He thought about protesting, but he was out of words. Plus he figured she didn’t want to hear any excuses. Right now, right here in her car, it was all about doing things her way. Which meant he sat on the seat, boots still on the edge of the highway because he couldn’t bring himself swing his feet inside and capitulate entirely. Their motors ticked, cooling down, because he’d pushed too hard, too fast. While he tried to empty his brain of coherent thought and the damned memories, she went around the other side and got in the driver’s seat.

He looked over at her. “You ever lose anybody?”

He’d have bet the answer would be
no
. She looked too young, too in control. Instead she knocked him onto his ass again.

“Yes.” Her stark, one-word answer held plenty of pain. “My father worked union jobs as a longshoreman at the Port of Los Angeles. A container fell and crushed him when I was eight. My mother worked her butt off cleaning offices, but that meant we never had money for rent in a nice neighborhood. When you grow up in the
barrio
, you lose friends and neighbors. Two cousins joined the gangs.”

She mimed a gun firing with her left hand.

“Other people I lost to the streets. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation holds more than one person I know, and they’re not coming out.”

Her faint accent grew stronger as she ticked off her list of the dead and the missing, the sweet, lilting cadence of a Los Angeleno reading a casualty list.

He had his own list, one that he carried around his head. A list that had been topped by Ben Marshall, who’d caught a bullet from a rooftop sniper and who had been displaced by Will Donegan. Unexpectedly, tears prickled at his eyes, goddammit. He punched the dashboard. Once. Twice. He wasn’t crying over this. He was alive. Will wasn’t. He needed to suck it up and get on with fixing what he could for Abbie Donegan.

Deputy Sheriff Hernandez watched him calmly, her hands relaxed on the wheel.

“You should arrest me,” he said. He could hear the savagery in his voice, a mix of desperado and
fuck you
she shouldn’t, couldn’t ignore.

She shook her head. “Arrests aren’t fixing this. Close the door and fasten your seat belt.”

“The only place I take orders is in bed, sweetheart.” He knew he’d crossed a line from flirting to outright crass, but he was feeling mean and nasty.  Since Deputy Sheriff Hernandez had been nothing but sympathetic, maybe she’d rethink her new
no arresting the asshole
policy. Her nametag caught the light as she turned toward him.

M. Hernandez. How come he didn’t know her first name?

“What’s the
M
stand for?”

Instead of saying “None of your goddamned business,” she smiled, a humorous quirk of her lips that blindsided him. He’d always thought she had a permanent stick up her ass, at least when she was out in public. “Mercedes. You ought to like that, given your love of speed.”

“That’s a mouthful.”

She shrugged. “That’s what my mother named me. I didn’t get a vote.”

“Mercy. Mia. Sadie. Guess I can’t call you Mimi since we’ve already got one of those in Strong.” He swung his legs into the car and leaned back in the seat.

“You can call me Deputy Sheriff Hernandez or Deputy Hernandez. Ms. Hernandez if your brain is really hurting. Three choices. Take your pick.”

Fuck. His eyes burned.  Crying at the funeral had been off-limits, although the women in the church had done plenty. SEALs didn’t cry. Look at Kade Lawson. The man had endured months of being tortured by enemy insurgents, and
he
didn’t cry. He cursed. Kicked shit. Joey needed to be more like that. Instead, he was trying not to cry in the front seat of a police cruiser like he was five years old again.

He punched the dashboard reflexively, driving his knuckles into the hard surface. Welcoming the sharp bite of pain and the feeling of his skin splitting.

“Beating yourself up isn’t going to help,” she said calmly, like she didn’t mind sitting next to a crazy man in her cop car. “You’re bleeding for no reason.”

He looked down, and surprise, surprise, she was right of course. His knuckles were bleeding. He’d left a smear of blood on her dashboard too, and he’d bet bodily fluids were not her decoration of choice. He’d have to clean up before he went. Still, she didn’t look pissed off or even concerned. Instead, she sat there calmly beside him like they’d just happened to occupy the same pew at church and nothing bad could possibly happen. He should be scaring the shit out of her. She should have tased his ass and tossed him in the back where the criminals went. He’d seen and done things she had no conception of, and even if he’d done them with Uncle Sam’s tacit blessing, it didn’t make the memories any easier.

She turned to look at him. “You were there, weren’t you?”

He hadn’t been where he needed to be, and that was the truth. He’d been in the canyon while Will Donegan had been dying just outside the protective walls. He should have gone out and brought the man in instead of lying down inside his shelter. He should have
done
something. Anything.

Instead of saying any of that, though, he settled for the obvious. “I was.”

“You’re a jumper. Why were you working with the Big Bear Rogues?”

His deputy sheriff was full of questions tonight.

“Don’t you have to Mirandize me before you interrogate me?”

She gave him The Look, the one that said he’d better cut it out and give her what she wanted. Would she look the same way if he were teasing her in bed, forcing her to wait for her orgasm? He had no idea where
that
thought had come from, but now that it was firmly planted in his brain, it was all he could think of.

“The hotshot team had a few men out for the holidays, and I had nothing else to do. So I filled in.” While he enjoyed the hell out of smoke jumping, it wasn’t a three-hundred-sixty-five-day-a-year gig. The forest fires that required the Donovan Brothers jump team happened mostly during the peak of fire season, in the summer months. His garage and rebuilding bikes only took so much time, so helping out the hotshots had filled a few more hours.