Hot SEAL, Midnight Magic (SEALs In Paradise) Read online

“Partly. I also like to spread out when I’m working. And I can have two or three projects going at the same time without needing to move my materials.”

  She toyed with her grilled chicken salad, nerves taking up all the space in her stomach.

  Gage took a bite of his gumbo and hummed in appreciation. “This is really good.”

  “Lottie’s food is always wonderful.” They ate in silence for a moment.

  “Tell me what you know, Mia.”

  She remained silent for several moments while she gathered her thoughts. “Do you remember when we drove out to the country one day on your motorcycle and I suddenly insisted you pull off the road and wait?”

  “Yeah. We saw two cars crash into each other, head-on.”

  “I told you then that I knew it was going to happen.” She had repeated over and over again that something was going to happen on the road. “You didn’t believe me. Just as you didn’t believe me when I said I knew Mama needed help.”

  “You saved Mama’s life. I don’t care how you knew she was hurt.”

  He still didn’t believe, and still didn’t trust her. What happened to them six years ago? He broke things off and left town right after the car accident. Had her visions spooked him?

  The only three people she was close to who accepted her gift were Ming, her grandmother, and Mama. It was a part of her she couldn’t deny. A part she hadn’t asked for but had no way to ignore. A part she hated at times.

  One problem was that her visions gave her too much insight into the men she dated. She’d broken things off more than once because something in the man’s past was suddenly revealed to her by a touch, a smell, the sound of a voice, or just blossomed out of thin air. How could anyone live with being an open book to someone who could learn all their secrets with just a touch?

  “The police will be coming to Mama’s house one evening to search for drugs. I don’t know what day it will be, but when they leave, Mama’s clock in the living room will play Can’t Help Falling in Love. And if you don’t search every day and do away with everything you find, they will find something, and you’ll be loaded into one of their cars in handcuffs.”

  Gage grabbed her wrist, none too gently. “Did Mason tell you he was going to plant drugs in Mama’s house?”

  “Mason?” Mason didn’t do drugs. “Why would Mason plant drugs?”

  Gage’s rage was like a hot, oppressive force blasting her from across the corner of the table.

  His voice was a husky growl. “Because he’s done it before. It’s because of him I left.”

  She jerked away from him. She didn’t need a vision to know he was telling the truth.

  She jerked to her feet, and the room seemed to spin around her while she paced blindly around and around. Memories bombarded her of things Mason and her mother said—things they’d done. The threats they made when she continued to grieve for Gage.

  Their meddling had changed the trajectory of her life in a hundred different ways. Drove her inside herself. Numbed her emotions for years. And negatively impacted every romantic relationship, leaving her unable to connect.

  Shaking with rage and grief, she went to the window and turned her back to the room, resorting to a series of long, deep breaths to calm herself.

  She sensed Gage approaching behind her. “Are you all right, Mia?”

  She had no other choice but to be. She rested her forehead against the window.

  He cleared his throat. “Before I left, I asked Mama to look out for you.”

  Tears stung her eyes. “There was nothing she could do. I’d already given up the apartment, so I moved in with my grandmother until I left for college. Mamie was very comforting and supportive.” She turned to look up at him. He seemed a stranger in so many ways, but she still recognized the desire to comfort she could see in his eyes and his body language.

  He’d been so driven, so eager to forge his way into a future with her. They’d dreamed so many dreams together. “I’m sorry for what my family did to you.”

  “I’m sorry for what they did to us both.” He searched her face. When he took a step closer, she met him halfway, because she needed to know how it would feel when he held her again.

  He wasn’t the same man she fell in love with, but the strength of his arms around her was comforting. Her head found a spot over his heart. He ran a hand down her back. She looked up at him. His eyes were so dark, the pupils almost blending into the iris, and his lips touched hers, tempting and tender. A heated lethargy suffused her, and she allowed herself to melt against him.

  The sweet sweep of his tongue parted her lips and swept in to tangle with her own. It had been so long since she felt such a consuming need to open herself to a man, it was as if her entire being was an empty ache waiting to be filled.

  Gage broke the kiss, his cheeks as flushed as hers felt. She looked away feeling vulnerable.

  “Tell me when Mason plans to put the drugs in Mama’s house, Mia.”

  Was his reason for kissing her just to get more information? She pulled away, folded her arms, and stepped around him. “I truly don’t know, Gage. It might not be Mason who puts the drugs there. All I saw was the police lead you out of the house in handcuffs, then Mama’s clock striking ten and starting to play.”

  His expression tightened, and he turned away.

  He didn’t believe her. He didn’t know who she was and never had.

  “While you were in Africa, there was a man named Abeo you tried to help. His entire family was killed. His sons.”

  Gage swung around to face her and in two strides was there gripping her arms. “Did Mama tell you something? Did she somehow figure out where I was? You’re not supposed to know… It’s…You could get in trouble if you repeat any of that. I could too, because they’d think I told you. Everything about that mission was need-to-know.” His eyes, expresso dark, searched her face.

  “Mama’s never talked about where you were or what you do for a living. She never even told me you’re in the Navy. I’m only telling you what I saw that first day, when I dropped you off at the hospital. I haven’t told anyone else.”

  “Jesus!” He raked his fingers through his thick, curly hair.

  “Mama would smack you for taking the Lord’s name in vain.”

  “I’m not kidding, Mia.”

  “Neither am I.” She was almost amused by his reaction, though she realized the danger to his career if they thought he was sharing military secrets.

  He stared at her for a long tense moment. “Dammit!”

  “Would you like a stiff drink? I have some bourbon in the cabinet over there.” She pointed to the left cabinet with the decorative shelves holding artwork.

  “No thanks. And you’re being a smart-ass.”

  “You can’t really blame me for a little payback.” Her attention lingered on him for moment, taking in the sculpted scruff of beard that darkened his jaw…the sexy, heavy-lidded, coffee brown eyes so guarded yet expressive…and his heavily muscled body. God, he sure cleaned up good. Though the pain he caused her still lingered, she still felt a tug of knee-weakening attraction.

  “Your food will be cold. There’s a microwave in the cabinet on the right.” She nodded toward the shelving unit.

  “I think I can tough it out.”

  CHAPTER 6

  ‡

  She remained silent while he finished his gumbo.

  He finished, wiped his mouth, gathered his trash, and tucked it all in the empty bag it was delivered in. He was stalling because he was still reeling.

  He remembered incidents from when they were together. She’d mention problems before they cropped up. She also warned him about something at work a time or two. But he blithely ignored the implications or shrugged it off as being a coincidence.

  But he couldn’t shrug off her knowing about Abeo. Everything to do with that mission was top secret. The only people who knew about it were him, his team, and the head shed who planned it.

  He’d blown the opportunity to
win her trust. Dammit! It seemed the only two people she trusted now were Mama and her grandmother, Mamie. He took a long drink of his sweet tea and set his cup aside. “Tell me about this thing you do.”

  “I don’t do anything.” She shrugged. “It just happens.” She turned her cup of sweet tea around and around but didn’t drink it. “I have no control over it.” She tucked a curl behind her ear. “Sometimes I’ll go weeks without seeing anything, and think maybe it’s gone away, and I won’t be responsible anymore for figuring out whether or not I should take action.”

  He leaned forward. “So you try to intercede if it’s something…dangerous?”

  “If I think I might help change the outcome to something positive, I’ll try. But it’s a double-edged sword. If you change the outcome of one thing, you might make other things worse.”

  He thought about that for a moment. What kind of responsibility would that be? Not an easy one.

  “Have you seen anything else about me?”

  She shook her head. “I try not to touch people. It seems to happen more frequently through touch. And sometimes in my dreams, like with Mama.

  She brushed back a strand of hair that fell forward against her cheek. “Sometimes the things I see are in the past, and there’s nothing I can do about them, but even the past visions almost always have something to do with an event about to take place in the present.

  “Sometimes it’s in the future. Like that car accident we witnessed. We were there to call the police and an ambulance. Those people survived because we were there to take action. And it turned out one of them was a classmate of mine at college.

  “It’s always something with high-impact emotional fallout.”

  “And you never had any warning about what Mason was going to do?” he asked.

  “No. Mason kept his distance even then. There’s ten years’ difference in our ages, and we’ve always had very little to do with one another. He had no interest in me.”

  “I always thought he was an emotionless prick.” What kind of person didn’t care about their own flesh and blood? Bastard.

  “I was keeping my distance from him, and Camille, too. I was afraid they’d interfere with our plans. I should have kept them closer so maybe I would have seen something coming.” She fell silent for a moment, perhaps sorting through the past for clues.

  Mia continued. “It wasn’t just you she sabotaged. I had a scholarship, and she called and told them I wouldn’t need it. She wanted me to marry wealth instead of going to college so she’d have another source of investment cash. That was another reason I moved in with my grandmother until I left for college.

  “It’s taken me six years to figure out that she’s afraid of the competition. My father left me a quarter interest in B and B, and she’s worried I might make a move that will upset her power base.”

  She toyed with a piece of paper on her desk. “Why couldn’t you call me and tell me you were okay, Gage? Maybe tell me what Mason did to you?”

  How many times had he picked up the phone to do just that? “There’s a three-year statute of limitations on drug possession charges, Mia. I couldn’t come back to the state of Louisiana, even to see Mama, until that was over. So I joined the Navy and became a SEAL. Though the cops here never charged me, I knew Mason could get the charges reinstated. And it would end my career.

  “He planted enough drugs in my locker at work that I’d have been in jail until I was fifty. He stood right in front of me in the locker room with five cops and a brick of cocaine that was probably worth a hundred thousand dollars, while his lackey told me if I ever contacted you again they would extradite me to Louisiana to serve time. And they were threatening Decker with ten years. He’d just turned eighteen. And I know he’s a fuckup, but he didn’t deserve ten years because of me.”

  “It’s been six years now, Gage. Almost seven.”

  “Doesn’t matter. When rich people have cops in their pocket, time doesn’t matter. I need this to go away, Mia. I need to be able to see Mama without having to look over my shoulder. And I need to be able to stop searching the car every time I drive to the hospital to make certain they haven’t planted something.”

  She covered her face with her hands for a moment. “I have no influence over Mason or Camille. Mason wants nothing to do with me, and Camille wants to use me. But I can help you get some justice—maybe.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  She reached for her cell phone. “They aren’t the only ones who know a cop or two.”

  He slid forward in his seat to touch her arm, then quickly withdrew his hand.

  She raised a brow at that.

  “Who are you calling?” he asked, feeling like an ass.

  “A friend.”

  She found the contact on her phone and punched it. He already knew she spoke French fluently and was speaking French now. It had been a very long time since he even heard the language or spoke it, but he was able to follow her conversation. “Jules, je dois te parler. Pouvez-vous venir àla boutique ce soir, disons sept? J ài besoin de votre aide.” She needed to talk to him. She asked if he could come by her apartment at seven. She needed his help.

  She switched back to English. “My mother and brother are up to their old tricks. And this time they may have stepped farther over the line than before.”

  She listened for a moment, thanked him, and hung up. “If you come back this evening at seven, Jules will be here, and we can talk to him and find out if there’s anything we can do.”

  She got up and went over to the window, beckoning for Gage to join her. “Since you’ll be here after hours, you’ll need to come up the outside staircase. Look along the wall to your left, and you can just see it. It ends at a door to my apartment, which is right above this room.”

  “I got it and I’ll be here.” But he wasn’t about to hide behind a woman. He fucking took out terrorists for a living. But she deserved some justice too. He studied her delicate features and thought about her response to his kiss only a few minutes before. A surge of full-on lust rolled over him like a tidal wave. “Whatever you’re going to do, we’re going to do together.” He wanted more than to simply deal with Mason.

  Suddenly she looked very tired. “We’ll see.”

  Her meaning was clear. Then they’d be even.

  “You aren’t responsible for what happened, Mia.”

  “No, I’m not. But the truth is, they aren’t above trying to strong-arm me even now.” She looked away. “Remember my suggestions. Install those cameras and search the house every day.” She glanced at her watch. “I need to get back to work. I have a new artist coming in to sign a contract in fifteen minutes.”

  He’d tried to keep his distance and finally end things for good, but he couldn’t.

  “Leaving you behind was like having an arm ripped off.”

  Her pale green gaze leapt to his face.

  He grasped her arms, then ran his hands up and down them. “I rode out on my motorcycle with fifteen hundred dollars and a backpack stuffed with jeans and T-shirts and little else. Every mile hurt worse than the one before. If you can read any of that…you’ll know it’s the truth.

  “If I could have taken you with me, I’d have done it. But they would have come after us. And they would have destroyed my family. They had the cops, the money, and the contacts to do it.” He swallowed. “If I spoke to you even once, I’d have had to see you. And I couldn’t take the risk.

  “I worked my way cross-country to California because my boss gave me a letter of recommendation and set me up with an interview. I worked for a year on an offshore oil rig and lay in my bunk every night, homesick and grieving for what we almost had. Then I had to make a move. I couldn’t stay on that rig another year.

  “So I enlisted in the Navy and bided my time until the statute of limitations passed. By then I was in the teams and deployed, so I couldn’t visit. I slipped in to visit Mama two years ago and found out you were building your business, and I thought you�
�d left me and everything else behind, so I stayed away.

  “I know I’ve broken your trust, broken your heart, and I don’t know what kind of relationship we could have after all this, but I didn’t come just to ask for your help with Mason. I wanted to see you. To know you’re all right.

  “And I know I was an asshole at the airport, but the moment I saw you, all the rage and resentment against your brother and mother that I’ve kept bottled up just rose up and—”

  She raised hand, cutting him off. “I spend a good deal of time feeling the same way about them. I need some time to formulate a way to neutralize them, Gage.

  “Also, my mother isn’t above having people watch me. She did it all through college. And they’re bound to know you’re here for Mama. Use some of your SEAL know-how and slip up here around seven.”

  “Okay.” She wasn’t pushing him away, but she was keeping him at a distance.

  When he was almost to the door she said, “Search the house as soon as you get home.”

  “I intend to.”

  She moved to the desk, took a business card out of the holder on her desk/table and wrote on the back of it. “This is my cell phone. If you have any trouble, call me.”

  “I will.”

  “I’ll see you at seven.”

  When she shut the door behind him, the weight of guilt and pain he’d carried for almost seven years eased. But the loss and heartache they both experienced were alive and well.

  CHAPTER 7

  ‡

  Mia scanned her keycard into the elevator panel and pushed the up button. The car rose to her apartment, the doors opened, and she stepped out, then pushed the down button. Without the keycard, no one could access her apartment.

  “Jazz? Here, baby. Where are you?”

  The cat’s plaintive cry came from the bedroom just before he sauntered into view. His long, lean, orange-striped body slinked across the hardwood floor with feline grace, his tail curved into a question mark.

  He wove around her legs in greeting and seemed to be telling her all about his day while she gave him a stroke from his head to the tip of his tail. When she moved into the kitchen, Jazz followed her every step, his meows strung together like a conversation.