Guardian (5 page)

Her chest tightened with panic and she shoved aside the worries she couldn’t control. Distraction was welcome, and the hunk beside her provided plenty. David changed gears, his long legs working as he downshifted around a corner with only a slight drag and whine of the engine. But then David Berg did everything with ease.

He personified military professionalism, with a driven edginess in his world, and she respected him for it. She just didn’t plan to tangle her life or her son’s world with a father who thrived on danger ever again. She was better off on her own, blending into a calmer civilian life.

Sophie looked away.

David slowed the Scout as they approached the gated Lake Las Vegas community. Her husband had insisted on
the high-end house with all the trappings, elite all the way for his family. Except after a while, she’d realized he really wanted all of that for himself, appearance, flash, live for the moment and worry about the mortgage tomorrow.

Now, she was stuck busting her butt paying for that tomorrow.

She twisted at the waist to grab her briefcase and pull out her ID…except wait. He had one.

God, her head was fuzzy.

David lifted his hand to greet the uniformed attendant as he waved them through. He frowned when she stayed silent. “Something wrong?”

“Nothing.” The last thing she wanted was to sound like a wimp. It was just a bump on the head. She was a trained warrior, for heaven’s sake. For now anyway.

David turned at the corner, driving past the row of looming stucco houses along the shore of Lake Las Vegas. “So this isn’t my kind of neighborhood. A little too rich for my taste.” He shrugged. “I’m more of a middle-class-condo sort of guy.”

“That wasn’t what I was thinking.”

“Then what were you thinking?”

She blurted, “I was wondering where your ex-wife lives.”

Where had that come from, a question that hinted at interest, even jealousy?

His fingers thumped the steering wheel. “She moved to Colorado.”

“I didn’t mean to pry.” She tried not to sound defensive. And failed. “
You
asked what I was thinking.”

His lean fingers drummed faster. “My ex-wife, Leslie, moved back to Colorado after our divorce.”

The laid-back aviator who stored ties in his glove compartment and drove an old-school Scout faded in a snap. The steely glint in his eyes, the brace of his shoulders shouted subject closed.

Sophie gestured to her driveway. “This is my house.”

Although he already knew that. How close was his place?

David pulled off the road. The vehicle’s idling rumble filled the silence.

As he’d questioned her thoughts moments prior, she wondered what rattled around in his hard head while he stared at her home with such a bland expression. The two-story beige stucco home with a three-car garage looked much like the other houses lining the finger of the shore.

Big.

Pricey.

Exclusive.

He scratched along his jaw. “Nice little place you have, Counselor.”

Why the edge of scorn? He’d said his sister lived in the same piece of exclusive lakefront property. She’d heard he’d played in the semipro golf circuit before joining the air force, so he likely had a nice cushion padding his bank account. He could probably afford to disdain such luxuries, having been given a choice. Her family hadn’t had much, especially after her father died. Sophie planned to make sure her son enjoyed the security she’d never known as a child, financial and emotional.

Brice had already lost more than any ten-year-old should. With a mama-bear ferocity that scared her at times, she renewed her vow to keep him safe.

Absorbed in her reflection, she didn’t notice David
crossing to her side of the Scout until he stood beside her with an outstretched hand. Sophie accepted his help since it was faster than arguing. The minute her feet hit the ground, her vision swam.

David steadied her. “Take it easy. I’ll help you up the steps.”

His support felt too good. She shook her hand free. “Don’t worry. I really can walk. And once I get inside, Nanny will smother me with attention.”

“Oh, right. I keep forgetting about your nanny.” He passed her briefcase, holding it like a shield between them. “Okay, then. Don’t think a bump on the head lets you off the hook for our appointment tomorrow.”

“In my office.” She wrapped her fingers around the supple leather while he held firm.

“After court.” He let go. “Good-bye, Blondie.” Shooting her a wave, he circled to the driver’s side.

“David!”

He paused, half in, one foot still touching the ground. “Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

They stared at each other across the humming engine. The air between them crackled with memories of that time they’d spent tangled up on the ground together. Of what it felt like to be intimately close to someone again. Even beyond that, what it would be like to have someone with whom to share life’s burdens. Because of her husband’s secrets and betrayal, she’d never really known.

“No worries.” David thumped his chest. “It’s what we do for our brothers and sisters in arms.”

He eased behind the wheel but didn’t back away until she’d made it safely to the top step of her home.

Home.
Where she could relax with a late dinner…and try yet again to pretend if she worked hard enough, she could fill the void in her son’s life left by his father’s death.

Pretend she still couldn’t feel the sensual touch of David’s fingers in her hair.

David nailed the accelerator.

Sophie Campbell was an open invitation to an encore performance of having his life shredded. And he had only himself to blame for the way his marriage to Leslie had played out. He should have known better. Leslie’s
first
ex-husband had warned him. But he’d been so sure things would be different.

Wrong.

Leslie hadn’t just walked out. She’d torn apart their family. He’d brought up her son as his own, and then when she’d decided she didn’t want to be a mom anymore, there’d been nothing David could do. Her son had gone back to his biological father. Haley Rose lost her mother and her half brother.

David didn’t want to think about what he’d lost. He needed to focus on the present, the future, his kid.

He parked in his sister’s driveway and slumped in his
seat. Some days sucked the life right out of a person. He just wanted to gather his daughter, go home, and forget about Sophie Campbell tucked against his chest.

His sister gripped the second-floor balcony railing in the middle of a Pilates stretch. David allowed the inevitable smile to cut through his fatigue.

Not for the first time, he considered how Haley Rose would one day look like her aunt Madison. The dominant genes of the Berg family couldn’t be missed. Madison wore her standard Lycra workout clothes, her lengthy rope of dark hair trailing forward over one shoulder.

He stepped out of the Scout and shouted up to her, “Sorry I’m late, Mad. I tried to call…”

“Do you see a watch anywhere?” Madison linked her hands and stretched her arms over her head, a tangle of silver bracelets sliding to one elbow. Who wore bracelets with workout clothes?

His sister.

He climbed the concrete steps that led up to the sunning deck on the second floor. “If you ever owned a watch, you lost it.”

“Only on purpose.” Barefoot, she rolled up her yoga mat and tucked it under her arm.

Her free spirit frustrated the hell out of him at times, but he had to admit she’d saved his hide the past year by providing child care and even a place to crash. With Leslie’s lack of interest in Haley Rose, he needed all the help he could get. Madison’s easygoing manner soothed his high-spirited daughter.

What kind of parent was Sophie, with her nanny and big house?

David shook free from his thoughts of Sophie and met Madison at the base of the stairs. “Where’s the runt?”

“Playing with her new little friend at his house.” She held a single finger to her lips before he could interrupt. “Yes, I did a thorough check on everything from his family to his blood type before letting your child play with him. He’s a nice kid. Good manners. Does his homework and eats all his vegetables.”

“I trust your judgment.”

Madison snickered. “Since when?”

“I’m glad she’s making friends. I worried about uprooting her to move here just because I didn’t want to drive the extra miles.”

“You moved so you could spend more time with her and so I didn’t have to hang out at your gross bachelor apartment.”

“You’re a lot nicer now that you’re grown up.”

“Suck-up.” She swatted him with her yoga mat before opening the French doors. “Brice is the perfect playmate for your tomboy. They’re just working together on a science project for the fair. It’s not like we have to worry about their hormones yet.”

“I’d rather not think about my daughter, hormones, and boys.” David shuddered.

“I told you. He’s a good kid.” She lifted her brother’s wrist and looked at his watch. “I should probably go over and pick her up before they wear out Nanny.”

“The nanny?”

“No, her name’s Nanny. The boy’s great-grandmother. His mom’s a lawyer on base.”

Ah hell.

*    *    *

After a quick wriggle into a shirt and pair of shorts, Sophie stalked along the shore to retrieve her son before
the sun finished setting. When would this day end? Not any time soon, apparently.

At least he hadn’t officially “ditched” Nanny this time. Nanny knew exactly where Brice was—off playing with the daughter of a nice, young,
unattached
flyboy who just moved to the neighborhood.

Sophie hadn’t needed even a single guess to determine who bachelor number one might be. Grandma Anna, Nanny, wouldn’t let up until she marched her only granddaughter down the aisle again. Sophie didn’t intend to march anywhere except down her stretch of the lakeside and home. And what do ya know? Now she had
his
address.

Ten minutes later, she charged along the shoreline, and as the house in question came into view, she saw David in the distance. Tall, lean, and too damn sexy, he stood on the balcony talking with a super-skinny woman wearing Lycra workout clothes.

The kick of jealousy made her mad.

Then she remembered that he lived with his sister.

The rush of relief made Sophie madder.

She struggled to remember the woman’s name. It had been so long since she’d attended neighborhood functions at the clubhouse. Grief and work had almost consumed her whole.

Finally, her mind latched on to a name from a Christmas party nearly two years ago. Madison Palmiere. Madison’s husband was a bigwig at one of the major airplane manufacturing companies.

No reason she should have guessed Madison was related to David, since they had different last names. Too bad she hadn’t thought to make the connection earlier. She wasn’t surprised so much as frustrated. Beyond the
professional realm, his presence now invaded the haven of her home. She’d worked hard for peace after Lowell’s death.

His
death
?

The word sounded too benign.
Death
didn’t come close to describing Lowell’s stupid, careless stunt. Sophie didn’t want to hate the husband she’d loved, but the contradictory emotions spiraled inside her all the same. No man with a wife and child should fly under bridges for thrills. Stubborn and reckless, he’d done it again in spite of his promise and had died, leaving her to face everything alone.

She thought she’d forgiven him for throwing away his life, theirs together. In the hollow silence of endless nights, she’d learned to accept fate’s arbitrary twists.

Until one too-sexy-for-his-own-good flyboy had opened the floodgates.

Her sandals slapped against the muddy bank with drumming force, the water lapping at her feet. Trying to hold back the flood of anger proved futile. She wanted to crank the clock back to a time before that moment in the courtroom when some unnamed quality about David Berg had challenged her awake.

Numb was better.

Sophie glared at David and closed the last few feet separating them.

*    *    *

“Nanny?” David gulped.

Madison nodded. “The lady’s a real dynamo for someone in her midseventies, but…Is something wrong?”

David shook his head. “The Man upstairs has a wicked sense of humor today.”

Divine proof stomped into sight with a vengeance. Arms pumping, a determined Sophie stormed down the shoreline, closing in on Madison’s house. She’d obviously recovered from any ill effects from the bump on her head.

Sophie neared the dock, slowing to a more sedate pace. She plastered a polite grimace of a smile on her face. David wondered why even a counterfeit symbol of happiness from her stirred him. He loped down the stairs, his sister’s slower pace echoing softly behind him.

Damn, but Sophie looked hot in jean shorts and a well-worn T-shirt that looked as soft as her skin. He realized he’d never seen her in anything other than her uniform before now. She looked…more approachable.

David stuffed his hands safely away in his pockets.

“Hello, Madison.” Sophie’s smile faltered as she stopped a couple of feet away from him. “David.”