Special Forces Rendezvous (22 page)

Julia, of course, immediately narrowed her eyes and said, “What the hell is going on, Sebastian?”

He met her eyes. “I’m leaving.”

“Leaving,” she echoed.

He nodded.

Wariness washed over her face, which was beginning to look ashen again. “Leaving
me?
”

Ignoring the agony clutching his heart like a vise, he managed another nod.

Her lips tightened. “I see. And why is that?”

“You know why,” he said hoarsely.

“Do I?”

His cheeks hollowed in frustration. “You know exactly what I’m talking about, Julia. That water was meant for
me.
You almost died because of me.”

“But I didn’t die,” she said smugly. “I lived. And yet again, I lived
because
of
you. You got the antidote here in time.”

Anguish clamped around his throat, nearly suffocating him. Christ, she didn’t get it. Why didn’t she get it?

“
I
gave you that water,” he said softly. “If you’d died, it would’ve been my fault.” His eyes began to sting. “I told you, the people I love are destined to die.”

Julia stared at him with wide eyes, though he couldn’t figure out whether she was shocked or hurt or angry. Or all three.

Probably all three.

But he couldn’t allow himself to back down. He couldn’t take any more risks with this woman’s life.

“You’re better off without me.” Regret burned a path up his chest. “The best thing I could do for you is let you go.”

She still didn’t utter a word.

Sebastian used her silence as an opportunity to move closer. To brush his lips over her cheek in the sweetest of kisses.

“I’ll stick around long enough to help you figure out where you want to go, but once you do, we’ll go our separate ways. It’s for the—”

Julia slapped him.

As his head snapped back from the surprisingly strong blow, Sebastian’s jaw dropped. A second later, righteous anger coursed through him. “What the
hell,
Doc?”

“You’re asking
me
that? Are you frickin’
kidding
me, Sebastian?”

He blinked a few times, then reached up to rub away the sting on his cheek.

“You just moved heaven and earth to save my life, and now you’re abandoning me?” she went on, her voice dripping with outrage. “Well, you know what? I’m not letting you go
that
easily, you big dumb jerk!”

Sebastian opened his mouth but no words came out. Maybe that slap had rendered his vocal cords useless or something. Either way, all he could do was sit there and gape as Julia gave him a tongue-lashing that even his own mother would have felt guilty delivering.

“You’re my perfect match, Sebastian, do you not get that? You treat me like an equal, you respect my career, you understand what drives me to work abroad. You excite me mentally and sexually and emotionally, and I’m not afraid to lose control around you! And if you really think I’m going to let you walk away from us, you’re frickin’ nuts.”

An unwitting smile tugged at his mouth.

“And you know what? Your fears are completely unfounded. It wasn’t your fault Brent’s aide tried to kill you, and it certainly wasn’t your fault that you lost your brother and your best friend and your girlfriend. Bad things happen sometimes. It’s a fact of life. But good things happen, too, and this thing between us? It’s
good.
No, it’s more than good. It’s
spectacular.
So suck it up, Sebastian—you’re not getting rid of me. I’m not going anywhere.”

Her speech came to a breathless end, her chest rising and falling from each hurried breath. As he looked at her flushed face, he was reminded of all the reasons he loved this woman. Her fearlessness, her take-charge attitude, the way she refused to take crap from anyone, especially him. And when a gleam of stubborn determination lit her hazel eyes, he realized that there was no way in hell he could ever walk away from this woman. If he was her perfect match, then she was his. Her courage floored him. Her strength soothed him.

And her love? Her love had healed him.

“Wow,” he finally remarked. “I really messed up, huh?”

She raised her eyebrows. “By thinking the right thing to do was
leave?
Uh, yeah.”

“I’m sorry. I guess I just panicked.”

Genuine remorse trickled through him, and Julia must have seen it on his face because she slid closer and looped her arms around his neck. The IV dangling from her left arm caught on his shoulder, and he gently moved it out of the way.

“I know you’re scared,” she said. “I am, too. Ever since I lost Mia and my dad, I’ve been focused on helping other people, but I don’t usually help myself. I barely remember to feed myself half the time.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“So, yeah, it’ll be hard for me to have a partner, but I’m willing to make this work.” She leaned in and brushed a sweet kiss on his mouth. “And you have to be willing to let go of your fears and give us a chance. Can you do that?”

He gazed into her eyes, which were brimming with confidence, warmth and encouragement, and it was like a wake-up call. Christ, why was he even hesitating?

He’d succumbed to a moment of weakness, but he didn’t feel weak anymore. He felt strong. As strong as the woman sitting in this hospital bed.

“I can do that,” he said roughly.

She beamed. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He touched her cheek, sweeping his thumb over her bottom lip. “I love you, Doc.”

“And you’re going to stay?”

“Right here by your side,” he vowed.

“Forever?”

“For as long as you’ll have me.”

Julia’s eyes twinkled. “Forever it is.”

Epilogue

“S
ebastian and the doctor are catching a
flight with Ricardo.” Tate strode onto the back patio of the beach house, where
he found Nick standing by the rail, gazing out at the peaceful ocean.

Nick glanced over his shoulder. “When?”

“They're landing early tomorrow morning.”

“I'll pick them up,” the young lieutenant said with a nod.

Tate nodded back. “Thanks. I'd go, but you know I don't like
leaving Eva and Rafe here alone.”

“You know they're not alone if I'm with them, right?” Humor
rang from Nick's voice.

With a sheepish shrug, Tate approached the railing. “Fine. I
guess I should say, I don't like leaving Eva and Rafe. Period.”

And who would've ever seen
that
coming. Captain Robert Tate, the man who'd once had nothing left to live for,
now head over heels in love and the father figure of a three-year-old. It only
went to show how your circumstances could change in the blink of an eye. Tate
suspected Stone's circumstances had evolved, too, if Sebastian's reverent tone
when referring to Julia Davenport was any indication.

“You know what I don't get?” Nick spoke up, sounding troubled.
“Why did that DoD aide try to kill Seb? News of the virus had gone public by
then. And that's why we had targets painted on our backs, no? Because they
didn't want our unit to figure out that the villagers' deaths in Corazón were
because of a virus and not the rebels, right?”

“Right.”

“So whoever authorized Project Aries didn't want anyone to know
about it. But now
everyone
knows about it,” Nick
pointed out. “Yet someone deliberately slipped Seb the virus
after
the news broke. Why? It couldn't have been about
shutting him up—he's no longer a threat in terms of going public about the
virus, because the news is already out.”

Tate rested his elbows on the wooden ledge and focused on the
waves lapping against the shore, mulling over everything Nick had just said.

“You're wrong,” he realized. “Sebastian still
is
a threat. We all are. See, all these people who now
know about the virus—they
just
found out. They
haven't been hunted down, haven't been forced into hiding. They'll act horrified
and rave about the injustice of it, vow to find out who was calling the shots
about the testing of Meridian, but in the end, they'll run out of steam and quit
looking for answers.”

“But we won't,” Nick said slowly.

“Not a chance. And I think the man in charge knows that we
won't stop searching for the truth.” Tate set his jaw. “I don't know about you,
but I plan on finding the bastard who green-lighted the tests, the bastard who
thought it was a good idea to treat those villagers like lab rats, the bastard
who ordered someone to blow my brains out when I walked out my front door.”

“Oh, trust me, I'm also looking forward to meeting the bastard
in question.”

“And he knows that. He knows we're after revenge, and the only
way for him to keep his identity hidden is by getting rid of us before we find
him.” A deadly smile stretched across Tate's mouth. “Damn shame for him that he
won't succeed.”

“You saying what I think you're saying, Captain?”

“Damn right I am. We're going hunting, Nicky.”

Nick broke out in a grin. “Can't. Frickin'. Wait.”

* * * * *

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Cowboy with a
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by Carla Cassidy.

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Chapter 1

A
dam Benson sat in his pickup truck parked at the curb and stared at the two-story house out his passenger-side window. It was a nice place, painted pale beige with rust-colored trim. A large tree in the front yard sported all the colors of autumn, with bright red and orange leaves beginning to group at the base.

The Room for Rent sign had been in the front window for a couple of months, and for the past few weeks each time Adam drove by the place, he'd considered the possibility of checking it out.

Shoving a hand into the pocket of his lightweight black jacket, he found the two small plastic chips inside and rubbed them together as he considered his next move.

There was no question that he was in transition. With two months of sobriety behind him and a ranch that no longer felt like his home, he knew it was time to make some significant changes in his life.

With a new decisiveness, he opened the truck door and got out.
Great location,
he told himself as he looked down Main Street. This house was one of the last on the block that hadn't been sold and torn down to make room for commercial property. From here he could easily walk the main drag of the small town of Grady Gulch.

He turned back to look at the house. The place had belonged to Olive Brooks for as long as he could remember. The older woman had been a fixture in town, working at the post office and involved in every charity event. Then about a year ago she'd become ill with cancer and her only daughter had come to town from someplace back east to nurse her. Olive had passed away and her daughter had remained in the house.

It was a little strange. Nobody around town that Adam had spoken to seemed to have seen Melanie Brooks since her mother's death, although he'd heard a few unpleasant rumors about her.

He jingled his sobriety chips once again. He knew personally about gossip and ugly rumors. In the past year he and his family had experienced enough of both to last a lifetime.

He finally sighed, irritated with his own hesitation. “Doesn't hurt to check it out,” he muttered under his breath as he headed toward the front porch.

Next door to the house the pizza place was in full lunch swing, the scents of robust sauce and spicy sausage filling the air. Adam's stomach rumbled, and he decided that after checking out the room for rent, he'd head to the Cowboy Café for lunch. Although the pizza smelled great, at noon the place was usually overrun by high school kids grabbing a slice of pizza before their afternoon classes began.

Besides, the Cowboy Café was
the
place in town to get a hearty meal and a healthy serving of what people were saying and thinking. In the past couple of months it had felt more like home than the ranch where he'd grown up.

As he walked up the stairs to the porch, he noticed that the railing was more than a little wobbly and needed to be replaced. Up close the house paint wasn't quite as fresh as it appeared from the street. A little TLC was definitely needed, he thought, not that it was his problem. That was one of the luxuries of not owning where you lived: you weren't responsible for any of the maintenance.

He knocked on the door, and as he waited for a reply, he turned and looked back at the street where his truck was parked. Within an hour everyone in town would know that he'd been here. That was the way things worked in small towns like Grady Gulch. There were few secrets that could be sustained for any length of time.

However, there was one person in town who was keeping a dark, evil secret, a person who had murdered two women in their beds. So far law enforcement and everyone else had no idea who that killer might be and if or when he might strike again. The murders of two women who had worked as waitresses at the popular café had definitely put a gray pall over the town.

He shoved this disturbing thought aside and knocked again, this time hearing a woman's voice respond for him to hang on. The door finally opened and he got his first look at Melanie Brooks.

Stunning. She was absolutely stunning, with pale blond hair that fell to her shoulders in soft waves and eyes that were bluer than any he'd ever seen before. She was slender and wore a pair of black slacks, a black blouse and an irritated scowl that looked permanently etched onto her face. He couldn't discern how tall she might be as she sat in a wheelchair.

Adam swept his cowboy hat from his head, quickly raked his fingers through his dark hair and hoped his shock at her condition didn't show on his face. “Good afternoon. I'm Adam Benson and I'm here about the room for rent.”

She blinked in obvious surprise and there was a long, awkward silence.

“You have a sign in your window? A room for rent?” he prompted.

She used her arms to move herself backward and then gestured for him to step into the foyer. “Adam Benson,” she mused, her eyes narrowed as her gaze held his. “I heard you were a drunk.”

Adam took a step back, stunned by her unexpected words. “I was,” he admitted with painful honesty. “But I'm not drinking anymore. And the rumors I heard about you were that you're a sour, rude and cranky woman. The verdict is still out on that.”

Her eyes narrowed even more. “You have a big ranch on the edge of town. Why would you need to rent a room?”

“My brother, his new wife and son have all moved into the ranch house and I'm looking for a change of address.” His decision to leave the house where he'd grown up was far more complicated than that, but he figured Melanie didn't need to know the details. “So, can I see the room?”

“It's actually more than just a room. Follow me.” She moved out of the foyer and into a large, airy living room with a staircase that led up to the second floor. She stopped at the foot of the staircase, the dainty frown still etched in her forehead.

For somebody who had had a sign hanging in the window for months, she seemed reluctant to allow him to see the space she was renting. Was her reluctance based on the fact that he was a male? Or was it specifically aimed at him personally? Certainly the reputation of all the Benson brothers had taken a beating in the past year, but over the past couple of months things had calmed down.

“Look, Ms. Brooks, I just need a place to hang my hat. I'm not looking for any trouble. I'll pay the rent on time and be a respectful tenant. Speaking of rent, what are you looking to get each month?”

She told him a figure that seemed a little high and he wondered if she'd done it on purpose to chase him away or if she'd intended to ask for that kind of money from anyone who showed an interest.

“Sounds good,” he replied.

“I'm actually renting the entire second floor. I'm certainly not using any of the rooms upstairs.” A touch of bitterness laced her voice. “Go on up and have a look around.”

Adam nodded, and as he climbed the stairs, he wondered what had put her in the wheelchair. He reminded himself that it—that she—was none of his business. He was simply looking for peace and quiet, for a haven where he could gather himself together and figure out what exactly he wanted to do with the rest of his life.

The upstairs was comprised of three bedrooms and a bathroom. One of the rooms was set up like a sitting room, with a sofa, a television and an overstuffed chair with a reading lamp behind it. Adam could easily visualize himself in that big chair in the evenings, leisurely reading the newspaper or a novel.

The view from the window was of Main Street, and he stood for a moment and looked outside, trying to get a feel for the space.

The bedrooms were decorated in earth tones, making them feel neither masculine nor feminine but simply functional. The larger of the two bedrooms was located next to the sitting room and also had a view of Main Street out the window. Everything was neat and tidy and it all felt oddly right to him.

He wasn't sure what Melanie might have heard about him or his brothers, and she appeared to be the cranky sort, but surely they wouldn't have much interaction if he moved in here.

It was just a room, not a relationship, he reminded himself as he walked back down the stairs. Melanie had remained where he'd left her, at the foot of the stairs and she watched him solemnly as he hit the lower landing.

“We'd share kitchen space,” she said. “You'd get the upper cabinets and I use the lower ones. You buy your own food and cook it and clean up the mess afterward.” She said the words resolutely, as if she'd come to some sort of decision about him while he'd been upstairs. “It would be a month-to-month lease. I can get rid of you or you can move out with thirty days' notice. If you drink, you're out. If you're a messy pig, you're out, and if you think I'm rude or whatever, then you deal with it or move out.”

He watched her closely, seeking any sign of a sense of humor lurking in her amazing blue eyes, but there didn't appear to be any. It was almost as if she were daring him to move in, confident that within thirty days he'd either want to move or she'd have a good reason to kick him out.

“I'll take it,” he replied. “I'm assuming you want first and last months' rent along with a deposit of an additional month?”

She nodded. “When would you want to move in?”

“Tomorrow morning around nine?”

She released a deep sigh, although Adam couldn't tell if the sigh was of relief or apprehension. “That would be fine,” she replied as she headed back toward the front door.

He followed behind her, noting how her hair shone in the sunlight that danced in through the windows. As they reached the front door, he turned and faced her once again.

Once again he was struck by her beauty. Her features were classic, high cheekbones emphasizing the slenderness of her face and her straight, perfect nose. She had a generous mouth, which might have been incredibly sexy if the corners weren't turned downward. Those lips would be inviting if she'd just smile a little bit.

For just a moment as he gazed at her, he saw a hint of vulnerability in the depths of her eyes, and a surge of unexpected protectiveness welled up inside him. How did she manage to live here by herself?

He mentally shook himself. She obviously didn't need a rescuer and that wasn't his role here. Besides, he had a feeling that if he expressed any desire to help her, she'd kick him to the curb before he'd managed to hang a shirt in one of the closets upstairs.

“Then I guess I'll see you in the morning,” she said as they reached the front door. “In the meantime I'll write up an agreement for you to sign when you come back tomorrow.”

“That sounds good,” he replied agreeably. He started to step out on the porch but paused and turned back to her as she said his name.

“This is all new territory for me, sharing my space. I'm sure we're going to have some kinks to work out, and I forgot to tell you I don't allow music. If you must listen to a radio or whatever, then either get earphones or make sure it's low enough that I can't hear it down here.”

He placed his hat back on his head and offered her a smile. “I guess we'll figure it out as we go.”

It wasn't until he was back in his truck that he wondered if he'd made a mistake. Although she'd agreed to him renting the space, it was obvious she wasn't thrilled about it. And what was the deal about music? Odd. Very odd.

But the ranch house where he'd been alone for so long now once again held the sounds of a happy family. Nick, Courtney and little Garrett filled the spaces that had been empty for so long, their love lighting areas that had been full of darkness.

The truth of the matter was for the past two years Adam's heart had been filled with the darkness of loss and betrayal and shame, and he wasn't at all sure he was ready to leave that darkness behind.

His brother and his family would be better off if Adam wasn't there. They needed time to build their family without him being a third wheel.

This was the right move to make, he told himself. He clicked the two chips together in his pocket and then started the truck and pulled away from the house and headed down the street toward the Cowboy Café.

All he knew was that he needed a space of his own to figure out who he was aside from a man still grieving for the sister who had been killed in a car accident two years before, a man still fighting the desire to lose himself in the bottom of a bottle of booze.

Finally he had to come to terms with the guilt and a faint simmer of apprehension that threatened to grab him by the throat when he thought of Sam, the older brother he loved, who was currently in jail, facing charges of attempted murder.

Now Adam was moving into a house with a woman who obviously had issues of her own. Once again he wondered what had happened to her that had placed her in a wheelchair and why nobody in town seemed to know much about Melanie Brooks despite the fact that her mother had been a resident of the small town all her life.

He frowned and reminded himself that no matter how pretty he thought she was, Melanie Brooks was a mystery he definitely didn't need to explore.

* * *

It was almost nine that evening when Melanie wheeled herself into the room that had once been a formal dining area and had been turned into a downstairs bedroom after her mother had taken ill.

At the time of the renovation Melanie had had no idea that she was overseeing the construction of a room that would eventually become part of her own prison.

With the grace of a lame elephant she managed to pull herself up and out of the wheelchair and careen onto the bed. She straightened to a sitting position, undressed and then pulled her nightgown over her head and released a deep sigh of exhaustion.

She ignored the chronic tingling pain that radiated down her right leg as she reached for the lamp at the side of the bed and turned it off.

Adam Benson. She'd been surprised when he'd shown up on her doorstep, inquiring about the room, but she'd been positively stunned by an immediate, visceral attraction to the long-legged cowboy.