He was in pain. He suppressed winces when he put too much weight on that thin, mutilated leg, but she could tell it sizuld telhurt him.
He hadn’t said a word about it, though, pretending absolutely nothing was wrong. In fact, offered to look after her dog.
It was been a real surprise to her when she opened her mouth to say “no” and “yes” had plopped out.
Much as her Max exasperated her, she loved her dog. The only time she left him with strangers was when she had to leave town on a business trip, and then only at the certified kennel she’d carefully checked over.
So telling a man she didn’t know that she’d leave her dog with him for the day was way out of character.
The thing was, for a second there, human Max had looked so lost and lonely. The best remedy for that was time spent with her Max. Her Max would run you ragged chasing after him and keep you laughing all the while. No time to feel lonely. Max was joy incarnate.
The other Max wouldn’t be lonely for long, though, once he put himself back together. There was a whole world of women out there who’d love to play with him.
The man simply exuded sex. It came out of his pores. She wondered whether her Max could smell the pheromones coming off him, though maybe males didn’t notice hormones from the same gender.
It was an interesting thought.
When Max caught her just before she stumbled into the surf, it had been like receiving an electrical charge. For a second there, she thought she could actually hear electricity crackling, though probably what she heard were her neurons frying. Held tightly against that super-hard, overly lean body really messed with her system. If she’d been one of her test plants, she’d have wilted from overload.
Certainly her brain had left her body. It was already crazy that she’d let him keep Max for the day.
Of course, the man was a naval officer, used to enormous responsibility. He was a SEAL. Or a former SEAL. Those men knew how to do everything, and she was sure he could ride herd over an undisciplined but friendly dog.
Asking him to dinner? Well, that had been a little loony. Not her style at all. She was pretty cool around men. She couldn’t remember ever asking a guy out on a date.
Not that the dwilt that inner was a date, of course. It wasn’t, not at all. It was just a friendly neighborly gesture. A thank-you dinner. But once she’d had time to think—to overthink it, Silvia would have said—she realized she’d gone way out of her comfort zone.
She would have called him to cancel, except . . . well, except there was a part of her that looked forward to tonight. That wondered whether the zing she’d felt when she touched him was an outlier.
If she were to plot her emotional reaction to men on x and y axes, the line would wander gently over the lower third of the page. That one experience had been, literally, off the charts. Zipping up to the top and disappearing into the stratosphere.
Her cell phone rang. She snatched it up, hoping it was finally Silvia, and heard static.
Then, faintly, “Paige?” Silvia, sounding as if calling from the back side of the moon. “—Sent you—”
Paige clutched the receiver. “Silvia! Finally! The data file you sent—”
But she was talking to empty air. They’d been disconnected. Again. Paige flipped her cell closed with a frown. Silvia wasn’t answering emails, was never online according to Skype, she wasn’t Twittering, and her Facebook page hadn’t been updated—something she did at least three times a week.
Silvia, the most gregarious person Paige knew, seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth. She would never leave Paige wondering where she was. If Silvia were capable of getting in touch, Paige knew, she would.
And the file she sent had been hacked and corrupted. Paige was sure of it. But who to complain to? Silvia’s attachment had been personal, not part of the regular updates of the Argentina Research Station’s reports to the head office. Officially, the attachment didn’t exist.
Well, this had been an unproductive day. Worrying about Silvia and mooning over her next-door neighbor.
She hung up her lab coat, unbraided her hair—her own personal signal for being off-duty—and walked out the big two-story glass doors of the research complex.
Worry drummed in her heart. For her friend, and because she had a file-restoration app a lovesick nerd had once designed for her in grad school, in the hope of luring Paige into his bed. The ruse hadn’t worked but the aplaid but tp did.
It looked like the file had been degraded by a pro, but NerdApp had restored bits and pieces. One sentence had leaped out at her, chilling her to the core.
Strong evidence of a human carcino—
The sentence was incomplete, but the only word in the English language that began with those letters was “carcinogen.”
Something in what Silvia was studying was giving humans cancer. And Silvia was nowhere to be found.
There was absolutely nothing Paige could do, not at the moment. The head of her department, Dr. Warren Beaverton, was in Estonia for a conference. And though Dr. Beaverton was excellent at what he did, outside generating lab data he was a useless human being with barely enough backbone to stand up straight.
And right above him was Vice President for Research Dean Hyland, who, on a scale of humanity, one to ten, ranked minus-five. And who, being corporate, knew less than her cleaning lady about genetics. She had no idea how he’d gotten his degree. Bought it, probably, from some online company based in Montenegro.
Instinctively, Paige knew she couldn’t involve either one.
Something was really wrong. At times, when Paige lifted her extension, there was a slight humming sound before the click of connection.
She didn’t have to read thrillers to know what that meant. Her phone and undoubtedly her office computer were being watched. It would take nothing to tempest her keyboard so they could follow stroke by stroke what she wrote.
Silvia was smart and so was she. If they could just communicate briefly, they could figure out a way to talk without being overheard. They could set up a message board, they could invent new Skype names, they could communicate via throwaway cells.
But first, Paige had to be able to talk to Silvia.
And Silvia was nowhere to be found.
At least she had the two Maxes tonight to take her mind off her worries.
Chapter Three
Max stood on the doorstep, trying to keep his jaw from dropping, drinking in the sight of Paige in the open doorway. This was the third version of Paige Waring he’d seen, and if the first two bowled him over, this one took his breath away. Kapow! Dead man standing.
The laughing beachcomber and staid businesswoman were gone. In their place was this sexy knockout.
That shiny, light brown hair—enough for about six women—shimmered around her shoulders, reflecting the light with every move she made.
She’d put makeup on that highlighted her large blue-green eyes and made that lush mouth a work of art. She had on a simple, elegant, sexy, frothy turquoise summer dress, white and turquoise bangles, and open-toed sandals showing bright pink toenails. Even her fucking toes were sexy.
A stronger version of the perfume he’d smelled this morning mixed with warm skin would have brought him to his knees—if he were able to bend both knees.
She was a wet dream come to life, she lived right next door, and she was about to feed him.
Max leaned down to unleash the dog and to give him time to hide his reaction, because staring slack-jawed at a woman was definitely uncool.
The instant the snap of the leash was undone, the dog bounded forward. He was crazy-eager to get to his mistress, though Max had learned today that crazy-eager was the dog’s default setting. He’d been crazy-eager to chase squirrels in the small, dog-friendly park at the far end of the beach, he’d been crazy-eager to play Frisbee on the sand, he’d been crazy-eager to play fetch with a stick in the surf.
He was crazy-eager about everything, and keeping him out of trouble had kept Max on the
move and in a good mood all day.
Max jumped his mistress, trying to reach her face and lick it. Paige stepped back, almost falling under the dog’s weight.
Max snapped out of his Paige-trance.
“Max!” He put command in his voice. “Sit!”
Immediately, Max plopped his butt on the floor. The discipline lasted a second as he shivered with excitement, then hind muscles bunched for another leap on Paige.
“Stay!” Max commanded, and surreptitiously slipped him a doggie treat. He’d never thought to try that with his men. Give them a command, then slip them a Mars bar when they obeyed.
Now it was Paige’s pretty jaw that dropped. She gazed wide-eyed down at her dog then up at him. “Oh my gosh! He obeyed you! That’s amazing, how did you manage that?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “And don’t you dare say it’s because you’re a man.”
He clenched his jaw closed because, well, it was true. He was used to commanding men. Corralling her dog into something resembling discipline came easily to him.
“I won’t say that. Promise.” Max wasn’t a fool. He wanted to keep on her good side. “Here.” He pulled his hand from behind his back to show her a bouquet of flowers. “Believe it or not, your dog picked them out. He sniffed at all the florist’s bouquets and decided on this one. Just sat down in front of it and wouldn’t budge until I bought it. I have no idea what the flowers are.”
She was smiling as she took the bouquet, sniffing appreciatively. “Thanks, though it wasn’t necessary. Let’s see, we have black-eyed Susans, African daisies, Gladioli, Zinnias and Asters.”
His eyebrows rose. “That’s impressive. I know daisies from roses, but that’s about it. I know edible mushrooms and those that will poison you.” And how to make deadly oleander tea.
“Don’t be too impressed,” Paige called out as she walked into a small, pretty, light-filled kitchen and came back out with a vase. “Knowing plants is my job. I’m a plant geneticist.” She looked at his face and laughed. “I get that blank look a lot. No one knows what to say to that. Must be like your line of work. Come on in and sit down; can I serve you a glass of wine?”
The dog was whining and wriggling at his feet. Max looked at Paige. “Thanks. I’d love a glass of wine. What are we going to do about Max? I think we’ve reached the limits of my one-day training course.”
Paige turned back to the kitchen, her words trailing. “Well, I do happen to have some treats for a good dog.” As if the words were a trigger releasing a spring, Max leaped up and scrambled into the kitchen, nails clicking madly on the tile floor.
Well, it was good while it lasted. No one could expect a dog barely out of puppyhood to stay still forever. Particularly after only one day of training.
Max was jumping up and down, making light yips of joy. Paige bent down open-handed, and he ate the treats delicately from her palm, then licked it. Paige laughed and ruffled the fur on the top of his head as he looked up at her adoringly.
Max understood perfectly. The instant he’d seen Paige on the doorstep, so pretty and smiling, something in him—something painful and dark and twisted—cracked open, just a little.
Amazing.
The groundwork had been laid by a sunny day with an energetic, affectionate dog, and now the work was complete in the presence of its mistress.
Paige exuded calm. Sexy, radiant serenity. Did such a thing exist? Hell if he knew. But if it did, she had it in spades.
The way she moved, those luscious yet slender curves, some kind of perfume that moved straight into a man’s nose and zapped the thinking part of his brain—those were there. But there was also some kind of serene force field around her. She moved in her pretty orderly space like some kind of angel sent to earth to remind him that life was good, was worth living. That life wasn’t battle and death and loss. Blood and pain. That life had things that were worth fighting for.
Paige and her funny, hyperactive dog—hell, yes, they were worth fighting for. What he was watching was a scene that was unthinkable in certain parts of the world. A serene, successful, single woman who lived alone with a dog.
Where he’d spent the last years of his career, right now a woman like Paige would be lashed and then stoned, her dog whipped and despised.
He was really glad he’d worked so hard to create a world where that kind of horrific cruelty could be defeated. He didn’t regret anything. Particularly not now, in this light-filled room with a beautiful, smiling woman.
There was just something about her. The world needed women just like her. Needed women who could make things better just by being.
And right there, in Paige’s colorful kitchen—sipping a glass of excellent chilled white wine with Her dog dancing around her feet, watching her move so gracefully—something happened to Max.
He’d spent y1em’d spears in very bad places. Culminating in that last year in Afghanistan, which broke his heart and his body. And then the hospital, lashed to the bed by pain and weakness. Dark years, years with feral beings around him, years feeling that the world was hung together with fraying ropes and fraying hopes.
Right now, right this moment, watching the evening light flood the pretty apartment, something powerful moved through him, some force that was strong enough to shift the darkness in him that was heavy as iron, hard as rock. Something made of light, intangible yet very real, very strong.
Whatever it was, it was intimately connected with the beautiful woman humming to a tune on the radio, set to a soft rock station. Suddenly, he wanted to know all about her, find whatever it was in her that could lift those iron weights in his soul. Find out how she could fill a room with light.
“What’s it like, being a plant geneticist? What do you do? How does a plant geneticist fill her day?”
She turned to him in surprise, soft hair shifting on her shoulders. A fleeting expression crossed her face, one he was unable to decipher, the merest hint of darkness, as if a bird’s wing had come between her and the sun. Then it was gone.
But when she answered, her voice was light and amused, and he wondered if he’d imagined the darkness. It was almost impossible to connect this woman with any kind of darkness.
The full, luscious mouth turned up at the corners. “It’s sort of hard to explain, and boringly technical.”
“I went to school,” he said softly. Actually he had two master’s degrees. One in military history and one in political science. From the days in which he tried really hard to understand the world. Those days were gone. Now he just tried to defend his little corner of it and survive. “I could try to follow.”
She stirred something with a wooden spoon, tapped it against the pot, and put the spoon on a ceramic dish. Man, whatever it was she was cooking, it smelled heavenly.
She switched the burner off. “Okay, it’s done, but it will take about ten minutes to settle. Why don’t we sit at the table and enjoy our wine?”
“Sounds good.”
She’d set two places, at right angles instead of across from each other. They were so close he could smell that flowery something above whatever was cooking on the stove. So close he could touch her without any effort at all. He picked upn pHe pick his glass and took another big gulp.
Goddamn it. Even the fucking wine was perfect.
She sipped her wine, head tilted to one side as she studied him.
“Coming back to what we were talking about, I’m really sorry if I gave the wrong impression. I didn’t mean you can’t understand what I do, in the sense of being unable to. What I meant is that, like most jobs, what I do day to day is the tip of the iceberg, and you’d have to know what I did yesterday and what I plan to do tomorrow to get the full picture. The short version is I research how Mother Nature designed plant life, and then think of ways to improve on that. The big picture is really exciting because in a way we’re unlocking the secrets to life itself. But the day-to-day stuff is really tedious and boring. In the research lab we spend all our time peering into microscopes, checking cu
ltures in petri dishes, and meticulously recording minute changes—punctuated by days in the field, checking crop rows, measuring growth by millimeters. Not exciting in any way unless you’re a botany nerd. I imagine your job is hard to describe too. If you could tell me without having to kill me afterwards.”
She smiled and Max tensed.
Here it was. The SEAL thing.
Women just couldn’t get past it. Some women treated SEALs like action figures with guns, men able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. The thing was, SEALs weren’t supermen. They weren’t a special breed of man with superhuman abilities. They were just determined, relentless men who developed specialized skills by working like fiends. What they could do they learned to do the hard way. They worked hard, fought hard, often bled and died.
They were warriors, but they also learned languages and orienteering and history, and had to know how to dig a well, apply a splint, and engineer a road.
Most people couldn’t get past the fighting thing.
He couldn’t count the women who’d watched his face avidly as they asked him how many men he’d killed. Sometimes they looked at him in disgust as they asked it, as if he were some hired gun. A barely domesticated animal.
Sometimes the avid curiosity morphed into a desire that had a sick taste to it, and that turned his stomach. Because clearly they liked the idea of fucking a killer.
Either way, there could be no explaining what he did.
“I wouldn’t kill you,” he said softly. “No matter what you’ve been told. It’s a myth.”
Oh man. He couldn’t kill her, he couldn’t hurt her in any way. Seeing Paige sitting next to him, with that soft, lightly-tanned, smooth skin, pretty face open and smiling, friendly and kind . . . she was everything he’d ever fought for. The idea of hurting a woman or a child had always made him physically sick. Paige, hurt . . . God.
Paige looked him straight in the eyes, watched him openly. He had no idea what she was seeing, but she suddenly nodded her head, as if confirming something. “No,” she said. “You wouldn’t hurt me.”