Adam (7 Brides for 7 Soldiers Book 2)

  “No.” She slowly slid her hand away from his touch and lifted the whipped-cream-laden fork to her lips to slide it into her mouth. Swallowing, she gestured toward the stack. “I’d like to eat in peace.”

  He stared at her for a good, long ten seconds. Long enough for her to memorize every handsome feature. Long enough to shake up every dormant hormone. Long enough to make her hold her breath when he reached over the table and blithely ran a finger along her lower lip.

  She managed not to react or break eye contact.

  “You missed some,” he said in a low whisper.

  Without a word, he sucked the whipped cream off his finger, stood up, walked across the restaurant, and disappeared into the kitchen.

  Jane didn’t move except to flick her tongue over her lip, which was still searing from his touch.

  Smart move turning that job down. He was nothing but trouble, and she had enough of that in her life.

  Chapter Three

  Dad wasn’t nearly sympathetic enough as Adam relayed his dilemma. He listened, nodding, but Sam Tucker was in full work mode at the grill of a kitchen that hadn’t seen a major update in several decades. Simple, clean, and low-tech, the kitchen that looked out toward the luncheon bar was a comforting place to Adam, considering he’d spent a decent amount of his childhood here.

  The original restaurant, Max’s Diner, owned by Grandpa, had been shuttered before Adam was born. When Dad took over the business some thirty-five years ago, he’d moved Max’s to this unique location on the Sentinel Bridge in the shadow of the founders’ statues that stood sentry at the bridge’s entrance. The new location not only helped attract more business from the tonier east side of the river, it placed the restaurant on “safe” ground for those feuding founders who’d been memorialized in uniform by a sculptor.

  Because of that, Max’s Diner became nicknamed No Man’s Land, and at some point, Dad had officially changed the name, and the landmark restaurant had thrived. Well, it thrived because of Dad’s cooking, Adam remembered as he watched his father in action and sucked in a breath of sizzling bacon.

  “Did you fix the Master Guns?” Brenda asked as she breezed into the kitchen.

  “Just about done.” Dad looked up from the grill, his face softening a little. “That customer didn’t give you a hard time, did he?”

  She waved off the question. “Nothing I can’t handle, Sam.”

  “Is that all you wanted, Son?” he asked, distracted by the food again and maybe not 100 percent worried about Adam’s problems with the boathouse conversion.

  “Unless you have an answer for how I can get her to change her mind.”

  “Guess you could find another designer type to help you.”

  A little unexpected punch hit his stomach. He could, but…

  “Don’t think he wants another one,” Brenda said with two raised brows. “Do ya?”

  “Well, she’s…convenient.”

  “And a jaw-dropper, too.”

  Adam managed a get-real look. “Brenda Morgan. How long have you known me?”

  “I assume that’s a rhetorical question,” she replied. Of course it was. Brenda had been his mother’s best friend, and she’d worked in his family’s diner for as long as he could remember. She’d been there through the ugly days, when Mom had peeled out for fame and fortune, and had helped Dad run the business while their divorce was finalized. She’d stuck around all these years, too.

  Through it all, she’d picked up the broken pieces of the Tucker kids, cleaned up the messes they’d made as teenagers, and handled the girlie stuff with Bailey when Dad, Zane, and Adam were clueless about the lone female in the family.

  “Then you know she is not my type. I can’t stand all that makeup.” Though he wouldn’t mind smearing her lipstick or seeing what those red-tipped fingers could do.

  “True,” Brenda conceded. “She doesn’t look like she’d hike up the mountain and sleep under the stars.”

  “Exactly.” He snorted at the thought of Miss High Maintenance participating in what was his idea of a perfect Saturday night. “I want the boathouse transformation done, especially because I have a bet to win.”

  “Oh, that Zane.” Dad shook his head, laughing. “Sure got the gambling gene from my dad.”

  “Harmless gambling,” Brenda added, always ready to defend any of Sam’s kids like they were her own.

  “Well, I want to win the bet, but only because I want to finish the project even more. That woman can help me, so I need some advice on how to persuade her.”

  “I got nothin’,” Dad said, his attention fully on some eggs on the griddle.

  When Adam sighed in frustration, Brenda put a hand on his arm. “How about I give you a bit of useful intelligence?”

  “Anything,” Adam said, leaning both hands on the pass until Dad slid an order of eggs Benedict across the stainless steel.

  “Here’s your Master Guns with heaping extra camouflage,” he said.

  “Oooh, Sam. Look at that plate. It’s absolutely gorgeous.” She patted her apron. “Let me get a picture.”

  “Of the eggs?” Adam asked, frowning as Brenda rooted around her pocket, pulling out an order pad first.

  “I just enrolled in a photography class at Ridgeview Community College,” she said, finally producing a phone. “The syllabus says we have a week on food photography, so I want to practice. Can you hold that plate so the light shines on the bacon?”

  Adam threw a glance at his father, expecting to see him looking just as perplexed, but he was looking at the griddle as he shook his head almost imperceptibly.

  “Come on,” she insisted. “Lift that side of the plate.”

  “Don’t let those eggs slide,” Dad warned with a slight edge in his voice.

  He obeyed the order, lifting the plate of Master Guns.

  “So, what did you find out about her?” he asked.

  “Hang on.” She snapped a few pictures, then turned the phone to get a different perspective.

  “The eggs’ll be as hard as grenades if you dawdle much longer, Bren.”

  She ignored Dad’s warning and took a step closer and continued snapping shots. “She’s running away from a guy who broke her heart,” she said quietly.

  “She is?” Adam almost dropped the plate.

  “Yep. Living at the Hideaway and is so short on funds she’s combing the newspaper want ads instead of her phone, like it’s 1985 or something. Oh, and she eats sugar when she’s stressed.”

  His eyes widened. “You got all that out of her in the time it took to order breakfast?”

  She stuffed the phone back into her apron pocket and took the next plate as his father put it on the pass. “And she thinks you’re hot as hell and built like a Greek god.”

  Dad chuckled from the other side of the pass.

  “She does?” Adam asked, putting together this strange puzzle and getting no clear picture. “So if she needs a job, money, and wants a way out of a flea bag motel, why won’t she even talk to this god who could be offering her all three?”

  Brenda took a third plate of scrambled eggs and bacon—also known as two NCOs and train tracks—and balanced all three of them like a circus juggler. But she still managed to look at Adam with love in her eyes.

  “I’ll stall her check for you and you can try again,” she offered on her way out.

  Adam turned to his father, who was swiping a spatula over the grill when he looked up, his sky-blue eyes serious. “Sounds like you did jump to conclusions without checking the facts, Son.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

  “So get out there and try it again.” He added a wistful smile. “Sometimes that’s hard with a woman, believe me.”

  He should know. Dad’s efforts at dating had been pretty lackluster. But who could blame the guy after being unceremoniously dumped by a wife who chose to play a mom on television rather than be one in real life?

  “I don’t know, Dad. She shot me down pretty hard.”

&n
bsp; His father stood a little straighter, looking over the warming station to glare at his son. “How many tries, Son?”

  “With her, just one, but—”

  “With A-school?”

  He frowned. Why was Dad bringing up AST training now?

  “How many times did you try?”

  Then he understood where Sam Tucker was taking this.

  “Four,” Adam replied, meeting his father’s gaze with the same direct stare he’d have used on the chief petty officer who’d inflicted relentless physical punishment on Coasties trying to pass rescue-swimming school.

  His dad nodded. “Four times until you got to be an aviation survival technician.” Dad always used the formal name for a Coast Guard rescue swimmer, and it always came out with tremendous pride. “You kept going back and going back, no matter how hard they made it for you.”

  “And I’d have tried ten times if that’s what it took,” he said softly. “Because that’s what I wanted.”

  Dad angled his head. “So why are you standing here in the kitchen shootin’ shit with your old man when what you want is in the dining room scarfing down my HALOs?”

  Good question. Adam wasn’t a quitter. But there was something about that woman. Something…unnerving. Something fake. Something—

  Brenda came flying back in, an apologetic look on her face. “Couldn’t do it,” she said. “She didn’t wait for her check, just put money on the table and left.” She pointed toward the door. “Go get her while she’s on a sugar high.”

  “Thanks, Brenda.” Adam pushed off the counter and marched back into the dining room to catch a glimpse of dark hair outside the window, headed across the bridge toward town.

  He shoved open the door and hustled to catch up with her, coming up behind her. “Excuse me, Jadyn? Miss McAllister?”

  She didn’t even slow down, and she had to have heard him.

  “Jadyn!”

  She stopped midstep without turning, but her shoulders sank as if she were just so completely over him.

  When she didn’t answer, he stayed a few feet behind her. “I’m redoing that boathouse over there, and I’m almost done with construction, but now I need some help with the, you know, design stuff. Buying furniture and finishings. The stuff that will take it from a big old warehouse to a nice place to live.”

  She still didn’t answer. So he swung a little farther out on his virtual rope, throwing down a harness.

  “I hate shopping,” he said. “I can’t actually think of anything I like less, to be honest. Like my teeth start to itch the minute I get into a store.”

  He heard an almost imperceptible huff of breath that might have been a laugh. Or a sigh of sheer disgust. But she still didn’t turn to face him. Okay. Gotta reel this baby in.

  “It’s going to be a dorm for kids. At-risk kids. Kids without families. Kids in foster homes. Troubled kids. I’m trying to open a youth adventure camp for teenagers who might not have had a chance to go white water rafting or hiking.”

  He waited, let that sink in, and started to root around for just how far he had to go. Did he have to tell her about the one who—

  “What do you know about those kids?” She spun around and asked the question so fast, he drew back in surprise.

  “Enough,” he answered, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. “Enough to want to give them something they can’t otherwise have.”

  She narrowed her eyes, surprising him with the ice in her look. “You think they want a fancy vacation in the mountains?” Her voice rose. “Why don’t you just write a check?”

  “Because I don’t want to. I’m not asking for your philanthropic guidance, miss, just…”

  “Shopping,” she finished.

  He tipped his head in resignation while she stared hard at him. “There’s more to it than that, but you are looking for a job, right? Starting over after a…a…bad relationship? Staying at the Hideaway?”

  With each revealed fact, she inched back and her mouth opened a little.

  “I’ve known Brenda forever. She’s like a…” He swallowed, hating to admit that Brenda was more of a mother to him than his own mother was. “I trust her.”

  “And apparently, I shouldn’t have,” she said softly, inching away as she searched his face, then shook her head. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  As she started to turn, he reached for her and she froze, staring down at his hand as it lightly gripped her forearm. Instantly, he let go.

  “Good luck with your boathouse, Mr. Tucker.”

  He opened his mouth to argue, but even Adam Tucker knew when he’d been defeated. “Good luck with the job hunt, Miss McAllister.”

  Without a word, she turned and walked off, her long hair swinging, her shoulders squared, her pride—for whatever reason—completely intact.

  Adam went back to the boathouse to get to work.

  Chapter Four

  Somebody outside in the parking lot was drunk. Jane pulled the scratchy blanket over her head and tried to block out the raised voices that could easily be heard through the paper-thin door of her Hideaway Hotel room. Then there was some laughter…quiet…and someone shouted a string of a few curses.

  A car door slammed and tires squealed.

  Oh God. How much longer would she have to live like this?

  The question was so familiar to her, asked so many times, that frustration made her push the covers off and turn on the light. She blinked into the dinginess of her room, her gaze falling on a tear in the cheap grass cloth wallpaper, forcing herself to mentally renovate the room.

  Completely reimagining her surroundings had been a coping mechanism Jane McAllen had invented when she’d been ten or eleven and had been moved to yet another of the “homes,” as they called the places they shuffled kids with no families who had to be hidden from their parents. Not exactly fosters, not exactly orphans, but not exactly a member of any family anywhere. Kids who were biding their time until they were eighteen and no longer a burden on the county or child services or even the nice volunteers who brought hot meals at night.

  As a young girl, Jane coped by looking at her room, wherever it was, and visualizing something beautiful. Bright colors, cheery curtains, lovely art. As she got older and found a stash of Southern Living magazines at a yard sale, her visions grew more elaborate. She’d put a wall here, add a window there, maybe include a pretty stone fireplace in her imaginary room.

  Then she’d mentally decorate with a theme, finding one word or hearing a song that would reflect the mood she tried to create. She started to sketch, to dream, to realize ways to make ugly things and places and situations and people, even herself, more beautiful.

  So what would she do with this place? First, she’d—

  She startled at the soft hum of her phone on the nightstand. Finally!

  “Yes, hello?” she asked breathlessly, pressing the device to her ear.

  “It’s Lydia.”

  She practically collapsed with relief. “Oh, thank God. I thought you’d never call. It’s been a week, Lydia.”

  “And it’s going to be a month, so sit tight.”

  “What?” she croaked. “A month? I can’t stay here for a month!”

  “Jane, listen to me, because I’m going to talk fast. I’m going to say this once, and you aren’t going to hear from me again until Sergio is arrested.”

  “Okay,” she whispered, clearing her head and trying to slow down the hammer of her heart.

  “We are very close to getting this man, but a key piece of evidence has been lost. We are rebuilding the case, and it takes time. You cannot return, because he is 100 percent certain that not only are you responsible for his near arrest, but he thinks you have the evidence.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “Of course it is, but no one is going to defend you, because one of the people in the organization did take the evidence, and I need to find out who it is. It’ll take us a few weeks, and then we will bring down one of the biggest d
rug rings on the East Coast.”

  Evidence. Organization. Drug rings. How did this get to be her life?

  “You being gone is key to our success,” Lydia continued. “So I’ve called to beg you not to come back. I know you want to.”

  “I’m running out of money,” she said simply. “Could I go to a local FBI office and get help?”

  “God, no. You’re not officially in any kind of program,” Lydia said. “My operation is completely under the radar. Just lie low for one more month. There are jobs that don’t require a background check or Social Security number, Jane. Clean people’s houses and get paid in cash. It’ll tide you over.”

  She sighed, considering that, thinking of the few people she’d met who might help her. Brenda the waitress? The guy at the motel front desk? Adam Tucker?

  “You’re using the name I told you, right?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Jadyn McAllister,” she confirmed, hating even the sound of it. “But why can’t I have used your name and license? It would help me get a job.”

  “It would help my cover get blown,” she fired back. “Then we’re all screwed.”

  Jane swallowed. “Okay.”

  Lydia sighed with what sounded like sympathy. “Look, I’m going to try and get some cash to you. Where are you staying?”

  “The Hideaway Hotel in Eagle’s Ridge, Washington.” Jane slid her gaze over the dreadful room. “It’s lovely,” she added, layering in some sarcasm.

  “I’ll do my best to get someone to bring cash to you. What room?”

  “Sixteen,” she replied.

  “Jane, listen to me,” Lydia said in a low voice. “This is huge. This is serious. This man is responsible for moving drugs that kill people. People like you who’ve spent their entire lives trying to rise up from a bad situation.”

  Jane gasped a little. “How do you know anything about my situation?”

  “I work for the FBI, Jane. I know that you were in and out of the Florida Child Protection program most of your childhood. I know who your clients are, your friends, and your entire online fingerprint.”

  “Why do you need to know that?” she asked, a low-grade panic rising. “Am I under investigation?”