This time it would be different. Jarrett planned to stick to her side until she screamed.
Once he’d made her scream a different way...in bed. That memory had his blood surging hot and thick. He remembered her blue gaze dazed with pleasure as he’d slowly thrust into her, their naked bodies achieving a mutual rhythm and pleasure that sent him sailing into the stratosphere. Sex with Lace had been the glue in their relationship.
But now he needed more to get her back into his life. He needed to give her a safe haven where she could raise her daughter without either of them harboring the fear of someone tossing a firebomb into their car or shooting at them on the street.
Until Ace got back to him with more intel, he would try to glean as much information as possible around her compound. Good thing he was fluent in French.
She pointed to the wooden crates and neatly stacked boxes by a table topped with glass jars filled with jam. “Help me get these ready for packing. Each wood box can hold four containers of jam. Seal them with the staple gun.”
As she picked up the gun, he gently took it from her. “I know how to handle one of these. I’m the weapons expert, remember?”
“Yeah, Mr. Weapons Expert. I remember how you spent a whole weekend trying to fix the gate and the first time you used the nail gun you ended up in the ER with a nail sticking out of your hand.”
He laughed. “It almost ended up in my ass. That would have been special.”
A ripple of sensual appreciation passed over her face as she glanced at his bottom. “A real shame to hurt that part of your body,” she murmured.
Pleased he still had that effect on her, he loaded up the staple gun.
They worked in companionable silence for a few minutes. Lacey wiped the sweat off her brow.
“Most of the jam goes across the country to restaurants, but I’m shipping a box to Mom as she and Dad love the stuff.” She pointed to the box he worked on. “Set that one aside. I’m going to ship it via air freight.”
Her face fell and her lower lip wobbled a little. “I was planning to hand-carry them when I took Fleur with me back home as a welcome home gift. Now I don’t know when I’ll get her home.”
He knew she was fighting emotions. Knew how she tried to hide it, because she’d always tried to be brave in the past, but that little wobble in her pretty mouth gave it away.
Jarrett set down the staple gun, making sure to switch it off. He put his hands on her shoulders, feeling delicate bone beneath the soft skin. Lace wasn’t frail, but she had a soft heart and it had to kill her to be put into this position.
“Hey,” he said gently. “Everything’s going to be all right, Lace. Have faith.”
Have faith in me. I won’t let you down. Have faith in the job I do. It comes first. But I’ll always be there for you.
In the end he wasn’t there when she truly needed him. Jarrett gave her shoulders a reassuring squeeze, fighting the urge to kiss her senseless as he had in the past. Kiss her and lead her into the bedroom where he’d made all her woes fall away.
When the last staple secured the last box of jam, they stacked them inside the shed, making certain to set apart the four jars destined for sending to Lacey’s father. Tomorrow a truck would collect the crates to distribute to restaurants.
After they stacked the boxes, she wiped off the sweat from her glistening forehead with the back of one hand. “Thanks. You really helped. Now I have one less chore.”
He brushed off his jeans. Lacey gave him a friendly smile as she pointed to her soaked shirt.
“How do you do it, Jarrett? You never break a sweat. Not even that day when you nailed your hand. Do you even have sweat glands?”
Oh yeah, he had plenty of times on ops. Down range, he sweated quite a bit, waiting in hiding for the moment to move in and take down the enemy. Sweating profusely while sitting in a plane at 30,000, waiting to do a HALO jump.
Sweating as he waited in a courtroom for the judge to declare the divorce final...
But he’d never let on, because he was tough. A man’s man who never showed his emotions. Emotions killed you in the field; they slipped beneath your collar and taunted you, distracting you from the mission, the target...
Had to steer this disturbing thread of conversation in another direction. He eyed her shirt and the curve of her full breasts.
“You’ve made me sweat plenty, babe.”
Lacey didn’t return his grin. “Don’t call me that. I hate that word.”
She turned and left and he inwardly cursed. Any inroads he’d made with her in packing the boxes had been lost.
He could regain that ground. Had to, because she needed to trust him again, this time with her life.
His cell phone quietly buzzed. Ace. His friend recommended a private firm he worked for on occasion when wealthy islanders held private parties.
Guy by the name of Marcus. We did a few details together. Knows the business end of a shotgun, but prefers to work with more reliable firepower.
Jarrett called the firm, who promised to send over a security detail in an hour.
Near the house he spied Lacey’s daughter skipping rope with two other girls. Jarrett didn’t follow his ex into the house. Deciding to give her time to cool down, both emotionally and physically, he headed for the girls.
Wearing blue shorts, blue tennis shoes and a white T-shirt with the logo of Marlee’s Mangoes, Fleur skipped rope. She did not smile, even as the other girls laughed and sang a song in French.
He wondered if she ever smiled.
Such a thin little girl. He rubbed his chest. Jarrett imagined how terrified the child had been to seen such violence and lose her mother. And how brave Lacey had been to step out and adopt her, give her a home instead of losing her to an orphanage where Fleur might not receive the help she needed.
He pointed to the jump rope the girls were twirling. “Mind if I join?” he asked in French.
The three girls stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. Jarrett smiled. “I’m good, but I bet you can teach me a thing or two.”
That started the two twirling the rope to giggle. But little Fleur, with her skinny shoulders and solemn eyes, did not react. She stepped aside.
The two on either end of the rope moved closer to accommodate his height. Jarrett stood at the center and nodded. “I’m ready.”
They began turning the rope and he made a big exhibit out of bending over to accommodate the twirling rope, jumping slow and stomping on the ground. Every loud whomp evoked a giggle from the girls. Finally, he turned and stepped aside.
“This is tough,” he complained. “Fleur, can you show me how it’s done?”
Fleur still stared, but took his place. She began to jump rope and he nodded. “You’re fast. Let’s see how fast when I take over.”
Beckoning to one of the girls, he took the rope from her and began to twirl it. Fleur jumped harder and faster to the shouts of the girls.
And then he stopped and grinned at her. “You’re pretty good,” he told her. “You’re faster than me.”
Fleur blinked, but not before he caught a glimpse of something faint and precious in her dark eyes. Connection.
As he started to turn, Fleur saw the handle of the pistol tucked into his waistband. Her eyes widened.
He turned and saw Lacey standing on the porch, a smile on her face. “Fleur! Time for homework. Tell Michelle and Catherine you’ll see them tomorrow,” she called.
The two little girls ran away toward the mango factory, where a stream of women had begun to leave the shop.
Jarrett had a sudden memory. Touring Iraq, teamed with the marines. They’d infiltrated a nest of insurgents. He’d done his duty, but the kills that day had haunted him. And then he’d called home and heard Lacey’s voice, her low, sweet dulcet tones, and the tightness in his chest had eased a little. She’d told him the baby was doing fine, and she expected him at the sonogram when he got home in three weeks...
The thought of seeing their baby, making it real, had carried him through the next three weeks through blood and death and everything bad...
He turned to Fleur, struggling to regain his composure. “Hey, little one,” he said in perfect French. “Thanks for letting me play with you.”
She pointed to his jeans and said in a small voice, “Gun.”
He squatted down. “Yes. It’s my pistol. I keep it close.”
“To hurt people?”
Damn, this was not the way he’d anticipated conversing with his ex’s daughter. He’d wanted to talk about playing games, what classes she liked, not firearms.
“Yes, but only bad people who want to hurt you and your mom.” Awkwardly, he patted her shoulder. “Go do as your mom says.”
Fleur gave him a shy smile then skipped away toward the house.
Do as your mom says.
How he’d dreamed of saying those words to their son or daughter. He fisted his hands and turned away from the house, staring at the distant fields. Then his gaze swung to the gate, that gate with the dead chicken.
He couldn’t return to the past and change things. But he could help Lacey now, and her daughter.
While waiting for the security detail to arrive, he went to the front gate and did a thorough check. The eight-foot gate was solid steel and required someone to open it by hand, like typical front gates in St. Marc that guarded private homes and businesses and schools. Effective, if you had the right person standing guard.
The man at the gate right now had a careworn face and gray hair. There was a spark to his dark gaze as he greeted Jarrett. He didn’t carry a firearm, but the sun glinted off the polished steel machete he held in a firm grip.
“Afternoon,” Jarrett greeted him in French. “I’m Jarrett Adler, friend of Lacey’s.”
“Joseph.” The man shifted the machete to his left hand and shook Jarrett’s outstretched palm. “I work in the fields for Miss Lacey. She asked me to take over guard duty for now.”
He nodded at the gleaming blade. “Know how to use that thing for something other than cutting corn?”
White teeth flashed at him in a knowing grin. Joseph picked up a coconut fallen from a nearby palm tree and placed it near him. The machete whistled through the air and two halves of the nut spilled to the ground as he cut it.
“Don’t you worry, Mr. Jarrett. Anyone try to hang dead chickens on this gate I go chop chop with my big knife,” Joseph told him. “I’m not that young fool Pierre. He had no respect for the job. Miss Lacey’s good people. She deserves better.”
He liked him. Joseph had years on him, and the kind of wisdom and experience that indicated he wasn’t about to put up with anything.
They made small talk for a few minutes. Joseph was a wealth of information. Most of the locals liked Lacey and were grateful she saved the coffee factory from closing—news to him—and gave the community much-needed jobs. And many were appreciative of her charity.
A few “big talkers” dissed Lacey and didn’t like her because they saw her as a rich American, but those were the men she’d fired for laziness.
A car honked at the gate and he and Joseph stepped through the door at the side of the gate. It was the security detail Ace had recommended. Joseph let the car through. They parked inside and all four men got out. Marcus, the leader, was all muscled bulk, tall and dressed in neatly pressed trousers and a tan shirt with the firm’s logo on it.
Jarrett talked with him, liking his quiet intelligence, and his alertness. He really liked the M45C handgun he carried. “Nice piece,” he told Marcus.
“Gift from Ace from the last job we did together,” Marcus replied in his singsong accent. “I have a suppressor, but for jobs like this I need to make loud bang bang to let intruders know I mean business.”
Between Marcus and his security detail, and Joseph, any perp trying to get through the front gate would be toast.
Marcus knew the area, too, and had been born and raised here, which was an additional bonus. If trouble flared in town, he’d hear about it.
After extensive interviewing of Marcus and his men, with additional questions by a sharp-eyed Joseph, Jarrett agreed to let them to work out details of guarding the gate around the clock.
Of course, it was the gate and this was a big compound, which worried him. He needed to check for weaknesses in the wall ringing the complex. Not for the first time that day he itched to have his regular weapons. The Sig was a constant friend, but more firepower would come in handy if things got rough and the violence spilled from the capital to the countryside.
Satisfied with the gate security, he headed toward the house. Lacey met him inside.
He told her about Marcus and added his praise of Joseph.
“Joseph is a loyal employee, like most of my staff. He lives here on the compound and he’s a very hard worker, typical of most men in St. Marc. The ones like the men who beat the women in my compound are outnumbered by the good ones in my book,” she said.
He wondered if he’d ever rank as a good one in her book again.
“Thanks for taking care of that for me,” she told him. “Have a drink with me. I’ve got a bottle of the finest island rum. Dinner won’t be ready for another hour. Rose is making chicken and gravy and rice.”
Sounded good. The smells of chicken coming from the kitchen smelled good, too. But never pleasure before business. “Want to check the place first.”
He went to the guest room, changed into running clothes and tucked his pistol into a special jogging holster around his waist and pulled his gray T-shirt over it. After lacing up his running shoes and grabbing dark sunglasses, he headed outside.
He chose the perimeter near the gate and broke into his normal stride, his gaze sharpened as he scanned the compound. Feet pounding against the hard earth, Jarrett fell into an easy rhythm, relishing the pull of his muscles and the burn of his lungs. Sweat dripped down his back and temples.
Jarrett finished his run without incident and went into the house.
Lacey sat in the living room, a glass half-filled with dark liquid. She carried her drink as she followed him into the kitchen as he fetched a bottle of cold water from the refrigerator. Rose stirred a big pot at the stove and then vanished into the next room.
Standing at the sink, he drank deeply, sensing Lacey’s gaze. Jarrett finished the bottle and turned, amused to see her staring and licking her lips.
Oh yeah, sweetheart, you feel it, too.
Flushing a little at being caught ogling him, she looked away. “Enjoy your run?”
He set down the bottle, wiped his face with the corner of his shirt. “As you can see, I do sweat.”
A flash of heat entered her gaze.
She sipped her cocktail. He reached over, took the glass from her and drank.
“Hey!” Lacey protested.
Jarrett nodded in appreciation. She’d cut it with cola, but the taste was quite potent. “Very fine dark rum. Smooth as a baby’s bottom. Too much cola, though. Rum like that should be drunk neat.”
“Do you mind? You’re drinking out of my glass.”
He handed her back the glass and their fingers touched. Heat blazed through him at the gentle touch. Once those fingers had explored every inch of his body, dug into his shoulders as she clung to him and cried out as he moved inside her.
“Sweetheart, we’ve shared more than backwash...and swapped body fluid a lot more interesting.”
At his drawled words, she flushed. They went into the living room as Lacey carried her glass and then set it on the coffee table.
“It wasn’t only jogging, Lace. I checked out your compound. You’re too vulnerable here. Too many places open to intruders.”
“I have an eight-foot wall topped with broken glass. No one is going to break inside my house. You see shadows in shadows.”
“The world can be a very bad place. I’d rather see the shadows than have them surprise me.”
Lacey sighed and the move lifted her generous breasts. He tried not to stare, but he was only human. Focus.
“Do any of the women ever bring in visitors to the compound?” he asked.
“No. One of the conditions of working here is that I screen all visitors. I don’t want strangers inside who might hurt one of them.”
Jarrett laced his fingers gently around her wrist, feeling her soft skin. Touch. Contact. She’d survived out here on her own without him, but his protective streak surged hard. “Lace, is there any chance the dead chicken incidents and the car on fire have anything to do with any of the women you hired? Are there angry husbands, boyfriends, who are threatening you?”
He almost wished this were so. It would make it easier to pinpoint the threat.
“Not outright, but a few men in town have disliked what I’m doing for the local women.” She studied his fingers around her wrist and put her hand over his. “A few have made vague threats, but nothing concrete.”
Jarrett’s blood ran cold at the thought of someone hurting her. He inhaled a shaky breath as Rose came into the living room to announce dinner was ready.
Throughout the meal as Lacey talked with Fleur about school, asking questions about her teachers, how she was doing studying for upcoming exams, Jarrett could not get the burning image out of his mind. Lacey, injured and unable to summon help. She was too vulnerable here.
He helped her wash the dishes as Fleur cleaned off the table. They went into the living room and Lacey read Fleur a story as thoughts raced through his mind. Then Lacey took Fleur away to get her ready for bed.
Jarrett checked the downstairs area again, testing the locks.
When Fleur came into the living room in pajamas to shyly bid him good-night, he hugged the girl a little harder than intended. Jarrett followed Lacey into her bedroom. As Lacey tucked her daughter in, Fleur stared up at him.
“Are you staying here tonight?” she asked in French.
Jarrett squatted down by the bed and said in the same language. “Yes. I’m going to make sure you and your mom stay safe.”
“Will you keep the bad man from coming to school?”
He exchanged looks with Lacey. “What bad man, honey?”
“The man who had a gun like you.” She pointed to the waistband of his jeans. Lacey released a shaky breath.
“Fleur, sweetie, tell me everything,” Lacey said. “Was this bad man in the schoolyard?”
“No, he was in the street.”
“What did he look like? Was he white like me? Tall?” Jarrett asked.
“He had dark skin, like me. He was standing by the man who sells the plantain chips. Sally wanted to buy chips but when I saw him I got scared and didn’t go.”
“Good girl,” Jarrett said softly. “Did Sally tell you anything about the bad man? Did they say anything?”
“He was looking for a flower and wanted to know if a flower went to our school. Sally said we have lots of flowers on the classroom blackboard.”
He reached over and pressed a kiss on the little girl’s forehead. “I’ll be here all night, honey. No bad man will get you.”
When they went into the living room, Lacey’s shoulders trembled. She plopped into a chair. “She’s not going to school tomorrow. Dear God, what is going on?”
“Hey.” He flopped down beside her and began rubbing the tensed muscles in her shoulders. “Tell me about the school. Gated compound? Security?”
“It’s the safest elementary school outside the capital. A few ex-pats who run missions in the country send their children there. They have a security guard, and no one gets in or out without clearance from the head office. But at recess the kids go outside to buy snacks from vendors on the street. They’re locals who make a living and they’ve been cleared by the school. Bad men with guns. My daughter could have been hurt.”
“You got a lucky break. But it’s obvious someone is searching for her. How does Fleur get to school?”
“Usually I drive her. In the afternoon Sally’s mom drops her off near the front gate.”
“She’ll go to school tomorrow.” Jarrett locked gazes with her, knowing she would protest. “With me. I’ll drive her and check out that bad man.”
“Jarrett, no...”
He gave her a pointed look. “If someone is threatening Fleur, I want to know who. She’ll be safe, Lace. She’s a smart little girl, too.”
She buried her face into her hands. “If something happens to her...”
He squeezed her shoulder. “Nothing’s going to happen to her. I promise.”
Lacey lifted her head, her blue eyes bright. Not with tears, but glittering anger. “You made a lot of promises to me in the past, Jarrett. Am I supposed to believe you this time?”
Sucker punch. Damn. “That was a low blow, Lace. I never broke my promises to you.”
“No, you only left. You didn’t need me. You had your SEAL buddies and the Navy.”
His temper started to uncoil like a rattlesnake. He struggled to leash it. “I had a job to do.”
“You left me right after I lost our baby. I needed you and you left. You weren’t there for me when I needed you most, so why should I trust you now?”
Ouch. Now guilt twined with the anger. “I was there for you at the hospital and when you were released. The doctor said you’d be fine.”
“After, Jarrett! Not the physical part.” She pressed a hand to her heart. “Here. Where it hurt the most. You were home five days and then you were deployed. You left me to deal with the loss of our baby by myself.”
“I had a job to do, Lace.”
“You could have asked for leave.” Lacey’s slender shoulders trembled. “I knew how important the teams were to you, and how important you were to them. I was so proud of you that you chose that path to serve, Jarrett. I hated it when you left, but I never complained because that was the life you had chosen, and the life I chose to share with you. But just that once, I really needed you to stay home, and you left, anyway.”
She got him there. He could have. In fact, his CO asked if he was okay to take the mission. And dumbass he was, he told his CO, yeah, I’m good to go, everything’s a-okay, let me go eliminate some tangos, let me fight so I can forget this panic I felt when I thought I’d lose not just my baby, but Lace, as well. He’d gone charging into the mission with a muddied mind, trying to push aside grief and acted recklessly, almost suicidal in the risks he took.
If not for Ace pulling him in, reminding him there was no I in team and he needed to get himself together, Jarrett could have lost it for good.
By the time he returned home six weeks later, his head was clearer, but Lacey was gone.
“Five days.” She held up five fingers. “You were distant the whole time. You barely said a word to me.”
“I waited on you hand and foot and hired a housekeeper to cook and clean...”
“But you never talked with me, Jarrett. We never talked about the baby. The nursery we’d planned, the first coat of paint, the crib my dad bought for us.” Her voice cracked. “I was living at home with you, but I was already alone. No wonder they call you the Iceman. Because you were one cold bastard.”
He sucked in a breath and his temper surged. “You left me, remember? You left me and all I had was an empty house when I came home.”
“I left you to go to my parents’ house because I needed someone other than a paid stranger to do housework and cook. And what was the point of trying to make it work out? The job always came first, Jarrett. Always. My dad told me not to marry you because you were a SEAL and the divorce rate among SEALs is very high. He wanted me to stay in college and get my degree and wait. But I loved you and didn’t want to wait. I’d have done anything to make it work, Jarrett. I gave up my education, I gave up my friends to move with you onto base because I had faith that we could make it work.”
She drew in a deep breath. “And I never complained, not once, not even when you’d come home and go quiet for days. I knew you were trying to get your head together because of the awful things you’d seen...”
“And done,” he cut in.
“I didn’t want to be one of those nagging wives who pestered you to communicate. I gave you space. I let you talk when you needed to, and let you party with your SEAL buddies because they were your family as much as I was. But the one time I asked you to stay, to talk with me after we lost our baby, you clammed up. You couldn’t give me what I needed and I had no faith you’d change, Jarrett.”
She fell back onto the sofa, wiping her forehead. Jarrett stared down at his hands, the scarred knuckles and the closely trimmed nails. Big hands, big heart, she’d teased him in the past. Hands that had pulled the trigger too many times to count, had snapped the necks of the enemy. Hands that had stroked and caressed Lacey in the dark of night, and held her as she’d sobbed in the hospital.
But they were the same hands that saluted his CO after Lacey’s miscarriage and then hours later quietly turned the front doorknob in the gray hours of dawn as he picked up his duffel and left to go downrange yet again.
“I deserve that,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry, Lace. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you what you needed at the time.”
Her lower lip wobbled again, that precarious little tremble hinting of her raging emotions. “It’s in the past, Jarrett. I’ve made a new life here and I’m so damn scared for my daughter.”
He covered her hand with his. “Then let me help you. I’ll drive her to school tomorrow, check out this guy and we’ll go together to pick her up in the afternoon.”
Lacey rubbed circles on her knee, and he could see her mind working. “Fleur has a test tomorrow.”
“In kindergarten?”
“The test is to put her into a higher level of learning class. I’ve been working with her on learning to read in French.”
Bemused, he shook his head. Kids these days were brighter and learned quicker than he ever did. “At her age I was finger-painting and pulling little girls’ pigtails.” Playfully, he tugged on her ponytail, hoping to coax a smile to her solemn face.
She went to the window, pulling aside the curtains. He regarded his ex. She’d done well for herself and struck out on her own. He was mighty proud of her, but didn’t quite know how to say it. Didn’t quite know how to reconnect. Once sex had been the answer, and hell, he’d gladly pick her up, sling her over one shoulder and carry her into the bedroom to explore what they’d had in bed, but first he had to gain her trust.
She’d left him because he hadn’t communicated in the past. Time to start talking.
“Lace, how about we...”
“I have an early day tomorrow. I’m going to bed.” Lacey tugged the band off her ponytail and her hair spilled around her. Loose, and wild, a little like her. He hungered to see her like that in bed once more, her silky locks spread out on the pillow as she lay back, naked, her body bared exclusively for him...
Stop thinking about sex. Yeah, right. Tell me to stop breathing. That would be easier around her.
Frowning, Lacey stared at the window.
“It’s too quiet. Usually the roosters are crowing.”
Instantly he pulled away, his body on full alert. He noticed the quiet, as well. Roosters, contrary to myth, crowed whenever they felt like it, not just in the morning. Jarrett snapped off the living room lamp. “Step away from the window.”
Standing to one side, he lifted the curtain with the back of one hand. He peered into the blackness. Every cell in his body warned something was wrong. Jarrett spotted movement by the storage shed and heard glass breaking.
And then he heard a loud pop, like a firecracker going off. All the hairs on his nape saluted the air and his body went cold. Suddenly, an orange glow erupted inside the shed, followed by thick black tongues of smoke curling into the moonlit sky.
The shed was on fire and the flames were headed for the jam they’d packed this afternoon.