the sight of the colorful little umbrella couldn’t lift her spirits.
What did that say about her judgment?
Nothing good, she knew that much, but that wasn’t the worst. The worst was the pining. She longed for Tristan, for his touch, for the sound of his voice, in a way she wouldn’t have thought possible. It was unbearably needy of her to want a practical stranger so much, all the time. She wanted to kiss him, breathe him in, be with him, and in her own twisted way, she managed it as best she could—and it had killed her to walk away.
Life, love and heartache had derailed her on a case that was supposed to take her no time at all. Emotionally, she was a mess.
And she could lay that right at the feet of Master Sergeant Tristan Michaels, her master defender. She had only just begun to poke and prod at her pain. She needed another mai tai. She signaled the bartender and he set another one on the bar. A very hunky, almost naked—well, except for his blue-and-yellow swim trunks—gorgeous hottie gave her a hopeful smile. She barely acknowledged him. She switched out the glasses and went back to her wallowing.
He’d walked into her life a total stranger, and a week later, he’d walked back out entrenched deep in her heart. That alone should be enough to fuel some serious soul-searching, but the rest of it was even worse. She hadn’t just fallen in bed with the man, she’d fallen in love.
But he’d been crystal clear. He belonged to the corps and there was no room in his life for a relationship. He didn’t want that. She closed her eyes, unable to handle coming in second again, even though he’d been adamant that she hadn’t. It felt too much as though he hadn’t been willing to sacrifice for her, put her first.
Who was she kidding? He was one of those silent warriors and stealth was his middle name. It was God, country, then everything else came after that in varying degrees.
She sipped the mai tai and looked around again, deciding that she was sufficiently waterlogged. A dark head of flattop hair caught her attention, but it disappeared behind a large umbrella.
She’d been doing that all day, every time she saw a military cut.
“Oh, hell,” she muttered under her breath. Here she was, thinking about him and now she thought she saw him. This was a habit she had to break. Every thought she had turned to him, and she didn’t have a clue as to where he was or what he was doing or what had happened to make him decide they couldn’t be together.
That dark hair caught her attention again. It was thick and black for a flattop. Her heart caught and then she saw those broad shoulders encased in white camo and combat boots. It had to be ninety degrees out and Tristan stood before her as if he’d morphed from the base of the Sierra Nevada to the sunny, sandy, beautiful beach in Aruba.
She’d been taking a sip and it went down the wrong way. She coughed and his eyes found her. Without missing a step, he walked right into the pool, combat boots and all and waded to her.
Dazed and devoid of a coherent thought in her head, she coughed hard and he patted her back. Her knees wobbled and his arm slipped around her waist as he took the mai tai and downed the drink in one swallow, then set it on the bar.
“Wait…I need that.”
He took the little umbrella out and tucked it behind her ear. “Later,” he said.
Her heart pounding and her pulse thundering in her ears, she rested her head weakly on his wide, beautiful, solid, lovely chest.
She felt as if she suddenly had too much blood in her body. Too much heat. Too heavy a response. Closing her eyes, she slipped her hands against his chest, closing over the material of his shirt, trying to bring her body under control. This wasn’t supposed to happen—not all these primitive feelings, not this fever of need. She had always considered herself fairly low-key sexually, never given to excesses. But she had excesses now—hot, pumping excesses that made her whole body throb.
God, everything had gotten so short-circuited. This had started out as a simple case of friendly fire and had turned into a rescue mission—Tristan rescuing her. But all of a sudden it had gone way beyond that. Never had she wanted anything the