Troublemaker

CHAPTER 19

HE WAS, HAPPILY, VERY WRONG ABOUT THAT.

Bo woke naked in his arms, with her head on his shoulder and her legs tangled with his. The bedcovers were evidently somewhere on the floor, given that they were nowhere in sight. She hadn’t been cold at all, not with a living furnace lying next to her. She put her hand on his chest, feeling the crisp hair, the raised scar tissue, the padding of hard muscle. Looking down his long body, she followed the trail of hair down his taut abdomen to his penis and testicles. Men were so interesting, she thought sleepily, with everything out in the open to get in the way and have to be constantly adjusted. How did they even sit down?

His penis twitched, and she blinked in interest, watching closely. Then it began to swell and lengthen, and she smiled. At this signal he was awake, she tilted her head up to find him watching her. “Good morning,” she said, then nestled her head back on his shoulder.

“Morning.” His morning voice was always deeper than normal, and rusty. His hand smoothed down her bare back. “Damn, I like your outfit. You should wear it more often.”

“I wear it every day,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, it’s the extra layers I don’t like.”

Just as he was beginning to show her how much he liked her outfit, he jumped and said, “Shit!”

The tone of voice and word choice were dead giveaways. Bo turned her head, knowing what she would see; Tricks once again was standing beside the bed with her muzzle resting on the mattress, staring accusingly at them.

Morgan rolled onto his side and stared at the ceiling. “This has to be what parents feel like when they’re getting it on and then see their kid standing there watching them.”

She snickered. “Not quite. Tricks won’t ask what we’re doing.”

“Yeah? Look at that expression.”

“It’s past her breakfast time.” Her regular mealtimes were very important to Tricks.

He glanced at the clock. “Just five minutes!”

“She doesn’t care. She knows the numbers on the clock, and she knows we’re late.”

Once he would have scoffed at the idea that a dog knew numbers, but not now. He rolled out of bed and paused to vigorously rub Tricks’s ears, which she enjoyed but which in no way got her attention off of food, before going on to the bathroom. Bo sighed in appreciation of the scenery, because such a tight, muscular ass was worthy of an in-depth study.

Then she realized-well, hell; she needed the bathroom too, and she was disconcerted by his occupation of hers. She hadn’t shared a bathroom in so long the logistics hadn’t occurred to her.

All she could do was roll out of bed, grab some clothes, and trudge down to his bedroom and bathroom. Already he’d marked the territory as his: his scent, his clothes, his toiletry items… his pistol on the bedside table. She stood in the middle of the room and simply absorbed the excess of testosterone. Yeah, she was loopy this morning, no doubt about it.

Tricks made short work of her inaugural trip outside that morning because she was behind in her schedule. If a dog’s attitude could say “hurry up,” then Bo was being dog-nagged… not that it was the first time. Tricks didn’t deal well with tardiness when it came to her food. Still, Bo bent down and hugged her close, closing her eyes in gratitude that she still had Tricks with her, thinking that she might never completely recover from those moments of terror.

By the time Morgan came downstairs, Tricks had been fed and Bo was sitting at the bar sipping her first coffee. Morgan fetched his coffee, straddled the barstool beside hers, clasped her neck, and gave her a long, leisurely kiss. He hadn’t shaved, and his stubble was rough on her face. Morning stubble was such an ordinary thing, but she laid her hand along his rough jaw and cherished the prickling against her palm. She leaned into him, enjoying the kiss, the touch, his presence. She felt at ease with him in a way she hadn’t since she’d first been attracted to him and tried to fight it. The fight was over, and she’d won. Or lost. Or both. She couldn’t make herself care, not today.

He lifted his mouth but kept his hand on her, stroking it down her back. “Do you want to do anything special today?” he asked

She shook her head, a little suspicious. She didn’t want him, or anyone, to be “careful” with her, as if she were frail and in danger of going to pieces. Okay, so she’d gone to pieces a bit the night before, but she’d held it together until she was alone in her room. She had cried; she hadn’t had a full-bore meltdown.

“I don’t need the kid-glove treatment,” she said.

He shook his head, a little grin quirking his mouth and his blue eyes glinting at her. “You’re the hardest woman to court I’ve ever seen.”

Court? Bemused, Bo considered the idea. First, to stay with his terminology, why would he be trying to court her today? He’d gotten what he wanted last night. That was what courting was, wasn’t it? An effort to have sex? If he meant it in the old-fashioned sense of the word then… then she was at sea, because it meant a focus on the future that she couldn’t quite get her head around-not yet, anyway. Deciding to enjoy the moment didn’t mean she was completely changing how she approached life, just how she dealt with him.

“You’ve done my laundry,” she finally offered.

He laughed as he rubbed his hands up and down her arms. “See what I mean? How many women would consider someone doing laundry to be courting?”

“Probably most women. Laundry’s a pain in the butt.”

“Well, hell, then throw down a load of underwear and I’ll get right on it.”

She laughed and said, “I’d rather think about breakfast right now. What sounds good to you?”

Bo was oddly at peace as they went through the morning routine. She had made a decision and she was good with it, whatever happened. Yesterday had taught her that there was no way she could isolate herself from life and the bad things, and she couldn’t predict or prepare for them; all she could do was live.

She might not have the future with Morgan, but she had the now, and that was sufficient. Suddenly she felt free: free to touch him whenever she wanted-which was often-free to walk around in whatever state of dress or undress she wanted, free to want. Wanting and denying herself had been a brand of torture; wanting and being able to fulfill that want was delicious.

They had made love twice more during the night; he was very good at it, and very focused and disciplined, all of which translated into something great for her. She was a little sore this morning but also infinitely relaxed. She didn’t torment herself wondering if it was just sex to him while it was making love to her because knowing wouldn’t change a thing. She could analyze something to death without a single detail being affected. Tomorrow might be different, but today was today.

After they’d had breakfast and cleaned up the kitchen, she putzed around tidying things that weren’t very messy to begin with, then she went upstairs. Taking him at his word, she threw a load of laundry down. By balling several garments together she got enough heft and weight to get some distance on it, and a pair of jeans landed neatly across his head as he sat in front of the TV, feet up and channel-hopping in classic male form. She expected him to bolt upright, but instead he laughed, leaned his head back, and said, “I wondered if you’d jump on that.”

“Consider it jumped on.”

While he started the laundry, she changed the sheets on the bed, a little amused and turned on because they definitely needed changing. The dirty sheets went over the balcony too; he’d know what to do with them. Delighted by the game of throwing things over the balcony, Tricks began running and barking, then grabbed a stuffed animal and slung it around to kill it. Everyone else was having fun, so why shouldn’t she?

Morgan grabbed one leg of the toy and began playing tug of war with her; while they were occupied, Bo wandered to her desk and stood looking down at it.

She had a tech-writing project she could work on. She studied it, thought about it, but couldn’t make herself plant her butt in the chair. For the first time in forever she had absolutely no interest in work. As traumatic as the day before had been, and as eventful as the night before had been, she thought she needed a day to do nothing but relax and enjoy the life she had… somehow. Doing something. The question was: what?

She was saved by Tricks, who abruptly abandoned the game with Morgan, went to the door and gave Bo her “Well?” look. The first trip outside in the mornings was for necessity, not walking, and now it was past time for her first walk of the day.

Morgan armed himself, she got the house keys and cell phone, and out they went.

The day seemed to call for a long, rambling walk, much longer than usual. At first they didn’t talk; the morning was warm but not yet uncomfortably so, the greenery was still fresh and damp from last night’s dew, and the sky overhead was a clear blue except for cotton-ball clouds drifting by. It always amazed her how noisy nature was; the birds were singing so wildly they sounded drunk, the bushes rustled with what she hoped wasn’t a rabbit because she didn’t want Tricks to give chase, the trees swayed in a light breeze. Bees droned, insects buzzed, arguments broke out between birds.

Morgan took her hand and they walked side by side when they could; when they couldn’t, he kept hold of her hand but walked in front, his head swiveling back and forth as he looked for trouble in any form, reptile, rodent, whatever might take Tricks’s attention. Though she’d been walking this path without incident for years, he used his grip on her hand to steady her as she stepped over logs and rocks.

She felt vaguely guilty, as if she was playing hooky.

“I don’t know how to relax,” she confessed after thinking about it for a minute. “I feel as if I should be doing something.”

He laced his fingers with hers. Having him hold her hand felt new and exciting as well as… comfortable. She was comfortable with him. That struck her as sexy, which told her she had it bad when she could equate even comfortable with sexy. She suspected that if he had knock-knees, she’d find that sexy too.

He brushed aside a bush branch for her to pass. “You’ve worked hard since you moved here, digging yourself out of a hole. That takes guts. But I’ve noticed you aren’t a sit-down-and-veg-in-front-of-the-TV kind of woman.”

“Vegging in front of the TV drove you nuts in no time, so you can’t say anything.”

“I’m not much for staying indoors. When I did get some down time, I’d try to go fishing, but that’s not on the table for now.”

Tricks darted out of sight behind a mossy boulder, and Bo pulled her hand free to run forward to keep her in sight, make sure she hadn’t found a snake or a skunk. Instead Tricks was standing in front of a weed with a yellow bloom on top, staring at a bumblebee as it droned from one flowering weed to another. “Come here,” Bo said. “Don’t eat the bee.” Tricks ignored her and continued to watch the bee until Bo said sternly, “Young lady!” That warning was the second tier leading to getting into serious trouble, and with a wag of her tail that said she’d seen enough, Tricks trotted back to the trail.

“Did you know bumblebees can’t fly if their muscles are colder than eighty-six degrees?” Morgan said; he too was watching the bee. He folded her hand in his again as soon as she rejoined him.

Bo blinked. “I’ve seen them fly when the weather is colder than that.”

“They warm up their thoracic muscles by shivering. Can take up to five minutes.”

“Supposedly they shouldn’t be able to fly at all.”

“That was an error in calculation. Bumblebees go into dynamic stall-they create a little vortex-plus their short wings displace a disproportionate amount of air.”

That was interesting, but the subject matter made her squint up at him. “And you know about the aerodynamics of bumblebees because-?”

“Just something interesting that was covered in flight school.”

She was silent a moment as she digested this new insight into him. Going to flight school logically meant he was a pilot. “What do you fly?”

“Helicopter and small fixed-wing. Flying’s okay. I don’t like it as much as I do the water.” He answered as casually as if it were no big deal, as if flying helicopters and small airplanes were commonplace. Maybe it was in his world; it wasn’t in hers. In her world, people drove. She knew only one other person who could fly small planes. But she wasn’t surprised by this facet of him, or the scope of his experience; she’d known from the beginning that he navigated very deep waters. Was this how a military wife felt? Or the wife of a firefighter, or a cop? As if his experiences were so dramatic and diametrically opposed to hers? How did people find common ground?

She could drive herself crazy trying to find the answer-because there wasn’t one-or she could just let things be. She opted for her new zen attitude. They had slept together; that was the extent of their relationship. For now, that was enough. She might not feel the same way tomorrow, but she’d find that out tomorrow. In the meantime, she wanted to know more about something he seemed enthusiastic about.

“Where do you fish?”

“The Potomac, when I’m home from a mission. I try to get back to Florida a couple of times a year, do some deep-sea fishing, hit some bass lakes. Not that I get that much down time, because even when we aren’t on missions, we’re training our asses off, but I still hang on to my boat.”

“What kind of boat do you have?”

“Just an old fishing boat I named the Shark. When I get released to go back out in public, we’ll take her out if you like fishing.” He tilted his head back, eyed the pieces of sky visible through the tree limbs. The woods weren’t so thick that walking was difficult, but the shade was nice.

“I don’t know about fishing, I’ve never tried it, but I love the water.” She kept her tone casual despite the leap her heart rate made at his reference to the future. She wouldn’t bet on it-but she liked that he’d offered.

“That’s right, you’re a swimmer. You don’t get much swimming around here, do you?”

“More than you’d think,” she replied, thinking about the secluded lake where she took Tricks in the summer.

“Yeah? Where?”

“I’ll show you later.” The lake would be a nice surprise for later in the day, maybe with a picnic lunch. It was a pretty place, and the lake was big enough for some serious swimming, though the water was so cold she could stand it only during the hottest weather. Tricks didn’t care, she just loved to swim. The cold water was probably what kept snakes away, because she’d never seen a snake around or in the lake. If she had, likely she’d have enrolled Tricks in the nearest Y-or tried. Given Tricks’s track record, she was betting on her girl getting people to bypass rules and regulations.

“Do you own all this land?” he asked at one point. They were at least a mile from the house, probably more, though they’d walked at least twice that because their route hadn’t been a straight line.

“No, I own ten acres. I think this belongs to someone who lives in Charleston, but I’m not sure. Mayor Buddy owns a chunk of land close to here, and to the east the land belongs to Kenny Michaels’s folks. You’ve met him; he’s Daina’s boyfriend.”

“I remember. So… we’re trespassing.”

“Technically. The land isn’t fenced or posted. I’ll walk it until the owner, whoever it is, tells me not to walk it, and then I’ll stop. I’m careful not to leave trash or anything like that.”

He tsked. “And you an officer of the law.”

“I know, it’s shameful.” She smiled up at him, which for some reason made him stop, plant his hands on her hips, and pull her in to him for a long, hungry kiss.

With a picnic in mind, Bo made some sandwiches, packed a small cooler with bottles of water and Naked Pig, added some chips and Oreo cookies, and said, “Come on, let’s load up the Jeep. There’s a place I want to show you.”

He looked at the cooler. “We’re going to be gone long enough that we need supplies?”

“I plan on eating while I’m there. I thought you might too.” While he loaded the cooler and, at her request, two folding camp chairs, she packed up some food and water for Tricks, and got a quilt and several towels. She folded the towels inside the quilt so Morgan wouldn’t see them.

Mindful that Tricks would insist on the passenger seat, Bo tossed the keys to Morgan. “You drive, and I’ll crawl in back.”

“Tricks wins again,” he said, grinning.

“You bet.”

When they were all settled, with Tricks looking very pleased at being in her seat after mostly riding in the back of the Tahoe since Morgan had started driving again, Bo pointed across her yard. “Go that way.”

A blue glance slanted her way. “Cross country, huh?”

“It’s a fairly easy drive, though I wouldn’t try it in a car.”

He handled the Jeep off-road as if he’d done it a million times, which he probably had, in various vehicles. There were no truly challenging areas, just places where he had to angle the vehicle to cross a dip, and one section where the only option was to thread the Jeep through a jumble of boulders that they couldn’t go around because the trees were too thick.

In ten minutes, they topped the crest of a rolling hill and there was the lake, shiny and blue, about twelve acres in size. To the north, at the shallow end, was where the cold spring fed into the lake. Large sycamores and black oaks provided plenty of shade on the banks, which was nice during the worst of the summer heat. The weeds were knee high in some places, because the lake wasn’t a manicured and maintained area. To the east a large rocky outcropping rose like a wall, blocking access from that direction.

Morgan stopped the Jeep and just stared at the lake for a minute. “Water,” he said finally, with something like reverence in his tone. “You didn’t tell me there was a lake.”

“It’s a cold-water lake, so I don’t let Tricks swim until about this time every year. It’s still too cold for me; I’ll give it another couple of weeks before I try.”

He still hadn’t looked away from the water. “I’m going in.”

“Don’t say you weren’t warned. If you want to freeze your butt off, that’s your decision.” She, however, was going to sit on the quilt on the bank and throw the ball for Tricks to retrieve.

He set the Jeep in motion, bumping down the hill. When he got closer to the bank, he drove back and forth several times to flatten the weeds in a nice-sized area so the way to the water was clear and they had a place to spread the quilt. Tricks recognized where she was and knew she was going to swim, so she started woofing in encouragement. Morgan began playing into it, wheeling the Jeep in wide sweeping turns while Tricks played cheerleader. Bo sat in back wondering if they were ever going to get out of the Jeep.

Finally he stopped by a sycamore tree, and they unloaded the Jeep. Tricks raced back and forth between Bo and the lake bank, barking to show she was ready for her tennis ball to hit the water. “Just cool your jets,” Bo advised her. “I’ll get your ball in a minute.”

When the quilt was unfolded and Morgan saw the towels, he grinned. “You knew I’d be going in.”

“I suspected,” she said drily.

“Any snakes?” He was stripping his shirt off over his head as he spoke.

“Not that I’ve ever seen,” she replied as he dropped his shirt on the quilt and began pulling off his shoes and socks. His bare shoulders gleamed in the dappled sunlight there under the big sycamore. A lot of times his expression was either blank or guarded, but not today; enjoyment shone in his eyes, and his mouth was curved in a smile.

“Underwater snags?”

“Stay away from the south end, it’s rough there.” She paused. “I don’t know about turtles, so be careful of your dangly parts.”

He laughed as he shucked down his jeans and stepped out of them, leaving him clad only in his boxers. “I’m keeping my dangly parts corralled. I can’t set up a secure perimeter to make sure we’re completely private, so no skinny dipping.”

Tricks was still impatiently dancing around. Bo got the tennis ball and walked down to the water with man and dog. “I fully expect you’ll push yourself,” she said to Morgan, “so give me a signal to look for if you get in trouble.” From her own competitive swimming experience she knew that people who were truly drowning couldn’t yell for help because they couldn’t breathe.

His eyes narrowed at the idea that a big, bad, whatever-he-was might need help in the water. She imagined a lot of his training was in the water, and normally he could probably swim rings around her, but despite the sleek muscles she could see rippling in his mostly bare body, she hadn’t been shot and he had. He might think her offer was funny-or insulting-but she didn’t care.

Opting for diplomacy, he said, “Babe, I never want you to risk yourself trying to help me.”

She snorted. “Oh, how sweet. Let me check my give-a-shit meter to see where that registers. Nope, nothing there. Sorry.” She crossed her arms and stared at him, gaze level. The “babe” wasn’t going to distract her, though she suspected he’d thrown that in to either piss her off or soften her, and he didn’t care which. Too bad: this wasn’t about whether or not she was capable, it was about whether or not he could admit that he might still need help. When he’d first arrived, he hadn’t had any choice about accepting help, and she suspected that made him a little touchy about it now.

He could simply ignore her and wade into the water. She couldn’t stop him, and they both knew that. But last night… last night had either forged a bond between them, or it hadn’t. If it had, he would acknowledge that she needed to have a signal to look for. If it hadn’t, she needed to know that too.

She could feel herself getting chilled inside, waiting for his answer. Okay, so she wasn’t completely zen. This wasn’t an ultimatum though; whatever he answered, she would still enjoy him while he was here. The only change was that she would know it was temporary, and somehow she would manage.

He stepped closer and cupped her chin in his palm, his thumb rubbing along her jawline. She looked up at him and had one of those moments of acute awareness of how big he was, over a head taller than she was. The blue of his eyes darkened as he studied her face. Leaning down, he brushed his mouth over hers, light as a whisper. “I’ll hold up a clenched fist,” he said, then released her and turned away.

When he waded into the water, Tricks bounded in beside him with a surplus of enthusiasm that sent up a huge splash, then she began swimming strongly for where she was certain Bo would throw the ball. Obediently Bo threw the tennis ball so it landed just ahead of her; Tricks grabbed the ball in triumph and started back for the bank, but then her golden head turned sharply as she noticed that Morgan wasn’t coming with her. Instead he was stroking smoothly through the water, his dark head sleek as a seal’s. His arms pistoned steadily, but there wasn’t a lot of splash, just the flash of his skin and a small bit of turbulence in his wake.

Alarmed, knowing what was about to happen, Bo called, “Tricks! Here!”

Ignoring Bo, Tricks turned and went after him, swimming as hard as she could. She even dropped the tennis ball and left it floating in the water.

“Crap,” Bo said sharply to herself. She knew exactly what Tricks was doing, but a dog couldn’t swim as fast as a human who was fairly good, and Morgan was more than fairly good. He wasn’t going for speed, but his strokes and kicks were powerful and smooth, eating up distance.

She began jerking off her shoes and jeans, steeling herself to go into that cold lake, because her in the water was the only thing that would pull Tricks away from Morgan in the water. Trying again, she cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, “Tricks!” as loud as she could.

Morgan was already over a hundred yards away, maybe two hundred, but he must have heard her because abruptly he stopped and turned in the water to face her. She doubted he paid any attention to her, though, because Tricks was coming right at him, swimming so hard she was leaving a wake.

Tricks reached Morgan, and though Bo didn’t have binoculars, she didn’t need them to know what happened because she knew her dog. She gripped her head with both hands as Tricks latched on to Morgan’s arm and began towing him toward the bank. She was “saving” him. She’d done the same thing to Bo the first time Bo had gone swimming with her, and it had taken several trips to the lake before she relaxed her vigil.

“Oh, good Lord,” Bo muttered. She could only imagine what Morgan was thinking.

After living with Tricks for two and a half years Bo was seldom surprised anymore by anything that the dog did, but there was still the occasional mind-boggling moment. In retrospect, she could follow Tricks’s reasoning: when Morgan had arrived, he’d been weak and unable to take care of himself. Therefore, he was someone Tricks needed to watch over. Seeing him in the water, without realizing how much he had recovered, had triggered her protective instinct and she had gone after him thinking he was literally in over his head.

Bo waited anxiously for them to reach the bank. That was a long way for Tricks to swim without a rest; she could retrieve her tennis ball thrown in the water for hours, but that was with her feet touching ground at the end of every retrieve. As they got closer, she could see that Morgan was helping her, stroking with his free arm and keeping an eye on her. If Tricks got too tired, he’d make sure she didn’t get in trouble and made it safely back.

Finally they reached shallow water and he stood, but he kept Tricks close until she was touching the bottom too. Tricks kept pulling on his arm, insisting that he get out of the water. When they waded out onto the flattened weeds, Tricks finally released his arm so he could straighten. He wiped the water out of his face with his free hand, then Tricks showered him again as she vigorously shook and slung water everywhere.

His chest was rising and falling with deep breaths as he looked at Bo. She shrugged and willed herself not to get teary-eyed, but really, Tricks’s valor made her feel misty. “Such a good girl,” she crooned, bending to pet Tricks and praise her.

Morgan petted her too, telling her thank you, then he shook his head as he met Bo’s eyes. “I’ve been saved,” he said wryly. “Reckon she’ll let me go back in?”