Close Quarters (Her SEAL Protector #1) (3 page)

"Because?"

"I never walk into a battle unprepared."

His words struck her painfully. To think he was comparing the thought of spending the night in the same cabin as her as something as awful as a battle hurt badly. Was she really that terrible?

Clutching her clothing to her chest, she strode toward the bathroom and slipped by him. She gave him a nudge with her shoulder in a silent bid to move, but he didn't budge even an inch. In a flash of speed that startled her, Leland whirled toward her and pinned her against the door. He leaned down, invading her personal space and making her intensely aware of his body heat.

"What are you doing?" she asked with a gasp.

"What are
you
doing, Jamie? Huh?" His nose nearly touched hers. "What are you running from, girl?"

The concern in his voice surprised her. She swallowed anxiously.
Could she tell him?
God, the idea that he would be angry with her or yell at her was too much to even imagine. She lowered her gaze and hugged her clothes even tighter to her chest. She hated to have put him in this position. It had been done unknowingly, but he would feel the heat regardless. "Leland, you don't need to get involved in my mess. I've got it under control."

"You've got it under control?" he parroted sarcastically. "You're hiding out in the middle of nowhere, Jamie. That's not under control. That's panicking." His hand slid from the door to her face, and he trailed his fingertips down her cheek. "Let me help you."

A wave of annoyance engulfed her. This morning, she would have done anything to feel his callused fingers sliding over her skin. Now she didn't want his touch. She grasped his hand and dragged it away from her face. He seemed surprised by her reaction and jerked his hand down to his side. "I didn't realize my offer of help was so offensive to you."

"Offensive? That's not—
Leland
!" She said his name with such anger. "Are you kidding me? For years, you've treated me like dirt. Now you're calling me
sugar
and offering to help me?"

"I treated you like dirt?" he laughed harshly, the sound so grating her shoulders lifted toward her ears. Holding up his hands, he backed away from her. "You know what? I've changed my mind. In the morning, I'll drive you into town. You can hide out in one of the bed and breakfasts there. This arrangement isn't going to work." He backed away from her and pivoted on his heel. "Maybe you can call Tanner for help," he muttered as he stalked away from her.

She trailed after him in an aggravated huff. His remark confused the hell out of her. Tanny was halfway across the country gearing up for Pro Day in preparation for the upcoming football draft. "Why in the world would I go to Tanny at a time like this?"

"Oh," he said, spinning to face her. "It's Tanny now, huh?"

"It's always been Tanny. We've been close friends since junior high."

"I've had a lot of friends since junior high. We were never that close."

She frowned. "What does that mean?"

"Don't." His jaw visibly clenched. There was a warning edge to his voice, almost as if he expected her to tell a bald-faced lie. "I know what I saw that morning."

Completely bewildered, she scrunched up her face. "What the hell are you talking about, Leland? What morning?"

"Christmas Day. Five years ago." He spoke each word so roughly. "Or are you going to tell me you don't remember that kiss we shared the night before?"

Her mouth went dry. "Of course I remember that kiss."
I'll never forget it because it was
the
kiss
.

"The next morning, I watched you slink of out of the guest room Tanner was staying in and do the walk of shame right out of Mom and Dad's house."

She pieced together what he was saying. Her heartbeat sprinted. Unable to keep her voice even, she practically screeched at him. "You think I had sex with Tanny? In your parents' freaking house? Across the hall from my best friend? Is that really what you think of me?"

"I saw you," he insisted stubbornly. "Your dress was all messed up and you were hopping into your shoes."

"Oh. My. God." Dropping her clothes, she planted both hands against his chest and shoved hard. "You are such a jerk!"

He snatched her wrists, not tight enough to hurt her, but to keep her from trying to shove him again. His strong grip didn't surprise her. Those skilled hands of his were deadly. "Why did you spend the night with him?"

"That's none of your business."

"Like hell it isn't!"

Refusing to ever break Tanner's confidence, she turned the question around on him. "Why do you even care? You're the one who tossed me out into the hall like I was nothing."

"You're not nothing. Not to me," he retorted forcefully. "Never to me."

"But you—"

"I was a jackass," he insisted, cutting her off mid-sentence. He let go of her wrists and wiped his face between his hands. With an exaggerated exhale, he said, "I saw something and didn't even stop to think about all the angles. I jumped to the worst possible conclusion and punished you for it for too damned long."

"Why would you jump to that conclusion, Leland? Why didn't you come after me and ask me then? Hell—why didn't you ask Tanny?"

"I don't know." He shook his head. "No. I
do
know. I was afraid."

She blinked. "You? Afraid? Leland, you're a SEAL. You jump out of airplanes in pitch black night, land in the middle of the ocean and swim onto shore. You fight terrorists. You rescue folks from the very worst people in the world, but you were afraid to talk to me?"

"Crazy, ain't it?" His low Texas drawl made her belly quiver. "But there it is. You scared me then and you scare me now."

"But—why?"

He swallowed hard enough for her to see his Adam's apple bob. A strange thought struck her. Was Leland nervous? "You know why."

She didn't. She really didn't. Unless…

No. That couldn't possibly be what he meant.

"I’m sorry, Jamie. For all of it," he added, his shoulders sagging and his face betraying his guilt.

He looked utterly exhausted, and her heart ached for him. What had this man been through in the last few weeks? What other nightmare scenarios had he survived during the years he had dedicated to serving his country? Yes, he had screwed up big time with his assumption about what had happened that night five years ago, but she decided to let him have a pass this one time. If anyone had earned a second chance, it was Leland.

She placed her hand against his cheek and ran her thumb along the very edge of his mouth. "Let's start over, Leland. Right here, right now, okay?"

He seemed surprised by her offer. "I'd like that."

"Good."

Leland crouched down, carefully favoring his knee, and gathered up her dropped clothing. He pressed it into her hands. She thanked him with a nod and turned toward the bathroom. His voice stopped her before she made it to the doorway.

"Jamie?"

She pivoted to face him. "Yeah?"

"I don't know why you're holed up in this cabin, but as long as I'm here, I'll keep you safe."

His promise washed over her in a wave of soothing warmth. She had never meant to entangle Leland in the web of craziness she had spun for herself. At some point, she would have to come clean with him about what she had been up to for the last two years and the reckless thing she had done last week. Dane would catch up to her eventually, and if Hector wasn't there to intercept him…well…she hoped he would take one look at Leland, turn tail and run in the other direction.

"Thank you." It wasn't nearly enough, but it was all she could think of in the moment. She slipped into the bathroom and shut the door. Leaning back against it, she closed her eyes and wondered if her heart rate was ever going to return to normal. Half an hour in Leland's commanding presence, and she could hardly breathe. How in the world was she going to survive the next few days alone with him?

Chapter Three

Leland wasted as much time as possible washing the few dishes from the quick dinner of simple omelets he had cooked for them. Tired and aching from a long day of traveling, he wanted to slide into bed and get some much needed rest, but the issue of the sleeping arrangements hadn't been settled yet. He wiped away the water droplets on the countertop and draped the towel over the edge of the sink.

When he turned around, he noticed Jamie hadn't moved from her spot at the small kitchen table. She had a tablet propped against one palm while the pointer finger of the other hand tapped away at the screen. He realized he hadn't seen her cell phone. She was just like Peyton when it came to that device. If she had put it away, there was a reason for it, and he wanted to know what it was.

"Did you leave your phone in your car when it was towed?"

She didn't even glance up from her tablet. "No."

Wondering what was so interesting, he slowly edged along behind her for a better look at the screen. "Is it plugged in for a recharge?"

"No." She glanced over at the sink where he had been standing and seemed startled by the fact that he was now directly behind her. She hastily dropped the tablet down to the tabletop but not before he had caught a glimpse of the screen. "It doesn't have service out here so if you need to make a call, you're SOL. I turned it off and tucked it away in my purse."

He couldn’t be absolutely certain she was lying about not having service at the cabin, especially after she had told him earlier that she had used the phone to call George for a tow, but he thought it was a pretty flimsy excuse. There was really only one reason to have her phone hidden away and turned off. Was she trying to prevent someone from tracking her?

The thought worried him, but he let it slide for now. He would get to that issue later, but first he wanted to know about what he had just seen on her screen. Eyes narrowed with suspicion, he asked, "Why are you looking at old sea charts?"

Her pouty lips parted, and he was sure she was going to lie to him again. She seemed to rethink her decision. "I'm going over some of Dad's old dive sites."

An invisible band squeezed his chest. James Pearson had been a self-made man who had parlayed his childhood love for the sea and his time in the Navy into a multi-million dollar sea excursion and recovery operation. He had been an avid treasure hunter and thrill seeker who had sought out the wildest experiences possible on the planet. Leland had known James fairly well because of Peyton and Jamie's friendship. He remembered some of the wickedly dangerous tales the older man had told him at barbecues over the years. Some of the close calls James had survived were legendary, but that final, fatal adventure of his had nearly claimed Jamie's life.

"Why are the dive sites so interesting to you?" He had a feeling he wasn’t going to like the answer. "Please tell me you aren't considering taking a boat out to one of his old diving spots."

She averted her gaze and switched off her tablet. Pushing out of her chair, she muttered, "I've already been to most of them."

"Jamie!"

"What?"

"It's outrageously dangerous. You don't know the first thing about—"

"I'm not the same young woman you tossed out of your bedroom five years ago, Leland," she interjected with a huff of frustration. "I've gone to diving school. I've learned to pilot boats. I've skydived thirty-seven times and bungee-jumped twenty-eight. Even down into Victoria Falls," she added. "I can navigate like a champ and shoot pretty darn straight. I've kept up the rock climbing, and I've run long-distance races all around the world. I've salvaged two shipwrecks, too."

He looked at her,
really
looked at her, and realized that the shorter hair wasn't the only thing different about her since that day they had collided in the entryway of his parents' house. Thinking back to the few run-ins they had had over the years, he recognized the subtle changes that had been taking place right before his eyes. She possessed that sort of confidence that came from accomplishing daring feats. The mischievous spark in her eyes mirrored his own. It was the sort of spark borne from the exhilaration of surviving something truly terrifying and feeling
alive
. Maybe they weren't as different as he had always imagined.

A sudden thought struck him. "Is this why you left college after one semester?"

She ran her finger along the edge of her tablet. "I tried to make it work, but I couldn't get my head right. Peyton came back to our dorm room after that first day of class, and she was, like, glowing and couldn't stop smiling. She absolutely loved the lectures and the reading and the projects. She was in her element, but me? I was lost." She tapped her finger against the screen. "Hell, maybe I still am."

"I know that how that goes." His voice dipped a bit as he experienced a tremor of uncertainty at being so honest with her. "I love Mom, Dad, and Peyton, but I sometimes find myself wondering about my biological parents. I wonder why my mother couldn't stay clean, and why my father just walked away after one supervised visit with the court. I always felt loved and safe and at home with my family, but sometimes I feel like I'm looking for something that's just beyond my reach."

She nodded as if she understood. "I wanted to know why Dad was always running out the door for some new adventure. I wanted to know why skydiving and treasure hunting was more important than being around for my cello recital or my mom's birthday."

His heart ached for her. His real father had abandoned him the first chance he got, and her father had chosen an adrenaline rush over being present in his only child's life. "Did you find your answers?"

Her gaze skipped away from his face to a spot on the wall. "Not all of them."

His curiosity piqued, he watched her walk out of the kitchen and into the sleeping area of the cabin. She was hiding something from him, but he didn’t think he would get anything out of her tonight. As tired as he was, his interrogation skills weren't at their best. She was wily enough to make him work hard for the information he wanted.

"So, um, the bed situation," Jamie said as she slipped her tablet into the suitcase sitting on the bench along the foot of the bed.