Wicked Secrets (10 page)

“When you mentioned
keeping secrets
, I didn’t know this was what you had in mind.”

* * *

H
OLY
. W
OW
.

Mia brushed past him into the house, even though there was plenty of room for her to avoid the full body contact. She was clearly making a point of her own with that possessive little smack. He grinned. He’d return that particular favor at the soonest, most public opportunity possible. She was full of surprises today. He had no idea why she was jonesing to look at houses, but whatever.

Then, because some things had to be said, he hollered the words after her.

“Taking your nickname to new levels, Sergeant Dominatrix?”

After all, he’d just crawled butt-first in front of the woman wearing leaves on his ass. He’d abandoned all claims to dignity somewhere around the point where he’d kissed her holding a kitten
and
wearing vegetation.

She paused, her foot on the bottom stair.

This would be good. He shouldn’t tease her, because the name wasn’t nice, and nicknames could be cruel. Still, she was the one who had smacked his ass. She had some responsibility here. The only question was: Did she have a sense of humor hiding under her crusty exterior?

“You didn’t want to play house?”

He heard the words come out of her mouth, but nothing about them computed. He had a bad feeling he blinked at her like a fish out of water.

“Mommy and Daddy? Doctor? No, wait.” She made a face. “We haven’t done that one yet. Later.”

Yeah. Like he had a frame of reference for that. He’d been one of
those boys
growing up, the kind who was a magnet for trouble. He’d created makeshift swords and lances from whatever he found. Sticks, the cardboard tubes from the Christmas wrapping paper—anything long and remotely straight. Duct tape had been his best friend, and he’d spent hours feinting and parrying. Since the window had closed on being a medieval warrior—unless he hauled his butt out to Vegas and joined the dinner show circuit at Excalibur—and there weren’t any job openings for ninjas, either, he’d decided when he was twelve that he would become a Marine. Or a Navy SEAL. A Green Beret. Israeli Special Forces. His twelve-year-old self had been fuzzy on national identity, but long on fighting for a good cause.

“Is that what we were doing?”

“Hey,
you
proposed to
me
. I was just getting into the spirit of things.”

“You smacked my butt,” he growled, because he couldn’t think about actually being married to this woman right now. He should have explained to her that he’d blurted out an excuse, that there was nothing real about their engagement except...it didn’t feel fake. It felt right.

“Baby, just wait until tonight.” Her grin lit up her face. “I expect you to come bearing gifts.” She waggled her ring finger at him. Ah, yes. He’d just called her his fiancée in front of the island’s biggest gossip. There was no chance in hell the Realtor wasn’t tweeting her big scoop from one of the upstairs bedrooms. If he was lucky, she hadn’t snapped a picture of their kiss.

Mia turned and disappeared into what had once been the dining room. The only recognizable part of its former eatery status was a dust-wreathed chandelier dripping those diamond-like crystal thingies. It was certainly sparkly, tossing sunlight around the room. As far as he was concerned, it was just a room, but Mia wandered in with a look of rapture on her face. A look pretty damn close to the one she wore when she came for him. Imagine that. He’d been put in his place by a chandelier.

Time to check on his rescues. He fell back to the front porch and the cat carrier, whose occupants were happily taking a nap. Scooping out a kitten, he lifted the squirming bundle. Definitely a boy and a kindred soul. “We’re in so much trouble here, buddy.”

With typical feline indifference, the kitten mewed and wriggled, wanting down or possibly even teleportation out of his hand and back under the porch. Damned if he knew what it wanted, which also seemed to be his usual state of affairs around Mia. The kitten he could fix. He popped it into the carrier with its companions.

Announcing their engagement had been an impulse. He had no idea where those words had come from, but he’d better do some damage control.

Need to give you a heads up
,
 
he texted Cal. He’d be seeing the other man soon, but texting seemed simpler than face-to-face conversation.

Hit me.

He could imagine Cal kicked back on the boat or in his own fixer-upper house he was so in love with. The man relished knocking down walls and rehabbing.

I just asked Mia Brandt to marry me.

Okay. So he’d told her. There had been absolutely no asking involved. If they’d been genuinely engaged, she’d have held it over his head for the next fifty years or so, and he wouldn’t have blamed her.

Cal’s next text was short and pithy:
Wow.

Yeah. That, too. The thing was, Mia was more than a convenient coconspirator. Sure, she was a good sport about his surprise announcement, and sleeping with her was flat-out incredible. In fact, if he was being honest with himself, Mia herself was pretty incredible. She was tough and funny, and he loved the way she was determined to live her life.

Fast work. You sure about this?

Yep. He’d pretty much lost his mind.

Sure? Not in a million years.

In it for the long haul? That wasn’t him.

He’d also never looked for the easy out before. Becoming a rescue swimmer hadn’t been a walk in the park. He’d had to try twice before he’d succeeded. Some men got it in one; others tried three and four times and still didn’t make it to the end of the course. While he hadn’t rung out, he’d failed. So he’d picked himself up and tried again.

Piper wants to know if you set a date. And if you got down on one knee.

Hell no. It’s a fake engagement Gets M.J.’s granny off my back
, he texted back. He felt the grin tug at his mouth. Getting down on his knees in front of Mia would be a mistake. She might be bossy and stubborn, but she also got to him in ways he couldn’t explain. It wasn’t just her sexy outside—although he definitely loved looking at her. Nope. It was something about the woman inside. Of course, she also spouted orders better than any drill sergeant he’d ever had, and that was a problem because he didn’t do orders. Or edicts, suggestions or direct commands.

And, if they both needed to be in charge, he didn’t know where that left them.

8

A
N
 
HOUR
 
LATER
, Mia was officially in love. The cottage was absolutely perfect, other than a few minor cosmetic issues. And a desperate need for a new roof. On a scale of one to ten, where
one
was move-in ready and
ten
was a total tear-down, the cottage scored closer to ten than she liked, but the place was worth it. It felt...right.

She turned to the Realtor. “Can you give us a few minutes alone?”

M.J. beamed, clearly scenting blood in the water. Or her six and a half percent commission. “Sure,” she said. “Flip the lock on your way out and take all the time you want. When you’re ready to make an offer, you’ve got my card. I could start the paperwork now even, and then you could swing by later this afternoon and sign it. Just give me a
yes
.”

As soon as Mia had landed stateside after her last tour, she’d shipped right back out. She was the last person who knew anything about sticking. About permanency. And yet she knew she wanted
this
. This cottage. This life in this place.

“It seems to be my day to say
yes
.” She elbowed Tag, and he grunted.

M.J. left with a chipper wave, stopping to coo at the kittens in their carrier. Apparently, she wasn’t able to resist all the furry cuteness. Mia felt marginally better about her own momentary weakness.

She pointed to the departing agent. “You’ve got new home number one right there, if you close the sale.”

“I’m not worried about the kittens. M.J. will definitely take one, and I’ll find homes for the rest.” He stamped on the floor in front of the fireplace. “The wood’s soft here.”

She eyed the spot he was pointing to, but it looked normal enough. The hardwood was a warm honey color, streaked and pitted with all the living that had happened in the cottage. Leaded glass fronted the bookcases flanking the fireplace, and a big picture window looked out toward the ocean. Despite the gazillion trees between the house and the water, she could just spot a sliver of blue. She’d get two armchairs and put them right there. She didn’t need two chairs, seeing as how she was a party of one, but it would look nice. She could sit and stare at the waves. Almost.

“You really want to make an offer on this place?” He poked a windowsill, and his finger sank through the soft, pliant wood.

She really did, although admitting the truth out loud seemed like a guaranteed jinx. Instead, she went for the deflection. “What’s up with this engagement of ours?”

“Surprised you, huh?

She arched a brow. They both knew he hadn’t genuinely meant what he’d said. And it didn’t matter if a little flicker of happiness had shot through her thinking about the two of them as a long-term couple. It was just he’d hit on her weakness. She wanted a normal relationship, one
not
broken up by tours of duty and temporary base housing.

“I—” He scrubbed a hand over his head, clearly at a loss for words.

Yeah. She’d bet it was hard explaining why you’d announced your engagement to a near-stranger without asking the fiancée first.

“Just tell me,” she suggested. “Don’t try to dress it up. I’m hard to offend.”

“It’s just that everyone on the island has been trying to fix me up since I got here. It gets old fast, saying
no
all the time.”

“Poor baby, all those women chasing you.”

He looked offended. “That didn’t come out right. Yes, there were women.”

“Did they bring you casseroles?”

“What? No.” He grinned. “Although hot dishes could have been nice.”

“Now I know the way to your heart,” she teased. “Bring food. But your dating woes don’t explain our engagement.”

“Cal and Daeg know the truth. They also know what a pain in the butt Mrs. Damiano is. Hell, the whole island wants to fix me up.”

“Let me introduce you to a phrase—
just say no
.”

He leaned back against the wall, arms folded over his chest. “I tried. I ended up with two dates in a week—and there aren’t even
that
many women on the island.”

Tag’s problem was that he was too
nice
to say no. Fortunately for him,
she
wasn’t nice at all. In fact, she’d made being a bitch a bit of a specialty. “Not a marrying man?”

“I’m Navy. I ship out. Leaving doesn’t seem like a good foundation for a long-term partnership.”

“So I’m a red herring.” She’d been worse, done worse.

“You’re a miracle worker.” He nodded at the real estate flyer she held. “Although I thought you were leaving. Instead, you’re contemplating becoming a real estate maven.”

“Plans change.” Not hers, ever. She’d always had a six-month plan—plus a two-year, five-year and ten-year plan. The simple fact, though, was that she was here on Discovery Island and strangely planless. The minute the cruise ship had sailed, her itinerary had flown out the window. It should have been scary as hell. Instead, it was liberating.

He hesitated. “Do you want me to set M.J. straight?”

Being engaged to Tag was normal, right? Kind of a dry run for whenever she did meet the guy of her dreams and settle down for good. Practice couldn’t hurt, because, yeah, her social skills were beyond rusty. Plus...

“Are you going to put out?”

He didn’t respond, just gave her the crooked grin that tugged on her insides. She’d borrow him, she decided. He was out of here soon anyway.

“Fine. Okay. I’ll be your loaner fiancée for the next six weeks or so.”

A halo of sunshine poured in the window, lighting him up. Tag Johnson was no saint, however, and they both knew it.

He took a step toward her, and she honestly had no idea if he planned to hug her. Kiss her. Shake her hand. Anything was a possibility. “Thank you,” he said.

He did, however, have mighty fine manners.

“Be careful. Now I can sue you for breach of promise.” She winked at him and moved into the kitchen. A new coat of white paint and the room would be gorgeous. Afternoon light flooded over the subway tile on the floor and lit up the little crystal knobs on the cupboards.

“I appreciate your restraint,” he said dryly on her heels. “You ever live in a small town?”

“If base counts, I’ll go with
yes
.”

He thought about her words for a moment. “Soldiers gossip. I’ll give you that.”

“Tattle, complain, whine, bitch and share far too much,” she agreed. “You can take your pick. I swear, my unit was better than Twitter. M.J. seems like she’s cut from the same cloth. All of Discovery Island is going to hear about our engagement by tonight.”

“Or sooner. Last chance to head her off at the pass. Are you truly okay with it?”

Surprisingly, yes, she was.

9

T
HREE
 
DAYS
 
AFTER
 
making an offer on the cottage, Mia tapped the Call End button on her phone, the less-than-happy news from her mortgage broker ringing in her ears. If Mother Nature had been playing along, there would be sound effects. Thunder and lightning or perhaps—if her life was a movie—the
Jaws
theme song playing in the background. Instead, all she got was another perfect day on Discovery Island.

Perfect weather-wise, at least.

Since her house buying had hit a definite snag, she wasn’t in the mood to admire the sky or lie out on the beach.

If she wanted a loan, she needed a job. She got that. On the other hand, she had cash in the bank, enough to cover the modest price of the cottage. Not wanting to burn through it all, however, she’d planned on funding half the cottage and then using the rest of her savings for much-needed repairs. Her mortgage broker had other ideas. So she either bought a fixer-upper and then did no fixing, or...she found a job.

Working wasn’t the problem. She was fairly certain Tag had meant his offer of employment, and she was desperate enough to do some arm-twisting if she had to. Unfortunately, Tag was more likely to demand other things from her. Things involving words like
begging
and
groveling
. She would have, if she’d been in his place. So she had a plan—she just didn’t like it.

She eyed Deep Dive, but Tag’s place looked like your typical dive shop and not one of the seven circles of hell. It was a few minutes past noon, and the morning divers had just returned, hauling their tanks up from the boat and washing out wet suits and gear in the tank in front of the shop. Their post-dive wrap-up managed to be both cheerful and loud. Even lurking on the sidewalk, she could hear divers swapping
Did you see the...
stories as they one-upped each other with fish tales.

Highly
suspect
fish tales. Mia was fairly certain the guy closest to her had not, in fact, spotted a twenty-foot hammerhead shark. Asking for help sucked. She’d rather be wrangling the hammerhead.

As if he could read her mind, Tag popped the door open and stuck his head out. His hair was damp as if he’d just stepped out of the shower, a scenario she could imagine all too easily. The slow, knowing smile he gave her made her want to scream. He couldn’t possibly know her mortgage broker. She’d called someone off-island, and it wasn’t like she was wearing a sign reading Desperate Woman Here.

“Are you coming in?” He waggled his fingers at her. “Or are you planning on standing there all day?”

As if it hadn’t been three days since he’d announced their pseudo-engagement and she’d kissed him. Okay. She’d practically scaled his big, tempting body on the front porch of what she really, really hoped was her new house.
Details.

“Baby.” Since two could play at this game, she gave him a saccharine sweet grin and followed him inside. She needed to talk to him—
beg
,
 
the little voice in her head noted—and an audience wasn’t her first choice, so inside it was. He disappeared through a side door and...wow. The command center Tag and his boys had set up here would have made Uncle Sam proud. Floor-to-ceiling monitors displayed real-time information about weather conditions, and banks of high-powered computers filled the available floor space. A radar map tracked incoming weather. The sun outside explained the calm inside, but Mia could imagine what happened when a storm hit.

Tag dropped down onto a chair, swung his feet up onto the desk, and leaned back. Nope. He had no intention of making this easy for her.

“Coffee?” He pointed to an ancient Mr. Coffee as low-tech as the rest of the room was high-tech. She weighed her need for caffeine against the sludge-like consistency of the liquid in the pot, and her stomach voted
no.

“Uh...I’m good.”

Or would be, as soon she got this over with.

He shrugged, clearly in no hurry. Of course, he wasn’t the one who needed an insta-job and wanted to get it wrapped before five o’clock, to boot. It was just Tag, she reminded herself. She recognized the old dive-shop T-shirt he wore—which said something about the state of either his wardrobe or his washing machine—and his military cargo pants and steel-toes were familiar gear. He looked badass and sexy as hell, which of course made her want to swing herself onto his lap and ride him like a cowgirl. Kiss him some and see if she could distract him from his work. Which, a quick eyeball of the room revealed, they had all to themselves. Given the amount of high-dollar hardware in here, the door had to have at least one lock.

She could have the place locked down in less than a minute and then...

No. House first.

Then sex?
Her libido begged.

“Tag, I—” Her voice cracked, the throaty rasp giving her away.

She moved toward him, not sure how to start. Getting her hands on his body, however, would probably send the wrong message. Deceptively simple lines of text covered his computer screen. She’d bet the code was as elegant and lean as the man lounging in front of the screen. He could probably blow up the world with a few keystrokes.

“So.” His eyes gleamed as he pressed a combination of keys and blanked his screen. Tag had always been good at giving her his undivided attention. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”

Stalling sounded good to her. “You don’t need to watch the screen?”

“In case there’s a killer storm barreling up the Pacific I’ve been blissfully unaware of for the last three days?” His amused smile shouldn’t have made her panties wet. “We’re good. I’ve got all the time in the world for you.”

Oh, damn. Where did she start?

“Three guesses,” she said huskily. When she perched on the edge of his desk, he didn’t even blink. Of course, the surface was also preternaturally clear. No stacks of papers or binders for her butt to crush or knock over. He probably figured he was okay.

“You came to say
hello
to your fiancé.” He folded his arms over his chest and grinned at her. He had a really nice chest. She should have looked at him and seen a threat. Instead, she saw safety. How strange.

“Nice try. Do your boys know?”

“That we’re engaged? Absolutely. That you’re just using me for my body? That, too.” He leaned forward and clasped her hand. He gently dug his thumbs into her palm, massaging away the tension there. She might marry him for real if he’d just promise to do the same every night.

“You came to check your kitten. I’m holding him for you until you’ve got your new place.” He nodded toward the cardboard box tucked underneath his desk.

Rescuing things—people, military missions, felines—apparently came second nature to the man. She, on the other hand, wasn’t nice. She’d served and she’d fought hard, but this time she was getting what she wanted. Still, she had a feeling she wouldn’t be leaving empty-handed.

“You know you want to.” A teasing smile flashed across his face. Problem number one? She didn’t even
want
to resist Tag. When he reached down and lifted the orange-and-white Siamese out of the box, she was lost.

“You don’t fight fair.”

“I saved you the best one,” he said. “The others have already been promised. You can thank me later. Here.”

With no choice but to take the kitten, she cupped her hands and let Tag place the Siamese in her palms. The kitten tumbled into a small heap and then started giving her thumb a bath, industriously running its rough sandpaper tongue over her skin. Maybe it liked her. Or maybe it was leftover chicken salad from lunch making her so attractive.

She needed to get back on solid ground. “I could be persuaded.”

“How?” He swiveled in his chair, his shoulder bumping her thigh. While he waited for her answer, he reached down and plucked out a second kitten. The small bundle of warm and wriggly was accompanied by a motorboat-size purr. It looked fragile, but anything living under that porch had to have a core of steel.

Tag watched her kitten for a moment. “He needs you.”

“Or he’s hungry.”

She liked the idea of being needed, though. Serving in the military, she’d had a job to do and a place on the team. Her teammates had needed her to perform, and she had. Now that she was done serving, however, she wasn’t sure what to do next.

“Do I win a prize?” he drawled.

“For...?”

“For being right about why you came. I’m hoping it involves sexual favors.”

She shook her head. “That’s not why I came.”

“Huh.” He ran a finger down her thigh. When Dani had dropped off an armload of loaner clothes, Mia had registered the lack of practical, everyday stuff. Dani’s clothes were feminine. Flirty and fun. All things Mia wasn’t. Case in point? Her sundress. The skirt was yellow with tiny white polka dots. It was cheerful as hell and not something she would ever have bought. But since she felt different here on this island, why
not
wear it? “It’s not my charming good looks, is it?”

“I need a job.” She blurted the words out.
Smooth
. She’d practiced what she was going to say, but apparently her brain had abandoned the script. “I want that job you mentioned, if it’s still available.”

He raised a brow. Shit. He was going to make her work for this, wasn’t he? “I believe your exact words were
over my dead body
.”

“Not true. I asked you if you had ambitions to play boss and secretary, and then I declined to participate.” She pointed to his kitten. “Fur baby there is about to take a header off your desk.”

Effortlessly, he rerouted the kitten. Too bad it wasn’t as easy for the two-legged folks in the room to do the same.

He curled his fingers around her kitten, stroking. The sensual jolt that went through her had to be coincidence. “So, Sam here doesn’t interest you?”

She really, really wished he didn’t, but too late. Tag had made it clear this was
her
kitten, and that she was keeping it. God, she hoped not. She had enough males in her life, thank you very much.

“I said I’d changed my mind.”

“Cat. Job. Next thing you know, you’ll be setting a date.” He shook his head in mock dismay.

“Are you going to hire me or not?” She gritted the words out. Why did he have to make this so hard?

His finger traced a wicked return path back up her thigh, the fabric of her borrowed sundress rucking up beneath his touch. It was just a finger. She shouldn’t be thinking about jumping his bones right here in his command center. Or how easy it would be for him to nudge her skirt out of the way.

“Is it a conflict of interest if I hire my own fiancée?”

“Better than someone else’s. Plus, I’m good. You wanted an office manager.”

“I wanted a temp to help with the paperwork.”

She leaned in. “I’m better than a temp. We both know it.”

“You’re so certain?”

Yes, yes she was.

“You’re bossy. You’re take-charge.” He ticked her attributes off on his fingers.

“I’m good at what I do.” She carefully set the kitten back on the desk. “Do you want me to beg? Because I can probably manage it. I’m going to have to draw the line at groveling, though.”

A grin split his handsome face. “Hell, yeah. Begging works for me. But I’ll settle for you saying: ‘Tag, I need your help.’”

“You don’t want a
pretty please with sugar on top
to go with it?”

“Mia...” He made a
give it up
gesture. “You have to say it. Give me that much.”

Fine. She could do this. Think of the house. “I need your help. Please.”

The words ran together, and the last word wasn’t as audible as the first but...she’d done it. And he rewarded her with a quick, hard kiss.

“My pleasure.”

No. It was
her
pleasure.

* * *

M
IA
 
CLUTCHED
S
AM
, looking slightly dazed. Good, because that made two of them. He didn’t know what he was doing here, either, although he definitely recognized the feeling flooding through him. Satisfaction. Maybe his prickly ex-sergeant needed him for something more than sex.

“Why the sudden interest in the job now?”

“I want the house I saw.” A fiercely possessive tone shot through her voice and made him wonder: What would it take to make her talk about him the same way? She was still talking, though, so he forced his attention back to the here and now. “The mortgage broker wants me to have gainful employment before the bank commits to funding me. Hire me.” She paused a moment, then added, “Please.”

Yanking open a desk drawer, he rifled through an explosion of paper and produced a W2. “Fill this out and we’ll get you on the payroll. Your desk is over there.”

She followed his gaze and sucked in a breath. “I don’t think you’re paying me enough.”

“You don’t know how much I’m paying you.”

“It can’t possibly be enough.” She shook her head as if she’d never seen a mountain of papers hiding a desk before. True, the entire surface was covered, but they needed help. He’d made his position perfectly clear.

“Give me the job description.”

She held out a hand, as if he’d actually bothered to write a bullet-point list when he was drowning in paper.

“Dream on,” he said, fighting the urge to grab her hand and pull. One good tug and he could have her laid out on top of the paper she’d stink-eyed. He might even consider clearing her desk for her with one good shove and
then
following her down for some illicit one-on-one. There were plenty of wicked things he could do to her. With her.

“Earth to Tag.” She tapped his shoulder. “Unless you’re paying me to stand around while you daydream. In which case, lucky me. This is going to be a sinecure.”

Right. Job duties. “Bottom line is whatever Deep Dive needs. Right now, that’s someone to coordinate our rescue-training ops and the first-responder team. There’s also going to be a mountain of paperwork.” He grinned at her. “Literally. We also book adventure dives, and we’re doing a Train Like Spec Ops program with Fiesta cruise lines.”