Cindy Dees - Navy Seal's Deadly Secret

She was huddling over a mug of hot coffee, stealing its warmth with her red, chilled fingers and willing away the unpleasant memory of Eddie, when a knock on the front door startled her into nearly dumping the scalding drink on herself. Who on earth was banging on her door like they wanted to knock it in?

“I’m coming!” she shouted. She paused with her hand on the door handle. “Who’s there?”

“Brett. Brett Morgan.”

Her stomach leaped in anticipation, then fell back in dismay.

She threw the front door open, and a burst of frigid wind gusted around her, making her shiver violently. The shape of a man wearing a cowboy hat was silhouetted against the bright white of the year’s first snow turning the weeds in her front yard into a blanket of white.

“Brett? What do you want?”

He looked intensely uncomfortable, but a determined look filled his eyes and made his jaw hard. He ground out, “I’d like to come inside and quit blowing all the cold air in Montana into your living room.”

“Oh.” Dumbfounded, she stepped back. He swept past her, his sheepskin rancher’s jacket big and cozy looking, filled to bursting with muscles and more muscles. What on earth had brought him back here at the crack of dawn? It was barely 8:00 a.m. Hardly a civilized time of day for an unannounced visit! He was darned lucky the cold had already woken her up.

“Are you here to check my pupils again?” she tried.

“No. I brought you something.”

A gift? From Brett Morgan? What on earth? He held out a plastic grocery bag, and she took it, startled at how heavy it was. She peered inside.

A rotary power sander.

“It’s old, but I cleaned and greased the motor last night, and I stopped by the hardware store this morning and picked up new sanding disks for it.”

“I can’t accept this—” she started.

He cut her off briskly. “Then consider it a loan. Do you know how to use it? If you lean on it too hard, you’ll leave swirl marks in the wood. Start light with the pressure and gradually press down harder—” He broke off and reached for the bag he’d just handed her. “Here. Let me show you.”

“I can figure it out—”

He wasn’t listening. He slung down a coiled orange extension cord that he’d been carrying over his right shoulder. “You attach the disks like this…”

In minor shock, she watched as he showed her how to operate the sander. He put the thing in her hands and guided the sander to a broad expanse of paneling. He flipped the switch, and the machine jumped in her hand. Hastily, he put his big, warm hands over hers, steadying the bucking sander. Not satisfied with that arrangement apparently, he stepped behind her and reached around her to put his hands over hers once more.

Her brain went completely blank as his arms surrounded her, and the heat of his body permeated her clothing all down her back. For a millisecond, she enjoyed the sensation of being held and protected. But then fear reared its ugly head, making her go stiff.

Oblivious to her distress, Brett guided the sander across the wall, and the old finish melted away from the wood like butter, leaving fresh, bright walnut exposed, its natural tones a mix of blond and brown. As if that was what she was concentrating on at the moment.

Man. Muscle. Heat. The simultaneous push and pull of attraction and repulsion all but paralyzed her. She could do this. He didn’t mean anything by it. He was just showing her how to sand a wall. Concentrate on the good parts. Like the scent of pine trees and mountain air rising from his clothes. It was as if the Rocky Mountains themselves had swept into her living room. She always had loved the mountains.

Brett’s hands pushed hers back across the wood in a gentle, even swath, magically clearing away another broad strip of old varnish and grime.

“Ohmigod,” she breathed. This thing was going to save her hundreds of hours of tiring, dusty, muscle-aching sanding.

“You’ll still have to do a little hand sanding to get into the crevices of the molding,” he murmured in her ear. His deep voice vibrated down her spine, terminating somewhere near her toes in a little shiver of delight. Ha! No fear that time!

“This is fantastic,” she breathed. She wasn’t sure she was talking about the power sander or about being surrounded by his heat and muscles.

He stepped back, and something deep inside her wailed at his absence. She hushed that needy part of herself sternly and concentrated fiercely on sliding the sander evenly and smoothly over the aged wood in front of her.

“Christ, it’s cold in here. Is your furnace on the fritz?”

She stood back from the wall and switched off the sander. “Actually, I just installed a new furnace last week. It’s the windows that are the problem.”

“Or the lack thereof,” he muttered.

“I was supposed to go pick up some windows in Hillsdale yesterday, but I had to go to the police station instead.”

Brett winced. “Sorry about that.”

“You didn’t try to rob the diner.”

He shrugged but didn’t look convinced. Was he the kind of person who took responsibility for things that weren’t his fault? Well, wouldn’t that be a total reversal from Eddie who never once in his life had been responsible for anything bad that ever happened to him. He’d always had an excuse or a scapegoat other than himself.

In the latter years, that scapegoat had almost always been her. It was her fault his acting career hadn’t taken off. Her insistence on him getting a job that forced him to miss the best auditions. Her selfish need for a place to live that cost him acting job after acting job. Frankly, she wasn’t sure he’d ever had any talent in the first place.

“…my truck to pick up your windows?” Brett was saying.

“I beg your pardon?”

“My truck. Do you want to borrow it?”

“Oh! Uh, no. I wouldn’t know how to drive a truck.”

He snorted. “You’re from Montana and don’t know how to drive a truck? What are you? A city slicker?”

“I grew up in Sunny Creek, not on some dude ranch.”

“Fine. I’ll drive. Where are these windows of yours?” Brett asked briskly.

“You don’t need to help with my windows. I can fit two at a time in my car.”

“That tin can you drive barely qualifies as a car.”

“Don’t be dissing my car, Mr. Cow Pie Kicker.”

“I don’t kick cow pies. We use helicopters to move the cattle on our spread.”

She blinked, startled. “Really?”

“Yeah. Runaway Ranch uses the latest in ranching techniques. Our yield per acre of beef is tops in the nation.”

“Um, congratulations?”

He shrugged. “Not my circus, not my monkeys. My old man and the ranch hands do all the work.”

“Why are you living on the ranch, then, if you don’t work on it?” she asked curiously.

Brett’s gaze went as hard and cold as the sapphires the mountains around Sunny Creek were known for. Huh. She’d hit a nerve, apparently. He strode to the front door, picked her parka off the coat rack and stood there, holding it out expectantly. “You coming?” he asked.

She started forward automatically, conditioned by years with Eddie to jump to that tone of voice. But then she realized what she’d done and stopped in her tracks a few feet out of reach of Brett. “I don’t take orders from anyone,” she declared strongly.

He studied her far too intently for far too long before saying mildly, “Okay. Please let me help you pick up your new windows so you don’t freeze to death in this shack.”

“It’s not a shack!” she exclaimed indignantly.

“What would you call it?”

She looked around at the plastic tarps, paint cans, sawhorses and general chaos. “It’s a work in progress.”