Lindsay McKenna – Night Hawk (страница 5)

Instantly anger surged through her, along with a tangle of confused feelings that tightened in her throat. “Wh-what are you doing here?” she managed in a shaky tone, disbelief in it.

Gil scowled, staring down at her. “I might ask you the same thing,” he growled defensively.

Touching wisps of auburn hair across her brow, Kai tried to get herself under control, the shock of meeting him nearly overwhelming her. Gil had been her husband’s best friend, both Delta Force operators and on the same team. She saw his blue eyes grow to slits, felt his gaze rake her like invisible talons from head to toe. Feeling vulnerable, stripped emotionally, rage rolled through her. “I was just hired by Mr. Holt,” she snapped, her voice wobbling with feelings that threatened to swamp her. And yet, her heart, pounding as it was, wanted a redo of this conversation. She saw regret, sadness and defensiveness in Hanford’s eyes. Oh, he had his operator’s game face on, for sure. She knew it well. Too well. “What are you doing here?” she demanded, hard anger in her tone.

Gil put his hands on his hips, staring at her. “I’m the foreman.”

Kai closed her eyes for just a moment, opened them, feeling the air sucked out of her lungs. “Y-you work here, too?” No! That wasn’t possible! This couldn’t be happening! Her mind worked at the speed of light. Her heart expanded with traitorous emotions, wanting Gil. Again. God, she could not go there! The bastard had walked out on her after five days of the most wonderful loving she’d ever experienced with a man. Gil had left suddenly without explanation, never to return. She hadn’t seen him for four years.

Anger flowed through Kai. Gil had used her as a convenient sex partner to bury himself in to get rid of his grief. His brother Rob, a Delta Force operator with another team in Afghanistan, had been killed. Gil had seen his brother’s body to the morgue at Bagram and then looked her up.

Touching her brow, Kai saw his generous mouth moving into a resistant, thin line. She remembered that mouth. Far too well. The pleasure he’d given her. Kai had never known such tenderness and vulnerability in a man until Gil had walked into her life for those five days. She’d been a widow for a year. When he reappeared, he said he needed her. Silly her. She’d believed him and they had ended up in a five-day sexual feast that was the best thing that Kai had ever encountered with a man. Yet, on the sixth morning, when she awakened, Gil was gone. No note. No explanation. No email. No...nothing. She wished she could have forgotten him, but she never had.

And now, he was towering over her, all six feet of him, broad, capable shoulders beneath a white cowboy shirt, a black leather vest stretching across his powerful chest. His Levi’s were worn and dirty, but from Kai’s view, his strong, hard thighs were just as beautiful now as they were when they’d captured her legs and held her in place to give her the most incredible pleasure she’d ever had.

And then, he’d run. Kai had never felt so used by a man. Now, the bastard was standing there, defensive, bristling, and she could feel the energy pouring off him toward her. She was only five feet seven inches tall. She wasn’t short, but she wasn’t Gil’s height, either.

What would he do? Try to get her fired? Invent some lame excuse to let her go? Would he do that to her after what they’d shared? She searched his eyes, which were now a darker, stormy blue. Kai could feel how taut and upset he was. It felt as if they were two boxers in a ring sizing each other up, looking for weak spots, a place to get in and punch, taking the other down.

Her heart said it shouldn’t be like this. That Gil was a man of honor, like his best friend, Sam Morrison. Why had he walked away from her like that? Kai knew Gil well because Sam and he were on the same team. They had been like inseparable brothers. Maybe she didn’t know Gil at all. And he’d already proved to her that he would use her and then run.

Kai wasn’t about to let him scuttle her or get her fired. She glared up at him. “And what are you going to do about me being here?” Standing tensely, her fingers curved into her palms, her adrenaline flowing through her, she saw his eyes soften for a moment. And then that implacable hardness returned. She hated the game face an operator wore!

“If Talon hired you, I’m not getting in the way of his choices.”

Kai didn’t believe him. Her nostrils flared. “You’re a good liar, Gil. I have no reason to trust you.” She saw him take a step back, rage in his face.

“I’m good for my word, Kai. If Holt hired you, then I’m okay with it.”

Kai saw what she thought was hurt in his expression for a moment. Gil was struggling to get that game face back into place, but her sharp words were like a slap to his face and he was reeling from it. “You’d better be,” she muttered. Jamming her finger down at the wooden floor between them, she said, “I got this job fairly. And, unlike you, I don’t run.”

Gil lifted his lips away from his clenched teeth. He stared grimly at her. “Go about your business,” he snapped. “Has anyone given you a tour of the ranch yet?”

Breathing hard, Kai rasped, “No.”

“I’ll get Cass to do it,” he snarled over his shoulder as he turned and walked away.

Kai’s knees felt like jelly. She heard the hard thunk of his boots on the floor of the barn and then caught sight of him as he walked with determination down the slope toward the main ranch house.

Dammit! Sagging against the locker, she pressed her hands to her face, trying to steady her breathing. Of all the things that life could throw at her, she never thought she’d see Gil again! He’d disappeared like the black ops soldier he was.

Hands falling from her face, Kai knew she had to get herself together. Her heart stopped racing and her breathing began to settle down. God, she had to sit at the family dinner table with that bastard! How far away could she get from him? Her mind raced with terrible possibilities. Gil was the foreman. He could make her look bad. And if she did, Talon Holt would fire her and she’d have no job.

Slowly putting the rest of her gear in her locker, Kai closed it, resting her head against the metal door. Should she tell someone? Talon Holt? This was so messy. Would Gil be mature about it? Let bygones be bygones? Not pick at her? Make her life a daily, miserable existence?

Standing, she pulled the baseball cap from her back pocket and settled it on her head. Right now, Kai wished she had a friend she could confide in. Just to be able to talk this out because it helped her to figure out what to do. Kai didn’t want to feel drawn to Gil. But she was, dammit. Her stupid heart was pining away for him even now! She remembered his kisses, his strong arms around her, cherishing her as if she were the most precious being on the face of the earth.

Guilt warred within Kai. Sam, her husband, had been an operator who couldn’t remove his game face. He never told her how he felt. He never cried. Sam hated to see her cry and would always plead with her to stop because it tore him up so much. Even though she loved Sam, Kai had never been able to get past those horrifically tough walls surrounding him. Sam never let her in. There was only one-way intimacy in their relationship, and she felt as if she were slowly dying emotionally, never fed by Sam in return.

Kai looked around. Just the soft snort of the few horses in the box stalls made her feel better. The scent of alfalfa hay was like perfume to her nostrils. She wished she could erase those five days with Gil. Until he showed up at her small barracks room, she had thought he was just like Sam: implacable. Unreachable. But he hadn’t been. She’d seen the devastation in his face, his eyes red rimmed, seen the rawness, the terrible grief over his younger brother’s death hours before. He had met her in the lobby and told her he needed to talk with her. She’d taken him up to her room to speak in privacy.

Talk had turned into an unexpected arousal when Kai had spontaneously kissed him in her room. That kiss had thrown them into each other’s arms. To this day, Kai couldn’t figure out why she’d agreed to go with Gil to the conjugal building on base reserved for married couples. He was black ops, so he knew how to work the system to utilize the facility. Gil had gotten them a large, beautiful suite with a real bed.

Kai drew in a ragged breath. She would never forget the tears falling down his stubbled cheeks, the utter vulnerability in his eyes as he stood in her room allowing his grief to surface. And when she’d come into his arms and kissed him, everything changed in a heartbeat. She thought the kiss was to soften his grief over his brother’s death. Oh, she’d always thought he was a ruggedly handsome man. Every woman who laid eyes on Gil stared longingly at him, lust and interest in their eyes.

He wasn’t pretty-boy handsome at all. Just the opposite—a kind of rough-hewn face, intelligent, hard blue eyes that missed nothing. His nose was hawkish, mouth wide, his lower lip fuller than his upper one. It was his square face and that granite-looking chin that Kai should have read differently.