Run To You (4 page)

“The lot video caught you leaving with him.”

She’d forgotten about the security cameras in the parking lot. “Then you can probably see that I was as surprised to see him as you were.” For one optimistic moment she thought she could reason with her former boss. Maybe make everything okay again. “I swear that—”

“Cut the shit!” Ricky screamed into the phone, crushing her unrealistic hope and raising the tiny hairs on the back of her neck. “Those Gorokhov bastards are cutting into my business. No one takes money out of my pocket and gets away with it. No one leans on my— What’s that noise?” he interrupted himself. “Are you at the airport?”

She hit end on her phone and looked around as if she half expected Ricky or one of the Gallos to grab her. Her breath caught in her chest as she bent down and grabbed her duffel. She moved toward the first-class check-in and took her place in line. Ricky didn’t know for sure she was at the airport, she told herself, but even if he acted on his suspicion, it would take a good half hour to forty-five minutes to get to MIA from the bar.

The duffel weighed down her arm as she moved forward in line. He’d have to know which terminal and line, and the odds of him actually finding her were slim to impossible. The heavy airport security calmed her nerves about her crazy former boss but did nothing for the other reason her stomach was a knot of nervous tension.

Sadie.

Stella moved forward in line. For the past few years, she’d given up her dream of meeting her sister. She’d packed it away with other childhood dreams and hadn’t thought of it much. Hadn’t thought of family much. Especially Sadie. Now Sadie wanted to meet her, and all the old feeling of want and hope and hurt swamped her. The one thing that Stella had wanted so desperately as a child was just a plane ticket away. A few hours from happening.

The knot in her stomach tightened as she took another step forward. With each step, it got tighter and tighter until she thought she might be sick. Her chest ached and her head got light and she tried to pull air deep into her lungs. Heat flushed her neck and cheeks, and, a few feet from the front of the line, she ducked under the rope before she fell on her face. She wove through travelers and luggage. She couldn’t breathe and bumped into a businessman on a cell phone. She practically ran through the automatic doors and gasped once she was outside. She sucked humid fumes into her lungs as deep as possible.

Panic attack. She recognized it flushing her face and pounding in her head and chest. She’d had them before, only now she knew she wasn’t going to die. That her heart would not explode, and if she focused on something else, she would not pass out.

All around her, people brushed past and horns honked and she walked. She didn’t know where she was going. Just somewhere before the last twelve hours caught up with her and she passed out or worse. A Hilton shuttle pulled between a minivan and a cab at the curb and she kept walking. As she moved from the north to the central terminal, the sun hit her face. She paused to pull her glasses from the top of her head and shoved them on the bridge of her nose. An afternoon breeze stirred palm trees across the street of the upper-deck garden. Flags from around the world stood like sentinels at one end and fluttered in the slight wind. She moved across the road toward the oasis in the midst of concrete and steel and glass. The weight of her duffel pulled at her arm as she dodged a black truck and almost got mowed down by a Prius. She found a bench hidden within the greenery and sank onto it. The duffel and backpack dropped at her feet and she raised her face. She took deep, shaky, breaths and shut her eyes. Her heart wasn’t going to explode, she told herself. She wasn’t going to die. She wasn’t going to pass out if she slowed her breathing and calmed down.

For some reason, the thought of getting on a plane and living out her childhood dream had finally shoved her into the panic attack she’d been avoiding since Ricky had grabbed her last night. It scared her more than mobsters busting into her apartment. Although that had scared her plenty.

She slowly let her breath out and placed her forearms on her thighs. Sadie had hired Beau Junger to find her. Sadie wanted to meet Stella. So what was so scary? What had kept her from getting on that American flight to Texas?

Stella relaxed her shoulders and stared at the toes of her boots. What was she afraid of? she asked herself, even though she knew the answer. Long ago she’d figured out that sometimes people just didn’t like her. Whether it was her sense of humor or her outlook on life, some people didn’t think she was as funny as she thought she was. Others didn’t like her lack of focus. She did seem to flit from job to job and place to place. There were even those in her own family who didn’t like her. They called her
guera
. White girl, and they didn’t mean it in a good way. They thought she was spoiled because of her father’s money, but the money had never been hers. The trust was in her name, but she’d never had any control over it.

Tears stung the backs of Stella’s eyes. She felt like a kid again, lying on her bed, alone in her room as one of her biggest fears rolled through her head.
What if Sadie didn’t like her?
She’d rather live her whole life not knowing her sister than have Sadie look at her like some people did. Like their own father had.

As the first tear dripped on the lens of her big sunglasses, the toes of black tactical boots appeared before her blurred vision.

“You’re going to miss your flight.”

She was almost relieved to hear his deep familiar voice. “How’d you find me?”

“Your cell has a GPS.”

She looked up. Up past his long legs and flat stomach, over his big chest and thick neck to the frown pulling at his mouth. “You got here pretty fast.”

“I hadn’t gone far.”

Her gaze continued to his gray eyes drilling into her. “Is Sadie paying you to make sure I get on the plane?”

“No. I pulled into short-term to make some business calls.”

With the sun pouring over his broad shoulders, he looked bigger than ever. “And to make sure I got on the plane.”

A sharp nod confirmed her suspicion. “The next one doesn’t take off for three hours.”

“Yeah.” She took off her sunglasses and wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand. “I can’t get on it.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “I just . . .” She lifted the hem of her dress and cleaned the lens of her glasses. “I don’t like heights.”

“You’re afraid to fly?”

She nodded. Much better to lie than tell him that she was afraid her sister wouldn’t like her.

“Why didn’t you say that? I would have made other arrangements.”

“You didn’t ask.” She returned the glasses to her face. “You just shoved a ticket at me.”

He pulled out his phone and punched a few numbers. “Yeah,” he spoke into his cell. “I need you to look at bus schedules in Miami and find a ticket headed to Amarillo.”

Stella stood. She didn’t know what she was going to do, but it for damn sure didn’t involve a bus. “Forget it. I’m not getting on a freaking bus.”

His scowl reached his eyes. “I’ll have to get back to you.” He ended his conversation and shoved the phone in his pocket. “What are your plans, Stella?”

Wow. That was frosty. Good. She liked frosty. It kind of snapped her out of her fog. She reached for her backpack and put it over one shoulder. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll . . .” What? “Maybe I’ll rent a car and go . . .” She stooped to pick up her duffel. “Somewhere for a while.” Until Ricky forgot about her. It couldn’t take too long. Could it?

Mr. Stone Cold stared down at her. “Un-fucking-believable,” he said. “This was supposed to be easy. Just give you a fucking message and get the fuck out of town.”

Wow, not only was he stone cold, he apparently liked the F-bombs. “Sorry.” She shrugged. “But you can leave now. You gave me the message from Sadie. I’ll be okay.” And she would. She’d been taking care of herself for the past ten years. Most of her life, really. She’d figure out something. She didn’t need help. Not from anyone. Especially from a man who was so cold he probably crapped ice cubes.

Chapter Four

H
e was hot. The kind of hot that had nothing to do with the ninety-degree temperature outside. Beau Junger directed the air vents toward his face and glanced across the rented Escalade at the twenty-eight-year-old sacked out on his leather seat. A white iPad sat on her lap and a pair of purple ear buds plugged her head with music. As far as Beau had been able to surmise from her annoying singing before she’d fallen asleep, she listened to indie crap.

Right before she’d crashed, she’d taken the rubber band from her ponytail and pulled her hair over one shoulder. The long black strands lay on her tan skin and curled beneath the curve of her breast. Shiny like the night before.

Damn. Beau pulled his gaze from her hair and smooth skin and turned his attention to the interstate heading toward Naples and Tampa. She was twenty-eight. Even if he wasn’t determined to keep it in his pants and wait until sex meant something, she was too young. Much too young for him to have thoughts of his fingers tangled in her hair.

He scowled and moved his head from side to side to get the kinks out. How had this happened? How had things gone bat-shit sideways so fast? He’d agreed to do Vince a simple favor. Vince was a good guy. A friend of Blake’s. Beau was just supposed to give Stella the message that her sister wanted to contact her. Easy. Nothing to it, and he’d had business in Miami and Tampa anyway. He’d provided security a few nights before at the wedding of a rock star in Key Biscayne. Except for the helos buzzing overhead, drunken guests, and partiers having sex in the bushes, the event had been blessedly uneventful. No breach in security or punches thrown.

He couldn’t say the same for the favor he’d agreed to do for Vince. He’d known within minutes of arriving at Ricky’s Rock ’N’ Roll that he was walking into a goat screw. His first clue had been the drag queen in tight leather cracking a whip on stage. He should have turned around and walked out, but he’d never been a guy to give up. To call it quits. Not even when the queen with the green lips had called him Joe and wanted to see his “weapon.” But being propositioned by a queen hadn’t annoyed him as much as the men groping each other around him. He’d bugged out to escape all the writhing and dry humping. He’d grabbed a bite to eat at a Cuban café and then he’d waited it out in the parking lot behind the bar. Hanging out in the lot, making calls and catching up on business, had been preferable to hanging with queens and horny gay men.

He could understand a guy being born gay. He wasn’t into other men, but understood the biology of it. What he didn’t understand was why a guy would put on a dress and heels and purposely tape his junk to his ass. Nor did he understand dry humping in public. Gay or straight, he’d never been into public displays of affection. He wasn’t a prude, far from it. He just didn’t understand why anyone would get himself all worked up in public. Get busy at a party or on a dance floor when there was probably a perfectly good bedroom or hotel or closet nearby.

Beau adjusted the vent beneath the steering column and glanced at his passenger out of the corners of his eyes before returning his gaze to the road. Her face was turned away from his, her head resting back against the seat. She was blessedly quiet for once. She was asleep, but she’d had to wonder what the hell she going to do with herself now. Now that she’d been fired, pissed off a couple of mobsters, and couldn’t go home. He was wondering the same thing. What in the hell was he going to do with Estella Immaculata Leon-Hollowell? It wasn’t like she was his responsibility. He’d done the favor for Vince. He’d given her the message. His job was finished.

Why did he feel responsible?

Maybe because he’d played a part in her present situation. He was in security and knew how to talk to unpredictable people. To handle drunks and deescalate volatile situations without the use of physical force, but he’d wanted to hit Ricky De Luca. The second the man had grabbed her and refused to let her go, he’d wanted to knock him out. Hell, he thought he’d been fairly reasonable, giving the guy three seconds and two chances, but Ricky had told him to fuck off. Twice, and that had been one time too many.

Beau passed a semi loaded with produce, then moved back into the right lane. But if he hadn’t clocked Ricky, the man wouldn’t have sicced the Gallo boys on Stella and Beau wouldn’t feel responsible for her now.

He could have left her at the airport. She’d even told him to leave and that she’d be okay.

So why hadn’t he?

Maybe because in the light of day, sitting on a bench with her backpack and duffel, she’d looked so young. So much younger and more innocent than her full red lips and leopard bustier had implied the night before. To say nothing of her little leather shorts. Jesus, her ass had been amazing and— He stopped his mental wandering. He didn’t want to think of her little butt in those little shorts. Or her red lips and what she could do to him. Not even the old Beau would have gone there. The old Beau who woke up in strange beds with nameless women. Even that Beau had a few standards. Admittedly very few, but one unbreakable rule was never have sex with a client. Another was never knock boots with a buddy’s sister. He’d learned that one the hard way, and Stella Leon was both. A client and Vince’s future sister-in-law.
And
she was too young.

He glanced at the navigation system in the center of the dashboard. He’d been celibate for eight months. Eight months since he’d picked up a cocktail waitress in a Chicago bar. Eight months since he’d looked in a hotel mirror and saw his father looking back at him.

He’d spent a lot of his life proving he was nothing like Captain William T. Junger. His old man was a legend in the SEAL teams. A hard-as-nails warrior who’d earned his reputation in Vietnam and Grenada and countless other clandestine engagements. He was a hero. A leader. Loyal to the teams and his country. If you read a book about the history of Navy SEALs, several paragraphs were always dedicated to Captain Junger’s contribution to the teams. A lot of words dedicated to his courage and valor. Words like “tough,” “brave,” “honorable” were used to describe him. He was all of those things, but what no one ever wrote about, what no one mentioned, was that he was also a ruthless philanderer.

On the surface, the Jungers had looked like the perfect military family. Handsome Navy captain, beautiful blond wife, and two healthy sons. He and Blake had excelled at everything: school, sports, Boy Scouts. Beau couldn’t recall anyone ever telling him or Blake that they had to be the best. They’d just always known. Not only did they have their father’s blood in their veins, they lived with his expectations and reputation. They went to bed with it and woke with it in the morning.

Teachers, coaches, and random adults expected them to run faster. Swim farther. Hit harder. Naturally competitive, they always gave their best. They pushed themselves and each other, and if they somehow fell short, they tried again. Beau and Blake idolized their father. He was bigger than life and they loved him as much as they feared him. The captain never punished with his hands. He didn’t have to. One look from his gray eyes cut to the soul. The look he’d perfected to intimidate Uncle Sam’s enemies, be they terrorists, drug lords, or thugs, intimidated the hell out of his sons. If the look wasn’t punishment enough for the old man, he made the boys do push-ups until their muscles trembled and burned.

Amid all the tough, hard edges of their lives was their mother, Naomi Junger. The one person who loved them no matter the color of the ribbons they won. Naomi had been a sweet girl from North Carolina when she’d met and married William Junger. She was beautiful and vivacious, with an infectious laugh, and her warm accent and soft touch had filled the Junger home with unconditional love. As long as they remembered to say “please” and “thank you” and put their dinner napkins in their laps, the twin brothers never heard a critical word from her lips. She kept a perfect house. Cooked perfect meals. Looked perfect, even when their father was deployed or away training.

Perfect, except for the days when she didn’t get out of bed. When she sobbed like she would never stop, and when pain took over her beautiful face. When she learned that her husband had once again betrayed her with another woman.

For about the first ten years of his life, Beau hadn’t had a clue why his mother had days that seemed like her life had been drained from her. It wasn’t until he’d heard his parents arguing about it, when he heard his mother’s raised voice for the first time, that he learned of his father’s infidelity. That he learned his father caused so much pain. Time and again. That day, he learned that his father wasn’t a hero.

He’d talked to Blake about what he’d heard. His brother said they should try and forget about it. Their parents had fought it out and their father had to stop now. Of course he hadn’t, but there hadn’t been any more fighting about it. No more raised voices or yelling. Not until Beau was seventeen, but the fight hadn’t been between his mother and father.

They’d been living in a white stucco house, a few miles from the base in Coronado, California. He and Blake had applied to the Naval Academy the year before and were heading for Annapolis in a few months. There was never a question about what they would do with their lives. Never any thought about their future but that they would follow in their father’s footsteps. Together. From the womb to the tomb.

Never any thought until he found his mother in her big closet, lying on a pile of clothes she’d pulled from hangers.

“Why do you stay?” he asked her.

She gave a very slight lift of one shoulder, as if a full shrug would be just too much effort. “Where would I go?”

He wanted her to get up. To do something, but she just stared at the toes of his shoes. “Where is he?” he asked, as angry at her as he was at his father.

“With Joyce.”

“The neighbor?” The one who wore her clothes too tight and her hair several shades too blond? The neighbor that everyone knew had a lot of “boyfriends”? His mother was ten times more attractive and had twenty times the class.

She nodded, and Beau was out of the house and pounding on the next door before he even thought of what he would do if his father answered. Those few moments he stood on that porch, the warm California sun heating his already hot face, seemed to drag on forever. He raised a hand to knock once more when the door opened and Joyce stood in the darker entrance. Her hair a tangled mess, a silky robe hanging off one shoulder, she looked her part. And as Beau stood there, staring at the neighborhood bike, a desperate part of him hoped like hell his father wasn’t in this woman’s house.

“Where’s my father?”

She pushed the door open farther as his father walked up behind her, pulling his brown T-shirt over his head. “What do you need?” There was no shame or guilt. He looked more annoyed than anything.

“How can you do this to my mother?”

“She shouldn’t have sent you over here.”

“She didn’t.” He looked into his father’s eyes. Cool gray and so much like his own. “Why do you hurt her like this?”

“A man needs more than one woman can give him. Someday you’ll understand.”

“What? That cheating on my wife is okay?”

“It’s what men do. You’ll do it, too.”

No. He’d seen the devastation in his mother’s eyes too many times to ever cause a person he loved that much pain. He shook his head. “No, I won’t.

His father smiled as if he knew better. “You and your brother are just like me.”

“I’m not like you,” he’d protested, and then he’d set out to prove it. The next day he’d walked into a recruiter’s office and enlisted in the Marines.

An enlisted man.

The Marines.

The old man had been
pissed
. His mother worried that he’d made a rash decision out of anger. His brother had been in shock, but Beau had never regretted it. Out from beneath the shadow of his father, he’d thrived in the corps. He’d been his own man. Discovered a freedom from his last name. An independence from impossible expectations that his brother would never know in the teams. No matter that Blake was twice the SEAL that their father had ever been.

Until that morning eight months ago, he’d thought that he was nothing like the old man. Yeah, he loved a good adrenaline rush. He loved clandestine missions and a well-placed bullet. And yeah, he’d had sex with a lot of different women all over the world. He’d had a few relationships along the way, but he’d never been married. Didn’t have a family to devastate. Didn’t have to look in the face of a wife and kids and see their disgust because once again he’d had meaningless sex with a meaningless woman.

He’d only had his own face to look at, and he’d never felt disgust at the man looking back at him. Not until that morning eight months ago. Maybe it was age. Maybe it was settling into civilian life. Maybe it was his mother harping about family. Whatever it was, he wanted more. More than meaningless sex with meaningless women.

He knew a lot of men didn’t understand why that meant celibacy. His brother didn’t understand. Hell, Beau didn’t think he understood completely, but he didn’t believe in half measures. When he committed to something, he went all the way. The next time he had sex, it would be with the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life loving. A woman who was mature. Calm. Secure in her own skin. Stable. Not overly romantic, because he wasn’t a romantic guy. At his age, he expected she’d have a couple of kids. He liked kids. He expected to add a few more.

A woman who liked sex so he wouldn’t have to go without sex ever again. He’d read that the longer a person went without, the easier it got. He didn’t find that to be the case. Perhaps he didn’t think about sex as much as he used to, but when he did, the urges were as strong. He’d just learned a few tricks to take his mind off his urges. To rewrite the script. He avoided being alone with females, and if that was impossible, he stopped any sexual thoughts he might have. Whether they were the actual thoughts of intercourse or just wondering about a tight butt in a pair of leather booty shorts.

He glanced at the girl in the next seat. Sunlight poured through the tinted windows and shone in her coal-black hair spilling down one arm. A soft flow of air from the vents in the dash picked up several strands and brushed them across her throat. One hand loosely held her iPad. The other rested in her lap, her palm up, open. The soft air that picked up strands of her hair teased the hem of her blue dress across her tan thighs.