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“You always did push yourself hard.”
“No point in doing something if you’re not going to be the best, now is there?”
“Suppose not,” Sam said, then asked, “So, want to tell me what’s weighing on your mind?”
Ronan shot Sam a quick look. Since when was he so easy to read? Hell, all over Ireland, Ronan Connolly was known to have the best poker face in the country. No one could tell what he was thinking. For years, he’d worked at locking down his emotions. Until now he would have said it was second nature.
Irritating to know that his control had slipped enough to allow Sam a glimpse of the turmoil within.
Covering as best he could, he said, “There’s nothing.”
“Yeah. Sell that to someone who doesn’t know you as well as I do.”
True, Sam did know him well. The two of them had been friends for five years, since meeting in the Middle East when they were both guarding politicians. That friendship had eventually become a partnership. Ronan had given Sam Travis the start-up capital to open his training facility and now he personally trained all new Cosain employees.
“So, what’s got the great Ronan Connolly twisting in the wind?”
Ronan frowned. “Would it do me any good to tell you I don’t want to talk about it?”
“What do you think?”
He snorted. “I think you’re a pain in the ass.”
“That’s been said before.” Sam leaned back against the hip-high half wall lining the front of the firing range. “Doesn’t answer the question though.”
No, it didn’t. If Sean were here, Ronan might talk things through with his cousin. Then he smiled at the notion. Sean was more determinedly single than even Ronan, so what would the man possibly know about what Ronan was feeling at the moment. Hell, even he wasn’t sure what his feelings were.
From the long range weapons area, shots echoed in the clear desert air. Here, it was just he and Sam in the waning afternoon light. He took one last stab at keeping his thoughts to himself. “What makes you think there’s anything?”
“For one, you don’t usually make a surprise visit. For another, you haven’t been on the range in months. So something’s bugging you. Anything I can do?”
It had been months since he’d been target shooting. Because he did more desk work than field work these days, it hadn’t seemed important. But since getting back from his last job and finding himself at war with Laura Page, Ronan had felt the need to settle himself. So he’d come here. To see his friend. To check on his new recruits. And to lose himself in tasks that required enough focus and concentration that he had none left to spare for the woman currently haunting his thoughts. So far though, even the range hadn’t shoved Laura completely from his mind.
It was good to see Sam, whether or not the man was digging too close to what Ronan would rather not talk about. Ronan met his friend’s direct gaze and counted himself a lucky man. He wasn’t long on family—having only Sean and his widowed mother, Ronan’s aunt Ail-ish—but he had a few good friends who more than made up for the lack. Though even the best of friends couldn’t help him uncover the mystery that was Laura—or the question as to why the hell he cared.
“I appreciate it, Sam. I do. But—”
“Butt out?”
“Aye,” he said with a nod, “to put it bluntly.”
Affably, Sam shrugged and smiled. “I can do that—”
“The question is, you see, not what’s bugging me,” Ronan mused aloud, “it’s what’s chewing at Laura’s insides enough to make my life a misery.”
“Ah, problem explained.”
“How’s that?” Ronan asked.
“It’s a woman. Therefore, you’re screwed.”
“That’s quite the statement from a happily married man.”
“The reason I’m happily married is I don’t try to figure Kara out.” Sam lifted the collar of his jacket against the desert wind dragging the scent of sand and sage past them. “If she’s mad, I apologize.”
Ronan could only stare at him. “Apologize for what?”
Sam shrugged. “For whatever she thinks I did.”
“And what if you’ve done nothing?” Ronan thought back and assured himself again that no, he hadn’t done a damn thing wrong. All right, perhaps he might have been a bit abrupt in the way he broke things off with her before, but she’d not complained at the time. And hadn’t it been her own fault he’d done it at all? Looking at him with those dreamy eyes of hers where plans and futures were so plainly written.
What else could he have done, but pull away so that she got no notions of permanence? He’d made no promises and so hadn’t broken any. So what the devil did he have to apologize for?
“We’re male, Ronan,” Sam said on a laugh. “So as far as our women are concerned, we’ve always done something.”
“Well, that’s a hell of a thing.”
“Is what it is,” Sam said with another shrug. “Take it from me. Apologize. Get it over with. It’s not as bad as you might think.”
Shaking his head, Ronan clapped one hand on his friend’s shoulder. “It’s sad I am to see what’s become of you, Sam. A warrior. Fierce. Afraid of nothing. And now you’ll apologize for the sin of being a man.”
“Damn straight.” Sam grinned. “And flowers wouldn’t hurt, either.”
“Flowers.” Ronan snorted and shook his head. Damned if he’d apologize for doing nothing and hadn’t he already tried bringing her flowers? The roses he’d left crushed on her front steps? Remembering had him gritting his teeth. No, he wouldn’t be doing that again.
Ronan shifted his gaze to the surrounding desert. Miles and miles of rock and sand and cactus and scraggly Mesquite and not much else. In late fall, the sun was bright and the air was cool, and the continuously blowing wind didn’t warm things up any. Ronan was used to cold, given that he was born and raised in Ireland.
But, damn. “You know, I’d give a thousand dollars right now, just to see one bloody tree.”
Sam laughed. “The desert’s no substitute for Ireland, huh?”
“True enough,” he admitted, grateful his friend accepted the change in subject so easily. “I’ve never seen so much … brown.”
Ronan hunched deeper into his black leather jacket and shot a mean look at the empty blue sky. “Bloody cold for a desert,” he muttered.
Sam laughed again and slapped Ronan’s back companionably. “You should be here in the summer. Then we’re up in the one-twenties and you’re begging for shade.”
Shaking his head, he gave his old friend a rueful smile. “Don’t know how you stand it out here in the middle of nothing.”
His gaze swept his surroundings again as if he still couldn’t believe how little was out there. Oh, Sam had given him the speech about how the desert wasn’t really empty. There were animals out there, supposedly, cowering behind spindly bushes and thorny cactuses, but Ronan had never seen one.
“I like it,” Sam said, staring out at the openness, with its wide stretch of sky and the miles of sand laid out beneath it. “It’s quiet.”
A barrage of rifle fire impacted that statement and Ronan snorted.
“Usually,” Sam amended. “Kara was raised in the desert, in Arizona, so she’s happy here. And, when we’re not training new guys, we’ve got thousands of acres to ourselves.”
“There is that,” Ronan agreed, since he was a man who liked his privacy as well. “But couldn’t you plant a bloody tree?”
Shaking his head, Sam said, “I’ll get right on it.”
“Fine then.” Ronan motioned toward the rifle range in the distance. “They’re doing well?”
“Yeah, they are. They’re a good bunch. Every last one of them’s practically a sharpshooter.”
Which was why they were in the middle of the bloody desert, Ronan told himself. Hard to train men in long distance firing drills in the middle of the city. Plus, here at the training facility, there were obstacle courses, classrooms and dormitory style lodgings.
The training encompassed everything from hand to hand combat, to short-and long-distance firing exercises and class work on strategies and diplomacy. Each man who came here to be trained as a personal security specialist would, if he passed, be licensed by the state of California and then entrusted with the safety of Cosain’s clients.
“All six should graduate, no problem.”
Ronan nodded, glad to hear it. The training wasn’t cheap, but it was worth every penny. “How’s the former marine doing?”
Sam laughed. “Cobb’s doing great. Cleared the obstacle course in record time, then scored ten out of ten on the firing range. The man’s made for this work.”
“Good. I’ll have a job for him as soon as he’s cleared and licensed.”
Ronan continued on, across the rocky ground, in companionable silence with Sam. He had jobs for each of the new trainees once they were ready. For every one man accepted into the training facility, three were rejected out of hand. Those that applied had to be vetted, their backgrounds dissected, their training enhanced.
It didn’t matter how well they came recommended or if they were fully competent already. No guard worked for Cosain without going through the company’s own instruction. Only the best were hired by Cosain. Ronan expected nothing less than perfection from himself, so he demanded the same from those who worked for him.
In Ronan’s opinion, former military made the best bodyguards. They responded well to authority, were at home with weapons and dealing with dangerous situations was nothing new to them.
He knew that most of those who worked for him would never be forced to draw their weapons. The vast majority of guard jobs were rarely more than glorified babysitting gigs and that was fine with Ronan. If his clients felt safer with a Cosain guard around, he was happy to oblige them, even though in his opinion, most people didn’t need his services. It was almost as if having a bodyguard was a status symbol. A sign of celebrity. Have a guard and look more important than you actually were.
Of course, there were the other jobs, the occasional situations where lives were at stake. Then, Ronan knew the people he sent out on missions would risk their own lives to save someone else’s.
“You miss it?”
Ronan slanted a look at Sam. He knew what the other man was asking. “Not often. You?”
“Nah. Running all over creation’s a younger man’s game.”
“Younger?” Ronan laughed. “Hell, I’m but thirty-four and you just a year older.”
“Yeah, and the new recruits out there—” They stopped at the edge of the combat training field and Sam waved one hand at the ten men enduring hand-to-hand instruction. “They’re in their twenties, tops.”
Ronan looked out over the open space, and considered. Ten years he’d been doing this and for the last three or four of those years, he’d hardly spent any actual time in the field. Hadn’t really noticed, but somewhere along the line, he’d become the ‘desk guy.’ Though something inside him still roared to the surface at the offer of a new job, a new mission, more times than not, he handed that assignment off to one of his men.
Still, his pride told him he was as good as he’d ever been. “We could take ‘em,” he said.
“I believe you could,” Sam agreed, laughing. “But me, I’m an old married man now. Kara doesn’t want me out on jobs. And now that she’s pregnant, I’ve got no interest in risking my neck anymore.”
“Pregnant?” Stunned, Ronan realized the man looked ecstatic about the possibility of being a father. He would have thought that Sam had no more interest in that than he. And yet here the man was, bursting with pride. A pride, Ronan told himself, he couldn’t truly understand. After all, he had never had any interest in being a father. Though he had the feeling Sam might have said the same before he found his wife and a future he hadn’t planned on.
Yet, oddly, there was a part of him that was almost envious of his friend’s good fortune as Ronan offered his hand. “Congratulations, though it’s a frightening thought indeed, you a father.”
“Ain’t it just?” Sam shook his head and leaned down to brace his forearms on the cold metal railing in front of him. “I’ll tell you flat out, never thought I’d be a family man.”
Ronan could agree with that. Hell, it was one of the things that had cemented their friendship in the first place. The fact that neither of them believed in happily-ever-afters or, God help him, white picket fences. Now here they were, five years later and— “So what changed for you?”
“Honestly?” Sam turned dark brown eyes up to him. “Kara. She caught me off guard. Had me crazy for her and half out of my mind to have her before I knew what had happened.” He shook his head and smiled in memory. “Before I knew it, I was hanging up my guns and opening this place to become a regular Joe.”
Ronan laughed now. “Most regular Joes don’t have shooting ranges in their backyards.”
“All right,” Sam conceded, “a semi-regular Joe. I’ve got my woman, got a company I’m proud of and a few good friends.” He straightened up and slapped Ronan on the shoulder. “I call that lucky.”
“Aye, you should.” Ronan watched the trainees in silence for a few minutes before asking, “Are you planning on keeping the company then? With a pregnant wife, you’re going to want to move closer to a town, wouldn’t you?”
As if to emphasize his words, he stared off down the long road that led to the remote facility. It was five miles to the highway and then another thirty to the closest town. He wasn’t exactly a family man, but the thought of being so far from help bothered even him.
“Been thinking about that,” Sam admitted. “For now, we’re good. Kara’s healthy, and she loves it out here. She doesn’t want to move, but I figure that might change once the baby comes. If it does, we’ll go to six or seven two-week courses a year—and we’ll live in town the rest of the time.”
“Changes.”
“Yeah, but life changes on you all the damn time whether you want it to or not.”
So Ronan had seen for himself in the last few days and weeks. It was unsettling to a man who preferred order to chaos.
“And I don’t,” Ronan admitted with a shrug. “Never liked change much.”
“No, you didn’t,” Sam said, laughing as they walked away from the training grounds, headed to the office. “I remember that time in Morocco when you …”
Ronan only half listened as his friend strolled down memory lane. Instead, he thought of Laura. He saw the happiness his friend had found and thought that maybe Sam had come out on top this time.
Four
Restless, Laura wandered her house, like a spirit looking for someone to haunt.
With Ronan gone, she should have been able to relax, let down her guard. Instead, she was more on edge than ever. Holding her coffee cup in one hand, she climbed the stairs and walked down the hall to Georgia’s room. The door was open and Laura leaned on the doorjamb, looking in.
Georgia sat at her computer, a design program open to the interior of their condo—the living room specifically. While Laura watched, her sister used clicks of the mouse to change the wall colors and to digitally move the furniture around. She created wall hangings and rugs, changed the floor from wood to tile and when she was finished, Laura thought, the result was lovely.
“In the mood for a change?” Laura asked.
Georgia just smiled at the screen. “It’s fun to experiment, but no. I think we’re good for a while.”
When she was married, Georgia had been an interior designer. But, when she divorced and moved back to California, Georgia had left everything of her old life behind. Including her dreams of a design studio of her own.
“Do you ever miss it?”
Sitting back in her chair, Georgia reached for her own cup of coffee, on the desk. She took a sip and made a face. “Yeesh. Gone cold.” Setting it down again, she looked at Laura and admitted, “Sure I miss it sometimes, but I’m happier now. Working with you.”
Funny, but neither of them were working at their dream jobs. If Laura had her way, she’d be making her living as an artist. But selling enough paintings to make a living was almost impossible. The real estate thing had happened because they both were good with people and someone always needed to buy a house. So she and Georgia both had put away the work they loved to do what they had to do. And if they bought the building for their business, then they would at least have that security behind them.
“Do you ever wish we could just—”
“Run away and join the circus?” Georgia finished for her with a grin.
“Something like that,” Laura said.
“Who doesn’t? Honey, most people don’t get to spend their lives doing work they love. Most of them make do with good jobs that support their families.”
“I know,” Laura said with a sigh. “And I’m grateful that we have the work we do, don’t get me wrong. But sometimes …”
“Yeah,” her sister mused, with another glance at the design on the computer screen. “Sometimes.”
Deliberately then, she shut off the program, grabbed her cup and stood up. “Come on, let’s go downstairs and get me fresh coffee.”
“We’re crazy you know, drinking coffee this late. We’ll both be up all night.”
“Sleep is overrated,” Georgia told her, stopping at the bottom of the stairs to give Beast a pat on the head.
It wasn’t the sleeping that bothered Laura. It was the dreaming. Always of Ronan. She couldn’t even close her eyes without seeing him.
In the kitchen, the bright, overhead light sent shadows scattering. Beyond the glass, the night was black and the skeletal limbs of the trees waved in the wind as if they were dancing.
“So, why can’t you sleep?” Georgia asked, then corrected herself. “Why don’t you want to sleep?”
“You know why,” Laura said and took a seat at the kitchen table. Her reflection stared back at her from the window glass and she turned from it.
“Ronan.” Georgia sat down opposite her and nodded. “I figured. He’s been front and center for you since the moment you met him.”
“I don’t want him to be,” Laura said.
“Too late for that.”
Laura snorted. “True. Oh Georgia, this is all just a mess. Maybe Sean never should have brought Beast here. Then I never would have seen Ronan again and—”
“What’s this Sean like anyway and why didn’t I meet him?”
“You were out showing houses when Sean showed up here with Beast.” Speaking of the dog made him appear. He wandered sleepily into the kitchen, strolled under the table and plopped down, his body covering both sisters’ feet. Laughing a little, Laura said, “What’s he like? Gorgeous, Irish and rich.”
“Huh. A lot of that going around,” Georgia murmured. “Why don’t you go for him then? Forget Ronan and go for his cousin.”
“Sure, good idea.” Laura shook her head. “Way too late for that, too.”
“Yeah, I suppose so.” Georgia took a sip of her coffee. “It’s a shame, really. I actually like Ronan. So if he hurts you again, I’m going to hate to have to get nasty.”
“My hero,” Laura said, smiling.
“Men may come and go,” Georgia told her as she lifted her coffee cup in toast, “but sisters are forever.”
“And I’m grateful, believe me.” Laura shook her head and stared into her coffee cup as if looking for answers she couldn’t find anywhere else. “I didn’t mean for this to happen, you know? I didn’t want to fall for him.”
“I know, but really? Look at the man. Who could blame you?”
“So, what am I supposed to do about it?”
“Not much you can do, but wait it out,” Georgia told her. “He left before, sweetie. He’ll probably leave again.”
Very true, Laura thought grimly. Ronan wasn’t the kind to stay. She had known that going in and had thought she could deal with it. Well, she was wrong about that. And the longer he hung around now, the more her heart was engaged.
Probably a good thing that he was out of town for a bit. That would give her a chance to push him from her mind and wrap a little more metaphorical padding around her heart to try to protect it from the inevitable crushing.
* * *
He was gone for three days.
Laura didn’t want to miss him, but she did. Why was the big question. She had spent the six weeks he was gone on that job convincing herself that it was for the best that they’d split up. She had allowed herself to feel too much for a man she knew was only temporary. And if they’d been together much longer, the pain of separation would have been that much harder to survive.
Yet, she couldn’t seem to let go. Couldn’t get him out of her mind. Couldn’t even concentrate on work enough to stay settled, so early in the morning she grabbed her paints and headed to the beach.
That’s where he found her.
She didn’t have to hear him approach to know he was close by. Laura could feel his presence as surely as she would have a touch. Which only served to warn her of what she already knew: she was in deep trouble with no escape route.
“I went by the office, looking for you,” he said, leaning casually against the iron railings that separated the greenbelt and sidewalk from the drop to the beach below.
“Yeah, I didn’t go in today.” Clearly. She didn’t look at him. Instead, she kept her gaze locked on the ocean. After the stormy weather, the sky was a brilliant blue and the sea was still choppy, throwing up foam with every crashing wave against the shore.
“Georgia told me where to find you.”
“So much for sisterly loyalty,” she muttered with a quick glance at him. Oh, she wished she hadn’t looked at him. He was wearing dark jeans, a thick, forest-green Irish sweater and the wind was tangling his hair just as she wanted to.
He smiled as if he knew what she was thinking. “I told her we had things to talk about.”
“Do we?”
She was nervous. She hated that she was nervous. Her hand was shaking, so she took a tighter grip on her paintbrush and willed herself to even out. To get steady. No way would she let Ronan know how he affected her.
A few hardy surfers were out, looking for the perfect swell, but the sand was empty, and even the sidewalks were practically deserted. Not that many people interested in sitting out in a cold wind first thing in the morning. And a winter beach didn’t attract many takers. Not even in southern California.
“You know we do,” he said quietly.
“I know our conversations never go anywhere, and I’m too busy to run in circles today,” she told him.
He moved away from the railing, walked around to stand behind her and look at the canvas that was nearly completed. She wasn’t comfortable having anyone looking over her shoulder as she painted. Ronan only upped the nerve factor.
“I’ve no interest in circles, either,” he said, lowering his head until his whisper sounded against her ear.
His breath on her skin was a sinful caress she sooo didn’t need.
“Then go away.”
“’Tis a public beach,” he reminded her in that same, low whisper before he stood up and moved around her chair to block her view of the ocean.
“It is,” she agreed. “And a big one. Why are you in my corner?”
“Because of you, Laura.”
“So we’re going to do the circle dance today anyway, are we?” she asked, hearing the snap in her tone and wincing at the sound of it. Way to look unaffected, Laura.
She wouldn’t look at him again. Wouldn’t meet his eyes. Because everything she was feeling would probably be written there for him to see. Ronan had always been too good at looking deeply. No doubt, exactly why he’d broken up with her in the first place.
He had seen that she was putting too much of herself into a relationship destined to end.
“Could you answer one thing for me?”
She risked another glance at him and felt her heart take a hard jolt. “Depends.”
“Could you tell me why you sell real estate when you can paint like that?”
She stopped, lowered the brush she held in her right hand and took a long look at the nearly finished painting on her easel. It was good, she knew that. She had talent; every teacher she’d ever had had told her so. And she loved painting, though she didn’t have as much time for it as she’d like.