going on, then you sit outside her house all night. If you’re certain somebody’s put a bull’s-eye on her, then I’ll take a shift later tonight so you can get some rest. But hey, don’t be obvious. You’re still the new guy in the neighborhood, and the last thing you need is a neighbor calling the cops on the creepy dude staring at the pretty lady’s house. And definitely don’t let Kristin see you. From what I saw today, she’ll kick you into the next county herself.” He exhaled loudly. “Man, do me a favor. If you’re going to sit on the porch alone for hours, at least admit you feel something for her.”
“I don’t feel anything for Kristin James.” He couldn’t let himself. Lucas had spent years in a misguided search for meaning and relevance after his parents abandoned him on his aunt’s doorstep. There was no counting how many people Lucas had hurt, how many women he’d used before a chaplain jerked him by the neck right after he graduated from basic training and called him on his self-destructive behavior, showed him what Jesus and grace and forgiveness could do in a man’s life.
No, Lucas knew every man had limits, and he’d never cross a line with Kristin or any other woman again, at least not while the army called the shots.
“Lie to yourself all you’d like.” Travis was far from finished. “I doubt you’d be standing watch if there wasn’t a little bit of emotion involved.” He paused. “Never mind. Scratch that. You would. It’s how you’re wired. Forgot who I was talking to.”
“You finished yet?”
“No. I called for a reason. The commander called. Criminal Investigation Command is sniffing around our guys.”
“Why?”
“No idea. But keep a lookout. Something might be about to unleash.”
Surely none of their men were in deep enough trouble to merit CID poking into the unit. They dealt with major crimes. Lucas let his eyes slip shut, trying to remember any local murders or assaults he’d seen on the news. Other than a specialist who’d come up hot on a drug test near the end of the deployment, nothing fit what CID might be searching for in their unit. They’d cut the guy loose last week and sent him packing. Yeah, Specialist Morrissey had been upset, but he wasn’t the type of guy to do something to merit an investigation by CID. Then again, Lucas had been certain he wasn’t the kind of guy to test positive, either.
“Here’s the other thing. Maybe you need a break. You spent your post-deployment leave here, moving your stuff out of storage. Take a four-day. Get some actual time away. Shift that laser focus of yours to something besides your job.”
Tempting, but Lucas wasn’t ready to do nothing. His mind and his body were still on high alert from deployment. Sitting still sounded like a recipe for disaster until he totally unwound. “I’m doing a marathon next month. Can’t disrupt training.”
“Yeah, ’cause pounding pavement until your whole body threatens to fall out is relaxing. Or does training mean you get to spend more time with Kristin? You’re prepping together for the same run, right?”
“Hanging up now. Had enough of your harassment. Go have fun with your buddies.” Lucas shifted to press End, knowing if the shoe was on the other foot, he’d be doing a whole lot more to provoke Travis.
“Hey, wait.” Travis’s urgency stopped Lucas from cutting the call. “If something goes down, you need to call the cops. Or at least call me. Don’t go all hero and try to save the day without someone backing you up. If there’s really somebody after Kristin James, there’s a reason, and if they’re willing to be as bold as they were today...”
Lucas’s smile faded as he propped a foot on the porch rail. Travis was right. This was stupid. Monumentally, colossally stupid.
Yet he wasn’t going anywhere. “I hear you.” Lucas punched End without saying goodbye and stared at the small, square two-story brick house across the street. A second vehicle sat in the driveway, a Jeep Wrangler. Her friend Casey. Travis had met the other woman twice, but he couldn’t remember a thing about her other than her dark green Jeep.
The house sat square in the small lot, the front door planted in the center of the structure, the windows on either side lit and casting deep shadows on the wide front porch. The little house sat across from his in the older Haymount neighborhood in Fayetteville, where the historic houses were gradually being overtaken and updated by those who saw value in their craftsmanship. He’d been in Kristin’s house several times to work out in her basement gym when it was too rainy to get in a run, so he knew she’d put a lot of work into hers.
The memory made him grin. Kristin James might be a smashingly gorgeous woman, but she trained like a drill sergeant. He’d thought he was in shape and figured it would be easy to keep pace with her. Nope. She was a machine. No way he could forget the kind of bodily pain he’d felt after letting her unleash her personal trainer side during a weight-lifting session.
His smile faded. Kristin was small, but she was stronger than most men. She would be fine, and this stakeout was dumb. He was still in combat mode, seeing monsters in the shadows. Kristin was safe, and he needed to wrap this up, for his own sanity.
He pushed himself out of the chair, but a flash from the corner of the house near her car stopped him.
Lucas squinted against the darkness, wishing he could bolt across the street and demand some identification from the shadowy figure skirting between the vehicles in her driveway. But if it was a neighbor searching for a lost cat, he’d have a whole lot of questions coming and no good way to answer any of them.
The flashlight bobbed under a window then to the far corner of the house, where the gate to the backyard stood in the huge wooden privacy fence. The flashlight paused, and then the gate slipped open and the silhouette of a man vanished.
* * *
The floor joists creaked as Kristin paced the small kitchen on the side of the house, listening to the coffeemaker whir as it heated water. The muscles in her legs ached their protest. After her run today, she’d been too keyed up to stretch, and the tension of the morning had settled in to stay. She’d met with clients all day, coaching them through their workouts, then come home and pounded the punching bag in the basement until her arm muscles quivered. Nothing had helped the stress.
Maybe she ought to tackle painting the guest bathroom. She’d been putting it off, but painting would give her something to do tonight while she wasn’t sleeping. Renovations on the old house in the fast-rising Haymount neighborhood were coming slowly, but the basement and the first floor were done. Kristin paced the length of the kitchen again, staring at the original hardwood, polished to a satiny sheen. Tearing out layers of linoleum had been backbreaking but worth it.
“You could make a three-toed sloth so nervous it would run for the next county.” Kristin’s best friend, Casey Jordan, stood in the arched kitchen doorway, holding a dog-eared and worn book of sudoku puzzles, her shoulder-length blond hair pulled away from her face with a butterfly clip.
“Yeah, well, I think I need to lace my shoes and run a few miles.” Maybe she could talk Lucas into going with her. Except that would be the dumbest thing ever. With her emotions twisted, the last thing she needed to do was give him free rein with her feelings.
“Running is what got you into trouble in the first place.”
“Running is my therapy, like you and your crazy number puzzles.” Casey was talking about this morning’s trail run, but she was right on so many other levels. Running with Lucas had started something Kristin probably
