Navy Seal's Deadly Secret. Cindy Dees

hand. The mutt seemed to be looking for reassurance more than a scratch, so Brett let his hand rest on the dog’s back.

      “Fine. Be like that,” Miranda huffed.

      He didn’t deign to speak or to let her off the hook.

      She flopped down on the ratty sofa and threw up her hands. “So what happened at Pittypat’s? Joe called to tell me you broke a guy’s nose and arm.”

      He ground out, “The guy was a punk who tried to rob the place. I stopped him.”

      “By half killing him?”

      “Trust me. If I had tried to kill him, he would be dead.”

      Miranda rolled her eyes, not fazed by the remark. But then, John Morgan was an ex-Green Beret who’d killed his fair share of Vietcong.

      Brett picked up a knife and fork and dug into his meal, such as it was. He didn’t invite her up here, and he felt no obligation to entertain her.

      “What about the waitress? Joe said she got roughed up but you saved her.”

      He shrugged, but his shoulders felt unaccountably tight. It still pissed him off that the punk had slammed her into the counter like that. The fear in her eyes—he would be dreaming about that in his nightmares for days to come. And that other thing in her eyes… He could swear it had been a death wish. What the hell was that all about? “What about her?”

      “Is she okay?” Miranda asked in exasperation.

      “Of course. I saved her.”

      “What’s her name?”

      He didn’t want to share her name with anyone. He wanted to hold it close within himself. A secret. His secret. But Miranda was, well, Miranda. Sometimes it just wasn’t worth fighting her. He mumbled, “Larkin. Anna Larkin.”

      “Didn’t she go to Hollywood a while back or something ridiculous like that?”

      His gut clenched at Anna being labeled ridiculous, which was weird. He hardly knew her. It was none of his business what the locals thought of her. He shrugged. “How the hell would I know what she did? I’ve been overseas for ten years.”

      Miranda tapped a front tooth with a short, neat fingernail. “I think she went west with a boy. Her mother was fit to be tied. Disowned her.”

      Indeed? That sucked. Although, right about now, he wouldn’t mind being disowned by his own intrusive, pushy mother. He ate in silence, not tasting a bite of his beans and toast.

      “Is she all right?” Miranda startled him by asking.

      “Who? Anna Larkin?”

      “Of course Anna Larkin. Was she hurt today? Was she struck? Did she fall? Hit her head?”

      An image of her pitching off his porch earlier leaped to mind, and he winced at the memory of her hitting her head on the ground. He really wished she would’ve stuck around for a little while so he could’ve been sure she was okay. But it wasn’t like he could have bodily dragged her into his cabin and held her against her will.

      “I wonder if she’s been to a doctor. She could have a concussion or broken ribs or something.”

      “She would know if she had broken ribs,” he replied drily. Lord knew, he still felt his when he exerted himself too hard, four months after he’d broken them. Of course, he’d gotten off easy. Four of his men had died.

      Apparently his scowl of self-loathing finally did the trick and convinced Miranda that he had no desire whatsoever to be social with her tonight.

      “Don’t stay up here too long, Brett. You need people around you. Your family loves you.” She came over to force an unwanted hug on him, which he tolerated uncomfortably.

      She left, and he listened to her truck retreat down the mountain. Blessed silence settled around him once more. He didn’t deserve a family. And certainly not one that loved him.

      Grimly, he gave the leftover beans to Reggie, who lapped them up eagerly and finished with a loud smack of his lips. Dogs surely had the right of it. Live completely in the moment, no past, no future. Just the simple pleasures of right now.

      He turned on the television for background noise but didn’t bother to watch whatever flashed across the screen. Instead, a memory of Anna Larkin’s sweet face came to him. Her smile. Her embarrassment when she’d spilled water on him. Her terror when that kid slammed her into the counter…and her bizarre disappointment when he’d come charging to her rescue like some damned knight in shining armor. Who the hell was he kidding? He was nobody’s good guy.

      He was the jerk who’d let her go away without finding out if she had a concussion.

      He downed a couple of beers but didn’t much feel like getting drunk tonight. Which was a first for him since he’d come home. Maybe all the excitement had taken more out of him than he’d realized. He should call it a night early and get some sleep. Except when he eyed the bed through the open bedroom door, fear came calling, ugly and insidious, crawling inside his gut and gnawing at his insides until he doubled over in pain.

      The walls began to close in on him, and his breathing accelerated until he might as well have been running for his life.

      And that was exactly what he did. He bolted outside, unable to stand being confined any longer. Reggie had already settled down on his fleece bed in front of the wood-burning stove for the night, so he didn’t go back for the dog.

      He climbed into his truck and pointed the heavy vehicle down the mountain without any destination in mind. Maybe he should check out the Sapphire Club. It was a strip joint that had opened up on the edge of Sunny Creek sometime since he’d joined the Army. But he had no appetite for crowds and smoke and drunks, and instead pulled over by a curb in the ramshackle part of Sunny Creek down by where the old lumber mill used to be. The neighborhood had gotten significantly more ramshackle since he left a decade ago, and a bunch of the houses were boarded up and had waist-high lawns of weeds.

      He pulled out his cell phone and did a quick internet search on one Anna Larkin of Sunny Creek, Montana. Nothing. Crap. She must not have been back in town long. He debated starting a rumor, but ultimately risked calling Joe Westlake.

      “Hey, Joe, It’s Brett Morgan. Can you tell me where Anna Larkin lives? I want to stop by and thank her for returning my Saint George’s medal to me.”

      “Yeah, sure.” Joe rattled off the address. “She’s single, by the way.”

      “Eff off, Joe,” Brett bit out. He hung up on his cousin’s laughter.

      He drove past her place with the idea of just taking a quick look. Making sure she was okay.

      How his truck ended up parked at the curb in front of her house, he had no clue. And how his door opened and his boots crunched down into the frosty grass, he couldn’t say. He really shouldn’t be heading up the cracked sidewalk to the wreck of a house in front of him. A pile of torn-out drywall at the end of the driveway announced that construction was ongoing inside the bungalow. That, and light showing around the cracks in the plywood covering the front windows announced that someone was home.

       Turn around. Go back to the truck. Get the hell out of here. Run!

      And yet, his feet kept moving, one reluctant step at a time. What was he doing? The rational side of his brain answered that he was only checking on her health, doing what he should have in the first place. The other side of his brain, the skeptical side that knew his BS for what it was, informed him he was lying to himself.

      He watched in disbelief as his fist knocked on the wooden door frame.

      Please, God, don’t let her answer the door, he begged her.

      Light footsteps sounded behind the panel, coming close.

      So much for God giving a crap about him.

      The door opened, and there she was, outlined