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Ronan’s eyebrows shot up. “There’s no fucking way you won. I’m betting Natalie made you sleep in the car.”
“We hit traffic, so yeah, we stopped,” Jack said. “But I didn’t win the bet.”
“Something happened,” Cade said. “Look at her. You’ve received a warmer welcome from our damn targets.”
“It’s a good thing Natalie doesn’t have an AK-47 right now,” Ronan agreed. “But if looks could kill, I would be taking your place beside Cade on Saturday.”
“She doesn’t need a weapon,” Jack said. The feisty bartender had more defenses than anyone he’d ever met. When he’d brought up her parents, she’d distanced herself. If she’d had the materials, she would have built a physical wall between them. And then when his story had left her feeling too much, she’d added a barrier to the equation—the bathroom door.
“Between her ice queen stare,” Ronan said, “and that mouth of hers—”
“Shut up,” Jack said, his voice firm. Ronan outranked Jack. While deployed, Jack wouldn’t dare tell an officer to shove it. But Sin City wasn’t that kind of hot zone. One more word about Natalie might make Jack snap. And Cade probably wouldn’t appreciate a brawl at the first event of his wedding weekend. Speaking of Cade…
“She’s your friend,” Jack said, turning to the groom. “Why don’t you stand up for her?”
Cade cocked his head and kept his gaze focused on Jack. “Natalie can fight her own battles.”
“Doesn’t mean you should let Irish here talk shit about—”
Her mouth. The full lips that had kissed him like she wanted to devour him. Shit, imagine what they’d feel like wrapped around his—
“About what?” Cade asked mildly.
“Jesus, it was a joke,” Ronan said, shaking his head. “I’m grabbing another drink. Want one?”
“I’m good,” Cade said. “But we’re keeping the bar open another hour, so have at it.”
“I should take advantage of that open bar too,” Jack said.
“Look.” Cade’s gaze met his, stopping him from following Ronan. “I don’t want anything to do with your bet. But I know you care about her, and this isn’t going to end well.”
“She’s beautiful. And yeah, I want to win. But I’m not planning a long-term thing.” He didn’t have a clue how to turn a night, maybe a week, into a relationship. He was willing to give it a shot at some point. But he’d need a helluva lot more than charm to keep something going while he was on the other side of the world for months at a time. That took trust. And he had to face facts. He wasn’t good at trusting anyone—or convincing them to trust him—unless it was in the bedroom or on the battlefield.
The women he met at Bottom’s Up saw his smile and stopped listening to his words. When his charming face deployed along with the rest of him, so did their interest. He had two failed relationships to prove his theory. And Natalie—she didn’t even pretend to trust his smile.
“You care,” Cade said firmly.
“Yeah, I do.” Jack lifted his beer to his lips and turned his attention to the woman in the black and white bikini. He watched as Lucia moved to Natalie’s side. The visible reminder that someone had taken a knife to Cade’s fiancée was impossible to ignore in the bright sunlight. Shit, Lucia wasn’t even his, but he wished like hell he could erase her pain.
And he had a feeling Natalie did, too.
“Cade, does Natalie ever talk about what happened? To Lucia?”
“No.”
“Does she ever say anything about her parents’ accident?” Jack asked.
His teammate’s brow furrowed. “Not much. I know Natalie holds a grudge against the past.”
That makes two of us.
Jack drained the rest of his beer.
“Why?” Cade asked.
“We saw an accident on the road yesterday,” Jack explained. “It spooked her.”
“And you asked her about it?”
