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That was a new one. Dean apologizing instead of holding every ounce of emotion tight against the vest. She wanted to soften but could only worry this was a ploy to get through her defenses. Defenses she needed because of him.
“I’m on edge.” He stepped closer.
Ophelia stopped thinking, stopped breathing. Her gaze locked on his face. Her body was very aware of his nearness, responding to it in ways that were instinctive and fundamentally feminine…warming, melting. She was backed up against the fence, caught between an immovable object and an irresistible force. He lifted a hand to stroke her hair. He had no right to touch her, and she had no business wanting him to.
She twisted free. “Don’t try to work me, Dean,” she said.
“Easy, babe.”
“Playing dangerous games is not my idea of fun. The Black Hearts are more than they were when your father was alive. They’ve changed into something far worse. Don’t go after them or associate with them. It will only end badly for you. I’d hate to see that. Go back to San Diego and the Navy. It’s where you belong.”
“No, it isn’t. Not anymore,” he bit out. “I’ll do what I have to do. With or without your help.” He backed up and turned away. “It was still good to see you again, O.” He walked away, disappearing into the shadows.
And she was again left without answers but with an ache in her chest that was hard to breathe around. She was home, and in spite of everything, she felt grounded here. But Dean. What was left of home for him, here? What had he meant when he said he no longer belonged in San Diego? What had happened to him? Why wasn’t he with his team? His brothers?
She started walking, the usually stunning view of the Verdugo Mountains nothing but hulking shadows in the distance. The heat was still oppressive, but the light breeze helped lift the weight of the heavy air perfumed with the smell of trees and flowers.
She passed the gorgeous library, the clematis climbing the side of the building dark with a warm salmon pink color and a fruity scent.
She reached her house and opened the small white picket fence gate, the trellis overhead filled with climbing roses. Memories of a summer filled with roses that she didn’t want to recall.
She had been seventeen when her parents pulled her out of her local high school and sent her away to a private school because of Dean, a boy they deemed not suitable—and that was seventeen years ago. But the memories of what had happened that summer were still far too vivid. A wave of painful nostalgia and old guilt surged through her, and Ophelia clasped the warm wood of the trellis, then pushed on toward the house, stepping on the worn flagstones, the ache in her chest overwhelming. At least that was one memory that she had already confronted. He had left town years ago. The last she’d heard he was going into the Navy. Gone forever out of her life.
But the sight of him this evening was a wrenching reminder of all that she had lost. The ache intensified, and she unlocked the front door.
Dean coming back home was going to be much more difficult than she thought.
CHAPTERTWO
The red neonlight from the convenience store across the street from his apartment flashed off and on in the darkened street, the flicker creating a sporadic film of red in the inky puddle collecting along the curb. Rain pierced the surface and rattled against the window, and Dean stared out, his thoughts detached as a gust of wind send rain skipping along the pavement. His apartment was on the second floor, and the living room window offered a clear view of the dark, deserted street below. Another blast of wind gusted against the building, buffeting the streetlamp across the intersection. He shifted his gaze and watched the light glimmer and twist through the leaves of the huge old poplar tree in front of the store, his thoughts trapped in limbo.
Just like his life. His apartment was in shambles as he was packing to move, boxes everywhere. It was strange to have to deal with so much stuff. When he was a SEAL, he’d rarely worried about material things. He had always been ready to deploy, his personal life constantly on hold.
Speaking of his personal life…
Even though he had sought her out, it had been a hell of a jolt seeing her again. Seventeen years seemed like a lifetime ago. It had taken him a long time to push her into a different part of his mind, and he didn’t want to be reminded of what had happened between them. He especially didn’t want to remember how he’d felt about her. But just because he didn’t want it to happen didn’t mean it wouldn’t.
But it was a lifetime ago, and he wasn’t the same person. He was no longer the long-haired kid from the streets. He had gone through BUD/S training, SEAL training, Green Team, and become a top Tier One operator. One percent of active SEALs made the cut. You didn’t do the things he’d done or see the things he’d seen without coming out the other side different.
He was different. He’d worked for the CIA in Banja Luka, Bosnia and had almost died on one of the ops. He found the work exciting, filling the black hole his expulsion from the SEALs had opened up inside him. He would probably still be there if it wasn’t for Luna “Karasu” Shimora, Preacher’s woman, his fiancée. She’d shown up one day and said some things that were…too true.
He’d shunned his team when he needed them the most, his shame at what he’d become too much to bear. The drinking had been bad, really bad. It took some time to dig himself out of that hole. Even though he sometimes felt the craving for the hard stuff, he stayed away from it ever since he’d left his team in Virginia and come back home.
Seeing O again kicked off feelings he thought he’d buried years ago. Feelings he hadn’t experienced for a long, long time.
Folding his arms across his naked chest, Dean rested his shoulder against the window frame, watching the reflection of the red light flashing on and off like a warning sign across the rain-slick street. So why the hell was he standing here at three o’clock in the morning, staring at an empty street, with an itch under his skin he couldn’t scratch hard enough?
A twist of black humor surfaced as he watched the rain against the windowpane. Maybe this itch he had could only be scratched by Ophelia Barr.
He’d been so wound up in hormones and fantasies back then that he’d been dumb-blind as far as she was concerned. Had thought she was different. But when push came to shove, she’d been no different from the rest, no different from her old man or her mother. She had cut him down without a second glance, and it was a lesson he’d never forgotten.
But then, life had a way of teaching some hard lessons. And there were some things he would never forget. Like what it was like growing up not far from this idyllic place. Living with a father who was as mean sober as he was drunk. What the stigma of being labeled the leader of The Black Hearts’ son, his golden boy, did to him. His old man had used booze to dodge reality. Drunk or sober, Pierce Teller never accepted responsibility for one damned thing—the fact that he couldn’t hold down a job, that he couldn’t stay sober for more than two days in a row, that his family didn’t matter, except for Dean. Yeah, his old man had an excuse for everything.
Dean clenched his jaw against a hot, searing rush to his gut. He wasn’t going to get sucked back into the old rage—he’d spent too many years trying to get out from under it. Shifting his position, he braced his arm against the frame as he stared at the street below. He could have done without this crap from his past tonight. He was just too damned tired to keep it in perspective. He’d been going full tilt on the building he had legally inherited from his mom and dad and was renovating it into what would be his new venture—a motorcycle shop selling the newest stuff, but also restoring vintage bikes, a particular interest of his.
He was doing a lot of the work himself, unable and unwilling to touch the money beneath the floorboards of his parents’ house. He had no idea where it had come from and couldn’t in good conscience use it to fund a damn thing.
But he had enough capital. He’d barely touched his bank account—the Navy had provided everything for seventeen years, and he’d accumulated a lot of cash. The top floor had been ideal for several lofts that he’d already finished, leaving the last and largest for himself. He was almost finished with it and would soon move out of this apartment to save money.
