Christmas Hearts: In the Company of Snipers Read online

  He didn’t mean to chuckle, but what a sight for sore eyes. Libby was his sunshine. His crack. His meth. His perpetual high and his best friend. She made his world a better place the moment she opened her eyes in the morning. And I love her.

  “You’re a beast. You ate the whole thing,” she scolded the yellow lab, but her blue eyes lit up the minute she spotted Mark. “What are you doing home so early?”

  “What did Chester do now?” Mark reached for her, needing her in his arms.

  “He ate the stuffed bunnies I bought for Zack and Mei’s little girls for Christmas. Both of them, Mark. It’s not funny. He’s going to eat us out of house and home if he doesn’t stop teething on everything in sight.”

  “Aww. He’s just a big baby.” Mark pulled her easily into a welcome home hug. “It’s a phase. He’ll grow out of it. You’ll see.”

  “Well, he’d better grow out of it soon.” She leaned back in his arms, her palm on his wide chest to look deeply into his eyes. “What’s worng?”

  Mark tried to disguise the gloom he knew would be reflected there, but Libby was smart. He’d have to tell her what happened, but he wasn’t ready. She already knew Alex had been targeted and nearly killed the day before. Mark had been in the air on his way back from Afghanistan when Alex made front-page news on the national scene. As friends do, Libby had spent much of yesterday waiting with Kelsey at the hospital. Libby was like that. She showed up. She cared.

  This latest shooting spree would be on all the channels by now. The people of Alexandria, Virginia, might not be too happy with their own private watchdog dragging his battles into their backyard, but Mark didn’t want to burden Libby just yet. Not with this. He needed that sunny spirit of hers to wipe out the ugly sights, smells, and sensations of what he’d just lived through.

  “You’re not going out of the country again, are you?” Libby asked, her brow spiked and suspicion in her cobalt blue eyes, one hand on her belly. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m not going anywhere, but I’d like to. Alex gave us all some time off, so I was wondering...” He stalled telling her how bad this day had been, while he buried his nose in her honey-blonde hair. Roses and sugar cookies, the best perfume ever. “Can you get some time off?”

  “For?”

  He bent to pick up his pregnant wife. Even eight months along, she was light as a feather. “I don’t know. I just want some time alone with you before the baby comes. How about we take off for a deserted desert island where no one can reach us?”

  A gentle giggle lifted up from her throat. “Are we rich all of a sudden? Did Alex give you a bonus I don’t know about?”

  “Or Wisconsin, and then maybe we’d head out to Colorado for some skiing if you’re up to it,” he continued, his mission clear. Get out of town. Decompress. Play with his best girl while he could. Stay in bed all day. Make slow lazy love until the harsh realities of his job faded away. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  She ran her fingertips through his hair, instantly defusing the sharp edge to his angst. Libby seemed to know the way to his heart. She had since he’d first met her. Mark bumped his forehead to hers at the threshold to their home, the door to his sanctuary open and his lips searching for the best medicine of all. The sweetest cobalt blues smiled back at him, and the fat, lazy cat rolled off the window ledge and trotted into the house before Mark nudged the door closed with his boot.

  Chapter Two

  Wisconsin won.

  Mark knew it would, and he didn’t mind visiting Libby’s folks. He liked her hometown of Spencer. Quiet. Country. And he liked her family too. Rosemary and Jerry Clifton were dairy farmers. They’d adopted him on sight on one of his visits from the Corps. Back then he was just the friend of a friend, but life had different plans...

  Before she had time to catch the local news on the East Coast, he’d gotten early morning reservations, and she was busy packing. Just as good. The local news would only disturb her.

  He didn’t mind the winter weather in the dairy state, either, or the frost on the inside of the windows of their attic room at the bed-and-breakfast in quaint little Spencer. It gave him a reason to snuggle with his personal bed-warmer. Libby’s back to his chest. His nose in her hair. His arms wrapped around Libby and a plump warm breast in each hand.

  Pregnancy agreed with him, at least the physical changes to her delicious body did. Her hips were a little plumper, her body temp a little hotter, and the woman was starved for sex all the time. All he had to do was run a finger down the length of her spine and Libby arched her back and purred for more. Hormones. Who knew?

  “Hmmm,” she moaned, her eyes still closed but her body coming to life, the tips of her breasts hard little pebbles Mark couldn’t resist scraping the edge of his thumbnails over.

  “I’m hungry.” The deep timbre of her tone suggested she wasn’t talking about toast and eggs.

  He nuzzled her ear. “You already ate.” Not that he minded if she ate again. He was a man, for hell’s sake.

  She’d always been the aggressor when it came to their love life, which explained the baby bump. If she’d had her way, they wouldn’t have taken precautions those first few months while they moved her from Wisconsin to Silver Spring, Maryland, bought a home, and settled her into her new job at the local hospital. No. They’d be in the delivery ward instead of on vacation.

  “Now,” she growled, pushing away from him and twisting the sheets as she came to her hands and knees. God, what a sight. All tits and ass, belly and attitude. Messy blonde curls in her face. Flashing blue eyes peering out at him from all that hair. She puckered her lips and blew a puff of bangs out of her way. “What are you waiting for, Mark? An invitation?”

  His need for her spiked hard and heavy. Ready. Too ready.

  “I can’t wait,” he murmured. Early mornings were always hard for him. Good and hard. “Lay your ass back down and spread ’em, babe.”

  That naughty grin of hers did him in. For a country girl from hick-town, U.S.A., she liked a little dirty pillow talk, and he liked whatever she liked. With a rumbling growl that truly came from his heart, he charged his girl, laid her carefully flat to her back, and snagged his hands under her knees.

  The view just about did him in when she straightened her legs, her ass against his thighs, her calves on his biceps, and his body poised for action. She batted those not so innocent cobalt blues. “You want it like this?”

  “No, like this.” He thrust his hips forward, loving the catch in her breath when they joined. “I’m not hurting you, am I?”

  “Oh, baby,” she growled, clamping down on him with those ultra strong feminine muscles, her long fingernails stuck like grappling hooks onto his thighs, holding tight while she shimmied her ass against him. “I’m not going to break.”

  He stared her down, loving the smolder in her dilated pupils, the fire in his veins molten lust for his sweet, sexy wife. The heat. The incredible sexual demands she made on him. Her nails dug deeper and her muscles clenched tighter, and ah, she stepped off the edge and flew, with him on her six, and damn…

  What a ride.

  Chapter Three

  “I’ll have to run to the store,” Rosemary murmured to herself, her nose in her refrigerator. “I thought I bought two quarts of heavy cream, but there’s only one in here. Hmm. I must be getting forgetful.”

  Libby glanced over her shoulder at her mother from the kitchen sink, the last of the breakfast dishes done. “Mark and I can go for you. Is there anything else you need?”

  Mark shot her a sly wink over his third cup of coffee. Instantly, her body responded in very unladylike fashion. There wasn’t enough air in the kitchen. It was hard to breathe. Her pulse quickened. Just the sight of that man turned her needy and ready.

  They’d come to the house after spending half the morning in bed, playing and loving, but it was the day before Christmas Eve, and the traditional lime-Jello salad still needed to be prepared for the next day’s festivities. Christmas was a week
-long event at the Clifton’s. They didn’t have time to sneak away for a quickie—did they?

  “I’ve got three cans of crushed pineapple. Do you think that will be enough?”

  Libby grimaced. “My gosh, Mom. How many people are you expecting?” Her version of this traditional family dish only took one can of pineapple.

  “Marie will be home from college, remember. You never know who she’ll bring with her,” Rosemary muttered more to herself than to Libby, her nose still in the refrigerator, “but if you bring me a box of vanilla wafers, I’ll make up a big batch of rum balls while I’m at it. Can you swing by the liquor store, too? I might need a fifth of rum.”

  Mark pushed back from the table, his cup drained and a smile on his face. “Anything for you, Mom. Come on, Lib. Let’s go.”

  Libby couldn’t help the smile tugging her lips. She loved that Mark called her mother Mom and her father Dad. He fit in the Clifton family like the son they’d never had, only he didn’t. Mark wasn’t that closely related. That would make him her brother. No way.

  The man was all male. Dominant, but gentle. Fierce, but tender. Charmingly sexy. Broader shouldered than most men, he’d grabbed her attention and her heart the moment she’d first laid eyes on him, but now? She could barely keep her hands off of him. All those dark looks and thick black eyelashes of his did was pull her in like a silly moth to a very sensual, smoky flame. One touch from him, and poof. She went up in flames every time.

  He’d worked some kind of a spell on her, the tall, dark, and handsome kind of a magic spell. Their attraction had grown more passionate since they’d left his intense job behind. That was the only fly in the Houston family ointment—The TEAM and its hard driving boss, Alex Stewart.

  Honestly. Libby loved the guy, and she loved his wife, too. Kelsey was her best friend, but Alex expected a lot from his men and women, sometimes too much. Not that Mark wasn’t as much to blame as Alex. He was good at his job, and she was thrilled that he’d found his niche in life. She just wished it wasn’t such a dangerous niche.

  Even now, he’d brought two pistols with him, one safely tucked under the driver’s seat in their rented vehicle, a red sporty Jeep, the other in the clip tucked behind his back and inside his pants. It was habit, he said. He never went anywhere without his weapon and he had the special waivers and licenses to do it, but honestly. What could go wrong on a Christmas vacation to Wisconsin? Really?

  “You coming?” he asked, his arm outstretched to her, his fingers waiting for hers and those deep brown eyes of his drawing her in again. As big as her breasts had gotten with the pregnancy, you’d think they’d settle down now that she was a married woman and sexually satisfied, but no. She had only to lay eyes on him and her breasts perked up, her nipples over-heated, and just plain begged him to notice. Was that why the teasing smile on his face and the spiked brow? Could he detect her nibs through her shirt?

  She latched onto his hand and found herself tugged into his chest, his hands tangling in the riotous gold hair spilling over her shoulders and down her back. “Hey babe,” he murmured, his lips brushing over her forehead. “Do you want to walk or should we drive?”

  She glanced out the kitchen window. “It’s supposed to snow, but the sun’s shining now. Sure. Let’s walk while we can. I need some fresh air.”

  They donned their heavy jackets and boots. She opted for mittens, Mark for gloves, then they headed out the door and onto the wide wrap-around porch and the bitter cold of central Wisconsin. Whew. The frigid air always took her breath.

  Her father had already plowed a path to the road, banking the snow into mounds along the edge of the ditch that ran east of his farm. Libby slipped her dark glasses out of her pocket and perched them on her nose before she joined Mark on the driveway, the sun and snow a blinding combination.

  He swung her mittened hand between them as they pointed their feet on the road toward town. “What’s bothering you?” he asked, his dark glasses hiding his eyes.

  She raised both brows. “Alex nearly gets killed in a bomb that was obviously meant for him, Zack almost didn’t survive an attempt on his life, and you’re asking me that? Seriously, have you ever thought about doing something a little less dangerous for a living?”

  The smile dropped off his face, and she was sorry she’d brought up the last couple of weeks. Sometimes saying, ‘Nothing,’ as a wife was a better answer, but this issue needed discussion.

  “Trust me, I’ve been thinking about it,” Mark admitted, his eyes on the packed snow and tire treads beneath their feet. “A lot.”

  That surprised her. “Really? You’d leave The TEAM for me?”

  Another shrug. “I didn’t say that. I just said I was thinking about doing something less dangerous. To be honest, I’d hate leaving The TEAM. I like my job. Alex and Harley have been good to me. Kelsey, Murphy, and Roy, too. They’re like family.”

  “But I’m your family now, Mark, and Mom and Dad would love us living close by. You know my dad thinks the world of you. You’re like the son he always wanted, and you could help around the farm, and we could build a home on that acreage he gave you for a wedding present. Did you ever think about that? He didn’t give me any land the day we married, Mark, just you. What kind of a father-in-law does that?”

  “It’s not that simple, Lib.” He lifted her hand to his forearm and drew her into his side. “It’s my job to provide for you, but I’ve never made the kind of money I’m making now. I know the work can be dangerous, and…” He cocked his head sideways at her, catching her eye. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  Libby looked into his eyes. “You’ve been keeping something from me? What?”

  “No,” he answered quickly. “Never. I tell you everything, you know that. I just needed some time to process what happened first. Anyway…” He blew a deep breath of frosty vapor. “We had a shootout in the office the day before we left. I would’ve told you sooner, but you worry, and, well, like I said. I’ve been thinking about my job. Maybe you’re right. It would be hard leaving The TEAM, but you’re my first priority. I want you to know that.”

  She swallowed hard. “What happened? Who... who got shot?”

  He cast his gaze down to the tire tread at his feet. “No one on The TEAM, so don’t look so worried, but it got… it got pretty rough there for a couple minutes. I thought Harley was going down for sure. Everything happened so fast.”

  “Tell me,” she demanded gently. Mark was one of the few guys in the world she trusted. That he’d held this information back only indicated how much it troubled him. There was just one other time that he’d taken a few weeks to confide in her, and that was over an Afghan friend of his who’d been beheaded in far off Afghanistan. She understood why Mark didn’t want to share all the gruesome details of his job. He was a gentleman through and through, but this time was different. She knew most of the guys on The TEAM. She’d met their wives and knew their kids.

  Carefully couching his words, he related how the man behind the Black Dragon Syndicate had shown up at the office intending to assassinate everyone on the TEAM, their families, too.

  “Peters had the upper hand until Alex showed up,” Mark admitted somberly. “Me and the guys were ready to rumble, but without Alex…” A deep breath shuddered out of him. “It still got ugly.”

  Her heart jumped up her throat. She pulled closer to Mark, snuggling into his arm, still trying to wrap her head around the close call. She’d already buried her sister and an old boyfriend. Without Alex, I’d be holding another funeral.

  “You’d think something that awful would’ve been on the six o’clock news,” she murmured.

  “It probably was, but we were busy packing for the trip. I thought for sure your folks would’ve jumped all over me for putting you in danger when we showed up. I’m glad they didn’t. I feel bad enough.”

  The babe she carried leapt in her womb. She dragged Mark’s big hand over her belly so he could feel for himself. “Your little girl’s worrie
d about you.”

  Mark stopped walking to swing Libby into his arms. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you,” he whispered, his mouth at her ear and one hand sliding under her jacket and shirt to rub her bare belly. “But everything turned out fine. The good guys won like we should have.”

  Libby leaned her ear to her good guy’s chest, wishing she could hear his heartbeat beneath his jacket. “But what about next time, Mark? Think about moving to Wisconsin, please. This little girl needs her daddy, and I know you’d like it here.”

  He nodded, his chin bumping the top of her head. “I will, Libby. For you, I’ll do anything.”

  Chapter Four

  Snow started falling before Mark and Libby made it to the local family grocery store a mile down the road. Spencer was a quiet farm town with older homes, well cared for lawns and fields in the summer, and a thick mantle of solid, white snow everywhere a guy looked. It reminded Mark of his home state, Ohio.

  He caught sight of the trouble when he and Libby stepped foot in the grocery store parking lot. Several boys were harassing an older guy in an olive drab shirt at the front of the store. The black and tan German Shepherd with the guy seemed determined to stay between the five boys and his master, but two of the troublemakers kept tugging at the dog’s tail or slapping his over-sized ears. They’d duck in, give him a yank, then tuck their butts in tight and scramble back to the safety of their buddies while the rest of them howled.

  The flustered man had his back against the stacked firewood and the boxes of anti-freeze at the storefront. He fumbled with three bags of groceries and one giant bag of dog food balanced on his shoulder, plus his dog’s leash. He had yet to say a word, but the boys were getting braver and meaner, taunting him, calling names and kicking snow at his dog. Typical bully stuff.