Out of Time Read online

  Even if she didn’t deserve it.

  “Kate is lucky to have a brother like you looking after her,” she said softly.

  Maybe he’d heard something in her voice. His fury seemed marginally less intense. “You don’t know Kate. She doesn’t need anyone looking after her.”

  “Maybe not, but it must be nice to know someone is.”

  He didn’t say anything, but just stood there staring at her, seeing far more than she wanted him to.

  She straightened her back and lifted her chin. She didn’t want him feeling sorry for her. She was strong, too. She didn’t need anyone watching her “six” as Scott called it. She’d done the best she could with the nightmare she’d found herself living in. All by herself.

  But it would have been nice to have someone to turn to.

  After a moment, he finally broke the silence. “One of my men was killed.”

  Her eyes widened and she covered her mouth with a gasp. “Oh my God, how horrible.” No wonder he was so upset. She remembered what he’d told her about less than half his men making it out of there. “It was one of the guys who survived the missile attack?”

  He nodded, his expression hard again. “In case you are keeping score: your team nine, mine five.”

  She flinched. In other words, he was laying one more death at her feet.

  She understood his lashing out, but it didn’t make it any easier to take. “I’m so sorry, Scott.”

  It was the most natural thing in the world to put her hand on his chest as she looked up at him. She’d moved closer without even realizing it.

  All she’d meant to do was comfort him. She wasn’t trying to seduce him or get him to kiss her again.

  But Scott was too angry, too upset by the loss of his teammate, and too ready to blame her to give her the benefit of the doubt.

  He jerked her hand away. “Don’t fucking touch me, Natalya.” She didn’t miss the reemergence of her birth name. The lines had been redrawn. “I told you I’m not going to make that mistake again. You can stop looking at me with those big bedroom eyes because I’m not going to fuck you.”

  The harshness of his words seemed to startle them both. She sucked in her breath and jerked back as if stung. Scott was always—unfailingly—a gentleman. He’d never spoken to her so crudely. She’d wager he’d never spoken to any woman so crudely, and it seemed to sum up just how low his opinion of her was.

  The unfairness of his accusation struck a flare inside her. She lifted her chin and met his gaze with anger of her own. “Go to hell, Scott.”

  She started to walk away, but then thought better of it. She turned around with a smile that was decidedly wicked and let her gaze move slowly down his body to come to rest on the big bulge in his shorts. She swept her tongue over her lips thoughtfully—suggestively—and when she saw his fists clench, she looked back up at him with a very sultry haze in her eyes. “But if I wanted you to fuck me, you can be sure I would do a hell of a lot more than put a hand on your chest.”

  She had the pleasure of seeing the shock on his face before she turned and walked away. Mic drop that!

  Thirteen

  Colt made it to the gate right as it was closing. He suspected the agent let him through because she felt sorry for him. He looked—and felt—like hell.

  He could tell himself that it was from flying back and forth across the country—his flight from Alaska had just landed when Taylor got ahold of him—the two to three hours of sleep he’d averaged in the past two weeks, or investigating the death of the kid he’d recruited for Team Nine before he’d left, or the overindulgence in his drink of choice (whiskey), but he knew it was more than that. He was being eaten up from the inside out by guilt and regret. He’d fucked up royally and it showed in every line, every pore, every fiber of his body.

  He saw Kate right away as he came on the plane. She was seated in the third row looking out the window. Making note of his late arrival, the flight attendant joked, “I guess it’s your lucky day. Maybe you should buy a lottery ticket.”

  He wanted to tell her that he’d already won the lottery and had thrown it away, but she wouldn’t understand. No surprise since he didn’t understand himself.

  “Yeah, I’ll do that,” he said instead.

  What were the chances of hitting the lottery twice? If the look in his ex-wife’s gaze was any indication when she looked up at the sound of his voice, they weren’t good.

  Her eyes flashed and her mouth tightened to white before she gave him the cold—no, arctic—shoulder and turned her attention back to looking out the window.

  Scott had warned him that she wouldn’t be happy to see him. But Colt didn’t give a shit. She wasn’t the only one pissed off. She could hate him all she wanted, but she didn’t get to be stupid about her safety. He didn’t want her anywhere near this. Travis’s murder had shaken him. This thing wasn’t over and he wasn’t going to let her get caught in the cross fire.

  The seat next to her was occupied, but he’d paid through the nose for another first-class seat and the old lady next to her was happy to switch places when he explained the situation.

  He thought Kate would drop the “ex” into the conversation when he referred to her as his wife, but she just pressed her lips tighter.

  That was one good thing about all that breeding, he thought. Kate still didn’t like to make scenes, and she must have realized that he would have made one.

  She waited until he’d taken his seat and the flight attendant started the announcements before commenting, “I didn’t realize you could be charming.” She was apparently referring to his conversation with the old woman. He wasn’t sure a forced smile or two qualified, but maybe in comparison. “But next time you might want to add a razor and some eye drops in the mix. You look like you haven’t slept in days.”

  Fourteen to be precise—since the day he’d found out the truth about her and Scott—but who was counting? “I would have if I hadn’t received a call from your brother that you were being stubborn and stupid.”

  She ignored his emphasis and drew up her shoulders, clearly affronted. “Scott didn’t say that.”

  “Maybe not in so many words, but it’s true. What the fuck were you thinking, Kate? You should have called me. No matter what you think of me, you know I can keep you safe.”

  She brushed away his anger with a lift of her chin. “I thought you were on your way back from Alaska.”

  He gritted his teeth so he wouldn’t yell. “I was. I got the call when I landed. But you could have waited for me to get back.”

  Her gaze met his. “I didn’t want to wait.”

  That was fucking obvious. He stared at her angrily until she turned away.

  Except she didn’t turn away. He did. He didn’t want to fight with her. He wanted to . . .

  Fuck if he knew.

  He didn’t know what to say, so he got angry. That was what he always did. It was easier than dealing with emotions that he didn’t know how to handle.

  Colt let her go back to looking out the window. What did you say to the woman who’d given you her heart and you’d thrown it back in her face?

  No, he’d ripped it apart, set it on fire, and then thrown it back in her face. That was his MO. Scorched earth. Leave nothing behind but destruction, desolation, and ash.

  He should have cherished her. Kate had been the only good thing to happen to him other than being a SEAL. But instead of giving everything like he had with the team, he’d held back the love he had for her, pushed her away, and refused to give her the one thing she really wanted but would never ask for: a baby.

  Why? Because he was a fucking coward.

  He’d feared that he wasn’t good enough. That he would screw up a kid the way he was screwing up his marriage. He feared losing her every day they were married. But that fear was infinitely better than the reality of actually doing s