Читать книгу Her Best Friend's Husband - Justine Davis - Страница 9

“Expected you.”

Gabe blinked. “You did?” he said into the phone.

“Josh said.”

St. John’s terseness was legendary at Redstone, and anyone who’d dealt with Josh’s right-hand man had had to learn to translate. But he was so incredible at what he did, so efficient, and had sources Gabe figured even Josh didn’t know—or want to know—about, that no one was about to quibble that they had to pay extra close attention to follow his extraordinary verbal leaps.

“Already?” Josh had only left here this morning.

St. John didn’t answer. Gabe supposed his comment didn’t require one; he should have known Josh wouldn’t dally if he thought one of his own might need help.

“A list?” St. John asked.

Gabe shook his head, thinking dealing with St. John as liaison was going to be interesting. Technically, his title was vice-president of operations, but anyone who’d been around very long knew there were few aspects of Redstone St. John didn’t know more about than seemed humanly possible.

“Not yet, not really. All I need right now is some info on Pine Lake, California. It’s a little town up in the San Bernardino mountains. Near Lake Arrowhead.”

“Target?”

This seemed oddly familiar, Gabe thought as he answered. “I’m trying to backtrack someone from a postcard that was mailed eight years ago.”

If St. John thought he was crazy, he kept it to himself, as it was rumored he did most things.

“Going yourself?” was all he said.

“Yes. Shortly.”

“This your cell?”

“Yes.”

Gabe stifled a lopsided smile as he stopped himself from giving the number St. John no doubt already had from caller ID. The other part of his reputation was that he had little patience for people who belabored the obvious.

“Before you get there.”

“Uh…thanks,” Gabe said, his hesitation marking the time it took him to realize St. John had hung up without another word.

“Who was that?” Cara asked.

“St. John. Josh Redstone’s right arm.”

She lifted a brow. “You look…taken aback.”

“I am,” he admitted. “He’s a little like listening to a machine gun.”

And suddenly he had it, the source of that familiarity. It had been like the old days in the navy, on war games or training exercises; the more tense or dangerous things got, the fewer words were spoken. Commands, reports, decisions, they all got shorter, sharper and tenser.

“He talks,” Gabe mused aloud, “like he’s at war.”

“Perhaps he is,” Cara said.

Gabe focused on her then. “What?”

She lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug that echoed his own earlier one. “There’s more than one kind of war, isn’t there?”

Gabe thought of his own personal war, with the memories of Hope and the questions she’d left in her wake. “Yes,” he said, acknowledging her insight with a nod. “Yes, there is.”

“So, we’re going to Pine Lake?”

He blinked. “We?” He’d thought he’d just head up there, ask some questions, poke around a little. He hadn’t intended on having company.

“You did say I have a big stake in this. And the card came to me.”

He couldn’t argue with that, so didn’t try. “All right,” he said. “Let me go change clothes.”

As he went to the spacious cabin allotted to the captain of this latest Redstone boat, a space that managed to be luxurious and utilitarian at the same time, he didn’t wonder if he was going to regret this. He already knew he would.

He just wondered how much.

“Sorry for the delay. I had to leave some orders with the first mate.”

Cara, who had been standing before a glass case, studying the intricately detailed, one-eighth scale model of the boat she was now standing on and marveling at the kind of mind that could take something like this from idea to reality, glanced at her watch before she turned. It was only a little after one.

“Not a problem, we have…plenty of time.”

She thought she covered her quick intake of breath fairly well as she turned and saw him. Well enough, she hoped.

Gabriel Taggert in naval uniform had been stunning. In the more casual Redstone attire, he’d been extremely attractive.

In snug jeans and a long-sleeved dark gray T-shirt he was sexy as hell.

He frowned suddenly. Cara’s next breath caught; had he seen her reaction after all, had he somehow guessed what simply looking at him had done to her pulse rate?

“Do you have a jacket or sweater or something?”

She knew she must be looking like an idiot, staring blankly at him, but she was having trouble making the shift from contemplating flat abs and the appeal of back pockets to the mundane question.

“What?”

“It’s warm here, but it’ll be cooler up in the mountains. It’s only March, and it might be in the forties or so. Could even still be snow around.”

“Oh. No, I don’t.”

She felt even more foolish now; she should have realized a man like Gabe wouldn’t waste any time, but would want to do whatever could be done and do it now. She should have come prepared.

He turned and walked back down the hallway he’d apparently come out of. She had a moment to appreciate the view, but quickly made herself turn away, not wanting to get caught gaping at him.

But when he came back and tossed her a soft, fleecy sort of zipper jacket that had the Redstone logo embroidered on the front, it was something else that sent her reeling; it was his. She knew it was, because she could smell the faintest trace of the clean-scented aftershave she’d always associated with him.

God, you’re hopeless!

She’d meant to chide herself out of her stupid meanderings, but instead it sounded, even in her head, pitiful.

“I meant to ask,” she said hastily as she resisted lifting the jacket to her face for a deeper breath, “you were wearing the same thing as the rest of the crew. No special uniform for the captain?”

His mouth quirked. “Yeah. I get to wear a ball cap with the boat’s silhouette stitched on it.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry, no scrambled eggs.”

He remembers, Cara thought with a start. He actually remembers.

It was one of her most vivid memories, that day when he’d sailed out and she’d gone with Hope to see him off. It had been only the second or third time she’d met the new man in Hope’s life. He’d been wearing one version—she hadn’t known there were so many kinds—of a dress uniform and in her ignorance of things military, she’d asked him what all the gold on his visor was.

He’d grinned at her, and explained. And she’d promptly fallen for him.

And apparently she’d never gotten around to standing up again.

“Seat belt,” Gabe said absently.

“Got it.”

Cara shifted in the seat of the low-slung coupe; the Lexus was a nice change from her little compact, and it was pure luxury to be able to completely stretch out her legs. They had decided, since he knew how to get to where they were going, that he’d drive. Once she’d seen the sleek, dark blue car, she was glad she had agreed. She wondered if he had trouble with other cars, as tall as he was.

“Nice car,” she said now. “Redstone pays well, obviously.” She’d heard that anyway, but it was hard not to comment on it when she was sitting in the evidence.

“It does,” Gabe said. “But it’s not just that. There’s another, financial benefit to working for Redstone.”

“What’s that?”

“Mac McClaren.”

Cara’s brows shot up. “The gazillionaire treasure hunter?”

“And the guy who gave Josh his start, when all he had was a pilot’s license, a design in his head and a dream. That Spanish galleon he found helped build the foundation of Redstone.” Gabe smiled. “Of course, he’s pouring money into his wife’s pet cause now. There are a lot of homeless animals eating better these days.”

“I didn’t realize he was connected to Redstone.”

“Most people don’t. But the man’s a lot more than a treasure hunter. He did that mainly to prove his father had been right about where that ship had gone down. He’s also a financial genius, and he’s at the disposal of anybody who works for Redstone. Including—” he gestured at the interior of the car, the rich leather, the polished wood “—me.”

“Nice perk,” she said.

“One of the benefits of working for a guy who makes friends for life,” Gabe said.

She looked at him curiously. “Is he? A friend, I mean? Is that how you ended up there?”

“He is now,” Gabe said, “but I didn’t even know him when he offered me my first job at Redstone.”

“How’d that happen?” she asked, intrigued now. “It’s not like you see advertisements for them.”

He chuckled. “No, Josh doesn’t have to advertise. People are lined up literally around the world wanting to work for him.”

She noticed he hadn’t actually answered her. “So, how?” she persisted.

When he hesitated, then let out a compressed breath, she knew she hadn’t imagined that he had been dodging her question.

“He’d read about the…incident that made me quit the navy. He was angry. Asked some of those friends he has about it, friends in or with connections to the military. My name came up.”

There was a flatness in his tone that made her remember their earlier conversation.

I never thought you’d give in to her…whining.

Is that what you think? That I quit because my wife nagged me into it?

“Why did you really quit, Gabe?”

“Hope, remember?” She’d irritated him now. Or he was still irritated by her earlier assumption.

“Hope was…a very social person,” she began, needing to say something, anything.

“Yes,” Gabe acknowledged. “And she needed someone who could be there for that kind of thing, social occasions. I couldn’t give her that, not the way she wanted.”

“But…she knew that, going in. She had to.”

“She thought she could deal with it.” He lifted a hand from the polished mahogany steering wheel to the back of his neck, rubbed as if it were aching. “She couldn’t. Long deployments take a huge toll. It takes an incredibly strong person to be a military spouse, in the best of times.”

“I can only imagine,” she said softly.

And strong was not a word Cara would use to describe Hope. Beautiful, vivacious, energetic, impulsive, yes, but strong? No. Not when she remembered all the seemingly endless phone calls where Hope had whined—not a flattering word, but the only one that really fit—about her husband’s absence. As if he had chosen to leave, as if he’d abandoned her intentionally.

He lapsed into silence, apparently focused on driving although traffic was light. She waited, and when they’d pulled to a halt at a stop light, quietly asked again.

“Why did you really quit?”

He turned his head. Her breath stopped in her chest. She’d never seen him look this way before. He’d always seemed intense to her, but there was something in his eyes now that made her almost afraid to move.

It took her a moment to realize what she was seeing; there was more of the military officer left in Gabriel Taggert than she’d thought. This was the kind of man who did what others were afraid to, who knew things, did things, went places the average person going about their comfortable life never had to think about, precisely because there were men like Gabe in the world, willing and able to do it for them.

It was only with great effort that she managed not to look away from that fierce gaze.

“I quit,” he said in measured tones that hinted at a lingering anger, “after twenty-three good, honest, heroic people died because some politicians—” he snarled the word “—decided it would upset the balance of power in the entire world if they were warned about an attack on them in time to defend themselves.”

Cara smothered a gasp. “They could have warned them? And didn’t?”

He looked away then, back to the front as the light changed, as if even now he was completely aware of his surroundings. When he went on, his voice was quieter, but she didn’t mistake that for calm.

“They chose not to, knowing what would happen. They didn’t just let them die, they sacrificed them on the altar of political expediency. They died, horribly, without ever knowing why.” He sucked in an audible breath. “Which may have been better than knowing the truth.”

Judging by the fact that he was still angry after all these years, she tended to agree with that.

“I didn’t know, Gabe. I’m…I don’t know what I am. Sick, maybe. That something like that could happen. Be allowed to happen.” She hesitated, then made herself ask. “The ones who died…they were your people?”

He flicked her a sideways glance. “They were navy,” he said.

The words were simple, but they spoke volumes about the man. And told her that everything she’d ever thought about him was true.