Surrendering To Her Sergeant (5 page)

“So they don’t know if he’s alive or
dead?” Ava asked it as she combed in a conditioner with an olive
oil base. When Bella washed her hair tonight, the strands would be
soft as a baby’s butt. Or fall completely out. Sometimes a girl had
to gamble.

Bella’s brow furrowed. “No, they
don’t. Because of this, Raven is unbearably lost. Rudderless. What
will she do without him? She…she wanders through their house. She
unzips the wedding dress she still hasn’t worn for him, and she
thinks about all their plans for their big day, perhaps never to
become real now. She thinks about the babies they wanted to have,
the family they wanted to raise, the life they dreamed of
sharing…”

Ava stilled her hand. Swallowed hard.
“Shit. That’s—um—really good, Bella.” It was the perfect thing for
her to hear this morning, too. Nothing like a little make-believe
grief to remind her of what real life would be by falling for
another military man. A Special Forces warrior, at that.

“You think so?” Bella’s smile trembled
a little. Was the woman actually nervous about this?

“Oh, yeah.” She gently squeezed the
actress’s shoulders. “It’s going to be really good.”

“Yessss.” Bella pumped her fist. “Emmy
nomination, here I come.”

So much for “nervous.” Ava was saved
from trying to figure out the proper reaction to that by a brisk
knock at the trailer’s door.

“Enter,” Bella called.

Of all the faces Ava
expected to appear, Charlie Jenkow’s was
not
on the list. Though the man
dutifully nodded toward their star first, his gorgeous aquamarines
locked fast on Ava. Her stomach reacted with a backflip of
dread.

“Chaaarrrlie.” Bella
extended a hand, wiggling the ends of her fingers as she finished
what Chaz called the “Bella Lanza Broken Vibrator Remix” of his
name. But he got no pity from Ava about it. He’d been the one to
turn up the wattage of delight on his handsome perfection when
she’d first used it.
Reap the oats you
sow, my friend.

Another look at her friend’s face made
her mentally take the words back. Charlie’s gritted grin conveyed
that her own “oats” were tumbling hard down life’s payback chute.
The casual offer she’d made to Rayna last October, inviting her and
Zeke Hayes, her new boyfriend, to come visit and tour the set, had
ballooned into today: the PR bonanza the network smelled once they
realized Zeke was the same Special Forces soldier who’d become
Seattle’s famous street vigilante hero from last fall. When Z asked
if he could bring along some members of his battalion, the execs
were as giddy as ducks around a kid with a loaf of
bread.

By the look on Charlie’s handsome
face, the ducks were now circling tighter.

“Good morning,
Behhhlllaaa.” He tossed the broken vibe song back at Bella like it
was the cutest thing in the world. Ava lasered a glare over the
head of their giggling star at him. He simply smirked in a wordless
version of
chill out, wench, method to my
madness here
.

“What do you want, you shameless
tease?” Bella demanded.

Charlie stepped all the way inside and
leaned against one of the leather couches. “Wellll, now that you
mention it…the boys from the big office are here for the promo op
with the Special Ops team. They got here early and you know how
Cameron hates it when they hang and gawk over his shoulder.” He
pulled out his best Rico Suave stare, complete with pouting lips
and tropic lagoon eyes. “If I bribe you with a skinny caramel
latte, perhaps with a daub of whip and chocolate sprinkles, will
you come out and dazzle them with your resplendence until the
soldier hunks get here?”

Bella
psshh
ed at him. “Resplendence, my
ass. I’m supposed to look like I haven’t bathed in two
days.”

“You’re resplendently
filthy.”

“Porca
Vacca
.” The starlet threw up her hands.
“You could talk the Pope into bed, couldn’t you?”

“Sweetie, Matt Reave is in my bed. The
angels sing every night without the Pontiff’s help.”

Ava joined Bella in groans of
retaliation. Matt was a smoldering model and witty entertainment
show host, making him and Chaz one of the industry’s hottest
couples in every sense. That didn’t mean every straight woman for
ten miles couldn’t grieve the permanent loss for the
team.

But as soon as Bella grabbed her green
tea and left the trailer, Ava dropped the humor. She spun on
Charlie and grabbed his shoulder. “What the hell’s going
on?”

“Your soldier boy friends are here
already, that’s what,” he countered. “I had to think
fast.”

“Huh?” A look at the clock
showed that Z and the guys were nearly thirty minutes early.
“
Mierda
,” she
muttered, “that’s just rude.”

“No hon, that’s Special Ops—yummy,
over prepared studs that they are.” The Rico Suave face made an
encore. “You really sure you want to dash out? I got a nice peek at
your Ethan before dashing here. Baby Jesus wept, Chestain. He’s
perfect.”

“He’s not
my
Ethan.” She grabbed
her car keys off the vanity. She hadn’t taken anything else in with
her. “He can’t be anything except a really good memory from a
really weird day, okay?”

“He looks like a
spectacular kisser.” Chaz’s mouth curled with sensual intent. “His
upper lip’s got more curves than Mulholland Drive. Then there’s
that quiet-but-deadly thing in his walk. You
know
what that turns into under the
sheets. And those
eyes
. And those
lashes
. Don’t get me started on the shaming the angels for wasting
that beauty on a straight boy.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t.” Why had the
trailer heated up by ten degrees? Ava shoved past her friend and
bounded down the trailer’s steps. “Where are they now?”

“They’re waiting for me on main set.
I’m supposed to give them the fly-over there first.”

“The tour and PR bullshit?”

“Roger dodger.”

“And after that? Still out to the
grassy knoll for the photo op with brass?”

“Yep.”

The studio had “grown” a rolling lawn
in the middle of the lot for the show, with backdrops that could be
changed out to transform it into everything from the hills of
Afghanistan to a military base picnic lawn. But the show’s crew had
spent so many exhausting hours there that the area got permanently
nicknamed after the hill made famous by the Kennedy
assassination.

Ava mentally mapped out the
lawn’s location in relation to theirs before putting together a
fast plan. “
Bueno
,” she finally said. “I have to make a run over to wardrobe to
check the colors of Bella’s outfit for tomorrow. That means I can
cut through the hallway in back of main set and bust out the side
door. I’ll take the alley behind the New York street mock-up when
I’m done.”

“Sounds perf.” Chaz did some tapping
of his own. With one finger patting his chin, he drawled,
“Especially in light of the massive favor you owe me right
now.”

Despite the hammer that’d gone to work
on her heart for the last five minutes, she chuckled. “Let me
guess. You want that Prada tux as a loaner for the gala with Matt
on Saturday?”

“Have I told you lately how
smart
and
gorgeous
you are?”

She shook her head. “Save it for
Bellllaaaa, you dork.” As they reached the spot where they needed
to part ways, she added, “I’ll see what I can do. Wardrobe owes me
a few after they left pins in Bella’s gown last week.”

“You’re a gem.”

“And you’re still a dork.”

She nudged Charlie toward the entrance
of the soundstage while she made her way toward the back door. As
soon as she entered the building, she became part of a beehive. It
took a lot of people to make a show like this into a success before
the camera lights flashed green. Audio and video engineers. Set
decorators and prop handlers. Technical directors and floor
managers. For every one of those departments, there was a full
crew, too.

The bustle, translated into controlled
chaos, always invigorated her. Today it accomplished more. It made
her feel anonymous, and safe in that concealment. From the second
she heard Charlie approaching on the other side of the set walls,
guiding their visitors in his most charming tour guide lilt, the
plywood and foam core barriers might as well have turned into woven
scrims for the protection they gave against her awareness of the
group on the other side.

The group containing Ethan
Archer.

Stay on task. Just get to
the hallway and get out of here. Don’t think about him. Don’t think
about how wonderful your heart feels against your ribs simply
because he’s in the same building. Don’t think about how perfect it
would be to see him again, to bask in the intensity of his eyes and
the magic of his smile. Soldiers are bad for you, Ava—and he’s
a
super
soldier.
Special Forces. Not going to happen.
Can’t
happen.

“What the hell is that?”

She froze.
Shit.
Why did it have to
be Ethan who tossed out the query, his tone so melodic yet so
electric? His baritone zapped her nervous system like a spark on
charged air, wrapping around her…pulling her feet the wrong damn
direction. Toward the set.

What could the harm be in indulging
one fast, secret peek?

“Oh, dear fuck.”

She recognized the sneer before even
getting visual confirmation on its source. Sure enough, Zeke Hayes
was the one who stood there rolling his eyes at Ethan. Ava smiled
to see him tug her cousin, Rayna, into the crook of his shoulder.
Ray giggled and circled her arms around her man’s muscled waist.
Next to them stood Z’s best friend, Garrett, and his wife, Sage.
Their hands were twined on top of Sage’s prominent baby bump, and
Ava wouldn’t be surprised if the pair glowed in the dark with
happiness. On the other side of the couple were Tait Bommer and
Kellan Rush, often referred to as the battalion’s “Bullet Ninjas”
because of their sniper abilities. Tait looked like a surfing idol
from the Rincon shore, while Kellan represented a dark-eyed god of
the Sunset Boulevard club crowd. Grinning along with them were
Rhett Lange and Rebel Stafford, respectively the brains and brawn
of the team. Rhett liked to blow out computer systems; Rebel liked
to blow in doors. Like everyone else, they chuckled at Zeke’s
rejoinder.

Actually, everyone seemed to be having
a great time…except Ethan.

The electrical storm
whipped harder through Ava as she stepped closer to the window in
the set and looked at him. With his brows tightened and his lips
twisted, he looked supremely miffed at Zeke, though she could tell
his tension hadn’t started there. It had been a part of him for a
while now. It stiffened the planes of his shoulders, banded the
breadth of his torso, hardened every muscle down his impossibly
long legs.
Throw a set of BDUs and a battle
vest on him and the man would be ready to march into the thick of a
battle to the death. The deadly warrior image certainly wasn’t hurt
by what he had on now, either. Skintight black T-shirt, dark jeans,
and biker boots were topped by a scuffed leather jacket, officially
turning her quickie peek into a
transfixed
stare.

“What?” he barked at Zeke. One side of
his beautiful mouth curled up. “It’s a legitimate
question.”

Tait sauntered forward, gold eyes
glittering with mirth. “It’s…uh…called a microphone, Runway. I know
growing up in Silicon Valley must’ve been hard; you probably
weren’t exposed to many of these newfangled technical gadgets,
but—follow me, now—they use it to record the actors’ voices. That’s
how you can hear them talking when you watch them on
TV.”

The group snickered. Ethan glared
harder. “Shut your hole, ass munch. I know what it is.”

Tait chuffed. “Need those knickers
twisted a little tighter, Runway? With your panties gone, the whole
world can watch your cute ass as a little better while you moon
over—”

“Shut. Up.”

Tait looked ready to smack Ethan from
pure frustration and Ava backed up the desire. He was “mooning”
over someone? That was practically a rhetorical question. The man
was wound up about something—or in this case, someone. But who? And
if it wasn’t her, did she want to know?

You have no right to
know.

She’d ignored every one of his calls,
messages, and attempts at contact since getting back from Seattle
seven months ago. She’d made the right choice for her life. Whether
Ethan believed it or not, for his, too. So if he’d moved on to
getting his “knickers twisted” for someone else, she needed to be
happy for him. She could do that, couldn’t she?

The answer got stuck in her throat as
she watched him cock his head, spearing Charlie with curiosity that
edged on innocence. It made his adjoining question all the more
adorable.

“Dude, why is the microphone wearing a
condom?”