Rogers yawned, stretched and ambled toward the back of the two-bedroom apartment. The place was barely furnished. The small dining area held two camp chairs and a folding table. In the living room there was a couch and their surveillance equipment—wires, cameras, cords, telescopes, recorders and listening devices. In the bedrooms, twin-size mattresses lay on the floor.
They were stuck here until the assignment was over. How long it lasted depended on how long it took the ONI to apprehend Keith Barksdale. Unless something more pressing happened and the brass decided it wasn’t worth the money or manpower keeping tabs on St. George.
Adam went back to the telescope, but Eva was no longer in her living room. She’d blown out the candles and the light was now on in her bedroom. Disappointment settled over him and he realized he’d been hoping to see her naked again.
“Pervert,” he chastised himself.
He kept watching, imaging her getting ready for bed, taking a steamy shower, blow-drying her hair, brushing her teeth. He saw the light in her bedroom wink out, envisioned her sinking that slinky body of hers underneath the sheets.
A rush of heat spread through his groin.
Dammit. This had to stop. He had to find a way to turn off his desires. Otherwise he didn’t know how long he could stay honorable.
And Adam Mancuso was nothing if not an honorable man.
It was her twenty-ninth birthday and no one had remembered, but honestly, the funk had really started three weeks ago when her boyfriend, Keith Barksdale, had ditched her.
She didn’t know why she was letting Keith get to her. Their relationship hadn’t been serious. Most likely it was because he’d dumped her before she had a chance to dump him. It was the first time Eva had ever been on the receiving end of a breakup.
The whole thing had gone down really weirdly. Keith had shown up at her yoga studio one morning and given her a beautiful platinum locket clearly worth a lot of money. “I’ve been thinking of you,” he’d said, “and wanted to get you something really nice.”
She’d been touched. It was the first time in two months of dating that he’d bought her a gift. Then he’d disappeared for a couple of days and when he returned, he told her that he was breaking things off, that he’d realized they weren’t a good match and he wanted the locket back. She’d agreed to return it, but at that moment a black SUV had pulled up in the parking lot. Three men in dark suits and sunglasses had gotten out.
Keith had taken one look at them through the big picture window of her studio, paled considerably and run out the back door. The men had come in, flashed badges and identified themselves as NCIS and asked her to answer a few questions about Keith.
She’d had nothing to hide, so she’d agreed to an interview and told the truth. She had no idea where Keith had gone when he left the yoga studio and she didn’t expect to ever hear from him again. It had been disconcerting, however, to learn he’d been involved in some kind of illegal activities. They wouldn’t give her details of course, but just knowing Keith was capable of such things put
her
judgment in question.
What was it about her that attracted irresponsible—and sometimes even somewhat shifty—guys? Eva pondered this while she brushed her teeth and stared solemnly into the mirror.
She took stock of herself. She wasn’t bad looking, but not gorgeous by any means, although she did keep her body in shape. Her thighs were on the bulky side. Her hair grew too low on her forehead so she had no choice but to wear bangs. She had a small gap between her teeth she could whistle through and a sprinkling of freckles over the bridge of her nose from being dumb about sunscreen when she was a teen.
Sighing, she dipped her head to rinse and caught a glimpse of the tattoo on her shoulder. She’d gotten it during a girls’ night out several years ago and while she didn’t regret it, she wondered if the tattoo had somehow branded her as a woman who was up for anything. If she were being honest, she’d have to admit that she did like to have a good time. Life was short, right? Why waste your youth? Was
that
why she drew bad boys to her?
But now, with thirty looming in her not too distant future, Eva had to ask herself if it was time to give up her footloose ways. The only thing in her life that kept her anchored was her yoga studio. Until now, it had been enough, but without any warning she felt empty and aimless.
Tonight, however, the yoga hadn’t helped. The endorphin rush she usually experienced had eluded her. Instead, she felt drained, numb, weary to the bone and strangely detached. As if she was standing in a long corridor filled with closed doors, unable to make a choice about which one to open and walk through.
Just waiting…waiting… For what, she did not know.
You’re just feeling sorry for yourself because no one remembered your birthday. Shake it off.
She finished up in the bathroom, slipped into pajamas and got into bed. “Happy birthday, Eva,” she murmured, and turned off the lamp.
It wasn’t the worst birthday she’d ever had. After all, she’d treated herself to her favorite Thai takeout. The honor of worst birthday was reserved for her seventh when she and her mom had been living out of their van in Tucson and her mother had stuck a candle in a stale Twinkie and called it a birthday cake.
Eva had started to cry because she’d really wanted a strawberry ice cream cake and she’d accidentally knocked the Twinkie—complete with the lit candle in the shape of the number 7—onto the floor of the van and the icky old carpet had burst into flames.
Angie had dragged her into the convenience store where she’d bought the Twinkie and the candle, yelling that her house was on fire. Eva remembered being so embarrassed by that. A van
was not
a house.
The fire department arrived with sirens blaring and doused the van. One of the firefighters and Angie had started an affair and he had moved Eva and her mother into a little apartment over a sandwich shop. The shopkeeper gave them the leftover sandwiches at the end of the night. Fried baloney with mayonnaise had been her favorite.
Everything was going good for a change. Then the firefighter’s wife had shown up a few weeks later, brandishing a gun and threatening to shoot Angie, until she saw Eva cowering behind her mother and put the weapon away.
Ah, good times.
The truly sad thing was that the firefighter had been one of Angie’s better hook-ups.
No sooner had Eva slipped underneath the covers than her phone rang. She propped up on one elbow and peered at the caller ID in the darkness.
It was her half sister Sienna.
Someone had remembered her birthday after all. Smiling, she snagged the cordless phone from its dock and sat up against the headboard. “Hello?”
“Eva! Guess what?” Sienna exclaimed.
The hollow feeling returned to the pit of her stomach. Sienna wasn’t calling to wish her a happy birthday. “It must be something big, you sound really excited.”
“Ryan popped the question. We’re getting married!”
Stunned, Eva couldn’t speak.
“Sis? You still there?” Sienna asked breathlessly.
“Um…” She didn’t know what to say. Sienna was only twenty and in her junior year of nursing school. “I’m here.”
“You don’t sound excited for me.”
“I…I didn’t realize you and Ryan were that serious,” she said, when what she wanted to say was, “Bunny rabbits and kittens, Sienna, you’re only twenty, you have the rest of your life to get married.”
“He’s my soul mate.” Sienna sighed dreamily.
“Ryan is the only guy you’ve ever dated.”
“Doesn’t matter. When it’s right it’s right. And it’s kind of nice that neither of us has ever been with anyone else. It makes our relationship special.”
Yeah, like people who weren’t virgins when they hooked up could never have anything special.
Eva bit her tongue. “Besides, we
have
been dating for four years.”
“I’m glad you’re happy,” Eva said truthfully. It was about the only positive thing she could think to say. Good thing Sienna wasn’t here. Eva would grab her by the shoulders, look her straight in the eyes and yell, “Are you freakin’ kidding me?”
“Ryan is the greatest guy in the world.” For the next ten minutes, she rhapsodized about her fiancé’s stellar qualities. According to Sienna, Gandhi paled in comparison.
Bitter much?
The voice at the back of Eva’s mind needled.
“Tell me you’re going to finish nursing school first,” Eva said.
“Oh, yes, absolutely. The wedding is scheduled for next June right after graduation.”
“What does Angie think?”
“Oh, you know Mom, she’s cool about everything.
It’s Dad who’s a tiny bit upset that I’m getting married so young.”
Of course Angie was cool with it. Eva swallowed. She was acutely aware of how different her childhood had been from her younger sisters’. When Eva was growing up her mother had insisted she call her by her first name so men wouldn’t think she was old enough to have a daughter Eva’s age. Sienna and their younger sister, Brenna, got to call her Mom like normal people.
Until Angie had married Sienna’s dad, Mike Shoemaker, Eva’s life had been chaotic. They’d never lived in one place for long as her mother traipsed from town to town, guy to guy, trying to “find” herself. And while Eva was grateful that Angie had finally latched on to a decent guy like Mike, she and her stepfather had never really bonded.
It was clear enough that he considered Eva Angie’s daughter, while Sienna and Brenna were his. He had honestly tried to connect with her, but they’d just never found common ground beyond Angie. If Eva were being honest, she’d admit most of it was her fault. She’d just kept waiting for Mike to take off on them like the others had and by the time she realized that he wasn’t going anywhere she’d been all grown-up.
The hollowness in her stomach deepened, but Eva shrugged it off. She wasn’t the type to wallow in the past, wishing that circumstances had been different. She was pretty good at making the best of things, but along with that hollowness was just a tinge of jealousy. It wasn’t fair that Sienna who was nine years younger had already found her soul mate.
Come on, you don’t even believe in that soul mate malarkey.
“So,” Sienna said, “I’m hoping you’ll be my maid of honor.”
“Of course,” Eva agreed.
In spite of the stiff relationship she had with her stepfather, she loved her younger sisters with a fierceness that surprised her. She couldn’t be jealous of Sienna’s happiness even though part of her wished she, too, could know what it was like to fall head over heels in love with a guy worth giving up her freedom for.
Since when?
She’d never even really thought about marriage—which might explain why she kept hooking up with guys like Keith.
But now, she was twenty-nine. Twenty-nine with no birthday cake, no presents, no card, not even a damned phone call.
This is what happens when you’re footloose and fancy-free.
“Eva,” Sienna said, “I’m so, so happy. I want you to be this happy some day. How are things with Keith?”
“We broke up.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. And here I was going on about how wonderful my life is.”
“No need to be sorry, it’s no big deal. Keith certainly wasn’t my soul mate.”
“Do you think that um…maybe…” Sienna paused.
“What?”
“Well, that maybe the reason you can’t find a keeper is because you rush into relationships? I mean Keith is like what? Your fifth boyfriend in two years?”
Guilty as charged. She did tend to rush into physical intimacy. A flush of embarrassment, combined with irritation, burned her neck.
“Sixth,” she admitted.
“I didn’t mean to make you mad. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“No, no, feel free to speak your mind.”
“It’s just that I want to see you as happy as Ryan and I are, Eva. So next time you meet Mr. Maybe why not take things a little slower?”
Yeah, I’ll get right on that.
“Uh-huh.”
“Don’t worry. You’re going to find someone,” Sienna said in a perky, cheerleader voice. “Love will get you when you least expect it.”
Twenty years old and she was talking as if she knew everything. Eva pressed three fingers against her brow and massaged away her irritation. “I’m really happy for you. And don’t worry about me. Now go celebrate.”
“Thanks.” Sienna paused. “I love you so much.”
“I love you, too,” Eva said.
“Bye.”
“Good night.” She hung up and stared into the darkness, waiting, feeling as if she was caught in suspended animation. It scared her. This weird sensation of not belonging anywhere, never fitting in.
“To hell with self-pity,” she muttered, threw back the covers, stripped off her pajamas and headed back to the living room. She wasn’t going to let getting dumped and turning twenty-nine and playing maid of honor to her kid sister get her down.
Three minutes later, the candles were lit, Enya was crooning lyrically from the iPod and Eva was deep into Triangle Pose while the soft ocean breeze ruffled the curtains in front of the open window.
And as she exercised, all her embarrassment and irritation vanished and in its place she felt a strange sense of peace, as if someone out there was watching over her.