Page 8 of Steinbeck (The Minnesota Kingstons #5)

Her new teammate had full, enviably long eyelashes a woman would die for, dark and closed against his handsome face. Frankly, he might be too handsome, because she needed a guy who didn’t attract attention, blended in.

More, Stein exuded warrior . Even fully asleep, he still possessed a lethal energy, strength captured but not at rest.

Like this morning, when Emberly had walked out of her bedroom and found him sprawled on the sofa, one foot on the floor as if poised to run.

After her, maybe. So much for trust, although that had never been a thing between them. Except briefly, maybe in Cuba, staking out the embassy. A dangerous liaison, destined for pain.

No, this was not going to end well.

He’d awakened abruptly just by her soft footfalls on the wooden floor, sat up fully alert, and she’d raised her hands with an “It’s me, Phoenix” at the threat in his eyes.

Maybe he’d been having a nightmare. She’d tossed a few hours away staring at the ceiling and reliving the past month in her blotchy dreams.

“Emberly,” he’d said, and she’d decided to wage that war later as she made coffee.

He’d taken the proffered cup once it finished seeping in the French press and now took it out to the balcony, leaning a hip on the railing.

She joined him, refusing to think about last night, the moment of maybes on the balcony.

Maybe was too far away for either of them to consider.

“I got Mystique’s message. She arranged a flight out in a couple hours.”

“Private plane? And for the record, I know her as London.”

“The Swans have resources. Mystique is her code name, but yes, I know her as London too.”

He nodded, staring past her toward the square and maybe beyond, to the sea. The sky arched azure and cloudless above them, and in the golden tones of the morning, he seemed impossibly tan, his eyes terribly blue, and all she could hear was “Swans work alone.”

This could be a very bad idea. It was one thing to worry about Nimue and some rogue player rounding back on her and enacting some kind of personal vengeance.

Completely another to let her heart get tied up with someone who... Well, she didn’t mind risking her own life, but...

“This isn’t going to work.”

He glanced at her, frowned. “Believe me, sweetheart, I can keep up with you.”

“Oh great, now we’re in a spitting contest.”

“You did say I was slow.”

“And don’t forget annoying.”

His mouth opened, but she held up her hand. “Just... don’t get hurt.”

He raised an eyebrow, but she left him there and headed to her room. An hour later, he waited for her by the door. They grabbed an Uber and headed to Cascais Municipal Aerodrome.

She didn’t know who actually owned the Gulfstream G650, but with only her and Steinbeck as passengers, she found herself on one long sofa, Stein on the other. Where he’d stretched out and fallen dead asleep, finally, to the world.

She didn’t want to believe that he’d only relaxed because he knew she couldn’t ditch him.

He did make for an interesting study as he slept.

Clearly he’d worked himself back into shape after the devastating accident in Krakow—she’d seen that, of course, over the past eight-plus months and definitely when they were on the run in Cuba.

He didn’t even seem phased by the gunshot wound from this past summer—and frankly, at the time, she had worried that he might expire waiting for help outside the Mariposa clinic.

She put her hands to her lips, the whisper of his kiss still lingering there.

Oh boy. She sighed, got up, made coffee, helped herself to a protein bar, and okay, might have been trying to figure out how she could ditch him, when he roused. Sat up, scrubbed his face, and stood.

“I’m going to need an IV of that coffee.”

She glanced up at him. Whiskers scraped across his chin, his hair was tousled, a sort of sleepy warmth radiating off him.

“All I have are mugs,” she said and found one in the cupboard. Poured him coffee. “And a peanut butter protein bar.”

He took the bar. Read the ingredients. “I could have a Snickers bar for all the protein in this.” But he opened the wrapper. “I’d prefer ramen.”

She blinked at him. “You remember.”

He smiled. “Your obsession with Snickers bars? Yes. And by the way, best ramen I’ve ever eaten was in Poland.”

His smile hit her entire body like sunshine and warmed her all the way to her core.

Oh my.

She managed to nod, to swallow, and made a beeline back to the sofa.

He followed, sat opposite her. Blew on his coffee, softly, gently, the cup cradled between his hands. “I liked that trick—milk and a piece of cheese in the ramen.”

“My mom used to make it that way.” Now she was telling him stories? Stop— “She had a dozen different ways to make ramen. Learned it from one of her boyfriends.”

She couldn’t seem to contain herself.

“My favorite was Ernesto. He made the best pizza. He worked at a restaurant where my mom waitressed, and sometimes on the weekends, he’d make me and Nim?—”

Her breath caught.

Stein sat listening, no reaction to the name-drop of her sister.

“—my sister, personal pizzas. Sometimes he made faces with the pepperoni.”

“My mom did that for us on family movie nights,” he said quietly.

She’d bet their family movie night looked a lot different from hers.

“Yeah, well, she caught him cheating on her with a different waitress, kicked him out, and we didn’t eat pizza for years after that.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“My mom was... she struggled.”

“Struggled?”

“Alcohol, drugs, boyfriends... Nimue and I learned early to...”

“Survive.” He met her eyes.

She lifted a shoulder.

“Nimue. I’ve never heard of that name.”

“It’s after the Lady of the Lake, who gave Arthur Excalibur.”

“Really?”

“Nimue’s dad was a professor of English at Black Hills State University. I don’t remember him, but Mom had pictures. He died in a motorcycle accident.”

“And your dad?”

“A smokejumper, back in the day when Mom was obsessed with firefighters. She lived for a while in a town in Montana called Ember. Hence... the name.”

“Emberly.” He said it softly, and hearing it from him that way unlatched something forbidden inside her.

No. She did not want to be known?—

“Don’t panic. I can call you Phoenix if you want.”

“I wasn’t panicking?—”

“You were. You have a tell. Your eyes sort of widen, just for a second, and the tiny gold flecks in your eyes flash. It’s totally panic.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Why don’t you like the name Emberly?”

“I... Emberly is a dreamer and the person I can be when I don’t have to look over my shoulder.” She drew in a breath. “It’s been a very long time since I saw myself as Emberly.”

“Your handler does.”

“That’s because she knew me back when I started. She likes to remind me of who I was, I think.”

“Who were you?”

“Eager. Hopeful. I saw a chance at a new life, and I grabbed it.”

“Why did you need a new life?”

“You’re very nosy.”

“It’s a nine-hour flight.”

“You already slept through half of it there, Sleeping Beauty.”

One side of his mouth lifted. “Listen, I get it.” He leaned back. “Fair is fair—ask me anything.”

Outside, the clouds tufted around them, jockeying for space, the sunlight falling onto the ocean below, an endless blue. She looked back at him. “If you could do anything, restart your life, what would you do?”

He shrugged. “Nothing.”

“Not even shoot me and not look back?”

His mouth opened. Closed. “What?”

“I cost you everything, Stein. Your SEAL career. It’s because you trusted me. And yet here you are... ” She shook her head.

He stared at his coffee, back at her, his shoulders rising and falling. “Okay, yes, I hated you. I hated that you betrayed me, and maybe... somewhere deep inside I don’t trust you.”

“Wow. That’s... Maybe let’s go back to talking about food.”

His mouth made a grim smile. “Fail early, fail often, but always fail forward.”

“SEAL talk?”

“Grover Kingston. My dad loved to quote John Maxwell.”

“And this is you failing forward?”

“Maybe I don’t want everything we’ve been through to be for nothing.” He took another sip of coffee. “Besides. I think you are trustworthy, Emberly Hart. More than you want to admit.”

She made a face. “So you’d change nothing?”

He met her eyes, held them. “I’d change the moment in Cuba when I let you go.”

And what was she supposed to do with that? She set her coffee down, crossed her legs. “I needed a new life because my old one was going to land me in jail. Or get me killed.”

He didn’t move.

She sighed. “I started stealing from my mom’s boyfriends when I was seven.

At first, just coins, then a few dollars.

By the time I was ten, I was figuring out how to use their credit cards online.

Nimue learned fast—that’s probably how she learned her hacker skills.

” She sighed. “We moved around a lot, and my mom got a little desperate for money. She started working for our landlord for rent... ” She made a face.

Steinbeck drew in a breath, leaned back. “She ever bring any of her clients home?”

“No. But he held on to her money. And I figured he probably owed her more than what the rent was, so I decided to collect. I broke into his office one night, and it triggered a silent alarm. Nimue activated the fire alarm and helped me escape, but I realized that it wouldn’t be long before I did something that really got her in trouble. I left home a few days later.”

He’d fixed his gaze on her, unmoving, a sort of compassion in his expression.

“Nimue was removed from my mom’s custody and spent the next three years in foster care while I tried to figure out how I could rescue her.”

“And did you?”

“Yes. I lived in Rapid City and hooked up with a gang of bikers who weren’t as dangerous as you might think.

I learned how to pickpocket tourists, and in exchange for the cash, they kept me away from the cops, gave me a place to sleep, and.

.. well, I pocketed my share of the money, ran credit cards, and basically learned the ways of a thief. ”

He didn’t even flinch. Huh.