Top Gun Tiger (Protection, Inc 7)

Destiny vowed to get him to a good barbecue place, ASAP. And she knew just the one. If he actually liked the pork rib MRE, he’d think he’d died and gone to Heaven when she treated him to a meal at Aunt Lizzie’s Back Porch.

She opened the trunk so he could toss in his duffel bag. Ethan looked inside, inspected her survival supplies, and laughed. “What are we, twins separated at birth? This looks like the trunk of my car. Only I have MREs instead of beef jerky and granola bars and dried fruit.”

“I rotate my survival supplies to keep them fresh, so the edibles have to be things I actually like to eat.”

“I only stock up on MREs that I actually like.”

“Did you get your taste buds shot off in the war?” Destiny inquired. “I’m having second thoughts on the restaurant trip. Maybe I should go in and eat, and leave you in the car with a bone to gnaw on.”

“If it’s a pork rib bone…”

Destiny chuckled as she pulled out of the parking garage. She rolled down the window to enjoy the night air. The streets of Santa Martina were almost empty. Everyone was either asleep at home or dancing at a club. It had rained earlier, and the moonlight turned the streets to ribbons of liquid silver.

Ethan leaned back in his seat, relaxing, but his gaze was alert as he watched the city sights go by. When she turned on South Hanford, she caught his eyelids flicker in the slightest expression of alarm. Her own adrenaline instantly rose—had he seen something suspicious? But he said nothing, and as the one landmark on South Hanford came into view, she remembered that he must have been in Santa Martina plenty of times before to visit his sister.

Doing her best to keep a straight face, she pulled up at one of Santa Martina’s few 24-hour restaurants (if you could call it a restaurant, which was debatable), a concrete block topped with a giant bacon-wrapped hotdog made of chipped, unappetizing-looking plaster.

“Big Bacon!” Destiny announced. “That’ll hit the spot. It’s a Santa Martina landmark.”

“I know. One of Ellie’s friends took me there once. A paramedic, Catalina. Do you know her?”

She shook her head. “But she’s got good taste! Did you love it?”

Ethan’s brow furrowed. He was clearly making a valiant effort to not insult her favorite restaurant. Finally, he said, “It’ll be great to get some real American food. Just the thing to make me feel like I’m really back home.”

Destiny had meant to string him along a little longer, but his attempt at tactfulness made that impossible. She burst out laughing. In between gasps for air, she managed to get out, “You call Big Bacon real American food? Which side are you on?”

“Just because I fight for the US doesn’t mean I think it’s perfect,” Ethan said, trying and failing to glare at her. With a sweeping gesture that exposed another tantalizing glimpse of his tattoos, he said, “And there’s the proof: the worst hotdog joint in existence, anywhere in the world. Did you know that during the Vietnam war, we had a hotdog MRE everyone called the Five Fingers of Death? I always imagined that it tasted exactly like Big Bacon.”

“Maybe you should reconsider whether your sister’s buddy is your buddy too.”

“Catalina has a great sense of humor,” he replied. “Like you.”

Still snickering, Destiny got on the freeway and headed north. They were soon on the edge of town, where businesses and houses gave way to fields and clumps of trees. And something else that she bet Ethan didn’t know about or he’d be looking excited right about now. Aunt Lizzie’s was one of the best-kept secrets of Santa Martina. (Secret because locals didn’t want it overrun by tourists.)

She took the exit that looked like it ran straight into a field, and began bumping along the dusty, unlit dirt road. Destiny snuck a quick glance at Ethan, wondering if he’d object or ask if this was another joke. Instead, he leaned back in his seat, utterly relaxed and ready to take on whatever was coming. Now that was a man with confidence.

Her headlights illuminated what appeared to be a barn, but warm yellow light shone through the windows and there were a few cars parked outside. Destiny pulled up beside them.

“Aunt Lizzie’s Back Porch,” she announced.

Ethan opened his door and took an appreciative sniff of the barbecue-scented air. Then, before she could move a muscle, he jumped out and run round to open her door for her. Not only that, but he offered her his arm.

Well, well, well. It had been a long time since any man had opened a car door for her. This night just kept getting better and better. She laid her hand on his arm, curling her fingers around his strong muscles. The moonlight bleached the color from him, leaving him a vision in black and white. He could have been a hero in an old movie, a soldier come home from WWII to find his girl still waiting for him.

I’d wait for him, Destiny thought. Oh, I know it’s too soon. But I’ve never felt this drawn to a man. This just might be my lucky night.

Chapter 2

Ethan

Ethan felt as if he were in a dream as he walked through the night and toward the welcoming golden light, arm in arm with Destiny. One night he’d been slogging through the desert sand with a bunch of men who hadn’t bathed in days, the next he was escorting the most gorgeous woman he’d ever seen on what sure as hell felt like a date.

She glanced up at the moon, and he took the opportunity to drink her in. Her short box braids tumbled back as she tipped up her face, extending her neck like a swan. The moonlight shone on her flawless dark skin and luscious full lips, and sparkled in her beautiful eyes. Everything about her was irresistibly sexy, from the impressive strength of her grip to the swell of muscle in her shoulders to her curvy thighs to cleavage that kept threatening to make him walk into a wall.

But there was so much more to her than looks. She was funny and playful and tough, easy to talk to and comfortable to be with. First dates always were a little too tense to be completely enjoyable, with the unspoken undercurrents of “does she like me?” and “do I like her?” But Ethan felt none of that. He was somehow both excited and relaxed, filled with happy anticipation and the pure enjoyment of the present moment. Everything about Destiny just felt so right.

They stepped into the restaurant. Ethan loved odd, out-of-the-way places. Little local secrets. And Aunt Lizzie’s Back Porch was obviously that: an old-fashioned barbecue joint with rough slab tables, wooden benches, sawdust scattered across the floor, and the scent of smoked meat and sweet peaches filling the air. And open 24 hours, too, or at least extremely late. Just right for a man who got called to deploy at an hour’s notice, and always seemed to return in the middle of the night. It was so exactly his kind of place that Ellie and Catalina must never have heard of it, or they’d have taken him there for sure.