“Will do,” Tag said smoothly. “I’ll plan on giving Mia here an absolute Mount Everest of a ring.”
Cal stuck his head out of the dive shop. “Somebody made coffee. I drank it.”
“Hey.” Tag looked wounded. “She’s my fiancée. That makes it my coffee.”
“Ask me nicely and I’ll make more.” Since the men had spent the better part of the night and the wee hours searching for lost fishermen, coffee was the least she could do. She went back inside and fired up a second pot.
Cal slapped Tag on the back. “Coffee. She’s a keeper. Good hire.”
She shoved a cup of coffee in Tag’s direction. Kissing could come later.
“Thanks.” His fingers brushed hers as he took it. Those fingers had skimmed over her ribs, painting erotic circles on her skin. Her breasts. And lower...
“You’re welcome.” Please and thank you? Really? Manners were good, but this was an inane conversation to be having with all this heat and need pumping through her body. She’d planned and executed multi-team campaigns in the desert. She’d come under fire more than once and kept her cool. She’d led convoys and scanned the edges of highways for the signs of IEDs. She sighed. True, she wasn’t entirely sure how she’d ended up on coffee detail, but sometimes the little things counted most, and hours of flying and swimming took it out of you. So if her contribution needed to be coffee, then that was the contribution she’d be making.
The way he raked his eyes over her confirmed her impression she looked good. Granted, FedEx’s deliveries had plenty to do with her success in the good looks department, because her credit card had been working overtime. She’d paired a sassy little short-sleeved jacket with red fringe and enormous red flowers over a fitted white blouse and a denim skirt. Her espadrilles made her almost as tall as him. Fun stuff. No more khaki and creases for her. He flicked the fringe.
“Nice.” He was tired and salty, his hair sticky from his swim as he grinned up at her. Something inside her turned over. Just sex, she reminded herself. Nothing more. Cal and Daeg filed in behind him, already discussing the day’s agenda. See? It’s business as usual.
Daeg eyeballed their calendar. “Damn. We need to hire more guys.”
Mia toasted Daeg with her own coffee cup. “And gals.”
Daeg looked over at her and flashed her a thumbs-up. “Point taken.”
Okay. Her role here was marginally larger than coffee.
Tag looked at her. “Do you miss it?”
“It?”
“The missions. Going in hot and getting a job done. Doing stuff that matters.”
“A job doesn’t have to involve bullets and life-and-death to matter.”
He exhaled “No, it doesn’t, although I’ve personally found it helps.”
“Good. Because there are plenty of people here on Discovery Island doing stuff that matters.”
“I don’t want to fight,” he said gruffly, moving closer.
She knew it didn’t look like anything out of the ordinary to the other guys in the office. In fact, she was pretty sure Daeg had his head down on his desk and was napping. Nearby Cal worked the phone, handling paperwork and logistics. She didn’t care because, nope, she was too aware of the rescue swimmer horning in on her space.
“Okay.”
He waited a beat. “Everything went well here?”
Yeah. She fought the urge to roll her eyes at him. Office equipment was so life threatening. She’d sorted and filed. She’d also made a dozen phone calls and probably spent the GDP of a small African country on Post-it notes and folders. Tag appeared to be a big fan of the heap system. He had heaps of papers on his desk. In the drawers. And, yes, in the shop’s kitchen. At least she hadn’t found anything in the bathroom. Yet. The day was still young, and she was working weekends because the man was so disorganized.
She pointed to the labeled, stickered stack near his elbow. “Those are the ones you need to deal with immediately. The rest can wait until tomorrow.”
He grinned drolly at her. “I don’t want to do paperwork, Mia. That’s why we’ve got you.”
Yeah. The mountainous proportions of his heaps had made his need perfectly clear. She wasn’t stupid—just organized.
“You’ll thank me when the electric company doesn’t turn off your power.”
“The power bill is Cal’s responsibility.”
“Nice try. He said pretty much the same thing to me. You lose.”