Out of Uniform (Wingmen Warriors 14)

“Jacob Stone.”

Her nerves began to unravel like a rolling ball of yarn she couldn’t quite catch. “May I please have my receipt, Mr. Stone?”

“Just Jacob, ma’am.” The man tucked his thumbs in his back pockets, looming over her, compelling, silent and dangerous. With a curt nod, he stepped away. “All right, then, one copy on its way.”

Her shoulders slumped with a slow exhale. “Just Jacob,” clerk, manager and owner of Clyde’s Travel Lodge, circled behind the counter. He tapped through a few keys and set the printer into motion. The clicking sounded unnaturally harsh, echoing the only noise in the sparse room.

She fingered her necklace like a security blanket, tracing the D and looking around for something familiar. She must have seen this place the night before.

A brown artificial leather sofa nestled beneath the picture window overlooking the parking lot. The style was up-to-date, but the cracks in the Naugahyde upholstery showed the toll of weather blasts. Three vending machines lined the paneled wall to the side with a brick fireplace directly across. A cheaply framed landscape poster labeled Mount Rainier hung over the mantel. The television and an office chair behind the registration counter rounded out the sparse decor.

Just Jacob ripped the paper free from the printer. It was all she could do not to jump out of her skin.

“Here you go.”

“Thank you.” She forced herself to take it from him slowly, casually. Their hands paused, side by side. Hers seemed so small and vulnerable beside his larger, roughened one. The paper rattled in her trembling grasp as she took it from him.

Mr. and Mrs. J. Smith. Her right hand clenched over her bare ring finger. Damn. The guy she must have trysted with hadn’t even been original. Tears burned her eyes, then turned icy on her still-chilled skin.

She spun away, paper crumpled in her grip. Not even sure where she was going, only knowing she had to run, she charged out the door. The snowstorm swirled a thick white bubble around the parking lot. She couldn’t see a thing past the line of tiny motel units.

Total isolation.

Her head hurt. Her whole body hurt. God, her brain was so fogged she couldn’t think, much less make decisions while she waited to call the police. She sagged against the railing, mindless of the damp cold seeping through her clothes as she stared out at nothing. A nothingness vast as the void in her mind.

And the only one who could help her fill it was a man with shadows in his eyes that sent fresh shivers along her freezing skin.

Chapter 2

M ore contradictions. Jacob watched the woman stumble back into the hazy storm. She leaned her body weight into dragging the door closed.

Once he’d seen those tear-filled eyes, he expected a sob story and an eyelash-fluttering plea for help. Instead she’d braced her spine so rigidly, even the fifty-mile-an-hour gusts outside couldn’t have knocked her over. Prideful without question.

er 1

“H ell’s bells, here comes Betty Crocker in a bustier.” Tech Sergeant Jacob “Mako” Stone pitched his remote control onto his family’s motel check-in counter and took a second look at the walking contradiction in the parking lot.

Washington winter winds whipped sleet and snow sideways, the icy sheet parting before encircling a shivering woman. She stumbled, righted her spiked heels and hobbled toward the main office of the run-down motel where Jacob had grown up.

Now, he only planned to stick around long enough to get his teenage—orphaned—sister’s life in order before he returned to his career as an Air Force in-flight mechanic. Okay, so he was technically on sick leave while his arm recovered from a line-of-duty bullet. But he hoped to be back in his flight suit, tooling around the sky with his C-17 buddies in two more weeks.

Fourteen days certain to be jam-packed settling his sister’s life—and his old man’s near-bankrupt “estate.”

That alone should be enough for his plate. Pulling his gaze off the woman, Jacob adjusted his healing arm in the sling with a wince and shifted his attention to the Dr. Phil rerun again in hopes the shrink could offer up some insights on how to help a teenager with an infant get her life on track. Fixing his sister’s situation seemed harder than keeping a multimillion-dollar military aircraft in smooth working order.

Still, curiosity hauled his gaze right back to the parking lot as the woman’s coat flapped open. Her slinky dress, racy-red lingerie peeking free with each stormy gust, just didn’t match the Junior League face.

She huddled inside her coat and started up the office steps. She probably needed to call a friend, and the phones were out.

The woman wrapped her arms around her willowy body and tucked her head into the storm. She must be from room sixteen, since his only other customer had been a horse rancher who’d checked out an hour ago. Jacob hadn’t seen the woman up close when she’d arrived the night before. She’d been slumped asleep in the car while “Mr. Smith” had paid cash for their room.

Jacob glanced toward the parking spaces. Mr. Smith’s white Suburban was long gone, snow already piling in the tire ruts.

Damn.

Sympathy and frustration stuttered through Jacob like the bullets that had come his way during a simple assignment hauling a congressional entourage around Europe. Apparently this woman’s wild night out on the tiny town hadn’t unfolded as planned.

Double damn. Already he could feel warrior instincts honed in bloody battle zones stirring to life within him.