Wolf winked. “What happens in Key West stays in Key West, am I right?”
Romeo’s coffee arrived, and he lifted his steaming mug in salute before returning Wolf’s wink. “Carpe diem, my friends.”
Wolf laughed and clinked his Bloody Mary against Romeo’s mug.
“What are we lifting a glass to?” Alex asked, having walked up behind them.
Mason instantly lost the ability to breathe.
It happened when she got within three feet. Up close, he could count the freckles across the bridge of her nose. He could smell her clean, no-nonsense soap-and-deodorant scent. And for some inexplicable reason, both things paralyzed his lungs.
He took a swift sip of his own coffee to disguise his discomfort.
“Celebratin’ life and seizin’ the day and all that jazz,” Wolf told her.
“Ah.” Alex nodded in understanding. “So just a regular day in Key West.”
A small smile played on her face. The woman had one of those damn Kewpie doll mouths, where her top lip formed a near-perfect heart shape. Mason had to look away or risk doing something stupendously dumb. You know, like rubbing his thumb over that lip to see if it was as smooth and cushiony as it looked.
As soon as he turned back to face the liquor bottles lined up behind the bar, however, the short hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He knew the feeling all too well, because all too often he’d found himself in the middle of some asshole’s crosshairs.
Forgetting Alex and her proximity to him…
Okay, so notforgetting. There was no way to forget when every cell in his body strained toward her like she was a magnet and he was metal. But now he had something to focus on besides repeating theDon’t get a bonermantra that was on a loop inside his head anytime she got near.
Letting his gaze take a casual journey around the room, he stopped on a man with a black stare who quickly looked away when their eyes met.
For a few seconds, Mason made no bones about glaring at the guy, his SEAL brain cataloging the man’s age—twenty-one, maybe twenty-two.His bone structure—angular and pronounced.The clothes he wore—nice without being ostentatious. And his body language…
Jittery. Like a kid caught with his hand in the candy jar.
Mason cocked his head, wondering, waiting, watching to see what his observer would do next. But as time ticked by, he convinced himself the man probably hadn’t been watchinghimat all. Had likely been watchingAlexbecause, despite her baggy shorts and T-shirt that readWell-behaved women don’t make history, she was unmistakably pretty. Like a fairy princess had popped out from under a toadstool and flittered into their world.
Maybe Ishouldget my head examined. I’m seeing threats where none exist.
Not normal…His ex-wife’s voice seemed to drift on the wind, and his heart clenched into a hard fist.
Chapter 2
7:26 a.m.
Alexandra Merriweather had just had an epiphany.
She loved it when that happened.
But before she told the guys about it, first she glanced back and forth between Mason and Wolf. “What were you two talking about earlier?” She was fairly certain she’d caught them glancing her way.
“If it’s about my offer to let Mason smash my front door in,” she continued, “forget it. Changed my mind. Not wasting my good boob-and-butt years waiting for some guy”—she hooked a thumb toward Mason who was choking on his coffee—“to pull the stick out of his ass and realize he’s making a mountain out of a molehill.”
“Smash your front door in?” Wolf’s dark eyes sparkled with humor.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes,” he nodded, biting the inside of his cheek. “Just never heard it referred to quite so…uh…eloquently.”
Mason wheezed and blinked at her with tears in his eyes, so she added for his benefit, “Packed up any nonplatonic thoughts I had about you into a box I labeledDo Not Open. Covered that sucker in crime-scene tape. Then I chucked it into the farthest reaches of my mind.” She stuffed her current read—a fairly dry account of modern marine-salvage practices—under her arm so she could dust off her hands. “So there.”
“I–I don’t—” Mason managed, still choking.
