Leo shot him a look as he reached into the breast pocket of his T-shirt. Snagging his pack of Big Red and quickly unwrapping a single stick, he folded the piece of cinnamon-flavored chewing gum into his mouth and said, “Are you tellin’ me you don’t know how to make banana pancakes?”
“It ain’t a matter of knowin’ how.” Uncle John shook his shaggy head. A lock of stark white hair flopped over his brow. “It’s a matter of effort versus pleasure. Is the pleasure I’m goin’ to get from eatin’ the pancakes worth the effort of me standin’ over a hot stove and flippin’ the suckers? I suspect not.”
Slack-ass hippie, indeed…
“Fine.” Leo opened the screen door, wincing when the hinges screamed in rusty agony.ItemnumberonemillionandoneonTheList: oil the hinges. That one hewouldget around to eventually, if for no other reason than to mitigate any unnecessary noise on mornings like this. And on the subject of unnecessary noise, Meat raced by him, doggy nails scrabbling on the waxed wooden floor in his mad dash toward the kitchen. “I’ll cook. But only if you promise to turn that shit off, or else find some new music to torment us—”
His words were cut off when he heard the low buzz of the Canadian-built de Havilland Otter floatplane that was Romeo’s pride and joy. Romeo had purchased the single-engine, propeller-drive aircraft under the auspices ofweneedafasterwaythanthecatamarantogetbackandforthtoKeyWest. But Leo figured Romeo just flat-outwantedthe aircraft, considering his time behind the throttle was cut short due to the fact that they were now, you know,C-words. And even though it hadn’treallybeen in the budget, who was Leo to tell a guy he couldn’t spend his hard-earned cash the way he wanted? Plus, the planehadcome in handy more than a time or two.
Of course, it had irked Romeo to no end that Wolf—the only other guy in their group with a pilot’s license—had gleefully requisitioned the aircraft for transportation preceding and following the trip to Seville. When Romeo objected, Wolf had simply said, his black eyes flashing, “Letting me take the Otter just makes plain good sense, and arguing about it is as useful as wrestling with shadows.”
Ray “Wolf” Roanhorse could play the quiet, resolute, impeccablylogicalcard better than anyone Leo knew. And when he combined that with the colorful Cherokee-isms he’d picked up from his wise, old grandmother, none of them could naysay him. Not even Romeo, who usually had a smart-alecky comeback for everything.
Unhooking his aviators from the collar of his T-shirt, Leo slid the sunglasses onto his face and stepped toward the edge of the porch. The little Otter was coming in for a landing in the lagoon, but just before its pontoons cleared the ring of choppy water that heralded the presence of the treacherous underwater reef, the left wing dipped once—the flyboy equivalent ofhello. It was then that Leo realized the catamaran was no longer tied to the dock, but motoring through the break in the reef line toward open water. Squinting against the glare of the sun, he could see the main sail on the twin-hulled boat unfurling. It caught the wind with a loudsnapthat echoed back to him a moment before thesploosh-hisssssof the Otter touching down drowned out all other sounds…even ol’ Bob, who had switched from singing about three little birds to singing about a buffalo soldier.
“Romeo and Doc are sailin’ the ladies back to Key West,” his uncle informed him, seeing the direction of his gaze. Leo walked over and clicked off the boom box and…silence. Blessed, sweet silence. “They said they’ll be home by dinner. But, hey”— his uncle clapped a hand on his shoulder when he returned to lean against the porch rail—“this is an auspicious arrival, ain’t it? I suspect you can talk Bran into makin’ us some banana pancakes.”
Despite the rough start to his morning, Leo felt his lips curve. His best friend loved cooking like most men loved beer, brats, and reruns ofBaywatch, and Leo had no doubt that all it would take for Bran to don his ridiculous apron—the thing actually readMr. Good-Lookin’ Is Cookin’;Imean, for chrissakes—would be for Leo to mention in passing that banana pancakes would just about hit the spot. Of course, all thoughts of breakfast vanished like smoke on the water when the Otter motored toward the beach, its pontoons kissing the edge of the sand, and Leo counted not three butfoursilhouettes in the little floatplane’s windows.
Now, who is that?he wondered.
Wolf throttled up until the bird was secure on the beach, then cut the engine. The back cabin door popped open and Mason McCarthy hopped out. Mason was their resident underwater demolitions expert and ace electrician. And when you combined those terribly macho talents with his big, burly, Black Irish facade and his South Boston propensity for using the work “fuck” in all its glorious variations, the fact that he liked to paint landscapes in his off time seemed a bit…well…contradictory.Then again, any hobby that could quiet the cacophonous mind of a former fighting man was A-okay in Leo’s book.
He watched Mason fist both hands into the small of his back before arching into a stretch. At 5' 11", what Mason lacked in height compared to the rest of the guys, he more than made up for in sheer muscle mass. And the interior of the Otter was a squeeze for even an average-sized man, much less one who looked like he could be John Cena’s stunt double. After working out the kinks, Mason turned to offer a hand up to their guest.
Long, tan legs emerged from the plane.Smoothlegs.
Wrinkled khaki shorts soon followed.Shortshorts.
A ribbed, black tank top came next.Tighttank top.
And then…
Olivia Mortier.
Whatthehell?Leo’s chin jerked back at the same time his pulse jumped into overdrive.What’s she doing here?
And then it occurred to him that the guys must have taken it into their fool heads to do what he’d been refusing to do, namely, contact Olivia.
Stupid, interfering sonsofbitches!
He was all set to rip the assholes some new assholes when he saw Bran open the copilot side door and jump down from the plane carrying a huge black duffel. After skirting the nose of the aircraft, he tossed the bag to Mason before slinging a muscular arm around Olivia’s shoulders. And, no.No, no.All thought of rippinganyonea newanythingflew out of Leo’s head quick as a whistle, replaced by a surge of possessiveness so strong he knew, then and there, and without a doubt, that his life had just gotten a lot more complicated. Because if there was one word in the entire English language to describe Olivia Mortier, it was certainly, unequivocally “complicated.”
Shit!
“Ahoy, the house!” Bran called, a skip in his step and a goofy grin plastered across his face.
Leo wondered if the two affectations were due to Bran having just spent a night carousing in the bars on Key West—the place was like the holy Mecca for a drifting, shiftless, unattached guy just looking for a one-night stand—or the shoulders of one black-haired, blue-eyed CIA agent that were supporting his arm.
Can you say, “All of the above,” boys and girls?
Shit!
All right, Leo was definitely sensing a theme for the day.
“Who do you suppose she is?” his uncle inquired from beside him, leaning against the porch rail and squinting at the new arrivals as they made their way up the beach toward the house.
TroublewithacapitalT. Temptation on two legs. My wildest fantasy come to life.“Olivia Mortier,” Leo managed, his voice coming out all scratchy and rough, like he’d been swallowing fistfuls of sand or some other such equally asinine thing.
