Rebel

She shut the door in his stunned face and released Rodie. Rubi grabbed his leash, glanced at the clock, and tightened the laces on her running shoes. “We’re going to be late meeting Desiree,” she told Rodie as she slipped on her sunglasses. “Rodie, come.”

He trotted away from the front door toward the sliders, and Rubi closed them behind Rodie.

He whined and pranced beside her as she trudged through the dry sand to the water line. “All right, go on.”

She gestured, and Rodie took off, sprinting after a flock of black-tailed plovers. The birds scattered, some into the air, some into the sea, and Rodie lost interest, sniffing along the shore as Rubi found her stride and caught up.

She pulled her phone from the neoprene holster around her bicep and called Desiree, who was meeting her at a house three miles up the beach. Rubi got her voice mail and left a message.

“I’m going to be about ten minutes late. Other Realtors don’t seem to think calling ahead to show a house is important, and I got waylaid. On my way now via a run on the beach.”She shoved the phone back into her armband and shook out her arms, trying to relax. Trying to put the day behind her. At least a dozen unannounced showings of the house. Twelve solid hours of coding the NSA’s clandestine tracking program. A banana, cup of yogurt, and granola later, she needed a break. And some adult human companionship. But Lexi was working late, then taking Jax to dinner with a client. So Rubi was alone. Like she’d been alone the night before.

Wes’s sudden absence made her realize just how much she’d come to depend on him—for companionship, comfort, camaraderie, and, yes, entertainment. She hadn’t laughed since he’d left. It hadn’t even been a full forty-eight hours since Wes had been gone, and she was lost.

“I really need some friends,” she told the empty stretch of pristine shoreline alight in sunset colors of yellow and orange. “The kind I can hang with outside of sex clubs. Maybe I should get a life while I’m at it. And a hobby. And ice cream.”

She continued down the shoreline, her feet striking the wet sand in a steady pace she knew by feel would pump out an eight-minute mile. She was in the mood for about eighteen eight-minute miles tonight. Or eight Sexy Bitches. Or eight Valium. Because she couldn’t get that terror-inducing, “I just…love you,” out of her damn head.

“Bastard,” she muttered.

Her body had been in a constant state of flight since then, her adrenaline ebbing and flowing, dragging her up and down like an angry ocean.

Rubi picked up her pace, deliberately forcing her mind to focus on her body—and only her body—for three miles, until her phone beeped. Slowing her pace, Rubi scanned the cliffs on this stretch of the beach, and the homes beyond as she glanced at her screen. The map program had alerted her to the home for sale, which, according to her phone, lay at the top of those three-hundred rickety wooden stairs traversing the cliff face.

She breathed quickly, trying to catch her breath as she double-checked her map. The house was listed for a little under eight million, so she hadn’t expected a supreme on-the-sand property, but… “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Evidently, her map had no sense of humor.

“Rubi,” a voice called from above. She glanced up and spotted her Realtor, Desiree Boyd, waving down at her from a deck on the cliff. “Come on up.”

Rubi squinted at the stairs, at Desiree, at Rodie, and back. “This week just keeps getting better.”

Out of curiosity, Rubi counted the stairs as she followed Rodie up, holding her arms at his sides to make sure he didn’t veer and fall off. Only a hundred and twenty-six stairs. She was always overestimating—the way she was overestimating this issue with Wes. Surely, she was.

“Okay.” Desiree held up a hand to Rubi, her pretty Asian face holding a smile filled with promise. “I know it’s not on the sand, but…” She opened her arms to the ocean at Rubi’s back. “It’s definitely got the view.”

Rubi turned, hands on hips and out of breath from the stairs. Yes, a view of the ocean. An endless, flat expanse of blue. Other than the color, there was nothing interesting. No sand, no people, no waves against the beach.

Her stomach slid lower. She’d seen two other houses earlier in the day, one way, way, way over her price range at twenty-three million and another priced at nine million. She’d liked those about as much as she liked this. But she didn’t want to be an unappreciative downer, so she said, “Beautiful.”

“Take a look inside,” Desiree suggested, already starting that direction.

Rubi brushed off Rodie’s paws before he walked in, and they strolled around the four-thousand-square-foot home. “This is straight out of the Brady Bunch era.”

Desiree’s heels paused in their click across the pitted, dark wooden floors. Ancient wooden floors. “You’re not old enough to know that.”

“Neither are you,” she said, turning in a slow circle. “I watched a lot of TV reruns when I was a kid. Okay, I’ve seen enough. Call me when you find something different.”

She trotted down the steps again with Desiree calling, “Rubi, there’s not a lot on the market in your price range right now.”

“I understand, but this isn’t going to work.” At the bottom of the steps, she paused and glanced up at Desiree. Offering on her father’s house again was on the tip of her tongue, but her hurt, her anger, and her spite kept it in. “Thanks, D.”

Rubi picked up her run toward home. Against her arm, her phone buzzed. She glanced down and found a text from Wes. Rubi ignored it and focused on the waves. On the scenery. On the sunset. On her dog playing in the water.

She named everything she was grateful for, one of the earliest habits she’d developed for self-soothing. She’d been doing it as far back as her memory stretched. And some days, many more days as a child, her greatest gratitude was for the day’s end.

“I love the beach. I love working for myself. I love making my own schedule,” she said between breaths as she ran. “I love Rodie. I love Lexi. I love Jax. I love…” Wes. “I love Renegades. I love programming apps. I love this weather. I love…” Wes.

She did love Wes; that wasn’t new. She’d shared her gratefulness for him in her life since she’d met him nearly two months before. But now—I love Wes as a friend, the same way I love Jax—felt different. It felt like more. And she just didn’t know what to do with that. She’d never loved a man. Hugely believed she wasn’t capable of loving a man.

And here Wes was, imbedded in her chest. Her mind. He’d somehow slipped in when she hadn’t noticed, and now her feelings for him were growing like a seed planted in fertile earth. A streak of terror heated her belly. But her phone pulled her focus off the discomfort with a reminder chirp for the unread message.

“Dammit.” She slowed to a walk, pulled the phone from its case on her bicep, and tapped the message. “He pokes at me even when he’s thousands of miles away.”

WES: Something to feel good about. Meet Wyatt.

Breathing quickly, stomach tight, she tapped the attachment, and a video played. The setting was a generic hospital room. A man lay in the center of a single bed—strapped into the rig. Rubi immediately recognized the metal strip down the sides of his leg, the black straps around both. Something hitched in Rubi’s chest—surprise, awe, excitement—something unfamiliar but good. Laughter and chatter sounded in the background as if the room was filled with people, though she couldn’t see anyone but the man who had to be Wyatt.

As the camera changed position and drew closer, she recognized the resemblance between Wyatt and Wes. Wyatt had the same broad build as Wes. Both had a square jaw, slim nose, strong cheekbones. Wyatt’s hair was a medium brown, cut military short. His eyes were darker than Wes’s, but she couldn’t tell what color. He lay on top of the covers, wearing gym shorts and a T-shirt, hair mussed, unshaven.

“This is Wyatt.” Wes’s familiar, sexy voice came over the speaker and made Rubi’s heart skip. Made emotion rush her chest. God, she was ridiculous.

“Hey, Miss Rubi,” Wyatt said to the camera with a wave, a grin, and a deep Southern drawl that she hadn’t expected. “Wish you were here…” He spoke with the kind of warmth reserved for deep friendship and delivered with as much sincerity as if she were standing in the room, not an absent, anonymous stranger on the other end of a video clip. He added, with a mischievous grin so much like Wes’s, her heart squeezed, “So I could kick your ass. This is some hard-ass work, girl.”

“And you thought the Marines were tough,” Wes quipped, making everyone laugh, including Rubi.

“Daddy,” a little voice squeezed in, filled with reprimand. “Ass is a bad word.”

More laughter, with adult female voices in the mix.

Wes tilted the camera down, and the two girls in the photo he’d sent earlier—towheaded, fair-skinned, and blue-eyed—appeared on screen. “Say hi to Rubi.”

“Hi, Rubi.” Their young voices vibrated over the speaker.

“These are my nieces,” Wes said. “Introduce yourselves, girls.”

“I’m Abby,” the smaller one said with the enthusiasm of a child who was photographed often.

“I’m Emma.” She was older, a little on the shy side, and didn’t look at the camera.

“All right,” Wes’s voice came over the speaker again. “Get to work, slacker. Let’s show Rubi this rig in action.”

“Slave driver,” Wyatt complained.

They didn’t look so scary. She always associated terrifying, annoying, or pathetic people with the concept of family. But these people were all normal. Like Wes. Like Rubi. Not the “family” that had frightened her into rejecting Wes’s invitation.

“Only one more lift,” a female voice added. By the way it shifted, Rubi could tell she was moving. “He’s already done too much today.” She stepped into the picture as she rounded to the far side of Wyatt’s bed. Her blonde hair spiraled down her back, Taylor Swift style. When she turned and reached out to support Wyatt’s leg, Rubi saw there was more than just her hair that resembled the music mogul. This woman had a beautiful, pixie face and light eyes. A nice build too, slim but top-heavy in the breast department. Rubi would have guessed she was Wyatt’s wife, but she was dressed in solid turquoise scrubs. Had to be the physical therapist. “You’ll be sore tomorrow.”

Rubi glanced up, located Rodie digging in the sand, and returned her gaze to the video.

“Okay, Whitney,” the blonde said. “Ready.”

Rubi had no idea who Whitney was but assigned the name to another anonymous female in the room. Silence descended for a moment, then the familiar sound of the rig’s motors filled Rubi’s ears, and anxiety ramped up in her chest.

Wyatt lay flat, took a breath, and bent his knee, drawing it toward his chest. The move was as simple as they came, but Wyatt’s face scrunched with effort. The hand at his side fisted in the sheets beneath him, and as his knee drew closer to his chest, he growled between his teeth. Then he slowly released his leg, easing it back to the bed at an utterly ridiculously slow pace.