Gunner...
His jaw locked.
A matter of time.
Gunner would get the payback that he had coming.
Chapter Seven
“I need clothes.” Sydney curled her toes into the thick carpet in Gunner’s living room. “As fun as it is to keep wearing your T-shirt...” Her hands lifted the hem of his navy T-shirt. “I need to go out in public with more than just this on.”
But she looked so sexy in his shirt. With her long legs stretching forever. Gunner cleared his throat. “That’s, um, being covered—”
His doorbell rang. Right. That should be her clothing. Logan had told him that he’d be sending over some articles for Sydney. Gunner hurried to the door. Glanced through the peephole. Swore. Then he looked over his shoulder. “Why don’t you...uh...wait in the bedroom? I’ll bring the clothes to you.” Because he didn’t want the man on the other side of that door seeing Sydney when she looked so...
Tempting.
Sydney shook her head, threw her hands into the air and stomped off toward the bedroom.
Schooling his features, Gunner opened the door. Cale stood there, shopping bags in his hands and a pained expression on his face. “Send me out to rescue a hostage in the jungles of the Amazon,” he drawled, the Texas slipping into his voice as he stepped over the threshold, “but please don’t send me shopping for women’s clothes ever again.”
Gunner almost smiled. He almost smiled, would have, if he hadn’t heard the returning tread of footsteps.
“Gunner,” Sydney called out, “I’m going to need some shoes, too—Cale?”
Cale gave a low whistle. Then he choked because Gunner stepped into his path. “I, um, brought you some clothes, Sydney.”
Gunner snatched the clothes from him. “Keep those eyes up,” he ordered.
Cale’s lips twitched. Gunner’s own eyes narrowed. Cale was about to get on his—
“Relax, Gunner. I’m sure that Cale has seen a woman’s legs before, plenty of times,” Sydney said, a thread of humor in her voice.
But she wasn’t just any woman. She was—
Mine.
Wasn’t that the way he’d always thought about her?
Gunner forced himself to take a deep breath. “Eyes. Up.” He gave the order once more; then he turned briskly and marched toward Sydney.
Her eyes were...twinkling. “If I didn’t know better,” she whispered, “I’d say you were almost jealous.”
Almost? Not even close. Cale was one of those annoying pretty boys you saw in magazines. The guys who could easily wear tuxes and blend in anyplace.
Gunner knew what he looked like. A walking bad dream most days. With all the scars on him and a face that was too rough and hard, he was hardly the man women wanted to take home to meet the family.
He never had been.
“There’s no need to be jealous.” She took the bags from him. “Maybe you should learn to trust me.” Her steps were quiet as she headed back into the bedroom to change.
He stilled. He did trust Sydney. In the field, he always knew that she had his back. If you couldn’t trust your team members on a mission, you couldn’t trust anyone.
Logan, Sydney and Jasper Adams—the man whom Cale had only recently replaced in the Shadow Agents—they were like his family.
They were his family.
“I don’t blame you for watching her walk away. That woman is a looker.”
Gunner spun around.
Cale had his hands up. “Easy there, big guy. You don’t have to worry about any threat from me.” His lips twisted. “Not that the woman would be interested. Hell, I knew from day one that she was hung up on you.” Then, softer, “Though hell if I can figure out why.”
Gunner frowned at that.
“Maybe there’s a charmer hidden under the grizzly bear exterior.” Cale’s hands dropped. “Some women go for the guys who growl.”
Once more, the jerk almost made Gunner want to smile. Mostly because he’d said, “I knew from day one that she was hung up on you.”
“How are you going to handle things with Slade?” Cale asked him, still keeping his voice low. “Because I’m going to assume that the ridiculous plan of giving her up—”
Gunner’s brows climbed. Had that plan been so obvious?
“Yeah, I figured out that martyr bit earlier. Forget that. I’m going to assume that’s over now?”
Sydney was pregnant. There was no way he’d leave her now. “I’ll always be there for my brother.”
“And for her?”
No one could make him leave Sydney. Last night, hell, he still couldn’t believe she’d opened her arms to him last night. That she’d given him such pleasure.
Did it mean that she still cared? Just how much did she care?
The real question...can I make her love me?
“I’ll stay close to Sydney,” he said, trying to keep any emotion from his voice.
Cale raked his face with his gaze, considering. “That was the order, right? Logan said you were to keep her at your side, and I’m to do backup duty, watching you both.” Cale’s stare drifted around the condo. “This isn’t the most secure place, you know. All of these windows...”
But Gunner liked the windows. After he’d been held prisoner and tortured on a mission gone bad, he’d needed to find a place that let him look out and feel free.
It was the same reason he’d helped his brother get settled in another nearby building. One that would give Slade views so that he knew he wasn’t trapped.
Free.
“Just know that I’ve got your back, man, okay?” Cale said. “I’ll be there for you and Sydney.”
That was good to know. Gunner nodded.
Cale hesitated. “Logan told you about the Guerrero file?”
“Yes.”
“You know...you and Sydney were on the list of EOD agents who were targeted for takedown.”
Gunner rolled his shoulders. A few months back, Cale Lane hadn’t been working for the EOD. In fact, the EOD had been hunting Cale. They’d thought that he was responsible for the murders of three EOD agents.
Cale was an ex-Ranger and an ex-mercenary. His psych profile had shown that he was prone to highly aggressive tendencies and that he could prove to be unstable.
Too late, they’d found out most of that profile was garbage, and then they’d realized that Cale was being set up. They’d started working together, and they’d tracked down the real killer—a man who was systematically working his way through a list of EOD agents who needed to be eliminated.