Free Hot & Bothered (A Hostile Operations Team Novel - Book 8) by Lynn Raye Harris Page A

this evening, aren’t you?”
    “I’m a man, Samantha. I appreciate a beautiful woman when I see one.”
    “Oh, I do know that about you. Your appreciation was quite intense, if I remember rightly.”
    He was glad it was dark because he was suddenly, instantly hard. “I was an idiot back then. I should have appreciated you more.”
    Her hazel eyes softened. “Well, I really should get back to my date. Maybe I’ll see you around.”
    He tried not to be disappointed. He deserved her indifference. What did he expect after all these years? “Maybe so.”
    She turned and went back to her table. Her date stood at her approach, his face wreathed in smiles that Mendez hated on sight. The man took her hand and helped her into the booth, then shot Mendez a glare when Sam dug in her purse for something. He glared right back until Sam spoke and the man had to turn his attention to her instead.
    Mendez sat down and took another drink of his beer. But for the next hour, he couldn’t tear his gaze—or his thoughts—from Samantha Spencer.

CHAPTER NINE

    BY EVENING, EMILY FELT MUCH BETTER. Her spells usually came on in the morning and then here and there throughout the day, but by evening she typically felt fine. Yet another thing she had in common with a pregnant woman.
    Emily frowned as she stared at herself in the mirror. You are not pregnant.
    No, she wasn’t. But now that she knew Linda Cooper was, she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about it. That poor young woman. Her poor baby.  
    Emily splashed water on her face and took her hair down to brush it and then wind it up into a fresh bun. She secured it with a few bobby pins, blew out a breath, and looked herself over with a critical eye.
    She hadn’t worn makeup since she’d returned to the desert, but she wished she had some right now. Because no matter how much she might like to avoid Ryan, she was pretty sure she’d see him again. Most likely when she went to get her dinner. She could probably get someone to bring her something, but that was too cowardly even for her.  
    Everyone in this compound was a soldier, a person who’d chosen to be here and work hard for a cause. There was a cook and a supply clerk, just like in the Army, and whatever other positions Ian had hired out—but there were no maids or waitstaff.
    They sent the linens out for cleaning, but they made their own beds if they had one—some of the guys bedded down in sleeping blankets. They also went to the dining room at mealtimes and got their own food.
    Emily closed her eyes and put her hands on either side of the sink. She could do this. She would do this. She’d never thought Ryan would show up when she’d taken Ian’s offer two months ago, but maybe she should have realized it could happen.
    Naïvely, she’d thought maybe what Ian wanted from her would really only take a couple of weeks or so, and then she’d be home again before she’d damaged her relationship with Ryan and Victoria too badly.
    “That’s the kind of thinking that always gets you in trouble, Em,” she muttered. Since she’d been a child and she and Victoria went into foster care, she’d had an inner fantasy life that often didn’t dovetail with her reality.
    When the twenty-five-year-old son who still lived at home in one of their foster families paid special attention to her, she’d only been fourteen and she’d been desperate for love and attention. She hadn’t thought it wrong that he gave her that attention, even when it involved initiating her into sexual life far earlier than she should have been.
    Oh, the things she’d told herself. The lies.  
    Of course it crumbled, and of course they were sent away to another family and then another and another. Victoria hadn’t understood it, but Emily had. It was her. She was the bad one, the disappointment, the one who ruined everything.
    That’s when she’d turned to drugs and alcohol. They made her feel better, if only for a little while. She hadn’t believed