Page 4 of Securing His Heart

Two

What am I doing?

When he’d walked into the bar, or pub as they were called in Australia, the last thing on his mind had been asking a total stranger to dinner.

He didn’t do that anymore.

Chris was over forty, the days of picking up women in a bar were behind him. When he’d been young and in the Army, he’d been all for hooking up with nubile women for one-night stands. Hadn’t needed the complication of a heavy relationship then. Not with his job as a Delta.

He never knew when he’d be called up to leave and he didn’t want a woman clinging to him, begging him not to go. Chris had seen that with a couple of his platoon buddies when they’d received their orders to deploy. It’d been enough to make him know he couldn’t put someone through that. That had been way before he’d completed his Delta training. Being a Delta made relationships even more difficult with the secrecy aspect of their job, along with the danger he and his team often found themselves in.

He’d made the decision many years ago, that long term relationships weren’t for him while he was on active duty. Now that he’d been out for a couple of years, his chances of finding the one were long gone.

Not that he minded. His current job was almost like he was still on a Delta team. Going here and there on covert missions. Contracting to various Government agencies to do tasks the average person had no idea were being undertaken to keep them safe. The things Chris had seen over the years would scare away any woman he was dating.

Being single kept his life uncomplicated.

The reason he was in Perth was because he’d been to the wedding of a friend whose woman he’d helped save from a sex trafficking ring—what would Lindy Jones think of him if she knew what he did? How tarnished his hands were? How many lives he’d taken that bordered the lines of duty and vigilante.

“Will this table suit?”

“Yep.” He didn’t need to think about what Lindy thought about his job, because he had no plans to tell her. Chris was going to enjoy this dinner, then he’d go back to his hotel room and wait for his flight back to the United States in a couple of days. “Do you know what’s good?” he asked as he looked over the menu for the first time since it had been handed to him.

“Honestly, I don’t know. I haven’t eaten here before.”

Chris peered over the top of his menu to study the woman sitting opposite him. Her golden-brown hair curled around her shoulders and shone in the low bar light. The outfit she was wearing probably cost more than the suit he’d worn to the wedding. There was an air of class surrounding her, with her designer bag, clothes and shoes. The people he’d seen at the wedding wore the type of attire this woman wore.

Had she been at the wedding?

Lindy looked like she’d fit into the people Declan, Cole, Jude and Dominic associated with. The wedding had been large, so it could’ve been entirely possible she’d been there and he hadn’t seen her.

Yes, her frequenting places like this didn’t seem as if it was an everyday occurrence for her.

“Do you come here a lot?”

“Is that a pickup line, because we’re already eating together.” Her eyebrows rose as she laughed. Her whole demeanor changed, the tenseness in her shoulders appeared to disappear out of her. Lindy’s blue eyes sparkled and desire slammed him low in the belly. He hadn’t had such a visceral reaction to a woman he’d just met in a long time.

“It sounded like a cheesy line, didn’t it?” Chris picked up his beer to take a swallow, anything to stop himself from reaching over and touching her fingers as they rested on the bottom of her wine glass.

“Kind of. I occasionally drop in for a glass of wine before going home. Food hasn’t been a requirement.”

“And tonight, it is?”

This woman sitting opposite intrigued him. Did she wear her designer clothes every day to work and on the days, she frequented this pub? Or did she go home and come back?

“I think I’ve told you that …”

“Ah yes, today has been quite the day.” He raised his glass and was pleased when she clinked her wineglass against his.

“Correct.” Lindy took a sip and placed her glass back on the table. The light that had been in her eyes dimmed a little, as if she was thinking about her bad day.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Chris swallowed down some beer, hoping it would stop him from saying anymore.

Being touchy feely and asking people about their emotions was one thing he never did. Many times, while on mission, he’d had to close himself off from wanting to help all those who needed it.

He’d hardened his heart so much he worried it would never soften. Then again, fifteen minutes in the company of the woman opposite him, he was asking things he never did.

“Thanks for the offer, but it’s too…there’s a lot going on.”

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