[Ladera by the Sea 02] - Safe Harbor by Marie Ferrarella

Author:Marie Ferrarella [Ferrarella, Marie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

HE WASN’T SURE what woke him.

One moment, he was in the midst of a dreamless sleep, the next his eyes were wide open, his brain trying to process whether the noise he’d heard had been in his sleep.

Or in his room.

Mike had bolted upright before he knew what he was doing, reaching for the gun beneath his pillow—that wasn’t there.

Then he remembered where he was.

The room wavered just a little. Or maybe that was him. He’d been mending slowly these past few days, far slower than he’d wanted to. Yet, he had to admit, progress was being made and at least he was still alive.

Whenever he became impatient or frustrated with himself, all he had to do was remind himself of the alternative.

He still had no idea what it was that woke him, but he took it as a sign that he was finally getting back to normal. Because of the nature of his work, he’d trained himself to instantly wake up if a strand of hair landed on a rug.

He’d done it because his life could very well depend on it.

At least, it had until he’d found himself on that cabin cruiser with Larry Crenshaw and the cartel kingpin, Ortega, not to mention a full complement of men on Ortega’s payroll.

And then it came to him. He knew what had woken him up.

Rain. The sound of rain hitting a windowpane.

Sitting here in the dark bedroom, listening to a rare summer storm wind down, it was almost hard to believe that people like Crenshaw and Emilio Ortega even existed.

It was as if he’d fallen down a rabbit hole and wandered into a storybook land where kindness and manners counted and a person was measured by the way he could make someone else’s day better rather than by sales figures quoted in kilos and the number of drugs exchanging hands.

He didn’t bother turning on the light. The dark was soothing and he’d gotten accustomed to using it to his advantage.

Getting out of bed carefully, Mike made his way over to the small, sliding back door and opened it. A fine mist greeted him, landing like small, welcoming kisses along his face.

The miniscule balcony looked out on the back lawn and beyond that, he could make out the ocean. It looked like undulating velvet from where he stood.

The water seemed restless tonight, he noted.

“Welcome to the club,” Mike murmured under his breath.

“Something wrong?”

Her voice startled him, but he kept his reaction in check, another habit he’d picked up, thanks to the cartel. Instead, he looked calmly in the direction the voice had come from.

“What are you doing up?” he asked Stevi.

Wearing an oversize Chargers jersey, she was standing on the balcony in the room next to his. Her smile seemed to weave itself under his skin. He chalked it up to his somewhat fuzzy brain.

“Funny, I was just going to ask you the same thing,” she said.

He tried not to notice how short her jersey was, but it wasn’t easy. “Something woke me up.

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