She immediately plopped down to let Max wiggle and kiss his way into her lap.

  “My teammate, Nutsbe.” Halo said with a hand toward the other guy.

  “Hi there!” Mary got a hand free to offer a wave.

  Nutsbe was gathering his things into a computer bag. “Hey, listen, I just got word from the hospital, Mary. The two boys were released and went home with family. They’re perfectly fine.”

  Mary wavered, she was the heat rising from the desert highway, just a shiver in the air.

  Halo wrapped his arms lightly around her waist, holding her steady. She felt him mouthing, “the mom?”

  “The mother is in intensive care but they project a full recovery. They will all live. The building was all but destroyed. But there were no deaths.”

  “Whew.” Mary looked up at Halo then took his hand so she could sink to the floor, using the bed for a backrest. “Whew,” she said again.

  “And back to business for just a moment then I’ll get out of your hair.” Nutsbe focused on Halo. “Your rental car is in the parking lot. I’ve programmed your shirt. You’re all set for the bog tomorrow.”

  “Bog?” Mary tipped her head back. “I thought they were in Scotland.”

  “About an hour outside of Tallinn. It’s gorgeous there,” Halo said. “I went yesterday with the team, and I need to go back and introduce Max to the area and see how he does out there.”

  “Oh, I’d love to see that, and Deidre—my friend I’m traveling with—is nursing a bum knee from skiing. Do you think it’s possible for me to come?” It was audacious, but why not ask? She looked from Halo to Nutsbe since Nutsbe seemed to be the organizer. “Or is this … Ha, Sorry about that. I’d think it was odd if you invited yourself to my place of work to see what I do after just meeting you. I’m sorry. Forget I asked.”

  “No, Ma’am, I’m glad you did, actually,” Nutsbe said. “Our job is to keep civilians safe in various scenarios. It might be interesting to have you go out with Halo and get your feedback. I need to run this by our team lead, Titus Kane. But the team knows and highly esteems you.”

  “Isn’t that nice?” A bemused smile softened Mary’s face. “I’m not sure that I’ve been highly esteemed before.”

  Nutsbe grinned. “Your heroism will be told for generations, The Legend of Flagpole Mary.” He clasped his bag. And pulled the strap over his shoulder. “We have a protocol in place that allows volunteers to join a research trip,” he told Mary. “You’d need to sign a contract with us. It provides insurance should anything go wrong. It puts you under our protection. And you’d have to understand that Halo is working while he’s out there and is held to a very,” he cleared his throat, “strict set of conduct rules.”

  “Of course,” Mary said.

  “After I check with Titus, I’ll text Halo with the response. If I get his okay, I can meet you downstairs in the morning with the paperwork.” He reached into his thigh pocket and pulled out a pad and pen, handing them to Mary. “Can I get your legal name, home address, and local contact number? If you’re able to go, I need them for the contracts. If Titus doesn’t okay it, for whatever reason, we’d still like to have your information in our system because of today.”

  “Yes, of course.” Mary reached for the pad and leaned over the nightstand to jot out the information. Nutsbe accepted it back and walked into the hall.

  “Thanks, mate,” Halo said, gently closing the door. Turning to Mary, he asked, “Are you comfortable being in this room? If you prefer, we could go to the lobby or our conference room downstairs, or—it’s a beautiful night—we could sit in the park.”

  “Can I lay on your bed?” Mary asked. “Is Max allowed up?”

  “Make yourself comfortable.”

  “Your team, they’re American. And you’re Australian?” Mary asked, sitting on the corner of the mattress and slipping off her shoes.

  “Yes. Well raised in Australia, born in America.”

  “Your eyes are different,” Mary budged farther onto the bed, settling her back against the headboard, her legs stretched long.

  “I’m sorry?” Halo gave Max the hand signal to load onto the bed.

  Max jumped up next to Mary, curling into place against her.

  Mary wiggled a finger near the corner of her face. “Your eyes are different from the other men’s. With the other guys, there’s a hardness to them. I wonder if that’s what happens when you go to war.” Her fingers rubbed behind Max’s ear. “What did you do for the military?”

  “I was a Commando.” Halo dragged a chair to the side of the bed near her feet.

  “Commandos. What is that?”

  “Australian special forces.”

  “Ah, okay, that makes sense.” She popped her brows. “And whew! You’re not an actor.”

  “Sorry?” He canted his head.

  “Nothing.” She batted a hand through the air. “Just let that go. Special Forces, you were in the thick of things.”

  He sat and untied his boots. “Ah. Well, I went to war. Twenty years of war.”

  “But …” Mary put her hand over her heart. “I’m sorry for the losses you must have experienced.” Her brow drew together. “Commando. That was very dangerous.”

  “It had its moments.” He shucked his shoes and socks. “I was lucky, though. I was the K9 handler.”

  “The others on your team didn’t work with dogs?”

  His brow drew together.

  “I’m trying to understand why your eyes aren’t hard.”

  “Pretty easy. Like I said, I was my Commando team’s K9 handler. If I walked around with special forces energy, my dogs would pick up on that and get stressed out. Our dogs only work when they’re having fun.”

  “Fun? In war?” Mary asked, adjusting the pillows behind her back.

  “They don’t understand war. They understand they’re doing a job. And they want to please their handler. As the handler, I needed to make sure they were healthy and happy at work. Their job saved my brothers’ lives. My life. So, so many times.”

  “War calcifies people.” She sighed, “I’m an ex-military wife; I’ve seen it. There are ramifications for the families.”

  “This is, unfortunately, true. It had an effect on my family. I’m also divorced. It’s me and Max.”

  “Max looks young.”

  “He turned two years last week.”

  “Happy birthday, baby.” She scritched his ears. “How did he come into your life?”

  Halo propped his feet on the bed next to Mary’s. It felt comfortable. It felt like—Mary searched for a word, and all she could come up with was ‘aligned.’ It felt like they had already done all the trust-building. After all, she wasn’t testing the guy to see if he’d show up and help her move something heavy. She’d literally put her survival in the man’s hands, and he had been a solid partner in getting her from desperate to safe. She’d survived. Yeah, after today’s fire, Mary couldn’t imagine this man hurting her or allowing her to come to harm. There was a certain amount of peace that came with her conviction.

  “I went with a friend on an errand to the shelter, where I met Max. From the moment I looked into his eyes, I knew that we were partners. I’ve been training him since he was a pup.” Max lifted his head from Mary’s lap and looked over at Halo. “From the beginning, keeping Max’s mind busy with training had been a challenge. But it’s proven to be imperative. A bored Max can easily become a destructive Max. There is no kennel or lock yet from which Max can’t devise his Houdini-like escape. And that led to one very bad puppy teething incident when I came home to find he’d eaten my leather couch.”

  Mary laughed. “Oh, but he was a little puppy, right?”

  “He’s still young and super bright, which makes for a challenging combo. If Max isn’t learning, he’s looking for his own fun. And sometimes that’s destructive.”

  “Destructive like what?” Mary said, bending to plant a kiss on Max’s head. “Besides your couch.”

  “He ate the rubber bumper off my mate’s car.”

  Her brows flew up. “Serious?”

  “He was mighty proud of himself when he had it all the way off.” Halo reached over to the mini fridge and pulled out a water bottle, holding it up.

  “Yes, thank you. That could become a very expensive habit, eating bumpers.” She reached for the bottle and then settled back. “He was wearing a working vest today. I’m trying to put that together with his bringing me my clothes. What is his job? What are Malinois bred to do?”

  “They’re herd dogs, like shepherds.”

  “Then why do Navy SEALs use them?” She rolled the water bottle along her neck, appreciating the coolness and weight.

  “High energy, amazing noses, highly trainable. They’ve got the speed and drive, the work ethic and loyalty that we need.”

  “The loyalty is apparent. And his job? What does he do? I mean, besides eating couches and cars.”

  “He’s trained in tracking for search and rescue. He’s also a tactical dog.”

  “Which means?” she asked.

  “He can jump out of helicopters, fast rope down cliffs. He can take down the bad guy.”

  “A hero pup.” Her hand slid down to pat Max’s rump. “And you trained him to do all that? Impressive. Halo isn’t your given name. is it?”

  “No, I’m Basil St. John. Halo isn’t a bad call sign. Could be worse. They could have focused on Basil and called me Herb or Spaghetti or something. Some guys got terrible names.”

  “Yeah? Give me an example.”

  “Well, you just met Nutsbe. His last name is Crushed.”

  “Nutsbe Crushed?” She laughed. “That’s terrible! His poor mother.”

  “Interesting,” Halo said. “I’ve only just met Nutsbe, but the few times I’ve mentioned his name to a woman, that’s the reigning sentiment, ‘his poor mother.’ Curious.”

  “Hard to explain to a guy. On the other hand, I bet your mother’s quite pleased that you came out of the military with the name Halo.”

  “She is, actually.”

  He leaned forward, his finger gently circling the string of bruises on the tops of her feet. “These weren’t visible yet when you were in the street.”

  “Pole kisses,” Mary said. “I get them every time I pole dance.”

  “Is that a popular sport where you’re from?” Halo held her foot in his hand, massaging over her toes.

  Normally, Mary would be reticent for a man to touch her feet unless she’d just stepped out of the bath. But oddly, it was a flash of thought and then gone. She’d just enjoy the sensation. “Pole dancing? Not really. No.”

  He turned her foot to look at the string of bruises up the inside of her leg from ankle to thigh. “These bruises in this pattern are from climbing the pole?”

  “Yes, it happens every time.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Being on the pole hurts a lot, yes. It feels like a whole-body Charlie horse. I’m not really holding the weight of my body on the pole with my strength. Let me put that a different way: while strength is required, it’s not what’s keeping me on the pole in my various configurations. It’s my skin pressing and sliding against the metal until there’s enough friction to keep my body up.”

  He winced. “If you’re not doing it to earn a living, why would you do that to yourself? Sounds a bit masochistic.”

  “It’s rewarding.”

  “I watched a video of you going up the pole and was wondering why you took off your clothes. But you’re saying you need friction.” His finger had been tracing circles around the bruises on her calf. He was slowly working his way up her leg.

  “Exactly. And even then, if the pole was too slippery, no matter my strength or technique, I wasn’t going to stay on or move up.” She pushed her hair back behind her ear. “When I watched your guy powering up the pole, I knew it wasn’t oiled or even polished, especially with his pants and shoes. I was running to help when I saw the pole tip. I figured I was lighter.”

  “And out of the mists came Mary.”

  “Oh, stop.”

  “I’m not giving you a hard time. I’m in awe.” He slid the skirt of her dress higher on her legs and painted a warm palm along the bruises on her thigh. “So, fortunately, the pole wasn’t oiled.”

  “Yeah, it had a good amount of texture, better friction.” Mary was having a hard time focusing on the banality of this conversation.

  Her mind stuck on the word friction; she wouldn’t mind if that’s where they were heading.

  Right now, Mary wanted to scoot down on the bed, pull Halo’s weight on top of her, and wrap her legs back around his waist like she had earlier in the day—not out of survival desperation, but just to feel the comfort of how their bodies fit together.

  And yet, she wasn’t entirely sure about the dynamics at play here, so she continued, “From the ground, it looked like the pole reached like a tree limb right out to the family. When I got up there and saw how far they were. That mother.” Mary tucked her chin as her ribs clamped down hard on her heart. “As a mom, I can tell you sometimes, when my kids were in danger, I became that proverbial mama bear and other times, my whole body shut down. It’s a flip of the coin what my brain decides to do. I have seen it time and time again in the emergency department where I worked as a nurse.”

  “Today, you were the mama bear. I think that brains, for the most part, assess correctly. We act when it’s best to act. Sometimes, survival depends on freezing in place. You have to trust your instincts. The mother was up there with so few choices and little hope except for someone to show up. And you did that.”

  She caught Halo’s gaze. “Honestly, I was on the sidewalk watching things unfold,” she whispered. “And then I saw those little boys’ faces. They were my kids. Mine. My little boys up there with death breathing its dragon breath at their necks.” She lifted her hand, turning it beside her head. “It was a switch that went off in my brain. And I believed they were my sons. There was nothing that would have stopped me from getting to them. And then, when I was up there and saw their faces, I realized they weren’t mine. I didn’t recognize those boys. But that didn’t change anything.”

  She’d told this to Deidre earlier, and Deidre brushed on by the sentiment. Deidre hadn’t been on that balcony and hadn’t experienced what she and Halo had gone through.

  Right now, the look in Halo’s eyes told her that he understood. “Can I tell you a secret?” Mary whispered.

  Halo put his hand over his heart.

  “I was sent here to Tallinn to save them. Specifically. The time. The location. Sent here to climb the pole.”

  Halo held still.

  “It’s my birthday destination. Let me explain. I came here with my best friend, Deidre. She’s a little more woo-woo than I am. A lot more woo-woo. Anyway, Deidre found this woman in Switzerland who looks at your star charts and decides where in the world you can travel on your birthday, a place that will change how you progress on your life’s journey.”

  “Like a GPS coordinate?” Halo asked.

  “More general, a city. Deidre dragged me along to Switzerland to get her birthday destination site. And the woman told me I was to go to Tallinn, Estonia, on my birthday. We were already in Europe, so we thought, why not?”

  “On your birthday. Today.”

  “Yup. Be in Old City, Tallinn today.” Mary held back that it was supposed to change all three parts of her life – her career, her love life, and her life’s trajectory. Could this man be the change? If Mrs. V was right to send her here—not that Mary was looking for a husband—but the solace of a man’s arms, the strength of someone having her back. She’d never really had a relationship with a man who would be around. It could be him. Maybe.

  Halo leaned in, painting a finger down the side of her face. “Happy birthday, Mary.”

  She closed her eyes and kissed him. It was a warm honey kiss, sweet and rich, decadent and filled with goodness. She’d never had a kiss feel that way before. Her heart was racing in her chest. With her lips on his, she maneuvered her way closer. His tongue laced with hers. Slow.

  The kiss was glorious, but the angle somehow dug into a tender spot, and she grimaced.

  “You’re in pain. Of course, you are.” His lips were so close that his words were a warm breath on her cheek. “What can I do?”

  “Kiss my booboo and make me feel better?” Mary had said it playfully, but Halo took her quite literally.

  He scooped under her knees and laid her out on the bed, crawling onto the mattress beside her. He lifted her foot to his lips. “Your poor foot.” He kissed. “And the inside of your ankle.” He kissed.

  Mary’s entire body heated, melted, and awakened.

  Halo snapped his finger and pointed to the crate. Dutifully, Max jumped down and went to his bed.

  Halo rested a finger under her chin, tilting her head so he could look her in the eye. “Can you tell me what you’re thinking? What do you want to happen here?”

  Mary hesitated. This next sentence was going to be the most spontaneous thing she’d ever said to a man who was a stranger just a few hours before. “I was wondering if you might have a condom with you?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  September Fifth

  Tallinn, Estonia

  Their day in the bog had gotten the green-light.

  Mary was off to her room to get changed and would meet him in the lobby.

  With Max by his side, he took the elevator to meet Nutsbe, thinking about what Mary had said after he’d made love to her. He had thought the experience was exquisite.

  Perhaps because of the connection they’d made as they worked to not just save that young family but to save each other that made the sex such a rich, intimate, amazing feeling.

  But when Mary left the room, she said, “Thank you again for our talk last night.” She’d smiled. “And thank you extra for the very lovely distraction.”

  Halo wasn’t sure what to make of that.

  Was that what happened?

  The sex was a stress relief? A distraction from bad thoughts?

  If that’s what it was for her, that’s what it was. Halo couldn’t make someone feel what he was feeling. He’d just thought that there was a deeper connection there. That something between them clicked into place when they were in survival mode together. That they’d forged a bond when he first caught her eye, and there was an acknowledgment that they needed each other to stay alive.