At the Merest Glance

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

The pounding on his door snapped Anton’s mind back into his room at Ship Inn.

“What!”

He hadn’t wanted to lose that vision.

Whoever she was made looking a real joy. But there was something more. The way she’d acted. Almost as if—

“Get your ass up, you lazy dog. If you fall asleep now, you’ll be toast tomorrow.” Michelle blew into the room like the whirlwind his semi-sister was. He was impressed that she’d knocked at all.

Michelle Bowman was five-ten of maddening redhead—her skin as light as his was dark. They had the same parents, kind of. Ma and Pa had married, divorced, then married other people. Each having a kid, which had then blown up both of their second marriages. So they’d gotten back together and remarried when both Anton and Michelle were three. Yet she insisted that they weren’t stepsiblings. Her answer to what they were kept changing, but for now Michelle was his semi-sister.

Ricardo offered a quiet grimace of apology as he entered behind his wife.

What Anton wanted to do was go watch that woman in the woods some more.

It was hard to tell in the dark, but he was pretty sure that her hair, falling in a thick ragged cut down past her shoulders, was strawberry blonde. No more than five-seven to his six-five, her head had passed below his chin when she’d walked up to him on the trail. But it wasn’t how fine she looked lying on the ground with her jeans tight around her that had captured his attention. Okay, not only that.

He’d liked watching her watch the badgers. Smooth and quiet. A stillness about her that his semi-sister would never understand. She—

“Up, up, you lazy sod,” Michelle slapped a hand hard against his gut. His childhood’s worth of training had his gut muscles already clenched in protection, but it still stung.

“Dammit, Missy. Can’t you let a man rest in peace?”

“A man, sure. But you’re not a man, you’re my demi-brother.”

“Demi-brother?” Despite knowing there was no hope for her going away, he kept lying there just to mess with her.

“Yep! Like not even worth paying full price for.”

“You do know—” Anton turned to Ricardo. “She does know that I can still beat the s**t out of her. Right?”

Ricardo held up his hands saying to leave him out of whatever mess this was. Hard to blame the guy. Anton had no idea how he did it. Couldn’t pay him enough to be married to Michelle, even if she wasn’t his demi-semi-whatever-sister. The woman had no idea what it meant to just chill. He supposed that it was the final proof that Delta Force operators were just way more patient than Army Black Hawk pilots.

“Now!” Michelle ground out at him.

Not wanting to get kicked by her Crayola-red cowboy boots, he shoved to his feet and went to stretch—banging his knuckles painfully on the low ceiling.

“Never learn, do you?” Michelle swung out the door and led them downstairs to the pub. He ducked to clear the door jamb and followed. The dinner crowd had faded into convivial groups chatting over a pint and a slice of apple pie or cheesecake.

“Now this is my kinda place.” He’d been too lagged during dinner to really notice it. Hell, he couldn’t even remember what calories he’d shoveled down a couple of hours ago.

The pub was a combo of ancient stone and a white-painted heavy-beam ceiling. The room narrowed toward one end until it held only one round table. Someone with a sense of humor had hung a big picture of the view from an old sailing ship’s bowsprit at the wall behind the table. It definitely felt as if they were on a ship. A double handful of tables lined port and starboard of the room. The stern was a well-equipped bar with eight taps and an impressive little whiskey collection.

“Oh yeah,” Ricardo agreed just loudly enough to be heard over the quiet conversations. No sports screens. No sea shanty group for the tourists. Just folks enjoying each other’s company. More than half looked like locals, two with dogs asleep at their feet.

The table in the bowsprit end of the room opened up. Michelle had the wits to snag it even though others were open. There he could stretch out his legs without tripping up the waitress every time she went by.

Ricardo lagged behind to order the first round at the bar.

“You ready for tomorrow, Missy?” Anton asked after they sat.

“You ever going to stop calling me that?”

“Not as long as it pisses you off.”

“It does.”

“My point.”

She sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Tomorrow? What do I know about submarine cables?”

“A lot less than you’ll know in a couple days? Don’t worry, I don’t know s**t about them either. That’s Hannah and Ricardo’s department.” And…aw, crap. He’d gotten distracted by the fine blonde lying in the woods. In just an hour or so his connection to the place would have faded, and he’d have to retrace the whole damn route to go lookabout there. Double crap on white bread! No one-upping Ricardo tomorrow.

Ricardo showed up with three beers. He pushed a pale ale toward Michelle and took an amber for himself. He passed a stout to Anton.

Michelle looked down at it. “That beer’s darker than you are, little brother.” She might be seven inches shorter than he was, and about as big around as his thigh, but she’d been born to Ma ten days before he’d been born to Pa’s in-between-wife, and had never let him forget it.

He held it up to the light and she was right. It was pitch black. “Good thing I got me such a sweet heart.”

Michelle sneered happily and the three of them clinked their glasses together.