Code Of Honor

HQN Books

Ft. Walton Beach, Florida: Present Day

"WAIT?WAIT FOR IT, BABY," BRIGID chanted to herself.

Patience almost always brought the perfect camera shot.

Belly flattened on the beach, she aimed, focused, click, click, clicked images of tiny ghost crabs scuttling along the Gulf Coast shoreline. Moonbeams illuminated their translucent bodies in a marvel of nature at its most elemental and beautiful.

She preferred beauty and peace these days to the savage roar of her previous job as a photojournalist for World Weekly. She'd thought to change the world with her trusty Canon and wide-eyed ideals. Instead, the world had changed her — and not for the better.

Now, she savored salty breezes cooling the sweat pooling in the small of her back where her T-shirt rode up, the gentle abrasion of damp sand against her legs. So what if her favorite silk skirt got dirty? At least she wasn't wiping blood off her wide-angle lens anymore.

Some of her print media comrades called her a coward for retreating. She didn't care what others thought anymore.

Well, except for Joe Greco. She cared about her dear friend very much. Without him, she wouldn't have survived Cooper's death two years ago. Cooper Scott had been her first real love.

And he'd been Joe's best friend. Joe, who'd held her while she'd cried. Eventually she'd held him while he cried, tears coming slower for a man and tearing a fresh hole in her heart with their raw pain.

They shared a bond in their grief. Tonight she hoped they would forge a bond that went beyond the pain, beyond Cooper.

If Joe ever arrived.

Not that she was worried. Joe was always late. Could be anything from helping a bud change a tire to assisting some new pilot mission planning. Joe was always there for anybody in a pinch.

Still peering through the viewfinder, she reached to adjust her light. She kept her ears perked for the growl of Joe's truck. She'd left him a message to meet her at the beach by her photography studio, a far more interesting place to wait than her empty apartment. Where was he?

Only the crash of waves answered, the laughter of a couple strolling and a father with his kids making their way back to a holiday condo, empty businesses and packed restaurant decks in the distance. Rat, tat, tat stuttered overhead from an AC-130 gunship from nearby Hurlburt Field shooting their cannons in practice maneuvers — planes from Joe's base, the home of Air Force Special Ops.

She'd settled in the Florida panhandle near him after Cooper died, since she'd quit her magazine job, her only tie to Washington, D.C., anyway. She'd never had much of a family life growing up, so what did it matter to her where she parked her camera? Life was about the people, not the place. Now she lived close to Joe and earned a living by snapping studio portraits of precious children she would never have.

She was definitely a coward. But she couldn't open her heart to love again through marriage or a child, a decision she'd made two years ago and still found solid.

However, as time passed, she discovered a flaw in her plan. Celibacy. Beyond the sex, she also missed simply being touched, the warmth of masculine arms around her when she watched a technicolor sunset.

Except, she wasn't the casual-sex type. Which brought her back to thoughts of Cooper when she really didn't want to think about him tonight, on her thirtieth birthday, a landmark date perfect for new direction.

Somewhere between the cake at work from a bunch of acquaintances and no cake waiting for her at home, she'd realized something needed to change. Who better to trust on her new path than her oh-so-hot best bud? Joe wasn't seeing anyone right now. Gossip and his dating history proved him to be definitely straight. Instinct told her he found her attractive. Perfect for her plan.

If he would ever show up.

Stretching along the sand, she tracked two ghost crabs tackling each other in a sideways game of crustacean football. Funny ghosts beat the hell out of her real ones any day of the week. She angled her camera left, rolling to her side.

And found battered deck shoes beside her, no socks, strong ankles and luscious sworls of dark hair dusted with sand.

Joe.

She hadn't even heard him arrive. Her belly clenched with nerves and desire. She flipped to her back, damp skirt sticking to her legs, camera angled up. The width of his chest in a navy polo filled her lens, eyes and senses.

Brigid narrowed the focus past broad shoulders up to his face. Bold cheekbones and stark angles spoke of his Eastern European heritage, adding an elusive air to an otherwise all-American guy. Close-cropped hair glistened in the humidity, dark, the total picture so very different from her sunny and auburn-haired Cooper, which somehow made Joe all the more appealing.

She reassessed him as a potential lover, rather than just a friend. Long legs in khaki shorts. A little blah in the wardrobe department, but who cared since he had a great body inside the clothes?

Deep-brown eyes peered back down at her, so dark and impenetrable she ached to stroke away his tension.

Whoops. Far too intense for what she had in mind tonight.

She slid her camera from her eyes and hugged it to her stomach. How would he react if she reached up to topple him onto her? Fun, impulsive, and very likely to surprise the crap out of serious Joe. Better to wait for the right opening.

Meanwhile, she could indulge in a moment to stare back up at him and fantasize about all the ways they could celebrate her birthday. Without their clothes.

CHRIST ALMIGHTY, what he wouldn't give for the chance to peel Brigid's ocean-damp clothes off and taste her naked skin in the moonlight. Joe clenched his fingers around the birthday gift at his side while lust slammed through him like a tidal wave.

Unwelcome, dangerous and fiercely elemental. He grappled for self-control. A man didn't screw his best friend's woman even when the dude was dead. Especially when the dude was dead, two years buried in Arlington National Cemetery on a sunny day that still seared Joe's mind.

Excerpted from Code Of Honorby Catherine Mann Copyright © 2005 by Catherine Mann. Excerpted by permission.
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