The Marine Makes His Match

“Actually, yes—I think I can get help with Jack.”

Sutter returned to assessing her before he said, “Then you’ll match-make my mother with the dog and with a support system, and you want me to match-make you with the Camdens?”

“That’s about it,” Kinsey confirmed.

Another long moment passed under his scrutiny.

“I’d be watching, you know. Like a hawk. And should anything make me think you’re up to something to hurt the Camdens, I wouldn’t hesitate to warn them. If that happened you’d never get anywhere near them again.”

“Sure,” she said.

More scrutiny before he seemed to come to a conclusion.

He sighed again, this one resigned. “You better be on the level...”

“So we have a deal? You’ll help me while I’m helping you?”

“Yeah, I guess,” he said as if he wasn’t altogether thrilled with it. “But you’d better have a pretty good bag of tricks, lady. And you’d better not be working me.”

Kinsey only said, “When do you need me to start?”

“I’m bringing the colonel home tomorrow, whenever she gets released. I can text you when we’re about to leave the hospital and you can meet us here.”

“Okay.”

Sutter stood then, again holding Jack football-style.

Kinsey took that as her cue to go and stood, too. “Tomorrow I’ll just take your mom’s history, check her vitals and settle her in, start to get to know her. Then we’ll go from there.”

The towering marine agreed with an outward jut of his chin. “Brace yourself, she’s not a warm and fuzzy little old lady,” he warned.

“She’s the colonel—got it,” Kinsey said.

“And you think you’re a Camden,” he mused.

“It’s what I’m told,” Kinsey countered, heading for the door with him following behind.

“So how does this work hour-wise?” he asked along the way.

Her fee had been discussed when they’d initially arranged this meeting, but her hours hadn’t.

“The colonel is my only patient so I can be here as needed—morning till night. Unless you don’t want me around that much.”

“No, that’s good. I’m glad you’re all mine—”

All his?

“Not all mine,” he said in a hurry. “I’m glad there isn’t anyone but the colonel on your to-do list because you’ll have your hands full with just her.”

“With her and your shoulder rehab,” Kinsey reminded.

“Yeah, sure, that, too,” he conceded.

Was he just the slightest bit flustered?

It amused Kinsey to think so but she tried not to let it show.

He opened the door and followed her onto the landing.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said. “And you, too, Jack,” she told the dog, petting his head and inadvertently brushing Sutter’s arm.

Then she headed for her car, wondering why that bare hint of contact had made her skin tingle.

Another chill? she wondered.

That had to be it.

Certainly it couldn’t have been Sutter Knightlinger.

Because no matter how attractive he was, a marine was still a marine to her.

And towering and muscular and handsome-as-all-get-out or not, there was no place in her life for another one of those.

Chapter Two

As a career marine, Sutter had long ago become accustomed to rising early. But not quite as early as the following morning. By sunrise, he was already showered, shaved and dressed and had had breakfast, fed Jack and was on his second cup of coffee.

Now Jack was in the backyard and Sutter was standing at the sliding glass door in the kitchen, watching him.

Sutter had had a restless, nearly sleepless night.

Kinsey Madison had better be the marvel Livi thought she was, otherwise he was worried that the nurse wouldn’t be able do what he needed done. Especially in the small amount of time before his shoulder was usable again and he was sent back overseas, leaving his mother to her own devices.

The colonel was a tough nut to crack and Kinsey was going to have to damn near work a miracle to effect any change in her.

But he didn’t know what else to do. His father had had a way with the colonel. He’d been able to finesse her into socializing and keeping up a healthy routine. Sutter didn’t have that same knack with her. Every suggestion, every recommendation he made, just set off her temper.

But letting her have her own way was no solution. Merely looking out at the condition of the backyard was a testament to that.

The accident that had ultimately cost his father his life had happened at the start of August and the lawn hadn’t been mowed since. Amos Knightlinger’s prized raspberry bushes were laden with unpicked fruit that had withered on the branches.

The sight of that twisted something up inside of Sutter.

He and his father had been close.

“If I’d known what was going on, Dad, I would have busted my ass to get home. To see you...” he said, looking at those bushes, remembering how happy his father had been when the colonel had retired and they could finally settle in a place they could really call home. A place where his father could watch something grow year after year. His father had babied those bushes and reveled in the berries they’d produced every summer, eating them as if they were a great delicacy.

If I had been here, I would have picked them for you and brought them to you in the hospital...

But picking his father raspberries and bringing them to him was hardly the only thing that Sutter hadn’t been able to do one last time. And all because of the way his mother had handled things. There was a lot he would have—should have—had the chance to do, to say, in those last weeks and days.

Instead he hadn’t even known his father was at the end of his life. And it pissed Sutter off something fierce.

Maybe that was part of why he and the colonel were at odds. Maybe he wasn’t hiding his feelings, his frustrations, as well as he thought he was.

But he couldn’t help resenting that the colonel had robbed him of any opportunity to say goodbye to his father. After all the years that his father had been there for him while the colonel was halfway across the world or just busy with one case or another; after all the years that his father had bent over backward to make every move, every transition, every new school as easy as possible for him; after so much time that he and his father had spent together, just the guys, the colonel had kept him from being there for his dad.

“Not the right call, Colonel,” he grumbled.

But what was done was done and now he had to deal with things the way they were. With the colonel the way she was. He had a mission here at home.

He and Kinsey Madison had a mission.

Kinsey Madison—also part of what had kept him up most of the night.

Her agenda.

Should he have agreed to help her get closer to the Camdens?

His gut said no.

He counted his cousin Beau as his best friend—more like the brother he’d never had. It had been that way since they were kids. But not only were Beau, Seth, Jani and Cade family, Sutter had strong feelings for all of the Camdens. GiGi had always treated him like her eleventh grandchild. They’d been good to him and he wouldn’t do anything that might cause them any harm.

But it was Livi who had recommended Kinsey, so they did already know her, he reasoned. And the way Livi had talked about Kinsey made it clear that Livi thought highly of Kinsey, so any overtures she made on her own would likely pan out with or without him.

He just didn’t like that, because of this deal he’d struck with her, he could be playing a part in anything that might bite them in the ass.

On the other hand, he thought, this did make it possible for him to keep an eye on her and what she was doing. It positioned him to protect them—maybe that was better than if she managed to sneak in on her own.

But he’d meant what he’d told Kinsey—if he got any inkling that she was up to something ugly, he’d sound the alarm and put a stop to it.

And he’d be careful about what information he did feed her. Nothing that wasn’t public knowledge or on public record.

But what about her claim to be half sister to Beau’s cousins?

As much as Sutter cared for and respected the Camdens of now, as sure as he was that they were all honest, trustworthy, ethical people, he also knew that the generations that came before had bad reputations. Bad reputations that the colonel said they’d earned.

She was open about the fact that she’d been leery of her sister’s marrying into the family at the time. She’d said that the men couldn’t be trusted, that H.J.—the founding father of the Camden empire, GiGi’s father-in-law—had been a modern-day robber baron, and that he’d instilled the same principles in his son and his two grandsons, the fathers of the current generation. That more than a fair share of the Camden fortune had been ruthlessly built on the backs of people who were swindled or hoodwinked or used without conscience.

If that was true, if the earlier Camdens were those kinds of men, was it a big leap to think that Mitchum Camden had cheated on his wife? That he could have had a second, secret family in the wings?

Sutter knew what the colonel would say—that it wouldn’t surprise her.

And to be honest, Kinsey Madison’s appearance also supported the claim. She didn’t look unlike a Camden. She was built like the rest of the Camden women—not too tall, maybe only three or four inches over five feet, and compact with just enough curve to her to make it rough for him not to take notice.

And she had the same coloring they all shared—her hair was as dark and rich a brown as the black coffee in his cup. She wore it longer than any of the Camden females, though—all the way to the middle of her back. Shiny and silky and thick...

And along with the hair, there was her fair skin and blue eyes—those blue eyes especially made it seem likely to him that she was telling the truth. Those eyes that people called the Camden blue eyes—so blue they almost didn’t seem real. Kinsey definitely had those.

She also had one of the most beautiful faces he’d ever seen. With flawless skin and a fine, delicate bone structure, with a perfect nose and lush, begging-to-be-kissed lips.

He’d grown up with the Camden females, tormented them alongside Beau the way he would have tormented sisters of his own, seen them through every awkward stage. So to him Lindie and Livi really were family the same way Jani was. But he recognized that his cousin and her cousins were beautiful women. As for Kinsey...he thought she had them all beat. By a mile.

But yes, she did resemble them.

Of course the likeness could be only a coincidence that she was trying to capitalize on. People could look like other people and not be related to them.

But she had claimed to be willing to do DNA testing. In fact there had been something that sounded like eagerness for it in her voice.

Or maybe he’d been sucked in by her. Maybe because she was such a knockout. He’d actually felt an impact from just sitting across from her—until he’d snapped himself out of it.

Kind of like he needed to do right then.

That just wasn’t how things were going to be around here, he told himself forcefully.

He’d said no fraternizing and he’d meant it. There wasn’t going to be anything personal between them. They would complete the mission—if the mission could be completed—and he’d be off again, far away and forgetting all about her.

But damn, she was hot...

“No fraternizing!” he commanded himself out loud, trying to put her in the same category he would one of his marines.

And failing because everything about her shouted soft and warm and sweet and certainly not marine.

It would probably help once he got the colonel home today. Then he wouldn’t be alone with Kinsey. Kinsey would just do her job, the lines would be clearly drawn and he would keep his distance.

Except that she needed to do his physical therapy.

And he’d agreed to answer questions about the Camdens.

And help her get close to them.

He could already see lines blurring and when it came to distance, there was going to be precious little of that.

But he was a marine, he reminded himself.

He was trained to persevere, to withstand anything he needed to withstand.

Anything.

Even if what he needed to withstand were the most beautiful blue eyes in the world and a beautiful face and hair and body to go with them...

* * *

“It’s entirely up to you, Colonel. Your doctors want you on oxygen at night but if you don’t want to do it, you have that option,” Kinsey said to her new patient.

She’d been at the Knightlingers’ house since late afternoon when Sutter had finally gotten his mother home. Oxygen tanks and equipment had been delivered and set up in the colonel’s bedroom, and Kinsey had done her own intake routine, interviewing, examining, taking the colonel’s full medical history and getting to know her.

Kinsey was not surprised to find that the colonel was obviously accustomed to being in control and in authority, and unwilling to give up any of that control and authority to anyone else.

There was nothing weak about the seventy-six-year-old’s will. She had a strong personality, she was blunt and obstinate and she was obviously dissatisfied at finding herself physically weakened to the point where she was forced to contend with a pacemaker, a regimen of medications and the prescribed nighttime oxygen usage. She clearly did not like feeling fragile or unwell, or being treated as if she was.

But she was fragile and recovering from a heart attack in addition to the procedure to clear four blockages in her heart and a minor surgery to implant the pacemaker.

She was also somewhat vain and with good reason—her face sported only shallow lines and wrinkles that did little to diminish what had no doubt been great beauty in her youth and middle age.

Between her high rank in the marines and those looks, Kinsey was reasonably sure that the colonel was accustomed to always getting her own way. Which told Kinsey that trying to force anything on her was a mistake.

“Here’s my recommendation,” she said. “Give it a week. See if you don’t get used to the feel of the tubing and sleep better and feel more rested in the morning. If none of that happens, then we’ll forget it. I’ll call and have it picked up and taken out of here. The choice is yours. You always have the right to refuse any medical advice or treatment.”

“Yes, I do,” the colonel said, aiming that bit of mulishness at her son, who stood in the doorway watching the interaction between them. Sutter had already tried arguing with her and gotten nowhere.

Then, to Kinsey, the colonel said, “I’ll give it a week. But don’t think I’m some pushover old lady who’ll just give up the fight. If I don’t like it, it goes!”

“No question,” Kinsey confirmed.

“Now if you’re finished,” the colonel said as if they’d exhausted her patience, “both of you get out of my room so I can read my book and get some sleep without somebody waking me up a hundred times during the night.”

“If you need anything—” Sutter began.

“If you hear a thud that sounds like I’ve hit the floor, come running. Otherwise I can take care of myself.”

“Or you can call me if there’s anything you need,” Sutter said anyway.

The colonel shooed them out of the room.

But as Kinsey headed for Sutter and the door, she still said, “I’ll be back in the morning.”

The colonel’s only response was, “Catch that dog! He has my bookmark!”

Sutter nabbed Jack before he could slip past him and retrieved the bookmark, handing it to Kinsey to pass to the colonel.

“Insubordinate animal!” the colonel muttered disapprovingly.

“I’m going to take care of that, too,” Kinsey assured her.

But the colonel did not respond and Kinsey didn’t wait for her to. Instead she went with Sutter out into the hallway, closing his mother’s bedroom door behind them and following him down the stairs to the first floor.

When they reached the entryway he said under his breath and facetiously, “And that would be my mother.”

Kinsey laughed. “Basically what I expected,” she said.

“She didn’t fluster you,” he observed with some surprise in his tone.

“I was raised by a retired marine, I have three brothers serving right now.” She laughed again. “I hate to tell you, but you all run a pattern that I’m pretty familiar with.”

His eyebrows arched. “Are your brothers here or—”

“They’re all overseas.”

“Ah, that makes more sense. You said yesterday that you wanted to get to know the Camdens to have family around. I wondered what that meant if you had three brothers.”

“It means that I’m all there is here,” she said. Then, offering no more than that, she switched gears. “You texted that you need stitches removed?”

“It’s been more than ten days since the second surgery and they’re pinching bad. I’d do it myself if I could find any scissors around here but I can’t. I tried to get a nurse at the hospital to do it—I figured they were in and out of my mother’s room every five minutes anyway, why couldn’t they? But no chance of that. They were going to send me to the emergency room to see a doctor and waste my whole day.”

“I need a look at your injury anyway to figure out an approach for your physical therapy. If the stitches are ready to come out, I can do it. I brought another kit for that but it’s in my car. I’ll run out and get it while you take off the sling and your shirt.”

“You want to do it in the kitchen?” he asked.

Take out his stitches in the kitchen, Kinsey mentally amended when her mind went to another meaning of doing it. What was it with her brain making everything risqué?

“Wherever I’ll have the brightest light,” she said as she shoved her thoughts onto the right track and left him in the entryway to step into the evening air.

Where she could cool off.

Really, what’s going on when it comes to this guy?

Maybe the same thing that had caused her to debate about what she wore and how she did her hair for this initial meeting with his mother.

Kinsey was disgusted with herself for the amount of time and consideration she’d put into her appearance today. Since she wasn’t affiliated with a home–health care company, there was no dress code. It was her choice whether to wear scrubs or street clothes. She used whatever she would be doing on any particular day as the decider—something messy, scrubs. Something not messy, street clothes.

Today, the first day of meeting a difficult patient whose respect she needed, she knew she had to go with her lab coat over business attire.

Yet something in her had wanted to dress casually, in something cute. And that impulse had come complete with the image of Sutter Knightlinger in the back of her mind.

Okay, so he was a good-looking guy. So what? She couldn’t let it interfere with her job with his mother or her goal with the Camdens.

That’s what she’d told herself as she’d stood in front of her closet and it was what she told herself again now.

Of course it had only partially worked earlier.

She had put on the tailored navy blue pantsuit she wore as business attire, with the lab coat over it.

But then, instead of putting her hair up to make her look competent and efficient, she’d worn it down, losing that battle with herself completely. Along with the one against using a little eyeliner and a touch of highlighter on the crest of her cheekbones above her blush.

It was ridiculous, she told herself as she reached across the driver’s seat to retrieve her kit from the passenger side. He was a career marine, and that was the only thing she needed to know to count him out of any kind of personal relationship. She could work for him, he could be one of the means to her ends with the Camdens, but that was it!

So no more of this silliness, she vowed as she relocked her car. From here on, her clothes, her hair, were going to be chosen without him as any part of the equation. And if there were any more temperature changes due to being around him? She’d ignore the phenomenon until it went away.

She found him in the kitchen, having done what she’d told him to do—he’d removed the sling from his left arm and taken off his shirt.

As a nurse she’d seen more male torsos than she could remember and never once had there been one that did to her what that first sight of Sutter did. Suddenly she was hot and cold and felt as if everything inside of her had gone a little spongy.

Because despite the bandage wrapping his left arm and shoulder, her view was of bulging biceps, shoulders a mile wide, a superbly broad chest, super flat abs with more than a six-pack—she counted eight rows of sinew that went down to his waistband—and all of it astonishingly sexy. Fortunately, he was draping his shirt over the back of a chair so he didn’t notice her reaction.

She took a very deep breath, thinking that she could have used some of the colonel’s oxygen at that moment, and exhaled, all the while telling herself to snap out of whatever this strange reaction to him was.

Then she went the rest of the way into the kitchen, set her kit on the table and said, “Let me wash my hands.”

Breathe... Breathe... Stop being stupid...she told herself.

Then, shoulders back and reminding herself that she was a professional, she dried her hands on a clean paper towel and turned to Sutter once again.

He was no less fabulous. And now she was going to get up close and personal...

“Okay, sit down and let’s see what we have here,” she said too merrily.

She removed the bandaging to expose a large incision and the remnants of his original wound.

Concentrating on sounding normal as she went to work on the stitches, she said, “So what happened to you?”

“Sniper fire. I was on a mission in Afghanistan.”

An answer with a bare minimum of information. Kinsey had had more than her fair share of responses like that from her brothers. She knew nothing she asked would garner additional details and before she could even try, Sutter changed the subject.

“Are you originally from Denver?”

“No. I was born and raised in a small town in Montana—Northbridge.”

“I know Northbridge. My cousin Beau and I have always been close. I went to the Camden ranch in Northbridge with him many times during the summers.”

So Sutter wasn’t opposed to opening up, just not about his mission in Afghanistan.

“Is this your first time living away from Montana?” he asked.

“No, I left to go to college at the University of Colorado, then stayed here for nursing school,” she said, wanting his attention somewhere other than his wound. He’d been right that the stitches were past ready to come out. The skin had healed around them and they weren’t easy to remove—something that she knew was painful.

Not that he so much as flinched. But still she wanted to offer him a distraction. And keep her own mind on the straight and narrow in the meantime.

“After nursing school,” she continued, “I got a position at Denver General Hospital. I worked there full-time until two and a half years ago—I went to half-time when my stepfather got lung cancer so I could go back and forth between here and Northbridge to help my mom take care of him.”

“Did he make it?”

“For about eight months. Then six months after the funeral, I realized that my mom wasn’t doing well. At first I thought it was grief but she just got worse and worse. I finally persuaded her to see a doctor and she was diagnosed with kidney disease and dementia. I had to quit my job here to take care of her full-time.”

“Because there wasn’t anyone else. What about your brothers? You said they’re marines?” he asked then.

“Two out of three. My oldest brother is a doctor—”

“Navy, I’ll bet, because there’s no doctors in the marines, it’s navy docs who patch us up. Are you about finished?” he asked as she yanked a particularly deep stitch. Apparently she’d come close to reaching his pain threshold.