Read Online Beyond Limits by Laura Griffin - Free Book Online Page A

and hard work. She’d set goals for herself and then stubbornly pursued them. She recognized the same trait in Derek—his relentless need to push. His tenacity. She doubted he’d be like that in a relationship, though. He was a SEAL. It defined him and dominated his life, and he couldn’t truly commit to anything more.
    But so what? Since when was she looking for commitment?
    Derek watched her over his beer as she plucked the darts from the board. She knew the gleam in his eye, and it put a familiar tingle in her stomach. She’d never aspired to be one of his one-night stands. But there was something thrilling about the idea, too. She imagined spending an entire night with him and not letting herself regret a minute.
    A cheer went up across the bar. She glanced at a TV as the Diamondbacks scored a home run.
    She handed over the darts, and Derek stepped up to the board.
    “So this task force you’re on,” he said. “You managed to narrow down the target yet?”
    “You mean in Houston?”
    “I grew up in Houston.” He threw a sixteen. “It’s a pretty target-rich environment. You’ve got the ship channel, the refineries, a former POTUS. And then there’s about six million people who’d be affected if someone managed to get a dirty bomb into the country.”
    “You know, now that you’re stateside, this isn’t your job anymore. That’s why we have this little thing called the Federal Bureau of Investigation?”
    “So you haven’t narrowed it down.” He threw another dart.
    “We’re working on it. You don’t have a lot of confidence in our people, do you?”
    “People make mistakes,” he said. “Even feds.”
    “Happens in the military, too.”
    “Absolutely. Thing is, in the military you make a mistake, maybe you get your foot blown off. People learn to pay attention. Err on the side of being cautious.”
    “You don’t think we take this seriously?” She was getting annoyed now—not only by his attitude but by the fact that she’d allowed herself to be lured back into this conversation.
    Once again, he was using her for information. And by being here with him, she was allowing it to happen.
    “Your friend Potter—”
    “He’s not my friend,” she said. “He’s down from Langley. I met him yesterday, same as you did.”
    “Okay, that proves my point.” He finished his turn. “He’s not a field man.”
    She sighed. “How about we don’t talk about work anymore?”
    He shrugged, as if it didn’t matter. “Fine by me.” He retrieved the darts and updated the score. “What do you want to talk about?”
    She had no idea.
    He propped a shoulder against the wall, and his mouth curved as she stepped in front of the board again.
    “What?”
    “Nothin’ at all.” He said it with the low drawl that had bothered her when she first heard it. But she’d learned to like it, especially when it was accompanied by that slow half-smile.
    She ignored his look as she focused on her throws.
    Another cheer from the bar, and he glanced at the TV. “This is what I miss most,” he said.
    “Losing at darts?”
    “People out, watching the ball game, having some brews.” He lifted his bottle. “This stuff’s not easy to come by in some of the places we go.”
    And women? Did he miss them, too? From the moment they’d stepped in here, he’d been turning heads. Maybe he was used to it, and it didn’t even faze him anymore.
    She finished her turn and handed the darts over to him.
    “Must be hard being away so much,” she said. “I can’t even imagine it.”
    “I can’t imagine anything else.”
    She tipped her beer back and watched him as he threw a bull’s-eye. Even playing darts, he looked athletic.
    “So you ever gonna tell me about that scar?” He glanced at her.
    “We said we weren’t going to talk about work.”
    His gaze narrowed. “That happened at work?”
    “It’s a long story.” She turned her attention to the ball game.
    “I’m listening.”
    She looked at him, at