“Amen,” Ryker agreed. “I can’t say I’ve been in captivity or had to endure what you did, but when we’re off on long missions eating these damn MREs day in and day out, I’d kill for some Mexican, too.”
“Right?” she said, smiling. She turned over the package of instant Gatorade mix in her hand.
“Mix that with some of your water,” he said.
She nodded, twisting off the cap of the bottled water and taking a sip. He watched as she sprinkled in the orange powder and then shook the bottle up, mixing it. “It’s weird to be coming home,” she said. “I was supposed to be TDY for a week. I mean—what happened to my condo while I was gone? I had bills to pay, food rotting in my fridge.”
“Didn’t you have anyone checking on your place?” he asked.
She shook her head, wincing slightly. Combatting emotions battled within him. Ryker didn’t like that she was in pain, but that long brown hair swishing around her face was sexy as hell. “I wasn’t supposed to be gone that long, remember?”
“Gotcha. I wish I had advice. I’m assuming State would handle that to some degree, right?”
She shrugged. “Hopefully. Stuff slips through the cracks though. Look at me. I thought for sure the military would come to my rescue as soon as I was kidnapped, but I ended up being gone for a month.”
Ryker frowned. “What’s wrong?” Emily asked, catching the expression on his face.
He cleared his throat. “We did come to your rescue—or we tried to at least. My team was there a month ago. We found the British soldier that had been killed, but you’d already been taken to another location.”
“You were—there?” she asked, her voice wavering. Tears smarted her eyes, and Ryker felt his gut clench.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s just I didn’t want you to think that we weren’t trying to find you. We were deployed immediately from my understanding.”
She nodded, swiping at her tears. A stray one slipped down her cheek, and unable to stop himself, Ryker thumbed it away before pulling his hand back. “That reminds me,” he said, his voice gruff. “I found your necklace.”
“My necklace?” she asked in surprise.
“A woman’s gold necklace. I assume it’s yours. We found it as we were moving out of that first camp. I almost stepped on it in our exit, and somehow it caught my eye, crazy as it sounds. I slid it into my pocket and then found it a month later. Craziest damn thing. Give me your address or something so I can send it to you. I left it at my apartment in Virginia Beach.”
She nodded, looking somewhat dazed. Ryker watched as she yawned, and then the turbulence of the plane jostled them again. “I should get some rest,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “I’m exhausted from all of this—”
“And I’m up here bothering you,” he said.
“I don’t mind the company,” Emily said. “This whole thing is surreal. I keep thinking I’ll wake up back in that damn camp, stuck in a room all by myself.” She shuddered and then set her MRE aside as she lay back down.
She glanced at the jacket she wore—his—and then back at him.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, standing. “You need it to stay warm. I’ll be back with the other guys. We’re here if you need something.”
She nodded, her eyes already beginning to drift shut again.
He watched her for a moment and then turned away, moving to the back of the plane where the rest of his SEAL team sat. Mason had on headphones, Hunter was leaning back with his eyes closed, and the other guys were talking and ribbing each other. Everything was the same as it always was on the way home from an op. So why did it feel like his entire world had shifted?
Chapter 9
EMILY FROWNED AS SHE looked in the small mirror. The large bump on her forehead was fading from deep purple to more muted tones and a sickly yellow. Her cut had mostly healed, but the apprehension she was feeling inside would take a lot longer to subside than her physical wounds.
She shoved her compact back into her suitcase.
Having her own things back, which had been held on base for a month, should’ve made her feel better. She was free from captivity. She was recovering from what had been only minor injuries. She knew it could have been so much worse. She could’ve been raped, beaten, and tortured.
The first time any of the men had really laid hands on her had been when she’d tried to escape.
She felt uneasy though—uncomfortable in her own skin. The exhaustion and adrenaline from the past several days didn’t exactly help. She felt like she’d gone from one extreme emotion to the next. Adrenaline as she and the teenager had tried to escape. Fear when they’d been found in the storage building. Jubilation when she realized she’d been rescued by the U.S military.
Everything was beginning to just blur together at this point. Being rescued. Waking up in a strange, makeshift hospital room back on base. Flying across the Atlantic with a Navy SEAL team on a C-17 cargo plane.
She glanced over to where the men were hanging out in the back of the plane. Supposedly it was quieter up here, so they’d given her some space to rest. At first, she’d been so exhausted, she’d slept for several hours.
But now?
She gotten little bit of food in her. She’d begin to feel less groggy. And she had nothing left to do but think.
One of the men rose from his seat and moved down the center of the plane toward her. He had stubble covering his jaw and a snake and anchor tattoo on his bicep, peeking out from beneath his tee shirt. He was as large and buff as any of the guys, and she knew Hunter was the leader of this SEAL team. The other group—team—of men who’d saved her had already flown back to the west coast.
They’d swooped in, rescued her, and moved right on out. Just another job well done, she supposed.
Now Emily was the one left to recover and try to deal with everything she’d been through.
“How are you feeling?” Hunter asked, sinking down into a seat near her. He clasped his hands and leaned forward, those observant eyes noticing everything.
Was every man on the SEAL team like that?
Each one seemed acutely aware of their surroundings, on alert even when others might have let their guard down. Were they like this even back home?
“I’m still tired but otherwise not bad given the circumstances,” Emily said.
Hunter nodded. “I spoke with our CO. Of course military personnel will be meeting us when we land at Andrew’s, but State Department officials will be there to greet you as well. You’ll be transported by ambulance to a local hospital. They’ll get you checked out and hopefully released soon after. State has taken care of notifying your family. I understand you spoke with them already?”
“Yeah, I talked to my parents. And I was able to call my best friend, which felt surreal.”
“I bet. So you live in Washington?” he asked.
“Yep. I’ve got a condo in Georgetown.”
“Nice. Emma and I have visited there—my girlfriend,” he added. “Actually fiancée.”
“Oh, congratulations,” Emily said.
Hunter chuckled. “I guess I need to get used to saying that—we recently got engaged. Our team’s based down in Little Creek, but I’ll give you my contact information in case you need to reach one of us for anything. I know you’ve got friends and coworkers up here, but you never know.”
“Thanks. I did exchange contact info with Ryker. He said he found my necklace?”
Hunter nodded. “He did—it was kind of crazy for him to see it lying on the ground outside that makeshift camp we searched. I guess it was fate.”
“Fate.”
Hunter shrugged. “Whatever you want to call it. He tucked it in his pocket and forgot completely about it—he thought he lost it as we moved out.”
“He said he has it.”
“Yep. He found it again a week ago. Then we got new intelligence on your location and flew over here. Craziest damn thing, huh? Anyway, you’v
e been through a lot. My own girlfriend—”
“Fiancée,” Emily interrupted with a smile.
“Shit—fiancée,” Hunter corrected, scrubbing his hand over his jaw. “She was on the run from some terrorist assholes in London.”
“Seriously?” Emily asked, her curiosity piqued. “Is she in the military, too? Or some sort of spy?”
Hunter chuckled. “Neither. She’s an archeologist. But she found something that had information they wanted back. They followed her to London and then all the way to the U.S. to get it back.”
“Damn,” Emily said.
“That’s how we met. I happened to be in a pub with Mason in London on R&R, and Emma literally ran right into me. Anyway, I know you’re a special agent and have training, but watch your six,” Hunter said. “You never know.”
“You think they’ll come after me?” she asked in disbelief.
“Do I? No. Ryker’s convinced you’re in danger though.”
“Ryker? Why on Earth would he think that?” she asked, wrinkling her brow. It was bad enough they’d held her for a month intending to make her one of that assholes many wives. But to track her down back in the states? That seemed unlikely at best.
“Izallah escaped, remember? But he doesn’t even know who you are. I mean, I’m assuming you didn’t give him your home address and cell number.”
“God, no. They just kept talking to each other in Arabic most of the time. Except for that—hey, did you guys see a teenage girl when you rescued me?”
“A teenager? No, there weren’t any teenagers. There were mostly just women and children around. And the guards that we shot and killed.”
“Oh.” She puzzled over this new piece of information. Had the girl been killed? Or somehow escaped in the chaos? She shuddered, hoping she hadn’t fallen prey to Izallah. Maybe he’d intended to make the teenager one of his wives, but if he’d cleared out of there, it was possible she’d escaped during all the commotion.
“They have my ID,” she said.
Hunter raised his eyebrows.
“I had my government-issued ID on me in the Humvee. They took all my things, save for the clothes I was wearing.”
“Hmm. Well that’s something to consider. Are you sure they have it and it wasn’t just lost in the scuffle?”
“Pretty sure. I mean they could have discarded it without giving it much attention, I suppose. But they took my weapons and identification when they searched me.”
“All right. I’ll notify the CO. And of course you’ll have the opportunity to give a full report to State officials after we’re back on U.S. soil. I’ll let you get some rest,” he said, standing.
Emily watched him walk back to the rear of the plane. Swagger was really a more apt description—those guys commanded the attention of any room they were in and knew it. She was more than lucky that they’d been sent to rescue her. The question was—would she really be safe when she returned back home?
Chapter 10
EMILY WATCHED AS RYKER fastened his seatbelt as the plane prepared to descend to Andrew’s AFB. The rest of the SEAL team was taking seats around them, and Emily suddenly felt nervous now that they were almost home.
“You ready for this?” Ryker asked loudly above the roar of the engine.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” she said. Had he noticed she was worried? That seemed unlikely. And really, there was nothing for her to worry about. She’d be home with family and friends. Life could finally move on. “Hunter said there won’t be any media there,” she said. “I can’t believe what a big deal this has become.”
Noah glanced over at her. “The story didn’t get out until you were rescued. Believe me—if the media had gotten wind of an American woman being held hostage, it would’ve been on CNN twenty-four-seven. And you might not have been treated so well if that had happened.”
She shuddered, noticing that Ryker was still watching her.
“Not that you should’ve had to go through that at all,” Noah added.
“I know,” she said. “It certainly could’ve been worse.”
She supposed it was nice knowing she wouldn’t have journalists hounding her when they landed, but she assumed some of that had to do with the men she was traveling with. They didn’t exactly broadcast the names and faces of Navy SEALs on the nightly news.
So what would happen when they left?
Her name would leak, and she’d be bombarded with calls. Here she’d been talking with Hunter earlier about whether or not the men who’d held her captive knew her identity, and her face would most likely be all over the TV and newspapers within days.
No wonder Ryker had been concerned.
If someone wanted to find her, they could. Easily.
And what would it be like living and sleeping alone back in her condo? True, she’d slept on the plane, but she was surrounded by an entire SEAL team. It was easy to let her guard down here, thousands of feet up in the air with the men who’d rescued her.
Back at home she’d be on her own. Sure she had her friends and family, but she was used to being independent. She’d never worried before—she had locks on her doors, was in a secure building, and was a trained federal agent for God’s sake. She’d probably feel better if she weren’t so damn jumpy now though.
Adrenaline raced through her veins, and even her palms began to sweat. She was excited to be back but scared, too.
And wasn’t that a surprise.
“Here,” she said, passing Ryker his jacket as she rifled through her own things. Ten more minutes, and she’d be on her own. He nodded as he took the jacket back, listening to something over his headset. Were they already readying to go off on another op or something?
Small houses and buildings on the ground began to come into view as the plane descended through the clouds. Tiny cars drove along the highways, looking like children’s toys from high up in the air.
She took a deep breath, wondering who’d be meeting with her when they landed. She assumed her boss would be there, maybe some of the agents she worked with. Hopefully they’d allow her parents to meet the plane, but maybe they’d just go right to the hospital instead?
Civilians didn’t usually just go traipsing through Andrew’s.
“Understood,” Ryker said in a gruff voice.
The other men were all listening in to whatever conversation he was part of, and she realized she already was starting to feel alone. They’d been almost like a team, flying back. Sure, they were in fact a team, but she’d felt like part of the group. One of the guys.
And now?
They’d head onward without her. She’d get checked out and go back to her life. Pretend the last month had never happened. She had work, her friends. It was weird to just pretend everything was the same though.
Ryker was frowning as he pulled off his headset, and some of the other SEALs were talking in low voices.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, catching Ryker’s eye.
“I’ll tell you when we land.”
She nodded, swallowing the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat. Had he been right all along and she was somehow in danger?
The runway suddenly came into view, and a minute later, they were touching down and racing along it. The landing felt bumpier than she was used to, maybe because they were in a military cargo plane.
“You okay?” Hunter asked. “You look white as a ghost.”
“I’m fine,” she murmured. “It just feels surreal to be home.”
They unbuckled their seatbelts after the plane stopped, and of course there were no flight attendants telling them to disembark. The guys just got up and did their thing. Shoot, they were used to traveling like this. She was the one feeling off-kilter.
Ryker grabbed his rucksack and then reached for her suitcase, gesturing for her to walk ahead of him. A ramp was opening at the back of the plane for them to head down, and bright sunlight greeted them.
“I can get it,” she protested.
“No way,” he s
aid. “Besides, then I’ll look like the jackass who made you carry your own stuff off a military plane. You haven’t even healed from your injuries yet.”
“Bossy,” she muttered, and Mason and Hunter both chuckled.
Walking off the plane was an experience she’d never forget—there were military men and women in uniform standing around, other government personnel in suits, and of course the EMTs with a waiting ambulance.
She was used to traveling to military bases and American embassies, but she usually faded into the background. She was security for the dignitaries and officials. Today, all eyes were on her.
Her friend and coworker Caroline hurried forward to meet her, and Emily felt tears smarting her eyes. The other woman gasped but gave her a hug, no doubt shocked at the large bruise on Emily’s forehead.
Emily winced slightly as Caroline hugged her because her ribs weren’t fully healed either.
“Easy,” Ryker interjected, still beside her with her suitcase. “She’s got bruising all over her ribs.”
“Oh, hell, sorry,” Caroline said, pulling back. “I’m just so happy to see you.”
“It’s great to be back.”
The guys piled some of their bags off to the side, apparently waiting to hop another flight. Emily’s gaze slid back to her friend, who was looking at her with wide eyes. The other men on the SEAL team were standing around their gear and bags, making phone calls to their girlfriends.
Blonde and busty, Caroline usually got plenty of attention. Although the other military men were certainly eyeing her, her figure shown to its advantage even in the suit that she wore, the guys Emily had been with barely even noticed her.
Hunter walked back over to where she and Ryker were standing, tucking his phone into his pocket. “I just spoke with our CO. There’s a possibility that you’re still in danger,” he said in a low voice.
“What? That’s crazy,” Emily protested. “I mean, we escaped. You guys rescued me. Why would I be in danger now, thousands of miles away?”
“Like I said, it’s a possibility. We’ll go through the proper channels to fully look into it. We’re out in the open and can’t exactly share the intelligence we have with you right now. There was only so much he could tell me over an open line.”
Kidnapped by a SEAL Page 6