The Stripper and the SEAL

by Jenna Bennett

  “Good thing we stayed in the car,” Gabrielle said.

  Very good. However, he wasn’t about to let them do it. Not when he was awake and aware and could stop it.

  He got to his feet, careful not to rustle the branches. “Stay here.”

  “Where are you going?” Her voice sounded panicked.

  “Just out where I can get a clear shot.” He glanced at her. “I’m not letting them burn down my house, OK? Not even so they’ll think we’re both dead and will stop hunting you. Sorry. I like you, but not that much.”

  Not entirely true. If it came down to her life or watching his house burn to the ground, he’d watch it burn. But that wasn’t a choice he’d have to make tonight.

  “Just hang tight for a minute,” he told her again. “Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

  He slipped out through the greenery before she could say anything else. Thankfully she had the sense not to call after him. Although that might have been more because she was afraid of drawing attention to herself than out of any concern for him.

  He stayed on the edge of the vegetation and waited for them to come around the corner to the back of the house. It didn’t take long. Sergei headed straight for the back door, and went to work trying to wedge it shut with a wooden block, while his friend moved slower, splashing gasoline at the foundation as he went.

  Max pulled his gun from the holster and took aim. Easy. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

  Maybe a little too easy. He’d killed more than his fair share of people. And while he didn’t usually think of them that way—they were targets or tangos or terrorists—this was different. These were people walking around his house. Bad guys, sure. But he wasn’t in a war zone, and they weren’t terrorists. He probably shouldn’t mow them down the way he usually did. It would be hard to explain.

  So he holstered the pistol again and started moving closer, soundlessly.

  Sergei was still bent over the door, trying to wedge it shut. His friend had caught up, merrily splashing gasoline along the foundation. When he reached the door, he put the gasoline can down and bent to watch what his buddy was doing. Neither of them heard Max until he was on top of them.

  His first instinct was to snap their necks. It was fast and easy and didn’t make any noise to speak of. But they’d end up dead. And Gabrielle was hiding in the bushes. He didn’t want her to watch him kill two men in as many seconds. That kind of thing wasn’t likely to get him laid.

  So he knocked them out instead. Both of them were smaller than he was, and he’d caught them unaware. Their heads were close together, bent over the job of wedging the door shut. It was a simple task to grab a head in each hand and knock them together.

  They made a satisfying crack, and when he dropped them, they fell limply to the ground. Sergei’s body tumbled off the stairs and ended up in the flower bed. Neither man moved again.

  Max picked up the gas can and took it with him. “It’s OK,” he told the bushes where Gabrielle was hiding. “You can come out.”

  The bushes rustled. She was a lot less stealthy than he was, in spite of her much smaller frame. But then there was no reason to be careful at the moment.

  She was gnawing on her bottom lip, glancing from him to them and back, her eyes fearful. “Are they dead?”

  Sounded like he’d made the right choice in keeping them alive.

  He shook his head. “Just unconscious. Let’s go.”

  “Where?” But she followed him down the driveway, back to the truck.

  Away from here, for now. “Once they wake up, they’ll realize we’re gone.” Along with their gasoline. “Hopefully they won’t still try to burn the house down. There won’t be much point to it, if we aren’t inside.”

  Gabrielle nodded, as she boosted herself up into the seat of the truck. He put the can of gasoline on the floor next to her foot and closed the door.

  “We’ll get rid of that along the way,” he told her when he’d walked around the car and gotten behind the wheel. “Keep it steady with your foot until we can dispose of it.”

  She nodded. She was still pale, but hanging in there. “Where are we going?”

  “JB’s place,” Max said. “We’ll crash there for the night.” Or what was left of it.

  “We can’t show up at your friend’s house at three in the morning! What if he’s asleep? What if he’s… doing something else?”

  Max grinned. “I’m sure he’s doing something else. But not there. His girlfriend has a place on the beach.”

  “So his house is empty?”

  Max nodded. “And safe. Nobody’s following us. Nobody’ll know where we are. You can get some rest.”

  “You, too,” Gabrielle said.

  Sure. After he dropped her off and got her settled, and went back to his house to make sure the bad guys were gone and the place wasn’t burning to the ground.

  But he figured if he told her that, she’d insist on coming along. So he just nodded and kept driving.

  8

  It was still dark when Max shook her awake the next morning. “I have PT. And a meeting with the brass. You can stay here if you want, but...”

  “No.” Gabrielle would rather sit in the front seat of his truck all day, in the safety of the Navy base, than be left here by herself. “Just give me two minutes, and I’ll be ready to go.”

  “Take your time,” Max said, putting a bag next to the bed. “We can spare a little more than that.”

  It wasn’t going to take much more than that. She’d grabbed a quick shower last night—which had been just a few hours ago—and it wasn’t like she had to fuss with her hair. There was no hair left to fuss with. She’d gone without makeup for the last several days. She could do it again. All she had to do was visit the bathroom, brush her teeth, splash some water on her face, and get dressed. Two minutes would be plenty.

  She glanced down at the bag he’d put next to the bed. It was hers. It probably had her clothes inside it. And the last time she’d seen it, it had been sitting on the floor in Max’s spare bedroom.

  “How did you…?”

  “I’ll be in the kitchen,” Max said. “Just come out when you’re ready.”

  He closed the door behind him. Gabrielle could hear him walking down the stairs to the first floor.

  No problem. She dug some clean clothes out of the bag and scurried across the hall to the guest bath. Two minutes later, she made her way to the kitchen, where Max was leaning against the counter with a steaming mug of coffee in his hand.

  “Coffee in the coffee maker,” he told her. “Mugs in the cabinet. Milk in the fridge.”

  “I drink it black.” Especially today, when she was operating on just a few hours of sleep.

  Max, who’d probably gotten none at all, if he’d gone back to his house after he got her settled last night, looked disgustingly fresh. His hair was wet and stood up in spikes, so he’d either taken a shower or stuck his head under the faucet to wake himself up. Like yesterday when he’d come home, he was dressed to work out, in a T-shirt and shorts. Unlike yesterday, he was not sweaty and covered in sand, and he looked good enough to eat.

  Gabrielle devoted herself to her coffee and to thinking pure thoughts, just so she wouldn’t fall into temptation and throw herself at him. Unlike him, she didn’t look good at all. Pale and plain and probably haggard from lack of sleep. And after last night’s revelations, she didn’t come across like any kind of prize, either. Why would he want anything to do with a woman who’d been a party to cheating on a dying wife?

  When the coffee was ready and she’d had a life-giving sip, she turned to face him. “You went back to your house last night, didn’t you? While I was sleeping?”

  “I wanted to make sure our friends hadn’t woken up and decided to finish the job.”

  “And?” Gabrielle lifted the mug for another taste.

  “They were gone when I got there. The house was fine. So I packed up a couple of things for both of us, and came back here.”

&nbs
p; “So you didn’t hurt them.”

  “Not badly,” Max said. “Just knocked their heads together and took them out. They probably have headaches this morning. Shouldn’t be anything worse than that. Maybe an ever-so-slight concussion.”

  He took a sip of coffee before adding, “I wanted to shoot them. But it would have made a lot of noise.”

  “Is that the only reason you didn’t? I mean… gunshots are kind of fatal, aren’t they?”

  “Not always,” Max said. “It depends on where you aim. I wouldn’t have aimed anywhere important.”

  “There are unimportant places you can get shot?”

  “Sure. I got shot in the side once.” He lifted his T-shirt to show her the place. “Should have been wearing a vest, but wasn’t. But the doc said if I’d planned it, I couldn’t have planned it better. No bones, no vital organs. Just a simple extraction and a Band Aid, and I was good to go.”

  There’d surely been a little more to it than that. But Gabrielle couldn’t bring herself to look away from the wound. A little depression in his side, still smooth and shiny. Not quite healed. “When did this happen?”

  “Last year sometime.” He dropped the shirt. “It really wasn’t a big deal. Some bullets can do a lot of damage. That one didn’t. It was mostly spent.”

  “Spent?”

  “Running out of juice,” Max said. “Moving slowly. At the end of its trajectory. If I hadn’t gotten in its way, it would have hit the ground a few yards behind me.”

  Ah. “Is that the only time you’ve gotten shot?”

  He grinned. “No. If you’re a good girl, I’ll show you my war wounds sometime. You can kiss them and make me feel better.”

  She’d be up for that. And the fact that he’d mentioned the possibility, made everything seem a little brighter. Maybe she hadn’t screwed things up irreparably with last night’s revelations, after all.

  “But for right now,” Max added, “we need to get outta here. I have things to do. And if you don’t wanna stay here, we need to find somewhere to stash you until I’m done.”

  “You don’t have to stash me anywhere,” Gabrielle protested, as she followed him toward the door. “I can sit and wait for you to finish.”

  “It’s a long wait, sugar. A six mile run, a two mile swim, an obstacle course. Not to mention a meeting with the brass about the Tansy Leighton thing.” He cocked his head to look at her, sort of pensively. “Maybe you could stay with her.”

  “I want to stay with you,” Gabrielle said and followed him outside. She didn’t miss the way he positioned himself, even as he closed and locked the door, to shield her from anyone trying to harm her.

  She looked around. “You don’t think they’re going to try to shoot us, do you?”

  “They have guns,” Max said, as he nudged her toward the truck, still staying on her outside. “At least your buddy Sergei does. I didn’t get a good enough look at his friend to be able to tell whether he was carrying.”

  “His name is Yuri,” Gabrielle said, “and he has a gun, too. While Sergei did little jobs for Alex, Yuri mostly did security for the club. You know, the bouncer.”

  He opened the truck door for her and waited for her to get in. “He looked like a bouncer. Big on muscle, short on brains. Do this, and don’t think too hard.”

  Gabrielle nodded. “That’s Yuri.”

  She watched as Max walked around the front of the truck and got behind the wheel. He was big on muscle, too. Alex would have done his very best to recruit him, just as it sounded like his local mob boss in Brighton Beach had done. But Max was anything but stupid.

  “Tansy will be there for the meeting,” he told her as he put the truck in gear and they rolled backwards down the short driveway. JB’s townhouse was a lot closer to the street than Max’s little ranch. “After it’s over, I’ll talk to her and JB about letting us stay for the next couple of nights. I don’t think they’re coming back here anytime soon.”

  “I was kind of surprised to see her,” Gabrielle admitted. “The other night, when she came into the FUBAR, she looked familiar. I recognized her, but I figured I had to be wrong. What would Tansy Leighton be doing in a dive in Virginia?”

  “Going after what she wanted,” Max said with a grin as they headed down the road. “She’s a hell of a woman. Being hijacked and held captive by terrorists didn’t faze her at all. She came out of it fighting. Broke JB’s shoulder when he came to rescue her.”

  “Yikes.”

  He smiled. “It takes a strong woman to live with a SEAL. They’ll be all right.”

  Gabrielle hoped so. They’d looked happy together the other night, and she’d hate to think of that changing. She didn’t know either of them, but you didn’t see that kind of joy every day.

  Max glanced at her. “You’re strong too, you know.”

  She didn’t feel strong. “I was terrified last night, when you left me in the bushes.”

  “That’s normal,” Max said. She noticed he kept glancing around: in the rearview mirror, in the other mirrors, out the windshield. From one to the next to the next and back to the beginning. “But you didn’t show it. You stayed there. Anyway, that’s not what I’m talking about. You were terrified the other night, too, when the Russian—Sergei—knocked on the door at the motel. Hell, you were terrified of me when I showed up. But you’re still here.”

  His gaze landed for a second on the dry straw on her head. “You cut your hair. All that beautiful red hair. I don’t imagine that was easy. And you let me bleach the little bit that was left. You gave up what must have been a comfortable life in DC, to wait tables in a dive bar in Virginia. You’ve got professional criminals on your tail. And you haven’t complained once. I think that takes a lot of strength.”

  Gabrielle still didn’t feel strong, but it was nice to hear him say it. The admiration in his eyes was nice, too, and gave her a warm feeling inside, that was especially welcome after the things she’d told him last night. She’d been afraid he’d despise her now. The fact that he didn’t meant more than he probably knew.

  She sniffed. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t cry.” He gave her a quick glance before going back to the mirror to windshield to mirror circuit again. “We’re safe for the moment. Nobody’s following us, that I can see.”

  “Good.” She used the backs of her hands to wipe her eyes. If he thought she was strong, she’d be strong for him. “Thank you. For everything you’ve done for me. And everything you’re still doing.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Max said. “I figure one of these days, you’ll pay me back. If I’m lucky, it’ll be sexual favors.”

  He grinned at her. Gabrielle sniffed one last time and settled back against the seat.

  * * *

  The training center was secure. Gabrielle had to show identification to be let through the gate, and it was clear that if she hadn’t been with Max, the identification wouldn’t have been enough. They didn’t allow just anyone to wander the beach where the SEALs trained.

  Not that she was allowed on the beach. She offered to stay in the car while Max did his stuff, but he wouldn’t hear of it. She ended up in some sort of lounge while she waited, and while it wasn’t exciting—the TV was set to domestic news—it was air conditioned and had a soda machine, so it was a lot better than the parking lot. Safer, too.

  He’d warned her it would take a few hours, so Gabrielle was prepared to wait. Even so, as the time passed, she got more and more antsy. How long could it take to run six miles, even in sand? Or swim a couple of miles? And make it through an obstacle course?

  When the door opened, she looked up eagerly. And looked down again, dejected, when it wasn’t Max.

  It was a woman instead, and it wasn’t until a few seconds had passed that Gabrielle realized the newcomer was Tansy Leighton. Heiress Tansy Leighton. The same Tansy Leighton who used to get her face on the cover of People Magazine and the National Enquirer at least once a month.

  She looked pretty sedate today, i
n a summer dress that came all the way down to her knees and all the way up to her shoulders. Her hair was piled into a loose knot at the back of her neck, and she looked like money and breeding and all those things that Gabrielle had never had and had always wanted. Money and security and confidence and the luxury not to have to worry about where her next meal was going to come from.

  It didn’t help that Gabrielle herself looked anything but her best. She looked like she’d slept badly and tried to fix the damage with caffeine, and then there was her hair. She put a self-conscious hand to it as Tansy came closer. Her own dry-as-straw mop bore zero resemblance to Tansy’s naturally blond tresses, so well tended they were gleaming with health.

  Tansy’s smile was genuine, though. “You must be Gabrielle.” She was friendly and normal, like Gabrielle was someone on Tansy’s level. “Max told me I’d find you here.”

  Max? “Have they finished their PT?”

  Tansy nodded and took a seat next to Gabrielle. “They’re showering and changing.” She folded one long, tanned leg over the other. That was something else Gabrielle could envy: with her red hair and pale skin, she never could get a good tan, and frankly didn’t look that good when she had one. While Tansy looked sun-kissed and gorgeous. “There’s a meeting in a few minutes that Alpha Squad has to take. After that they’ll be free to leave.”

  She smiled at Gabrielle. “Max told me the two of you could use a place to stay for a couple of nights. I’m not sure I understood everything he was talking about, but it doesn’t matter. John and I are spending our nights in my place on the beach, so his townhouse is sitting empty. Feel free to use it as long as you want.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” Gabrielle said, and thought, privately, that it must be nice to have so many options for places to sleep.