Hot SEAL, Tijuana Nights

by Cat Johnson

  “Thank you, but I’m fine. I still have my apartment for now. But I really do need to land one or two big decorating jobs. The money from those, combined with what I have left in my savings, and I’ll be able to afford the security deposit and first month’s rent on a nice new apartment.”

  Amanda’s eyes narrowed. “Hmm.”

  “Uh, oh. I know that expression.” Gabby had seen it too many times in college. Amanda was a mastermind when it came to plans and schemes.

  “I’ve got one job for you, for sure. A whole house makeover. And I’ve got a possible client for you for a second job. A retail space.”

  “Really?” How had Amanda never mentioned all this before? Was she making it all up just to help out? Suspicious, Gabby asked, “What are these jobs?”

  “Well, one of my clients is opening a coffee shop type of place. She just bought the building and is starting to tear out the old linoleum floors and florescent fixtures and stuff. I could give her a call. Maybe offer a free consultation with you? You can dazzle her with all your great ideas for décor for the shop and I bet she’ll hire you to take over. This is a passion project for her. She’s already got her hands full with kids and working part-time for her husband’s business.”

  “Oh my God. That sounds perfect. You’d really call her for me?”

  “Of course, I will. I’m getting the number now.” Amanda moved toward the desk.

  “What’s the second job? Who’s that client?” Gabby asked.

  Amanda paused, cell phone in one hand. “Um, well, that would be me.”

  Gabby shook her head. “No. I’m not taking your money or redoing this house. It’s beautiful. Perfect. I only agreed to do your office because, well, it was hideous before, no offense. And I knew I could do it on the cheap and it made for great content for my blog. And if you did it alone you just would have ordered everything off the IKEA website and I refuse to let my best friend have a boring cookie cutter office. But I’m not doing the whole house for you just because you feel bad for me.”

  “You’re not doing my house. You’re going to do my grandmother’s house.”

  Gabby paused. She’d attended Amanda’s grandmother’s funeral. “Did you inherit her house?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Kind of? What does that mean?”

  “Well, Zach and I inherited the estate. And since I already have a house, he took the house and I took the stocks and money. I put it away in a high yield account and swore I would do something with it that would make my grandmother proud. I think this is it.”

  Gabby shook her head. “There are too many things wrong with this plan for me to even start.”

  Amanda folded her arms. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Well, first off, your brother hates me.” He had since the great shower incident at the end of freshman year.

  “He doesn’t hate you. He just doesn’t know you.”

  Because Gabby had made it a point to stay out of his way. It had been surprisingly easy to avoid seeing him since he was in the Navy and away like all the time.

  He’d missed Amanda’s wedding and their grandmother’s funeral. What kind of man did that?

  Amanda said she understood. That as a SEAL Zach had to go where he was told and when, no matter what.

  Gabby wasn’t so sure she’d be as forgiving if she had a brother and he did that to her. Maybe she just didn’t get the sibling thing, being an only child.

  Still, her parents were an ocean away in Hawaii and she managed to get there for their thirtieth anniversary party.

  That plane ticket had put quite a dent in her small but precious savings account, but that’s what family did for family.

  The fact remained, she and Zach had gotten off on the wrong foot all those years ago and, judging by the glare and cold welcome he’d delivered the few times she’d seen him since, they still hadn’t gotten on the right foot.

  She couldn’t imagine he’d want her involved in anything having to do with his house.

  Gabby leveled a stare on Amanda. “We’ll have to agree to disagree. But besides Zach’s feelings about me, I refuse to take your inheritance, so forget about it. I’ll take the meeting with your client, and thank you for that, but that’s it.”

  Amanda’s steady headshaking told Gabby she was in for a battle. “Nope. I’ve decided. Zach has been living in Grandma’s house for two years now and hasn’t changed a thing. Except for the weight set in the middle of the living room, the house still looks like an eighty-year old woman lives there. Crocheted doilies and all. It’s ridiculous. He’ll never get married if that’s the house he brings his dates back to.”

  “He’s not dating?” Gabby asked before she could stop herself.

  Amanda’s brow shot high. Her lips twitched. “No, he’s not dating.”

  Crap. Amanda was too sharp.

  Gabby backpedaled. “It’s just that at his age, I’d thought he’d be with someone for years already now.”

  “Nope. He’s not. He’s still single and available. But seriously, Gabby. Take the job. You’d be doing me and him a favor because I’ve decided, I’m redoing that house with or without your help.”

  Gabby drew in a breath. She knew her friend. Amanda would do it on her own. And she’d spend a fortune for cookie cutter, chain store furniture made out of pressboard.

  The designer half of Gabby couldn’t let that happen any more than the friend half of her could. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

  “Yay! Thank you.” Amanda was all smiles. Gabby, on the other hand, was all dread.

  She shook her head. “Don’t get so excited. I’m telling you, Zach is going to put a stop to this before it even starts. I’m sure of it.”

  Amanda was still looking too happy about the horrifying prospect of Gabby decorating the home of the man who hated her.

  “Nope. He won’t because he won’t know,” she said.

  Gabby widened her eyes. “How will he not know?”

  Men might be oblivious sometimes, but Gabby thought Zach would notice when things started disappearing and new things appeared in their place, even if she could manage to sneak in the stuff when he wasn’t home.

  “He’s away. He doesn’t tell me much, and half of that is probably lies because there is no way he is away at all those ‘trainings’ with his team.” Amanda used air quotes and scowled. “But I know this . . . before he left he said the whole team was deploying for at least a few months and he probably wouldn’t be home for my birthday. He gave me my gift early and everything.”

  “Your birthday isn’t until next month.” Gabby’s pulse picked up speed.

  “Right.” Amanda smiled. “Can you get his whole place redone before my birthday?”

  Her mind spun with plans, ideas and the beginnings of a To Do list. She glanced up and saw Amanda waiting for her answer.

  A whole month to redo one small two-bedroom house? And Zach would be out of the country the whole time?

  Gabby raised her gaze to her friend. “I’ll need a key to get inside.”

  Amanda smiled. “No problem. I’ll give you my copy.”

  “All right. Then, yeah, I’ll get it done.” Gabby couldn’t control her grin.

  THREE

  Djibouti was hot as hell. Literally.

  Zach could only imagine that the average mean temperature on the Horn of Africa and that of the fires of Hell had to be pretty close.

  At least it felt that way as he ran, in full kit, for the aircraft.

  Sweat dripped into his eyes. Eyes he couldn’t wipe often enough to keep his vision clear.

  Inside the Osprey, Zach cursed the heat. “Fuck it. I’m taking this shit off.”

  Ripping open the fasteners on his vest, he maneuvered across the narrow space and started to throw off equipment, dropping it onto an empty seat.

  “What the fuck are you doing, Z-man?” Frowning, Levi Dutch Van Der Hayden watched from where he’d already strapped himself in—like Zach should be doing.

  “Looks like h
e’s stripping to me. And here I am with no dollar bills.” Grinning, Justus Kirkland delivered Zach a wink before he dumped himself into one of the seats. The man folded his bare tattoo-covered arms as if settling in for the show. “Sorry, Z-man. No tip for you today. I’ll catch you later.”

  Zach noticed Justus was wearing the bare minimum he could get away with and still operate. A short-sleeved T-shirt beneath his vest, which was visibly lacking in ballistic plates.

  Smart man. Zach was about to join him and lighten his own load. This heat was ridiculous.

  Djibouti was hot as fuck normally. He knew this. The team had been here for months. But this afternoon the weather had turned molten.

  How could the nighttime temperature be hotter than the day? It made no sense, and neither did the damn shirt he was wearing.

  Zach pulled off his new long-sleeved tactical shirt and tossed it. The sweat-soaked fabric hit the floor with a splat. Fuck the shirt and its supposed cooling technology.

  Moisture wicking fabric, his ass! If the damn thing didn’t make him drip in sweat it wouldn’t have to wick it away.

  He reached for his vest and slid it on over his bare arms and damp tank top. The thin tank he could deal with.

  Immensely happier, he slid into the seat and looked up to see his two teammates still watching him. “What? I was hot.”

  Cocking up a blonde brow, Dutch scowled. “And I’m not?”

  Justus glanced sideways at Dutch before shooting Zach a glance. “Don’t listen to Sir Complains-A-Lot over there. I heard bare arms were all the rage this year for the most fashionable special operators.”

  The joke was ridiculous but still made Zach snort out a laugh even as he shook his head.

  The rest of the guys filed in, one by one. Rio Compass North, one of the biggest guys on the team but with a huge heart to match. Tony Nitro Gallo, by far the most competitive among them and also the team medic. Vegas boy Aidan Rocket Stone was followed by Louisiana-born Thibaut T-Bone Cyr.

  Finally Jace Hawk Hawkins brought up the rear. He took the seat next to Zach but not before dropping his gaze up and down Zach’s bare arms.

  Preemptively, Zach answered the unasked question. “It’s hot.”

  Hawk dipped his head. “True that. I’ll be glad to be back in Montana.”

  That statement called attention to the elephant in the room—or in the Osprey, as the case may be.

  If plans didn’t change, the team would be leaving Djibouti in about a week—hopefully less.

  Only part of the team would be going back to Coronado to await the next assignment or deployment. Two of them—Hawk and Compass—would be going back to pack up their shit for the final time and head for home to tackle life as a civilian.

  The team was about to change. Zach didn’t like change.

  He wondered whether to address the fact this could very likely be the last mission that SEAL Team Three would be on together. Ever.

  Maybe he should leave the subject alone and pretend this was just another op. But Hawk had brought it up. He had been the one to mention going home . . . and not to the team’s home on Coronado either.

  Zach glanced sideways at his teammate. “You feeling okay about getting out? You don’t think you’ll miss it? The rush.”

  “What are you saying, Z-man? You don’t think the family ranch is exciting?” Hawk grinned and then sobered. He drew in a breath and let it out, his gaze meeting and holding Zach’s. He lifted one shoulder. “I honestly don’t know how I’ll feel.”

  And that raw and honest answer was the same one Zach had given to himself whenever the notion of getting out struck him. It was a lot to think about.

  But nobody was getting out today and they had a job to do.

  They reached their destination in no time. The Saudi-Yemen border wasn’t all that far from Camp Lemonnier and the Osprey was a fast bird.

  In under an hour the Marine Corps flight crew had set the aircraft down.

  Night vision goggles turned Zach’s world green as he led his team out of the aircraft and into the dark night.

  “TOC, this is Bravo One. Bravo team has boots on the ground,” Zach said into his communicator for the benefit of command back at the tactical operations center.

  “Good copy, Bravo One. Now bring me back what you went there for.”

  If only locating and rescuing the Green Beret taken by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels were as easy as his lieutenant commander made it sound.

  Zach kept his opinions to himself and said, “Copy that.”

  Intel suggested the rebels had him somewhere in the mountains between Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The Green Berets had been working in the tumultuous border region helping the Saudis take out suspected Houthi missile sites.

  A small Special Forces unit had crossed into Yemen. Only eleven of the twelve made it back out. Now, SEAL Team Three’s priority was to get that one out . . . preferably alive.

  They had a hike ahead of them and time was of the essence. The Osprey had dropped them off on the Saudi side of the border. They’d have to patrol into Houthi territory following a mountain path where satellite imagery had seen a group of men traveling with what looked liked a hostage.

  His team’s mission was to scope out the situation. Determine if the hostage was the Green Beret. Take him, by stealth or force, depending on what they found, then get the hell out of there.

  And ideally they had to do it all before sunrise.

  Sure. No problem. Piece of cake.

  Zach fought the urge to roll his eyes and turned to his team. “All right. Let’s move out. We’ve got a long way to go.”

  “The fun never ends,” Justus hiked the strap of his weapon higher.

  “I hate patrolling. Give me a HALO jump any day over this shit.” Dutch grumbled as the group took off.

  Next to Zach, Hawk let out a short laugh. “I can tell you one thing I’m not gonna miss. I’m not gonna miss listening to Dutch’s bitching.”

  Zach smiled at the truth of that, but that was the end of his good humor. A soldier’s life was in their hands. There was no time to waste.

  They moved out, slowly traversing the distance from the drop zone to the path. There they picked up the pace, moving swift and sure along the darkened roadway.

  “Bravo One, we’ve got you on thermal. Target is approximately one klick, dead ahead.” The communication from command told Zach they’d made good time.

  In an hour, the team had caught up to the group ahead of them.

  A small group of trained men in top physical condition traveling light—or as light as they could while still being armed and ready for anything—could move much faster than the larger group of locals transporting a hostage.

  Zach held up one bent arm. Behind him, the team halted. “Copy that, TOC. How many combatants?”

  “Twenty-four fighters plus what appears to be one captive.”

  “Is the captive mobile?” Zach asked.

  “He’s on his feet. Looks like he’s bound by the hands and being led with a rope,” the lieutenant commander replied.

  That he was walking was good news. It would slow the team down if they had to carry this guy out.

  “Where is he positioned within the group?” Zach asked.

  “Dead center.”

  That figured.

  It would be too much to ask for the guy they were there to retrieve to be walking in the back of the pack where they could pluck him away from the group and disappear into the darkness.

  “Copy. Going quiet until we’ve got him.”

  “Good copy,” the lieutenant replied. “Talk to you on the other side.”

  Zach turned to his team. “It doesn’t look like we can do this the easy way.”

  Compass blew out a breath. “’Course not.”

  “When we’re right on top of them we’ll take out the back half of the group. Choose and call your targets. On my signal, we drop the first eight all at once. That should cause enough confusion to scatter the rest of them. Do not
lose sight of that soldier. Hopefully he’ll get forgotten in the scuffle, but I’m not going to plan on that. And for God’s sake, don’t accidentally shoot him.”

  Rocket let out a snort at that order.

  Zach ignored him and signaled them forward. Time to get their man.

  FOUR

  “What’s on today’s agenda for project Surprise Big Brother?” Amanda asked.

  Gabby rolled her eyes at Amanda’s code name for the decorating job. “Let’s hope it’s not more like project Strangle the Designer. And today’s To Do list is paint all the trim here and order the tile for your client’s coffee shop.”

  She cradled the cell phone on one shoulder as she tried to pry open a can of paint with a screwdriver.

  Maybe she’d splurge on a blue tooth earpiece for herself after she got paid for these two jobs. She’d gotten so used to pinching every penny after college as she tried to make a go of it here in California on her own—without help from her parents—she hadn’t allowed herself anything optional.

  Now, with not one but two jobs, and one of them pretty huge, she might be willing to ease up on her tight budget. Maybe.

  The cell slipped and she caught it just before it fell into the gallon of white semi-gloss trim paint.

  Okay, maybe an earpiece was less of a splurge and more of a safety measure.

  She hit the screen to put the call on speakerphone and set it down on the floor before she grabbed the narrow angled brush.

  “Ooo, that sounds exciting,” Amanda cooed.

  “Which part?”

  “Both. I want to come with you to order the tile. Can I?”

  “No. And I noticed you didn’t say you want to come over and help me paint your brother’s baseboards and window trim.”

  “Yeah, no. You don’t want me painting anyway. I suck at it. Jasper won’t let me touch a paint brush anymore after the great gallon spillage of twenty-fourteen.”

  Gabby cringed. “I don’t blame him.”

  “But that’s still no reason to not let me come with you to the tile store. You’re just being mean.”