“In my car.” He pulled her up. “C’mon.”
She clung to him as they fought the wind so powerful it could uproot trees, bare branches, and, quite possibly, blow dead bodies out to sea.
Standing in the sunshine surrounded by the remnants of what was once her personal jail, Billie held Nutmeg to her chest and stroked the dog’s hair. The trailer was virtually gone, nothing but bits of metal, a refrigerator, and her upside down truck remaining.
“We don’t have to hide anymore, Nutsie,” she whispered, tears of happiness burning her eyes. “We’re free. We can go back to Charleston, we can open a business, we can—”
“Found it!” Rick burst out from behind a truck, his arm raised in victory, his handsome face flush with success. In his hand, the leather box that the watch had arrived in.
“Awesome,” she called, letting squirmy little Nutmeg down to scamper over to him. Billie didn’t blame the dog. She wanted to get close to Rick, too.
They’d spent the night safely in the school shelter, where they’d found a quiet corner in the boy’s locker room. There, two people who’d met under the most extraordinary circumstances finally had an ordinary conversation.
Not that there was anything ordinary about Lieutenant Rick Stone.
“This box is all I want from this place,” he said as he reached her. “How about you?”
“There’s nothing here I want.” She glanced around at the rubble, but her gaze settled on him. “Except I kind of like the guy who saved me.”
He grinned, reaching to tunnel his hand under her hair and guide her face up to him. “And I thought you were Annie Oakley trailer trash.”
“I don’t even have blonde hair,” she said with a laugh.
“Good. I like brunettes. And this is one crappy bleach job, by the way.”
“I’ll have it grown out in six months.”
He didn’t answer, his beautiful blue eyes searching her face, the way he had all night when they told each other their stories. When she’d told him of witnessing the murder, he’d held her in his arms and let her cry with relief now that it was over. And when he’d told her about the loss of the his father in the first Gulf war and how it had wrecked the life of a seven year old hero worshiper, she’d held him, too.
“Six months?” He pulled her closer, eliminating the space between her body and his. “I’ll be home in six months.”
“I’ll be in Charleston, opening up a new antique shop.”
“Can I visit?” he asked with a smile.
“You better.”
“Can I stay overnight?”
It was her turn to smile. “If Nutmeg lets you.”
He looked down at the dog. “Nutcase loves me.”
And, in that single suspended moment of time, Billie had one simple thought: so could I. “Then you’ll be welcome in my home, in my shop, and in my . . . ” Bed.
“I’ll be there.” Rick grinned, a crazy thing of beauty that squeezed air out of Billie’s lungs and common sense out of her head.
He lowered his head and kissed her gently, the first time they’d kissed since the furious exchange in the brush. This was softer, sweeter, full of promise and hope and warmth.
They were still holding hands as he navigated his car over the rough roads and fallen trees of Barefoot Bay, heading back to the south end of the island. As they reached the most picturesque part of the inlet, he slowed the car so they could see through the bare trees to the beach.
There, a woman and a lanky young girl slowly walked over rubble and debris of what had to have been one of the first houses built on the island. The girl looked to be sobbing, but the woman was talking animatedly.
Rick lowered the window to call out, “You need help, ma’am?”
The woman lifted her hand and beamed a smile that seemed completely out of place. “We’re great. Never been better.”
Rick threw a look at Billie. “Is that sarcasm or has she lost her marbles?”
“I haven’t gotten to know her.” But she could, now. She no longer had to hide or avoid her neighbors. She was free. For the thousandth time in the last ten hours, she looked at Rick Stone with gratitude dampening her eyes.
“Are you sure?” he called again. “Do you need a phone? Water?”
“Honestly, we’re great.” She gave her daughter a squeeze. “Mother Nature is doling out second chances!”
Billie laughed softly, absently stroking Nutmeg’s head where it rested on her lap. “You can say that again.”
“Mother nature is doling out second chances,” he repeated, turning to give Billie another kiss. “And I think we should take her up on it.”
Nutmeg barked in complete agreement while they kissed like the lifelong lovers Billie had a feeling they were going to be.
HOLDING ON
Stephanie Tyler
This is dedicated to all the men and women who’ve served
—thank you.
A quick note from Stephanie:
This story is set approximately six and a half months from the end of HOLD ON TIGHT. So many readers asked about what was happening with the Navy SEAL brothers from the HOLD series, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to catch everyone up and give back to military men and women at the same time.
Chapter One
“The only easy day was yesterday.”
—US NAVY SEAL saying
Virginia Beach
2 days before Christmas
“We’re going to be delivering this baby,” she heard Nick say, and his brother’s answer was in typical Jake fashion, “You’ve got to be kidding me with that shit.”
Jamie Michaels looked up from the book she’d been halfheartedly reading and smiled. Jake was finally home after being gone a month, and it was nothing he wouldn’t say to her face, which was one of the many things she loved about him and Nick both.
“No offense, but I do not want to be the midwife,” Jake continued. “Dude, that’s Chris’s job, legally bound and all that crap.”
She shifted to catch sight of him. He wore his jungle cammies, evidence of paint still on his face and neck.
He’d rushed, and she was grateful. She’d be more so if she heard from Chris at all over the past month. Under normal circumstances, she’d be optimistically concerned, her FBI past clouded by the fact that she was waiting on the man she loved.
The nine months pregnant part of her was a hormonal mess she barely recognized, waiting for her Navy SEAL husband to come home.
Nick, also a Navy SEAL, as was Jake, had been home with her for the past week, treating her like a live grenade.
If one pregnant woman could bring terror to a SEAL, why weren’t they put to better use during wartime?
She contemplated this as she heard Jake continue to mutter to himself as he walked through the house.
Earlier, she’d spoken with Jake’s wife, Isabelle, who was headed back to Virginia from visiting her mother in DC. Nick’s girlfriend, Kaylee would be there shortly as well, along with Jamie’s sister, PJ and Kenny, who was the father of the three SEALs. They would all be together for Christmas—the baby’s due date—except for the possibility of Saint and one other extremely important person.
Her husband. Her midwife. Legally bound and all that crap.
She was getting cranky again. As if Nick’s radar was in tune with her mood, he called from the kitchen, “Do you want more of that soothing tea stuff?”
“No,” she snapped. Never wanted tea again in her life.
“Ice cream?”
“It’s ten in the morning.”
“Never stopped you before,” he murmured.
“I heard that.”
“Meant you to.”
“Whoa.” Jake stopped in the doorway and gaped at her. “You’re goddamned huge.”
“Not smart,” Nick told him over his shoulder.
“It’s the truth,” she groaned. Her belly stuck out precariously from her slim frame. “Have you heard anything?”
Jake st
ared at her, his gray eyes stormy. Even if he had, he technically couldn’t share. Wouldn’t. She had to trust that everything was good and that she was in the more than capable hands of Chris’s brothers and the rest of the crew.
Since marrying Chris months earlier, she’d moved into the big house that had once been Kenny’s, where the men had grown up. There was plenty of space and it was rare that more than two of them were home at the same time.
That would change in a few hours.
“We all set for the storm?” Jake asked Nick now.
“Put in the generator last week,” Nick said.
“Going to be worse than they thought,” Jake continued.
“Hadn’t told her about that yet,” Nick muttered.
“Is that why you wouldn’t let me turn on the TV?” she asked him.
“Reading’s good for the baby,” Nick said.
She threw the book at his head and both men ducked.
“Not so good for you, brother,” Jake said. “Jamie, let’s go for a walk.”
She struggled up, refusing the men’s offers of help. Maybe Jake would tell her something about Chris outside.
He kept a hand on her lower back as they walked. The streets were clear, the air cold—snow was a given.
They talked for a few minutes about the storm. Isabelle. Anything and everything but the topic she wanted to know most about.
“Somalia’s really a hot zone again,” Jake said and she froze for a second, but Jake’s hand pressed her and she kept moving.
Somalia. Of all places.
But somewhere inside, she’d known, had watched the beginnings of the new uprising on the news with dread in her throat, had been aware of Nick steering the conversation—and the television stations—to happier things. Chick flicks.
She should’ve been suspicious when he didn’t bitch and moan about watching reruns of bad reality TV on a continuous loop over the past few days. But when it came right down to it, she was grateful for Chris’s brothers. She’d hold herself together—for Chris and for the baby.
Now, she paused against to look up at the sky, Jake at her side. She put her hands on the swell of her belly, remembering how Chris knelt and kissed it before he left that morning, two months earlier. How she’d prayed it was a training mission but knowing in her heart it wasn’t.
“It’s okay, baby boy. Daddy’s going to be here in time,” she whispered to the bump. “You just hang in there.”
Somali Republic, East Africa
Chief Petty Officer Chris Waldron waited, belly down on the top of a low lying building in a decidedly unsafe zone. Keeping his eye on the goddamned prize. The doorway of the windowless dwelling where one of east Africa’s most wanted al Qaeda militants the SEALs had been sent to take out had hunkered down to wait out the latest U.S. Troop invasion.
They’d been in country for sixty-seven days and thirty-six hours on this particular op at last count. His CO, John ‘Saint’ St. James was next to him, taking his rest. They’d been spelling each other the entire time. Chris was the sniper, Saint his spotter, although either man was fully prepped to take this shot.
But Chris was a master sniper—the best of the best, they called him.
The men’s only movements had been head up, head down, even when the skies opened angrily to produce a warm rain that left the air sticky and full of godforsaken mosquitoes and tsetse flies.
“Son of bitch,” he muttered as a fly bit the shit out of his neck through the netting he wore. He was sweating, jonseing for a cigarette but keeping the rest of his mind purposely blank.
You’d go crazy if you didn’t, and he was already halfway there.
Chris checked his scope and then he froze, not from anything in his vision but from that familiar feeling that had been a part of him for as long as he could remember—some called it sixth sense, his father called it the sight and Jake called it that psychic Cajun bullshit and no matter what it was, it had saved Chris’s ass more time that he could count.
Now, it would do so again. Next to him, Saint’s head jerked up like he’d sensed the problem as well.
“Incoming,” Chris told him quietly. It wasn’t surprising—they’d learned of the Al Qaeda militant’s location from a Somalian warlord who was paid for his cooperation. Now, the warlord would no doubt start an attack so it wouldn’t look like he sold the operative out.
Everything in this part of the world was tricky, touch and go and no one could be trusted for very long. This trust lasted longer than most.
A short moment later, the series of explosions started, came from both sides of their building without actually harming it, tearing down the walls of one structure next to them and upending an old Land Rover on the other side.
It hadn’t been meant for them, but they weren’t the only ones with a bounty on the militant’s head. Still, if they didn’t pull out now, they’d be headed back to their makeshift base and command center under the line of direct fire.
If they pulled out now, Chris would lose the shot.
It took a second of eye contact between the men and the decision was made.
“Get the shot and we’re gone,” Saint said, and since it was his direct order, Chris would follow it. He settled back in behind the scope to wait for the militant to evacuate.
With the heat sensor, he could make out shapes through the covered window and the stone and mud mixed walls. But he’d prefer not to expect a bullet to go through stone. And they’d been told to get a clean shot and Chris wanted nothing less.
“He’s not coming out the front,” Saint mused.
“Front or back, doesn’t matter—I’ll still get him,” Chris muttered. His finger curled around the trigger as that hazy sense of right now shot through his brain and he fired seconds before the target turned to face the street for a brief moment. But those seconds of clarity for Chris were like an early warning system, much like the lag in a digital camera, which gave the bullet the precise path it needed.
The bullet landed cleanly, probably nearly silently, between the militant’s eyes.
Chris barely had a second to feel the satisfaction of a job well done when the explosions started, no doubt the US’s way of counteracting the warlord’s attack.
He took out two of the militant’s bodyguards cleanly while Saint, covering him, took out six more a little less so. In seconds, he and Saint were off the building that had been their home sweet home for two straight days and ran down side streets, weapons at the ready, stretching muscles screaming from hours of underuse.
His feet were all pins and needle for the first half mile but finally his entire body cooperated as the shelling and the blasts from overhead began. Caught between friendly and not so friendly fire, plus impending darkness made it imperative that they get the hell out of the danger zone.
Far more dangerous to find themselves cornered at night with barely any ammo and no supplies.
He’d done this more times than he cared to count, his body on autopilot while his brain measured every ounce of risk and danger. Made split second decisions imperative to his and Saint’s safety.
Not that Saint wasn’t doing the exact same thing.
He fired a few rounds from his M-14, even as pain shot through his side, adrenaline keeping it tamped down so he could take the next shot. Took down two rebels and heard Saint firing from behind him.
They were partially surrounded with no extraction team. Running and stealth were the best options. They were getting blasted, even as they ran for cover, Saint shoving him down as they came to a low wall.
“Stay here, just a second,” Saint told him as they crouched down and let the chaos rein behind them. “How hard were you hit?”
Chris looked down at his side—the blood came through his cammy jacket, ran down his side although he was pretty sure the bullet hadn’t hit anything major. “I’ll live.”
“Good to fucking know. We’ll make a run down the alleys toward the base. If we can get close, they’ll pick us up.”
> No choice. Like his old Master Chief used to say, pain is just weakness leaving the body. And Chris hoped it would leave really goddamned soon.
Chapter Two
Saint muttered in Cajun French the entire time the doc stitched up his shoulder. Chris, who understood every word his CO said, lay on his side with a way bigger piece of him taken out, but he wasn’t telling Saint that without a running start.
“Any word?” Chris asked as the man checked his phone for the thousandth time.
“Just the same sit around and wait.”
He stared at the ceiling, the way he’d been for the last two hours since they’d arrived after being picked up a couple of miles from base by a truckload of Marines.
The wait would kill him this time if he let it, especially because he was so close to being homeward bound.
Except no helo was coming this way again for days. Normally, the prospect of spending Christmas OUTCONUS was perfect—had been since his mother died.
But not this year. He didn’t want to do that to Jamie.
She’d deal with it, he knew, but that wasn’t the point. She’d dealt with way too much in her life not to have this go right. She deserved it.
But the little boy was breech—he could feel it. Happened sometime last week, and Jamie would find out about it today during the doctor’s appointment.
He’d insisted she visit traditional docs, would have whether or not he’d been home the entire pregnancy. He knew his brothers were back stateside, which was a comfort. Although they were adopted, they couldn’t be any closer if they were blood. Together from the age of fourteen, along with Chris’s mom and dad, they’d moved to Virginia and attempted to settle down.
Until his mom, Maggie, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and died nine months later. All of them still felt that loss acutely.
Finally, the doc finished with Saint and headed toward Chris, who pulled the blood stained packing gauze from the wound and turned to give the doc a better angle with the stitches.
“I could do this myself—” Chris started.
“Yeah, but then I’d be in the middle of this godforsaken country for nothing,” Doc drawled. He was from Mobile, Alabama, in for fifteen years—and probably until they forced him out.
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