Final Siege

by Scarlett Cole

  Yet she hadn’t been able to tell him she loved him. The words had gotten stuck in her throat when she’d thought about saying them. Lingering feelings of disloyalty to Brock, with whom she was both furious at and distraught over, needed resolving, and the man who was currently looking at her as if she hung the moon and stars was never going to be able to fix it. Only she could put what had happened to rest.

  “What are you doing up so early on a Saturday morning?” she asked, lifting herself into a seated position. When she could finally take him in, she noted that he was showered, the damp ends of his hair a giveaway, and dressed. Her thoughts returned to their shower the previous evening, the one where he had backed her up against the cool tiles, lifted her into his arms, and taken her where he stood. It had been fast, and hard. “Don’t we have better things we could be doing?” She raised an eyebrow, and grinned.

  “As deliciously tempting as that sounds, seeing you sitting there in my bed, naked, I think you are going to like this better.” Mac handed her a cup of coffee from the side table. It smelled heavenly, and, as she took her first sip, decided it tasted the same way. “Plus, it’s not early. It’s ten a.m.”

  Six hours sleep. That wasn’t enough for her to function properly. “Maybe by your inner military clock that’s not early, but ten a.m. is just plain cruel after keeping me up all night.”

  Mac laughed. “Pretty sure you were the one who kept me up. Although, for the record, I loved every minute of it.”

  Suddenly, she realized that her still being naked while he was fully dressed was, while kind of hot, also distracting for Mac, who obviously had something on his mind. “I loved it, too, but unless you want an action replay right now, I suggest you tell me why I need to get up.”

  His eyes worked their way down her body, coming to land on her breasts before working their way back to her eyes. “As incredible an offer as that is, there is somewhere we need to be. Before everything went down at the lab last night, we were trying to figure out what the chemical formulas were.”

  They’d brought the documents home with them, though she wasn’t sure where Mac had put them. “Yeah. I suppose we do need to get started. I’m assuming you have some ideas. And did you hear back from Noah about the men?”

  Mac shook his head. “No, Noah didn’t get back to me yet. But these things take time, and he’s going to have to be discreet in getting that done for us. And yes, I do have an idea about where to start with the formula. I just called Louisa and asked if she would be okay doing a consult with us. It’s Saturday, and she’s home, but I know being in Encinitas was difficult for you when we were there last, so I didn’t want to put you under any pressure to have to go with me.”

  What Mac had told her the previous evening had begun to sink in, but there was still one thing she needed to do. “Can we go visit Brock on the way?” she asked.

  “Of course. Whatever you need to do. I probably need to have a word with him myself.”

  Ninety minutes later, after a hot shower, a long debate with herself over what clothes were appropriate to wear, and a short drive, Delaney found herself walking toward the corner of the cemetery. The drive over had been stressful, but only because Mac had been concerned that they might be followed. Despite her need to talk and burn off nervous energy, Mac had been too busy repeatedly looking in his review mirror and out the side window to be of any conversational value. So Delaney had sat quietly, dangerously alone with her thoughts, until Mac pulled his truck over in front of the cemetery.

  Mac squeezed her hand. “Why don’t you go ahead and have a few minutes with him first. I’ll just sit over there until you’re done.” He nodded in the direction of a wooden bench not too far away.

  “I’m not sure I know what to say,” she confessed. “I’ve never liked the idea of him being buried here, it doesn’t feel right. And to be honest, I don’t really know where to start.”

  Mac stopped and drew her into his arms. “So just start with sitting by him and go from there. I think you might be surprised with what you finally end up saying. I know I usually am.”

  Mac’s words surprised her. “Do you come here and talk to him often?”

  “Not as often as I used to, but if I’m in town I try to come on his birthday, the day it happened, New Year’s Eve, and when I have a big decision to make, like when I was deciding when to leave the military. Those kinds of things.”

  Delaney sighed. “I should have been here for those things too. For both of you.” Words stuck in her throat, but she hoped Mac understood. The way his arms tightened around her told her he did.

  “Go make up for it now. Take as long as you need.” Mac let go of her and turned toward the bench. She waited for him to sit before she closed the last few feet to Brock’s headstone. As Mac had suggested, she took a seat on the ground and studied the writing on the cool gray marble.

  IN LOVING MEMORY OF BROCK ETHAN SHAPIRO

  APRIL 29, 1984–JULY 7, 2004

  LOVING SON AND BROTHER

  LOVED BY ALL

  It made her stomach tighten to think of him lying in the damp earth beneath her. “I’m sorry they buried you here,” she blurted. It was all so impersonal, so cold and uninviting. “I told them you wouldn’t want this.” Delaney tugged the light denim jacket she was wearing tighter around her. It was a mild day, the sun shining gently down on the plot, but she felt chilled to the bone. “I’m sorry, Brock. It’s crazy that it’s taken me fourteen years to get here. But it’s also crazy to me that you’ve been gone for almost as long as I knew you.” She took a deep breath, and looked around at some of the other gravestones close by before returning her eyes to Brock’s.

  “I’m also sorry that I made you think for even a millisecond that I didn’t have faith in you.” She picked a blade of grass, and ran it between her fingers. “You were my big brother. I thought you were infallible. I had no doubt that you would become a successful SEAL. I guess I just wondered a little too loudly why you wanted to do it. I’m sorry, Brock. But I hope that wherever you are you can hear me. Because I loved you, still love you. I just want you to know that I always believed in you and I can’t begin to count the days that I have doubted myself and wished you’d been around to tell me how to make it all better.”

  Tears began to choke her, and she ran her fingers under her eyes to swipe them away. “I’m mad at Mac for keeping this from me for all these years. But you need to know he did that to keep your memory sacred. He lied to us all about what really went on up there to spare us the additional pain of knowing we were part of the reason why, so that we wouldn’t blame ourselves. He’s the most loyal of all of us, and despite wishing he’d been able to get through to you that jumping off the cliff was not a good idea, he’s never let you down. Not once.”

  She looked over her shoulder toward Mac, who appeared to be studying her through his dark sunglasses. His arms were outstretched, reaching along the back of the bench. His legs were stretched out in front of him, ankles crossed. Looks were deceiving, though, because while he looked like a man relaxing in the sunshine, she knew that he was not only armed but would be highly dangerous if anybody approached. And he was also in love with her.

  “He loves me, Brock. And unless I’m seriously mistaken, I think I’m in love with him too. So please, don’t haunt him for still wanting me.” She smiled through her tears, remembering the way Brock used to mercilessly tease her when she first began dating Mac.

  Delaney stood and wiped the grass from her jeans. “I love you, and I promise it won’t be this long before I come to see you again.” She kissed her fingertips and pressed them to the top of the gravestone.

  Mac stood as she walked toward him.

  “You okay, Buttons?”

  With a nod, she stopped in front of him. “I think I am. I guess the first time was going to be the hardest. But we’ll figure it out. We always did, and we always will.”

  Mac tucked a flyaway strand of hair behind her ear. “Do you mind if I just go have a word?” H
e looked around the graveyard, then back at her. “I haven’t seen anybody come or go.” He took her gun out of his jacket pocket and handed it to her. “You see anything suspicious, you just shout, okay?”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll cover you,” she said as she smiled at him.

  “I’ll settle for you not shooting me,” Mac said over his shoulder as he walked toward Brock’s grave.

  He didn’t sit down like she had. Instead, he crouched right by the side of the headstone and rested his forearm on it. She could see him talking out loud, but she was too far away to hear what he said. She was certain it was about her, though, given the way he would periodically look up and over at her. To give him his privacy, she continued to look around the perimeter, paying close attention to the main path they’d taken there.

  She suddenly started to feel weird, watched. She couldn’t say exactly figure out why, but something was giving her chills. Relief flooded her when Mac finally stood, and she hurried to his side. “I suddenly got a bad feeling,” she said, relieved when Mac immediately put his hand on the waistband of his jeans where she knew his SIG was holstered.

  His eyes scanned the area. “I don’t see anything, Buttons, but I trust you. Let’s get out of here.”

  * * *

  Mac pressed the buzzer to Louisa and Six’s home, and playful barking erupted from inside, followed by cries about giving a shoe back.

  Louisa opened the door. “Did you know anything about this?” she said, eyes narrowed and looking slightly flustered, as a spectacularly cute Labrador retriever pup bounced around her leg before making a dead run for the door, and Mac, and freedom.

  “Not so fast, mister,” he said, scooping the pup up and foiling its bid for the open road. “And no,” he answered, hugging the pup to his chest, relishing the comfort the little squirmer was providing after his conversation with Brock. “I have no idea. Am I to guess that this is a surprise from Six?”

  Louisa sighed, then smiled. “Yeah. Come in, please.” She opened the door wide, and he let Delaney walk ahead of him.

  As they’d left the graveyard, they’d both been on edge, looking around them for any signs of danger. But once they had been safely locked in the car, they’d been quiet, not in a strange and awkward way, but more of a reflective and peaceful one. One that was healthy. Delaney had linked her arm through his and rested her head on his shoulder as he’d driven the short distance to Louisa’s.

  Mac put the puppy down on the floor and laughed as it bounced around chasing its tail. “Do we have a name yet?”

  Louisa gestured toward the sofa, and they took a seat as she sat in the chair facing them. She reached for an envelope that was sitting on a side table and pulled out the piece of paper. “There is some sweet stuff, which in the interest of avoiding making you vomit, I’ll keep to myself. But there is a P.S.: ‘Oh, and Lou, remember a dog’s for life, not just Christmas, so while I trust you to name him, please don’t give him a shit name that I’m going to hate shouting out loud at the dog park.’”

  “Oh my God,” Delaney said. “You need to give him the girliest of girl’s names. He’ll hate that. Something like Cupcake, or something that makes no sense, like … Mouse.”

  Mac looked over at her. “Mouse? Is that really the best you can come up with?”

  Louisa laughed. “I did think about doing something like that, but I think I’m settling on Rollo. You know, the Viking who became the first Duke of Normandy. That feels like a good dog’s name, although I’m not sure Six really considered the logistics of the two us having a dog.”

  “Rollo. I think it suits him,” Mac said, watching the way Rollo had flopped onto the floor by Louisa’s feet, where she was mindlessly tickling his stomach.

  “You said on the phone that you have a chemical formula you wanted me to look at. Can I ask why this formula is so important and where it came from?” She slid the letter that had come with the pup back into its envelope.

  Mac turned to Delaney. They’d had this conversation in the truck. There was no way that somebody as smart as Louisa was not going to ask questions, but Mac had assured Delaney that Louisa would never compromise him, and by association, her. “I explained to Delaney some of what you went through last year, and the easiest way to sum it up is that Delaney is going through something remarkably similar. What we told you that night before Six left was the tip of the iceberg. We have good reason to believe that the things Delaney was looking into have put her on the radar of the people involved.”

  Louisa looked over to Delaney. “That must be terrifying for you,” she said, her voice filled with sympathy. “Literally, I don’t know how I would have survived if it hadn’t been for Six, Mac, and the rest of the guys. I commend you for doing the kind of work you do, even if it puts you in the line of fire.”

  Delaney relaxed and leaned back against the sofa. “Says the woman who just single-handedly opened a not-for-profit medical research center. Coming from you, I’ll take that compliment.”

  The normally nervous Louisa smiled at Delaney, and Mac was filled with a sense, as he’d been on their day at the beach, that the two women held each other in high regard and were building a foundation to be friends. It was great to see Louisa and Delaney finding their own rhythm, and he wondered what kind of woman Cabe would end up with to round out the group.

  “Any time you’d like to come and visit the lab, or perhaps get behind my push to make medicine a not-for-profit industry, I’d be more than happy to show you around. But I want to know more about this formula.”

  “Why don’t I email it to you, and then we can look on your laptop?” Mac watched as Delaney sent the images from her phone. They’d decided that the fewer people who saw and handled the originals, the better, so before they’d left Eagle the night before, they’d painstakingly photographed each sheet, both sides, which Delaney had then compiled into one document.

  “Mac, why don’t you serve some coffee while I get us set up at the kitchen table?”

  He complied while the girls got set up. For a moment, he felt like the male assistant to two very smart women. It was kind of cool. He was used to being the alpha guy in the room, but he was confident enough in himself to admit that these two had the bigger brains.

  “I don’t know if Mac told you already,” Delaney said as Louisa opened the files, “but it looks like we have some crossover between what happened to you and what happened to me. The files you are about to see came to me via a man who worked for an organization headed up by a guy named Lemtov.”

  Louisa looked up at Mac. “You are sure these are the same people?”

  Mac nodded. “It certainly looks that way. Lemtov is becoming a major player on the West Coast. Do you know what that is?” he asked, tipping his chin in the direction of the code that had appeared on her screen.

  “Give me a little bit of time to look through this. Why don’t you guys take your coffee and Rollo out into the garden?”

  Louisa didn’t look up as she spoke, and by the time she’d finished, Mac was pretty certain that it wasn’t as much a question as a statement. “Come on, Rollo,” he commanded, but Rollo just lay on the floor looking up at him.

  “Wow. You’re a regular dog whisperer.” Delaney laughed. She grabbed her coffee from the table where he had put it. “Come on, Rollo.”

  The puppy leapt to its feet and trotted across the wooden floor. Traitorous little shit. But still, Rollo was a boy, and he was following Delaney’s ass, which looked perfect in ink-blue denim.

  “You can come too,” she said to him over her shoulder.

  “I’m on it.”

  He followed Delaney into the garden and sat down on the patio sofa. Rollo ran off and began to dig in the soil. He should probably stop him, but he’d save the dog training for Six.

  “I think it’s amazing how she just keeps going as usual while Six is away,” Delaney said before taking a sip of her coffee.

  “Yeah. I always used to think it was easier to be the one deployed than the one l
eft behind at home. Not that being in the military is a cakewalk, but I always knew where I was, I always knew whether I was okay or not, and I always knew what precautions were or weren’t being taken on my behalf. The people left behind have to pick up all the slack on top of their own responsibilities. For the most part, my mom was lucky if she even knew which theatre I was in.”

  “Theatre?” Delaney asked.

  “Region of the world we were operating in, like the Middle East Theatre. Sometimes, my mom didn’t even know that. But your family has had to go through some similar experiences with you doing what you do, right?”

  Delaney pursed her lips as she often did when she was thinking, and he couldn’t resist stealing a kiss, a sweet soft one designed to reassure rather than seduce. “Sort of. I mean Brock died before I was in college, my dad shortly after. Dad knew that I was set on being a journalism major, even though I think he secretly hoped that I would follow him into screenwriting. And by the time I graduated, my mom’s drinking had gotten worse. It would be hard to say whether she really worried about me. It’s like when he died, my mom’s capacity to be a parent died with him.” She shrugged her shoulders and sighed, a casual gesture that belied the hurt he could see etched in the lines between her eyes.

  Mac put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. “I’m about to scare the crap out of you. Are you ready?”

  Delaney tilted her head to look at him. “I’m not sure.”

  “Well, here goes nothing. I’m going to lose my shit when you go off to do this in the future. I’ll lose it if it’s somewhat dangerous, if it’s somewhere I can’t go, if it’s somewhere I can’t look after you, and most of all if it’s somewhere I’ve been and the idea of you there alone gives me fucking nightmares. But I need you to know that even when I’m questioning every single element of what you’re doing, I’ll support you doing it. Even if it doesn’t look like it or feel like it.”