Navy SEAL Seduction

by Bonnie Vanak

  And he’d stay in the teams, growing older until age forced him to retire or become an instructor. Sit around at night drinking with the guys, reminiscing about the good old days of action and adventure so he could avoid going to his dark, lonely house where no one waited for him.

  No one at all.

  * * *

  Late in the afternoon they headed back home. Though most of the shops had closed for elections, the main road back to her compound was busy as they left the town of La Petite Île.

  Dogs wandered alongside the street, noses to the ground as they looked for scraps. Men carried bags on their heads as women balanced baskets on their heads filled with fruit and vegetables. Trucks backfired, belching blue smoke. This was the St. Marc she knew and loved.

  Lacey hoped it would stay this way, and there would be no more violence.

  It had been a wonderful day with Jarrett and Fleur. He’d been friendly and teasing with Fleur, yet stern when she acted up. He’d make a great dad.

  But after she’d seen Francis, her former boyfriend, Jarrett had said little to her. Maybe it was because Francis kept jabbering, twirling his tennis racket as he pretended interest in her charity and how the adoption of her daughter was proceeding. Or perhaps it was because Francis put a very proprietary hand on her arm, and Jarrett had immediately stiffened.

  She’d finally gotten away from Francis with the excuse that she and Jarrett needed to check on Fleur.

  Francis wasn’t her type. Their relationship hadn’t lasted beyond six months. He looked good in tennis clothing, and looked great decked out in dinner clothing, but he was too self-centered and snobbish to pay attention to what her needs were.

  Even in bed.

  And that little remark about them sleeping together had been pure posturing because of Jarrett. Jarrett, who had spent extra time getting to know her all over again, asking with a quiet murmur, “Like this, sweetheart?” and making sure she had been pleasured before taking his own.

  There was no comparison between the two men. Jarrett was a trained warrior, dedicated to protecting his country and keeping civilians safe. Francis barely worked and cared more about his appearance and his trust fund.

  Francis was a minnow, and Jarrett was a shark.

  She glanced at the backseat where Fleur napped, exhausted from the sunshine and the day’s fun. “Do you mind if we make a quick stop along the way? Mrs. Beaufort’s home is on the road and I need to express my condolences in person.”

  Jarrett’s jaw tensed. “Is that a good idea for Fleur?”

  “She’s been to funerals before, Jarrett. And she’ll hear talk about what happened. There is only so much I can do to shield her from it.”

  “You could get her out of this place. Take her the hell out of here, where she won’t be exposed to danger.”

  Anger simmered inside her. “Are you trying to tell me how to raise my daughter?”

  “I’m trying to keep both of you alive and safe.” Jarrett checked the rearview mirror. “More than your boyfriend would.”

  Lacey drew in a deep breath. “Francis was my boyfriend. Not anymore. What was I supposed to do, ignore him?”

  Jarrett stared at the road and the big truck lumbering in front of them, belching black exhaust. “He acted as if you’re still together.”

  “He puts on a show,” she snapped then lowered her voice, not wanting Fleur to wake up and find them fighting. “He’s part of the people I socialize with here in St. Marc. We’re always going to run into each other.”

  “Maybe you should pick new friends.”

  She clamped up, determined not to fight, only speaking to give him directions to Mrs. Beaufort’s house.

  They turned off the main road onto a dirt road. After a few minutes they came to a small, modest concrete house. Several cars were outside. Jarrett parked the SUV facing the main road.

  Another little trait she appreciated. He always ensured that the car would be parked for a quick exit. After being in some tight areas in the slums of St. Marc, she knew the importance of this.

  For a moment he sat, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, looking lost in thought.

  “Are you coming?” she nudged him.

  Finally, he climbed out.

  Fleur had woken up and was slightly cranky, but fell quiet as they walked up to the front door. Clasping her daughter’s hand, Lacey knocked, her heart pounding hard as Jarrett stood behind them, his service pistol thankfully tucked out of sight. She saw the lace curtains at the window draw back and a dark face peer out.

  The door opened a minute later and Arleen Beaufort, Caroline’s mother, greeted them. Her eyes red-rimmed, the woman hugged her.

  “Lacey. Thank you, thank you for coming and remembering my Caroline.”

  Tears welled up in Lacey’s eyes as she hugged her back.

  She introduced Jarrett, who shook her hand. Arleen reached down and hugged Fleur.

  They went into the living room. People were milling about, talking quietly. Arleen pointed to the kitchen. “Fleur, my grandchildren are in there eating milk and cookies. Why don’t you join them?”

  Fleur looked at Lacey for confirmation. “It’s okay, sweetie. Go on.”

  Arleen led them to the sofa and they sat down. Someone brought over tall glasses of lemonade. As Jarrett thanked the person, Lacey opened her purse.

  “This is to pay for funeral expenses,” Lacey told her, pressing the check into Arleen’s hands. “Caroline was a former employee. Please, let me do this.”

  For a moment she feared the woman’s pride would make her refuse. Then Arleen’s thin shoulders sagged. “Thank you, Lacey. Thank you.”

  Jarrett’s expression softened. He reached over, squeezed the woman’s hand but his look of respect was aimed at Lacey.

  Then fresh tears welled in Arleen’s eyes again. “The police won’t release the body yet. They say it might be a few days before the coroner...”

  “They have to do their job, Arleen, and try to find who did this to your daughter.”

  Jarrett spoke in a low voice. “Mrs. Beaufort, do you have any idea who might want to hurt your daughter? Did she have a boyfriend, friends who might have been jealous?”

  He gathered the woman’s hands into his and spoke in a soothing voice, looking directly at her. When he looked at you that way, his expression filled with compassion, his gaze sincere, he connected.

  Such a great guy. Not only a warrior dedicated to sacrificing all for his country, but a man who related well with others. That was one of the qualities she’d always admired about Jarrett, and one of the reasons she’d fallen in love with him.

  And you’re still in love with him. Lacey startled at the thought, and its ring of truth.

  “Everyone liked my Caroline. She was popular,” Arleen said.

  “I know it must be difficult to talk about this. Was she associating with people who were practicing hoodoo?”

  The woman shook her head violently. “That’s a rumor. An old rumor that people like to spread. My girl would never be around those kind of people. Caroline was a little wild, and she didn’t like hard work, but she was a good girl.”

  “She may have fallen victim to someone who didn’t like her,” Jarrett said.

  “They told me her heart...” The woman stopped and took a deep breath. “Her heart had been cut out of her chest. But not in the style of the old black magic hoodoo. Those who used to do that kind of magic always marked their victims with a pentagram to show the dead person’s heart was a gift to the devil. There was no pentagram on my Caroline.”

  Lacey’s stomach roiled and Jarrett’s grip on her hand tightened. “Someone wanted this to look like black magic,” he guessed.

  Arleen blinked at her tears. “It doesn’t matter. My little girl is still dead.”

  Jarrett looked around the room. “Was there anyone she’d gone to visit when she vanished?”

  “The man she was seeing. She never told me his name, only that he was very rich. Caroline told me t
he day before she left here that he was going to take her to his home in the capital and then eventually to the United States. I begged her to see reason. She didn’t even have a passport. But she was stubborn, my girl.”

  “Did any of her friends mention the boyfriend’s name, Mrs. Beaufort?”

  “She was so secretive about him. But after she vanished... I went through her things and found a photo in her bureau. I’ll get it.”

  Lacey bit her lower lip, trying to reel in her emotions. The mourners, the solemn air in the house and the smiling photos of Caroline lining the dining table, along with the lit candles and the flowers, rattled her composure. And seeing Fleur grow quiet and sad again made her feel guilty. Maybe Jarrett was right. She’d been so happy today, acting and being a normal kid. And now all that had vanished.

  Jarrett put a hand on her shoulder and gently squeezed. Lacey covered his hand with her own.

  Arleen returned with the photo and handed it to Lacey. “Do you know him?”

  The picture was at a black-tie party, the typical kind Lacey had attended many times in her duties as the senator’s daughter. Several people mingling near Caroline held cocktails. Her mouth went dry and her heart skipped a beat as she recognized the man laughing with Caroline. Lacey forced herself to speak. “It’s hard to tell. The photo is a little blurry. Can I keep this?”

  Upon the woman’s nod, Lacey slipped the photograph into her purse.

  They remained a few minutes and then said their goodbyes. Lacey hugged Arleen again, knowing her world would never be the same. What would happen if she lost Fleur? Her beloved little girl?

  When they climbed into the SUV, and Fleur was buckled in, Jarrett’s expression remained tense. “You knew who it was.”

  Lacey nodded as she fumbled with her seat belt. She knew the man in the photograph and judging from Jarrett’s reaction, he had recognized him, as well.

  The man in the photo standing next to Caroline was Paul Lawrence. Her business partner.

  As Jarrett accessed the main road to head home, she cast a worried glance at Fleur. She was asleep again, probably worn out from the long day and the emotion at Arleen Beaufort’s home.

  “That was very nice of you to give the money to bury her daughter, Lace,” he told her quietly. “You have a generous heart.”

  Generous? She thought of the man in the photo and felt a pinch of guilt. “She needs it. I wish I could have been truthful about the photo, but I didn’t want Arleen to know I recognized Paul. I’m going to question him myself before anyone else gets to him, maybe even hurts him because they think he killed Caroline.”

  “Leave it to me. I’ll go.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. “It’ll be dangerous. He’ll be like a cornered animal, Jarrett. And he would never let you in the front door.”

  Giving her an exasperated look, he shook his head. “Lace, I’m a SEAL. I don’t need a front door.”

  “Jarrett...”

  “I don’t want you within an inch of that bastard. I don’t like him or trust him and now that we know he’s somehow associated with Caroline, he’s become dangerous. Stay home with Fleur and let me handle this.”

  She bristled. “He’s my business partner.”

  “And he could be a murderer, Lace.” Jarrett shot her a level look.

  “He couldn’t have killed her. I doubt he was the one seeing her. Paul isn’t like that.”

  “Are you saying that because he’s your dad’s friend and your business partner?”

  Lacey’s stomach churned with doubts. Paul had been a ladies’ man since his divorce two years ago. What if he had been Caroline’s secret boyfriend?

  Jarrett’s bristled jaw tensed, and the big vein throbbed in his temple. “You’re not getting near him, Lace. Let me handle this.”

  “Not alone. Take Gene or Sam.”

  He blinked. “I’m better off on my own.”

  “Huh. That’s not what you said all those times you returned from deployment, Lt. Adler. You always stated your teammates were your brothers in arms, and you worked best with them because you were trained to get the job done and they watched your six and you watched theirs.”

  Silence draped between them for a minute. Then he sighed, so deeply it made his T-shirt tighten over his muscled chest.

  “You’re right. But I’m going to have to get used to working on my own soon enough.”

  Lacey gentled her tone. “Why?”

  “I don’t know what I want to do when I retire, and I don’t know if I’ll make it another four years to retirement. The ops tempo is getting to me, Lace.”

  She leaned over, put a hand on his arm. This man had given so much to others, and no matter what troubles they’d had in the past, she knew his quiet dedication to his career and how he’d put his life on the line.

  “You can do anything you want, Jarrett. Go back to grad school, become an engineer, an instructor. Find your dream and chase it, Jarrett. You’re intelligent and dedicated and operate well under stress. Those are fine qualities any employer would be happy to have.”

  He gave a wry smile. “Maybe you can hire me.”

  “I would hire you in a heartbeat, Jarrett,” she said softly.

  She had faith in him. She only wished he’d had shown the same dedication to their marriage as he had to his career.

  As they approached the toll booth on the new highway the government had built, Jarrett nodded at his wallet. “Reach in there and get the money, will you, Lace?”

  She opened the wallet and fished out two bills and handed them over. Then as she started to replace the wallet on the center console, it spilled onto the floor.

  A photo tucked among the credit cards caught her eye. Shock filled her as she pulled it out and stared at the folded, laminated photo.

  The sonogram of the baby she’d miscarried.

  How long had he carried this? As Jarrett pulled up to the toll booth and handed over the cash, Lacey traced the lines of the baby’s form with a trembling finger. Memories gushed back like a tidal wave.

  Waiting until he had pulled out of the toll booth, Lacey showed him the photo. Jarrett glanced at it and swore quietly. He pulled into the parking lot of a tire business, parked and stared at the paper. He glanced over one shoulder at the sleeping Fleur, and the sorrow in his expression made her heart ache.

  “You didn’t forget her,” she whispered, and she knew he would understand what she meant.

  “How could I, Lace? She was my daughter. We created her, our little girl. I had dreams about her, dreams about holding her, playing with her, teaching her how to talk, hell.”

  Taking a deep breath, he looked away, his jaw tense as rock. “I even thought about when she’d grow older and date. And how I’d lecture her, and the boys, and tell them if they didn’t open the car door for our daughter, didn’t show her the respect a man always shows to a lady, they were gone.”

  She smiled despite the gathering dampness in her own eyes. “I’d be surprised you would let her date at all.”

  “Oh, I would. And chaperone with an assault weapon.” His mouth twitched as if he smiled, but it was a brief smile. “When I got the call from you that day, all I could think was how damn scared I was, and how terrified you must be. And pacing the hospital hallways, praying you were okay, praying the baby would make it and this was just a scare, it was hell. I’ve been through missions where I wasn’t certain if we’d make it out alive, where the guys all joked about Hershey squirts in our jockeys when the intel we got was bad and a buttload of tangos would be firing at us, and nothing compared to the fear I felt when I heard you were bleeding heavily and being rushed to the hospital.”

  He looked down at his hands. Big, capable hands. “That little girl inside you meant everything to me. It was a family we were starting. A little girl with your sweet smile, your laugh and your sunny personality. It was a new start for me. The day you told me you were pregnant, I felt I could live again.”

  Lacey’s heart skipped a beat. “What do you
mean?”

  He glanced at her. “Remember that op that went south in Afghanistan?”

  “The one where the helicopter went down?”

  He nodded. “I was there, Lace. The guys who were killed in the helo crash were part of the QRF sent to extract us.”

  At her puzzled frown, he added, “Quick Reaction Force. Peter was on that helo. My swim buddy from BUD/S.”

  She remembered the awful crash, and how quiet Jarrett had been when he’d gotten home, refusing to talk about anything. They had gone to Peter’s funeral and she’d seen Jarrett pay his respects to Peter’s parents. Of course she’d know Peter and Jarrett were close, but each time she’d tried to coax him into talking about it, asking if he was okay, he’d rebuffed her questions, saying he was fine.

  Everything was a-okay.

  And it was not.

  “Pete was a hell of a warrior. We were teammates. He was part of the QRF sent to save my ass, and he died. I came home, safe and sound, and he came home in a body bag.” He took a deep breath.

  “Pete died out there in the desert, and he was on that helo to save me. And I survived. Every mission I took after that, I told myself, ‘This one’s for you, Pete.’ It was my way of dealing with the guilt of being a survivor.”

  “Jarrett, you never told me.” She placed a hand on his arm.

  “How could I? I had vowed silence to the code of the teams, but more than that, I vowed to never burden you with my work, with what I have to deal with all the time.”

  Jarrett flexed his scarred fingers. “Some people think because we’re Navy SEALs we feel no fear. That’s pure BS, Lace. We feel fear. We’re human. It’s how you push past the fear to get the job done that matters. But no one ever taught me how to deal with the guilt of being the one who didn’t come home in a body bag, everyone weeping over my goddamn coffin.”