by Misty Evans
She suspected they didn’t either.
“Hey sis.” Parker blew into Savanna’s room in a royal blue trench coat with some wicked looking heels. She was smiling and looking like the weight of the world had been lifted off her shoulders. “Can I borrow that new Michael Kors bag again tonight? Henley asked me on a second date.”
Savanna accepted a hug, then shook her head at her sister. “No way. He took you to that German bar last time for a hotdog and soccer and you spilled beer on it.”
“I cleaned it off.”
“Took me two days to get the smell of that place out of the leather. Yuck.”
“We’re going to the Smithsonian with Beatrice and Cal to see Einstein and the History of the Brain exhibit.” She leaned a hip on Savanna’s table and picked at the uneaten lunch, snagging a couple of almonds. “There will be no beer involved.”
“Sure there won’t.”
It was good to have Parker back. They’d been nearly inseparable since Savanna had left the hospital. Parker had helped her move into a new, more secure building, and they’d spent quite a few nights telling each other the secrets they’d both been keeping.
This thing with Henley, though…
“You really like him?” Savanna asked, watching Parker stack a slice of cheese on a cracker. “He’s not your type.”
“That’s an understatement.” Parker chuckled but the blush on her face said it all. Normally, she gravitated to brainy types like herself. Geeks. Not bad boys with shady backgrounds and even shadier restaurant preferences. “I guess I’m up for a little ‘not my type’, you know? He’s so funny, and he can change his accent on a dime. No lie, he can do Southern Texan, Upper East Side New York, and everything in between. Irish, Scottish, British, East Indian. Aussie. He wants kids someday.”
Kids? Holy cow.
But there was that look in her sister’s eyes. The one that said Parker was happy.
And maybe in love.
Damn. That made two of them, only Savanna’s shady bad boy had left her high and dry.
It’s not like we were dating.
He’d said he wanted to start over. They sure had. He’d stuck around for a week after she’d left the hospital, taking her to physical therapy, and making sure she had everything she needed at her new place. Driving her to and from meetings with federal officials to give her statement and to meetings with the heads of various networks who wanted her to join their news teams. It had been a whirlwind of fun. Then, poof. He’d disappeared without so much as a ‘see ya later.’
“You can have the Kors bag,” Savanna said, heading for the door. Work was the only thing that kept her mind off the emptiness she felt every time she thought of Trace’s absence. “I have to get to makeup. Talk later, I promise.”
“Have you heard from him?”
Savanna stayed her hand on the doorknob. Parker didn’t need to say his name for Savanna to know who she was asking about. “Yes and no.”
“What does that mean?”
Beatrice had told Savanna that Trace had been called to San Diego by the Navy for some meetings, but he wasn’t responding to her texts, and her calls went straight to voicemail. “Well, I haven’t heard from him directly since he left two weeks ago. However, the breaking news today about the guy in Oregon the Feds arrested?”
Parker’s eyes lit up. She still thought like an undercover operative even if she no longer was one. “You think Trace is behind that?”
Parker had told her most of what she could about her life undercover, and Savanna had told her sister about the coach who’d molested her. There were no more secrets between them. “The man is going by an alias, Parker, but it’s him. Coach Watson.”
Parker came off the desk. “No. Are you shitting me?”
Savanna shook her head. “Trace went after him. For me, I’m assuming.”
“That guy.” Parker smiled. “I really like him.”
Me too. “He is not a good communicator.”
“Really? He went after a man who hurt you as a kid. Knowing Trace, he probably wanted to kill the guy but that wouldn’t have given you justice. Having the asshole arrested and embarrassed on national TV? Oh, yeah, much more satisfying. His alias will be stripped away and the truth of what happened all those years ago will come out, Savanna.” Her sister winked. “Seems like that’s a pretty strong message from a guy who loves you. You now have the opportunity to reveal everything that bottom-feeding piece of scum did to you and Nora, and make sure he never hurts another girl again. That’s justice, little sister.”
Maybe she was right. But love? Did Trace love her or was he acting out of a sense of duty and honor? Or, God help her, friendship? “Why can’t he text me and just say he’s okay?”
“That would leave a trail to Watson, and one thing he’s a master at, is not leaving a trail. He’s doing it anonymously and that’s the only way for him.”
She hadn’t thought of that. “At first I thought he ran because they might throw him back in jail, but his name’s been cleared. Beatrice said the Navy wants him back. They want to put him in charge of his own SEAL team. Have him teach them and take them into the field. She claims that’s why he left, but why wouldn’t he tell me?”
“Maybe he didn’t want you worrying about it. Of course, the Navy wants him back. He’s the ultimate fighting machine. Do you think he’ll do it? Go back to being a SEAL?”
Savanna shrugged. “Like I said, he doesn’t tell me anything. If he goes back to the Navy, it could take a year or more before his platoon is ready to go.” Rory had filled her in on how things worked with the Teams. “And that would mean he’d be in San Diego and I’d be here.”
Parker closed the distance between them and squeezed her arm. “He’ll be back soon and you guys can talk. You haven’t told him how you feel about him. He’s making decisions without knowing the truth. You said no more secrets, but you’re keeping a very big one from him.”
Her stomach clenched sending a new way of nausea through her. Maybe Parker was right. Not telling Trace she loved him, wondering if he loved her, was keeping her nerves on edge and affecting her mending stomach.
“If he would return a call or text me, I could at least get a feel for what he wants. Does he want a relationship? Does he not? I can’t say anything until I know. If he wants to go back to the SEALs and he ends up not doing that because of me, I couldn’t stand that. It would ruin things. I won’t be the reason he doesn’t go back to serving his country, Parker.”
“You read the file I brought you? The real one?”
Savanna nodded. She was using some of the basic information from it for her show in an hour. “That’s what I’m talking about. He’s a bona fide hero. The quiet, unsung hero. Maybe that’s what he still wants to be.”
“Or maybe he wants to start a new life with you. I’m telling you, that man loves you. I saw it the night you were shot. He’ll be back, I promise. I know how his brain works. And as soon as he is, you two need to talk and then we all have to go out and celebrate our new jobs.”
Parker had walked away from National Intelligence and taken a position with a private company, working on a new brain study on memory function. After being cleared of any wrong doing by the attorney general and turning state’s evidence on the president, she’d presented her findings to a couple of scientists in the field and received an invitation to join an elite group doing groundbreaking work with Alzheimer’s patients.
“Speaking of jobs,” Savanna said. “I really do need to get to mine.”
They hugged and Parker left. Savanna made her way to the hair and makeup station, wondering once more if Trace had gone back to the SEAL teams. Tonight’s show was about him and the heroic work he’d done in service to his country before she’d taken it all away. There would be no photos, no information about his whereabouts or his current status—which she didn’t know anyway—but she had to right the wrong she’d done to him. She had to fess up to not doing her homework and wrongfully accusing him of being
a traitor nearly two years ago.
There would be no blame placed on Parker or even Linc Norman. Savanna would never not do her own investigations again, and the American public needed to know Trace’s public humiliation and downfall was her fault, not anyone else’s.
She just hoped that wherever he was, he was watching.
AS A SEAL, he’d been trained to control his emotions, not let anything or anyone get to him.
Savanna Jeffries Bunkett, all one-hundred-and-twenty-pounds of her, had taken that away from him.
Nineteen months and two days after she’d destroyed his career, his reputation, and his future, she went on national television once more to clear his name and tell the world he was a hero.
Sitting on the couch in her new apartment, he turned off the TV and let the shadows engulf him. Her show had been over an hour ago, but he’d been too stunned to move afterwards.
He was neither hero nor traitor. He was a man with a damaged past and an empty future.
For the first time in his life, he didn’t have direction. There were no longer bars holding him hostage, but the idea that he had no clear path in front of him, no orders to follow, no bad guys to hunt down, no one to protect or keep secure, was worse than any prison cell.
I need Savanna.
But she didn’t need him. The idea haunted him, had driven him away for a while. Yet, here he was, back in DC needing to see her so badly his chest ached. She kept his demons at bay, made him feel normal.
So be it if she didn’t need him the same way. He could live with that fact. She had her career, rising again, and she loved her life. It was evident in everything she did. He hoped by being close to her, in whatever capacity she would let him, some of that love of life would rub off on him.
Because even if he didn’t love his life, he loved her.
“Incoming,” Rory said in his ear comm. “She’s in front of the building.”
Trace touched the unit. “Thanks, man.”
He was back working for Shadow Force International for now. No more security work—he was in the deep, dark stuff now. Petit had already talked to him about a new assignment, this one in Panama City involving a drug gang and a kidnapping.
Dangerous work. Work that would take him away from Savanna for a time. He needed to see her reaction when he told her. See if she would be upset he was leaving again so soon, or maybe filled with relief.
His sensitive ears picked up the sound of the elevator doors, heard her crossing the hallway to the penthouse.
She keyed in her security code, came through the door, then closed it, backing up against it and closing her eyes.
She looked exhausted. Drained. She had a pink colored drink in one hand, her laptop bag in the other. Still leaning against the door with her eyes closed, she kicked off one high-heeled shoe and then the other. Her toes curled and she let go of the computer bag, setting it on the floor. She made a little sound in the back of her throat. “Much better.”
He couldn’t stop staring at her. That sound, that look of utter relief and joy, made his heart ping around in his chest like a pinball. How many times had he made her look like that in bed? How many times had he heard that sound when he touched her in certain spots?
Opening her eyes, she pushed off the door and fumbled with the buttons on her coat.
“Nice show tonight,” he said from the shadows. “You almost made me sound like a decent human being.”
She startled, the coat still half on, and nearly dropped the smoothie. “You! What are you doing here?” One hand went to her chest. “You nearly gave me a heart attack. Why are you sitting in the dark?”
Flipping on the lights, she gave him a hard stare, then finished getting the coat off and came over to stand in front of the coffee table. She set the cup on the table and showed him her cell phone. “See this?”
He nodded, trying to maintain eye contact while her legs and her bare feet taunted him. There were no yoga pants today, only a tight-fitting skirt that stopped shy of her knees and showed off her sexy calves.
“This,” she said in a scolding voice, “is a phone. You call people with it, you text them. Hell, you can even access crazy stuff like email, and I’m pretty sure you have one that’s even fancier than mine.”
He liked it when she was fired up. All that annoyance. All that irritation and frustration.
If he could get her in the bedroom, he could help take care of the frustration.
“I’m sorry I didn’t stay in touch. I had my reasons.”
“Was one of those reasons the breaking news today out of Oregon about Coach Watson?”
He remained silent, giving her a small smile.
She paled. “Did you find proof he was still molesting girls?”
“The child porn suggested it was a strong possibility.”
She nodded and some of the bluster went out of her. “Thank you for that. For tracking him down and making sure he was arrested. You didn’t have to do that.”
“Remember back in the hospital, I told you I’d like us to start over?”
The phone joined the cup on the coffee table. Savanna stayed standing. “I remember.”
“I needed to make sure we were both starting with a fresh slate.”
“Zeb and I talked about it today. Watson’s true identity is already public and it’s been revealed that he was a former coach with the 2004 Olympic team. A few reporters have already called to see if I have a comment. Zeb is handpicking someone to do a sit down and interview me for primetime. I’m going to tell my story. My mother will never speak to me again, but I have to stop keeping this secret.”
“That’s why I went after him. Yes, I wanted to make sure he wasn’t hurting other girls, and maybe I wanted some payback for you, too, but I also knew you needed the opportunity to tell your story so you could put the past behind you and move forward. If seeing him go to jail is enough, then so be it, but if you need more, like exposing what really happened on The Bunk Stops Here, you have that choice now.”
Slowly, she sank into the chair across from him. It was a velvety sapphire blue that matched her eyes. “Parker was right about you.”
“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”
“She said you have your own way of communicating. I can respect that.”
He heard an edge in her voice. “But?”
“No buts. I just… I need to tell you something, and right now, I’m feeling pretty unsure of the best way to do that. I’m usually good with words, but not so much right now.”
His stomach dropped. From her tone and the rigidness in her body, he sensed she was about to drop a bomb on him.
His gaze dropped to the cup on the table. The phone. The urgency he’d heard in some of her messages. “Aw, shit, Savanna. Are you…?”
“Am I what?”
He choked out the word. “Pregnant?”
Those pretty blue eyes went wide and she teetered on the edge of the chair, half-laughing. “God, no. Trust me, I already checked. My stomach’s been a queasy mess, but it’s because I’ve been so stressed out about you.”
Relief flooded him. Not that he never wanted kids, but he wasn’t father material. He’d made up his mind a long time ago that that type of happily ever after would never happen for him. “Then what is it?”
She clapped her hands in her lap, worrying her fingers. “I guess I was hoping that the show I did today would tell you how I feel about you.”
“I’m not a hero, Savanna.”
“You are to me.” Her next words rushed out on a heavy breath. “I just… I don’t want you to go back to the Navy. And I know that’s wrong, but you’d be in San Diego, and I’d be here, and well… I would miss you.”
Trace sat forward and put his elbows on his knees. “Who said I was going back to the Navy?”
“Beatrice said they called you in for a meeting to offer you a new assignment training a team of SEALs.”
“They did.”
“And?”
“I take it you haven’
t talked to her today. I’m going back to Shadow Force.”
“Shadow Force?”
“Shadow Force International. Rock Star Security is a cover for the real work Emit and his teams do. Yes, RSS is real and we all take turns doing the bodyguard thing, but Shadow Force is the group behind that. We perform private intelligence, security, and paramilitary missions, helping people who have nowhere else to turn. Dangerous shit that will require me to go out of the country and keep some things from you for your safety as well as our clients’.”
“I suspected there was more to the bodyguard business than Beatrice was letting on.”
“My days of taking orders are over, Savanna. I’ve always done what I was told to do, always followed orders and did the right thing, no matter what it cost me. I’m not doing that anymore. From now on, I’m doing what makes me happy.”
Her gaze locked on his, scanning, searching. “And what is it that makes you happy, Lt. Hunter?”
“You.”
A tiny smile touched her lips. She ran her palms over the tight material of the skirt, played with the hem, drawing his attention to her beautiful thighs. “Okay, cool, I’m just going to say it. The thing I need to tell you.”
He gave her a chin cock to continue.
“I thought you knew this already, but maybe you don’t, and I need to say it. Straight out.”
He waited. Watched her work up her nerve.
“I love you.” Her lips folded in for a second and when he didn’t say anything, she murmured, “awk-ward,” under her breath.
“Okay, then,” he said.
“Okay then?” She stood as if someone had poked her with a hot branding iron. “Okay then? Wow. I guess you don’t feel the same. No problem. I get it.”
Coming to his feet, he reached across the table and grabbed her arm before she could run off. “I didn’t say that.”
“Yeah, you kinda did.”
“Savanna.” He went around the table, still holding onto her arm, and came to stop right in front of her so he could look down into those eyes that made him feel like he wanted to drown in them. “I’m not you. I do suck at communicating with words. Actions are easier for me. I’ve never said the words I love you to any woman before, but… I do love you.”