Seal Team Ten

by Brockmann, Suzanne

  Compared to Ashley, Colleen was a mess. Her hair was everywhere. Her smile was crooked. Her breasts looked as if they were about to explode out from under her T-shirt every time she moved She was too much of everything— too tall, too stacked, too blunt, too funny, too into having a good time wherever she went. Laughter spilled out of her constantly. Her eyes were never the same color from one minute to the next, but they were always, always welcom­ing and warm.

  Desire knifed through him so sharply he had to clench his fists.

  "Forgive my brother," Ashley continued. "He's termi­nally stupid."

  He yanked his gaze away from Colleen, aware he'd been staring at her with his tongue nearly hanging out. God, he couldn't let her catch him looking at her that way. If she knew the truth...

  Who was he kidding? She'd probably already guessed the truth. And now she was trying to drive him slowly insane with all those deep looks and the seemingly inno­cently casual way she touched him damn near constantly in passing. A hand on his arm, on his knee. Fingers cool against his face as she fixed a stray lock of his hair. Brush­ing against him with her shoulder. Sitting so close that their thighs touched.

  And the things she said to him! She thought they should be the kind of friends who had sex three or four times a day. She'd only been teasing. She liked being outrageous— saying things like that and trying to shake him up.

  That one had worked.

  "I'm a chief petty officer," Bobby explained to the kid with blue hair, working to keep up with the conversation. That kid's name was Clark. He was Ashley's brother—no doubt about that. He had the same perfectly sculpted nose and chin, slightly differently shaped eyes that were a wanner shade of gray. "I'm in the Navy."

  "Whoa, dude," Clark said. "With long hair like that?" He laughed. "Hey, maybe they'll take me, huh?"

  "Bobby's a—" Colleen cut herself off, and Bobby knew she was remembering all that he'd told her about the way most people's attitudes changed when they found out he was a SEAL. She looked at him and as their eyes met he felt the small room shrink. It was as if he'd been caught in the beam of a searchlight—he and Colleen. Ashley, Clark and Kenneth vanished in the darkness outside his peripheral vision. All he could see was Colleen and her beautiful, laughing eyes.

  They were very blue right now.

  "Bobby's a very good friend of mine," she said softly, instead of telling them he was a SEAL.

  "I should join the Navy," Clark's voice cut through. "Wouldn't that tick the old man off?"

  "I had big plans for tonight," Colleen said, still looking into Bobby's eyes. "I was going to cook dinner for Bobby and then seduce him by dancing naked in the kitchen."

  There she went again. More teasing. She was laughing at him—probably at the look of shock on his face. But as she turned away, as the world opened up again to include the other three people in the room, Bobby got the feeling that she wasn't completely kidding. She'd had plans for tonight, and those plans had included him.

  "I should go," he said, wanting to stay at least as much as he wanted to keep breathing. But he couldn't stay. No way.

  "No," Ashley said swiftly. "We were just going out."

  "No, we weren't," Clark said with disdain. "You are such a liar. You have a headache—so bad that Kenneth was going to the drugstore to get you some painkillers." He turned to Colleen. "Unless you've got some hidden here. Ash wouldn't let me search your bedroom."

  "Gee, I don't know why," Colleen said. "Could it maybe have something to do with the fact that the last time you searched my room I got home and called the police because I thought I'd been vandalized? Besides, you wouldn't have found any. I don't get headaches. Did you look in the bathroom?"

  "I'm feeling much better," Ashley interrupted. Bobby had just met her, but even he could tell that she was lying. "We're going out."

  "But what about that letter you were going to write to Dad?"

  "It can wait." Ashley motioned toward the door with her head, making big eyes at her brother. "This is Bobby Taylor. Wes's friend?" Clark stared at her blankly, as only a younger brother can stare at an older sister. “The Navy SEAL...?"

  "Oh," Clark said. "Oh. Right." He looked at Bobby. "You're a SEAL, huh? Cool."

  Colleen's smile was rueful and apologetic. "Sorry," she told Bobby. "I tried."

  Clark grinned at Kenneth. "Dude! You were almost killed by a Navy SEAL! You should definitely tell the girls at that party tonight. I bet one of 'em will go home with you."

  "Ashley, you really don't have to go anywhere," Col­leen said to her friend. "You look wiped. What happened? What'd your father do now?"

  Ashley just shook her head.

  "What's a Navy SEAL?" Kenneth asked. "And do you suppose if he actually had killed me then Jennifer Reilly might want to marry me? I mean, if you think she might go home with me if he almost killed me...."

  "Oh, no way!" Clark countered. "I wasn't thinking Jenn Reilly, dude! Set your sights lower, man. Think B or C tier. Think Stacy Thurmond or Candy Fremont."

  "You rank the women you know into tiers?" Colleen was outraged. "Get out of my house, scumball!"

  "Whoa," Clark said, backing up and tripping over one of the boxes. "We don't tell 'em we rank 'em. We'd never say it to their faces. They don't know. Honest."

  "Yes, they do," Colleen countered. "Believe me, they know."

  "Who is this we to whom you keep referring, scum-ball?" Kenneth asked Clark.

  "What tier am I in?" Colleen's voice was dangerously quiet.

  "A," Clark told her quickly. "Absolutely. You are so completely, gorgeously, perfectly A."

  Colleen cut him down with a single word—a pungent profanity that Bobby realized he'd never heard her use be­fore. Unlike Wes, she didn't pepper her everyday speech with four-letter words. As a matter of fact, he couldn't re­member the last time he'd heard her say damn or even hell. It was pretty remarkable actually, considering how prone she was to blurting out whatever was on her mind.

  / think we should be the kind of friends who have wild sex three or four times a day. Help.

  "Once when I was running down by the river," Colleen told Clark tightly, "I went past these two guys who were grading all the women who ran by. The wind carried their voices to me right at the exact moment they were checking me out. They gave me a C minus—probably about the equivalent of your lower C tier."

  Bobby couldn't stay silent another second. "They were fools."

  "They were...several words I will not lower myself to use," she said, chin held high, pretending that a C-minus ranking by a pair of strangers didn't bother her one bit. Pretending she was above that. Pretending that she hadn't been hurt.

  "You're on my A list," Bobby said. The moment the words left his lips, he realized he'd just made a fatal mis­take. Although he'd meant it as the highest compliment, he'd just admitted that he had an A list. And that would make him little better than...what had she called Clark? A scumball.

  "That came out really wrong," he told her quickly as her eyes started to narrow.

  Clark, the genius, stepped up to the plate. "See? All guys have lists. It's a guy thing," he protested, not old enough to know that all either of them could do now was grovel, apologize and pray for forgiveness. "It doesn't mean any­thing."

  "Bobby, strangle him, strangle his strange, plaid-clothed little friend," Colleen ordered him, "and then strangle yourself."

  "What I meant to say," Bobby told her, moving close enough to catch her chin with his hand, so she now had to look up into his eyes, "was that I find you as beautiful on the outside as you are on the inside."

  The searchlight clicked back on, and the rest of the world faded. Colleen was looking at him, her eyes wide, her lips slightly parted. She was the only other person in the entire universe. No one and nothing else existed. He couldn't even seem to move his hand away from the soft smoothness of her face.

  "Strangle me?" Bobby heard Kenneth protest, his voice faint, as if coming from a great distance. "Why strangle me? I don't p
ut anyone into tiers, thank you very much."

  "Yeah, because you can't see past Jenn Reilly," Clark countered, also from somewhere way back there, beyond Colleen's eyes and Colleen's lips. "For you, Jenn's got her own gigantic tier—and everyone else is invisible. You and Jenn are so not going to happen, man. Even if hell froze over, she would walk right past you and date Frosty the Snowman. And then she would call you later to tell you how it went because you guys are friends. Sheesh. Don't you know friendship is the kiss of death between a man and a woman?"

  "That was very sweet," Colleen told Bobby softly. "I forgive you."

  She took his hand and kissed him, right on the palm, and Bobby felt something major snap in his chest.

  Oh, God, he had to get out of here before it was too late. Before he reached for her and...

  He turned away, forcing himself to focus on blue hair and a loud plaid. Anything but Colleen and her bone-melting smile.

  "Yes, I'm thwarted by the curse of being the friend." Kenneth sighed. "I'm double damned because Jennifer thinks I'm gay. I'm her gay friend. I've told her that I'm quite not, thanks, but..."

  "Everyone thinks you're gay," Clark countered. "Tell me honestly, bro," he asked Bobby. "When you first saw Kenneth—I mean, Kenneth, come on, man. Only a gay dude would call himself Kenneth instead of Ken or Kenny—when you first saw him, Bobby, didn't you think—" he held out his hands to frame Kenneth, like a movie director "—gay?"

  Bobby didn't bother to answer. He'd spent far too much time around Wes, who was the same kind of hyped-up, whirlwind talker as this kid, to know that his answer wasn't really needed. Which was just as well, because he wasn't completely convinced that he'd be able to speak.

  Every time he looked into Colleen's eyes, his hands started to sweat, his chest felt squeezed and his throat tight­ened up. He was in desperate trouble.

  "You know, my father thinks you're gay, too," Clark told Kenneth. "I enjoy that about you. You frighten him, dude."

  "Well, I'm not gay," Kenneth said through clenched teeth.

  Bobby cleared his throat experimentally. A few more times and he'd have his voice back. Provided he didn't look at Colleen again.

  "Not that there's anything wrong with being gay," Ken­neth added hastily, glancing at Bobby. "We should prob­ably make sure we're not offending a gay Navy SEAL here—an extremely big, extremely tall gay Navy SEAL. Although I still am not quite certain as to exactly what a Navy SEAL might be."

  Clark looked at Bobby with new interest. "Whoa. It never even occurred to me. Are you gay?"

  For the first time in a good long number of minutes, there was complete and total silence. They were all looking at him. Colleen was looking at him, frowning slightly, spec­ulation in her eyes.

  Oh, great. Now she thought he'd told her he only wanted to be friends because he was He looked at her, wavering, unable to decide what to say. Should he just shut up and let her think whatever she thought, hoping that it would make her keep her distance?

  Colleen found her voice. "Congratulations, Clark, you've managed to reach new heights of rudeness. Bobby, don't answer him—your sexual orientation is no one's busi­ness but your own."

  "I'm straight," he admitted.

  "I'm sure you are," Colleen said a little too heartily, implying that she suspected otherwise.

  He laughed again. "Why would I lie?"

  "I believe you," she said. "Absolutely." She winked at him. "Don't ask, don't tell. We'll just pretend Clark didn't ask."

  Suddenly this wasn't funny anymore, and he laughed in disbelief. "What, do you want me to do...?" Prove it? He stopped himself from saying those words. Oh, God.

  She was giving him another of those killer smiles, com­plete with that two-thousand-degree incinerating heat in her eyes. Yes, she did want him to prove it. She didn't say it in words, but it was right there, written all over her face. She hadn't believed he was gay for one minute. She'd been baiting him. And he'd walked right into her trap. She wag­gled her eyebrows at him suggestively, implying that she was only teasing, but he knew better.

  Help.

  Please, God, let there be voice mail waiting for him, back in his hotel room. Please, God, let Wesley have called, announcing that he was back in the States and on his way to Boston. Please, God...

  "Now that we've got that mystery solved, the two burn­ing questions of the night that remain are why did you come back to Boston," Colleen said to her roommate, "and why blue?" She turned and looked at Clark's hair critically. "I'm not sure it's you...dude."

  "What is a Navy SEAL?" Kenneth reminded her. "Burning question number three. I keep picturing beach balls and Seaworld, and I'm confident that's not quite right."

  "SEALs are part of the U.S. military's special forces," Colleen said. "They're part of the Navy, so they spend a lot of time in and around the water—swimming, scuba div­ing, underwater demolition even. But SEAL stands for sea, air and land. They also jump out of airplanes and crawl across the desert and through the jungle, too. Most of the time no one knows that they're there. They carry great big guns—assault weapons, like commandos—but nearly all of their operations are covert." She looked at Clark. "Which means secret. Clandestine—. percent of the time they insert and extract from their mission location without firing a single bullet."

  She turned back to Bobby. "Did I miss anything vital? Besides the fact that you SEALs frequently kill people— usually with your bare hands—and that you're known for being exceedingly rough in bed?"

  Bobby started to laugh. He couldn't help it. And then Colleen was laughing, too, with the others just staring at them as if they were crazy.

  She was so alive, so full of light and joy. And in less than a week she was going to get on an airplane and fly to a dangerous place where she could well be killed. And, Lord, what a loss to the world that would be. The thought was sobering.

  "Please don't go," he said to her.

  Somehow she knew he was talking about the trip to Tul-geria. She stopped laughing, too. "I have to."

  "No, you don't. Colleen, you have no idea what it's like there."

  "Yes, I do."

  Ashley pulled her brother and Kenneth toward the door. "Coll, we're going to go out for a—"

  "No, you're not." Colleen didn't look away from Bobby. "Kick Thing A and Thing B out onto the street, but if you're getting one of your headaches, you're not going anywhere but to bed."

  "Well then, I'll be in my room," Ashley said quietly. "Come on, children. Let's leave Aunt Colleen alone."

  "Hasta la vista, baby." Clark nodded to Bobby. "Dude."

  "Thanks again for not killing me," Kenneth said cheer­fully.

  They went out the door, and Ashley faded quietly down the hallway.

  Leaving him alone in the living room with Colleen.

  "I should go, too." That would definitely be the smart thing. As opposed to kissing her. Which would definitely be the opposite of the smart thing. But he couldn't seem to get his feet to move toward the door.

  "You should come into the kitchen," she countered. "Where there are chairs that aren't covered with boxes. We can actually sit down."

  She took his hand and tugged him into the kitchen. Somehow his feet had no problem moving in that direction.

  "Okay," she said, sitting at the kitchen table. "Spill. What happened in Tulgeria?"

  Bobby rubbed his forehead. "I wish it was that easy," he said. "I wish it was one thing. I wish I was wrong, but I've been there a half dozen times, at least, and each time was more awful than the last. It's bad and getting worse, Colleen. Parts of the country are a war zone. The govern­ment's lost control everywhere but in the major cities, and even there they're on shaky ground. Terrorist groups are everywhere. There are Christian groups, Muslim groups. They work hard to kill each other, and if that wasn't enough, there's in-fighting among each of the groups. No­body's safe. I went into a village and—"

  Lord, he couldn't tell her—not the details. He didn't want to tell her any of it, but he made hi
mself. He looked her straight in the eye and said it. "Everyone was dead. A rival group had come in and... Even the children, Colleen. They'd been methodically slaughtered."

  She drew in a breath. "Oh, no!"

  "We went in because there were rumors that one of the terrorist groups had gotten hold of some kind of chemical weapon. We were there to meet a team of Army Rangers, escort 'em out to a waiting submarine with samples of whatever they'd found. But they came up empty. These people had nothing. They had hardly any regular ammu­nition, let alone any kind of chemical threat. They killed each other with swords—these big machete-style things, with these curved, razor-sharp blades.

  "No one is safe there." He said it again, hoping she was listening. "No one is safe."

  She looked pale, but her gaze didn't waver. "I have to go. You tell me these things, and I have to go more than ever."

  "More than half of these terrorists are zealots." He leaned across the table, willing her to hear him, to really hear him. “The other half are in it for the black market— for buying and selling anything. Including Americans. Es­pecially Americans. Collecting ransom is probably the most lucrative business in Tulgeria today. How much would your parents pay to get you back?"

  "Bobby, I know you think—"

  He cut her off. "Our government has a rule—no nego­tiating with terrorists. But civilians in the private sector... Well, they can give it a go—pay the ransom and gamble that they'll actually get their loved one back. Truth is, they usually don't. Colleen, please listen to me. They usually don't get the hostages back."

  Colleen gazed at him searchingly. "I've heard rumors of mass slaughters of Tulgerian civilians in retaliation by the local government."

  Bobby hesitated, then told her the truth. "I've heard those rumors, too."

  "Is it true?"

  He sighed. "Look, I know you don't want to hear this, but if you go there you might die. That's what you should be worrying about right now. Not—"

  "Is it true?"

  God, she was magnificent. Leaning across the table to ward him, palms down on the faded formica top, shoulders set for a fight, her eyes blazing, her hair on fire.