The Defiant Hero

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Yeah, that would be just about as bad as it could get.

  Well, maybe not. It might be a little bit worse if Meg then told him she and Razeen had hidden a nuclear device back in DC, and it was set to go off in thirty seconds.

  “I don’t know anything about you.”

  Meg’s voice rang so clearly, Nils glanced in the rearview mirror to make sure the backseat of this rental car was still empty. No, her voice had definitely only been in his head.

  He took another slug of coffee. Come on, caffeine . . .

  Come on, brain, stay alert.

  It had been—what?—nearly three years since she’d said those words to him? Yeah, it was that summer, six months after they’d first met in K-stan. They were having a picnic down by the Lincoln Memorial. Nils had been in DC for over ten days by then—his inquiry having been postponed for the sixth goddamned time.

  He’d figured it out. The foreign service office was waiting for Daniel Moore to arrive back in the States. Apparently he was involved in some diplomatic mission that took precedence over the inquiry, something important enough to put a Navy SEAL ensign on hold for nearly two weeks.

  Not that Nils had particularly minded.

  After he’d finished helping Meg paint Amy’s bedroom, he’d found other excuses, other reasons to show up at her apartment.

  And she’d welcomed him.

  Probably because he was playing things completely cool, restraining himself from throwing her over his shoulder and carrying her into her bedroom, tossing her onto her bed and . . .

  He always greeted her with a smile instead of a soul kiss. He always tried to stay at least three feet away from her, and he never, ever grabbed her in the elevator and nailed her to the wall.

  Even though he wanted to more than just about anything.

  He played nice, and his reward was that they had lunch and dinner together every day.

  And he comforted himself when he was alone in his hotel room at night by telling himself that lunch and dinner were far more than Daniel Moore was currently getting from her.

  “I don’t know anything about you.”

  She’d said it while eating a grape Popsicle. He’d never been so jealous of a piece of ice before in his life.

  “What, are you kidding?” he’d asked. “I’ve done nothing but talk about myself for the past week. I feel like I’ve been interviewed by Barbara Walters. What don’t you know? I was born on Long Island, when my mother died I lived with my father and my uncle and his wife. We covered this. I attended Milfield Academy—the best private school in the state—went to Yale, joined the Navy—”

  “You talk about it as if it’s someone else’s life,” she said. “As if you’re listing facts you’ve memorized or—”

  He looked at her. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  She instantly apologized. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make it sound as if I don’t believe you.”

  “But you don’t believe me.”

  “I do. John, I just . . .” She leaned toward him. “I want to know the rest. I want to hear all the parts you’re leaving out.”

  Nils was silent. What could he say to that?

  She touched him then. She put her hand on his knee.

  “How come you never want to walk past the Vietnam Memorial?” she asked quietly.

  He looked down at her hand, knowing that if he were flip, she’d probably take it away. Still . . . “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “We’ve been down here on the Mall three different times this week, and each time you’ve gone way out of your way to avoid it.”

  Nils glanced in the direction of the Wall now. He knew he could probably satisfy her with some bullshit response. He could tell her the Vietnam Wall wasn’t something he wanted to spend much time looking at. He could admit he found it too intense, without really telling her why. He could say that it wasn’t something he could just walk casually past. Being career military and all . . .

  And she would probably be satisfied. He took her hand, lacing their fingers together.

  “My father and my uncle Al were both there,” he said instead. “They both served in ’Nam.”

  Meg was surprised, and he watched her try to fit that information in with everything else he’d told her about his family. He’d told her about the family business—without going into detail as to exactly what type of business it was. Food industry, he’d told her, and although it was the truth, it was a very stretched truth. His father and uncle had owned a fishing boat. And after they’d lost that, his dad had had a job as a short order cook at the local diner for about a month or two.

  Food industry. Right.

  “Al lost his leg,” he told her now.

  “I’m so sorry.” Somehow she’d moved closer, so that her thigh was now pressing against his, so that she could reach up to brush a lock of hair back from his forehead.

  Please, God, don’t let this woman ever stop touching him. Nils kept talking, wanting her to stay close, wanting her to know.

  “Neither of them came home in body bags, but at the same time, neither of them ever really came home.” He’d never said this to anyone before. He’d hardly even let himself think it. “Whenever I look at it—the Wall—and I see that list of names, all I can think is, why aren’t their names up there, too, you know? They should both be listed among the casualties. You didn’t have to die in ’Nam to lose your life there.”

  Meg’s eyes were wide. “I don’t get it,” she said. “How does the son of a Vietnam vet become a professional warrior?”

  “SEALs aren’t warriors, Meg. We’re peacekeepers. What we do is prevent wars. And if they start before we can get there, we do whatever we have to do to end ’em, fast.” Nils shut his mouth, embarrassed. What was wrong with him? John Nilsson didn’t rant like that. He rarely raised his voice.

  “Thank you,” Meg said.

  He looked up at her. She was so close. All he had to do was lean forward a few inches and . . .

  Meg released his hand and moved back, away from him, as if she’d just realized she’d been nearly sitting on his lap. “May I ask you another personal question?”

  Nils laughed. “Suddenly you feel the need to ask permission?”

  She hugged her knees in to her chest, looking up at the hazy clouds. There was the slightest breeze that ruffled her dark hair and kept the afternoon from being too oppressively warm. “This one’s really personal.”

  He lay down next to her on the picnic blanket, dying to take her into his arms, but careful, as always, not to get too close. “Shoot.”

  “Do you have a girlfriend back in California?” she asked.

  He laughed as he propped his head up on one elbow. That was an easy question. “No, I don’t.”

  She turned to look at him. “Then, what do you do for sex?”

  Nils choked and had to sit up, fast. “I can’t believe you just asked me—”

  She rearranged her legs so that she was sitting tailor style as she laughed at him. “I told you it was kind of personal.”

  He looked at her over the tops of his sunglasses. “Kind of . . . ?”

  She actually blushed even though she was still laughing. “Okay, so it was a really rude and intrusive question. It’s none of my business, but I like you and—”

  “If there really is a God, you’ll finish that sentence by saying that you want to have sex with me.”

  She laughed even harder, pushing at him slightly. “No, that’s not what I was going to say. Don’t be ridiculous. I just . . . You’re such a nice guy, John, and you probably don’t get a lot of time off, and it just—I don’t know—seems a shame that you aren’t taking advantage of this week. There are probably a million single women in this city who would love to have dinner with you. With hardly any effort you could—”

  “Get laid?”

  “Maybe find someone special, and yes,” she said, rolling her eyes, “get laid, too. In a good way.”

  “Is t
here a bad way to get laid? Gee, I wasn’t aware.”

  “You know what I mean. I’m not talking about a cheap one-night stand. That’s dangerous these days, anyway. I’m talking about a meaningful relationship with someone—”

  “Special. Right. Well, maybe I’ve already found someone special.” Nils didn’t know what demon made him say that, but it instantly took all the teasing and fun out of the conversation.

  Meg wouldn’t look at him. She began gathering up their garbage from lunch—sandwich wrappers and the paper that had been around her Popsicle. “I have a friend named Joelle. She’s single, she’s really sweet—pretty, too. She’s about your age and she’s—”

  “Horny?”

  She looked up at him, recrimination in her eyes. Not funny. “She’s special.” She went back to organizing the garbage. “I was thinking about that embassy function tomorrow night. I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go as my escort. I’m afraid—”

  “You’re afraid that you like me too much,” Nils realized. Holy Christ. That’s what this was about.

  “These past few weeks have been great,” she said quietly, and he tried to focus, to listen, “but it’s not real, John. I can’t give you what you need, and all you’re giving me is . . .” What? He was dying to know, but she broke off, shaking her head. “Look, it would be a lot easier to be friends with you if you were dating someone, anyone. If not Joelle—”

  “How do you know what I need?” he asked.

  The look she gave him would have been comical if he’d felt like laughing, if his heart hadn’t been lodged somewhere between his Adam’s apple and his bronchial tubes. “I’m sorry, you are so not the priest type. I know what you need, Nilsson.”

  “Well . . . maybe getting laid’s just not a priority for me right now.”

  She gave him another look. “Now why don’t I believe that?”

  “Not all men are like Daniel,” he told her. “We don’t all think with our dicks. Excuse my crudeness.”

  “That’s such bullshit,” she said, surprising him even more. He didn’t know she knew that word. “The entire world revolves around sex, and you know it.”

  “I disagree.”

  “Prove it.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, right. How?”

  She moved fast then, faster than he’d thought her capable of moving, and straddled his lap, pushing his shoulders back, down onto the blanket.

  He was completely unprepared, completely caught off guard.

  She’d nearly knocked the air out of him, and there was no way he could catch his breath, not with her lying on top of him, her breasts against his chest, her hands holding his wrists above his head, her mouth a fraction of an inch from his, the warmth between her legs ground intimately against him . . .

  Sweet Christ.

  “What are you thinking now?” she breathed.

  Nils kissed her. How could he not kiss her with her mouth so close, with her body so soft against his?

  And oh, God, her mouth was as sweet as he remembered. He kissed her hungrily, frantically, unable to stop himself even though he knew this wasn’t real. Even though he knew he was failing her test.

  Prove it. He was proving something here, but he wasn’t sure exactly what.

  And then she was gone. Just like that, she’d rolled off of him.

  Leaving him gasping for air, with an instant hard-on that was embarrassingly obvious through his flimsy cotton shorts.

  “If getting laid weren’t a priority,” she told him, her voice shaking, “if, like most men, you weren’t thinking with your dick, you would have laughed and gently pulled me off you. You might’ve been embarrassed—probably more for me than for you. You might’ve apologized. What you wouldn’t have done was try to stick your tongue down my throat.”

  “Are you completely insane?” Nils said as soon as he could speak. “Do you do this all the time, Meg? Because there are men who might not understand your little lesson—men who might not like being teased like that. You do this to them, and you just might find yourself with a lot more than you bargained for.”

  “I can’t see you anymore,” she said.

  Oh, Jesus, now she was trying not to cry. How the fuck did this get so crazily out of hand?

  “Look, give me Joelle’s number. If you want me to, I’ll call her, I’ll—” He reached for her, but she jerked away.

  “Don’t touch me!”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She was up and heading for a garbage can. He followed. “Meg, you’ve got to cut me some slack here. This friendship thing is all uncharted territory for me. You’ve got to give me credit for trying. I mean, how many days have we spent together? About ten, right? Ten days, and I only try to . . . to stick my tongue down your throat once—and when enticed, might I add? That’s pretty damn good in my book.”

  “I’m having trouble keeping my hands off of you.”

  She spoke so softly, still facing the garbage can, it took Nils a moment to realize what she’d said. And then he couldn’t speak. He was using all of his energy, all of his focus, on not reaching for her, on not taking her into his arms.

  “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing,” he finally said.

  “It is,” she said. “It’s a terrible thing. I’m married. I took vows. And I know what you’re thinking. That Daniel took vows, too, and he didn’t manage to keep his, but . . . I need to go. I have work to do this afternoon.”

  He followed her back to the blanket. “Do you want me to bring over a pizza—”

  “No.”

  “—later? We could talk. I think we need to talk.”

  She gathered up the blanket and jammed it into her bag. “I think you need to go back to California.”

  “Meg, you’re my best friend—”

  “That’s ridiculous. We hardly know each other.”

  He followed as she headed toward the street. “I disagree.” He’d told her more about himself than he’d ever told anyone. They might have been friends who desperately wanted to become lovers, but they were, first and foremost, friends.

  “I have a deadline. I’ll be working until late tonight. I’m really sorry, John.” The tears were back in her eyes. “This is completely my fault. I thought I could ignore my attraction to you.”

  She waved to hail a cab, and a taxi skidded to a stop in front of her. “I’m sorry,” she said again, climbing in and shutting the door.

  “Drive,” he heard her order through the open window, and the taxi pulled away, leaving Nils standing in the street.

  “Call me,” he shouted after her. “Meg, please? Call me!”

  There was no way Starrett could have spotted her.

  But he was moving more quickly now and Alyssa Locke had to work to follow him. He disappeared for a moment in a crowd of lunchtime shoppers but then reappeared—his bright blue baseball cap standing out in the crowd.

  Lt. John Nilsson had gone missing.

  It wasn’t official. He’d been given thirty-six hours of free time by his CO, and there were still quite a few hours to go before he was AWOL.

  But he wasn’t in his hotel room. It was possible he had a girlfriend in the area that no one knew about, but it was even more likely that he was off the map.

  Meg Moore was gone, and Nilsson had followed. Locke was sure of it.

  And although Ensign Starrett had been questioned and claimed to know nothing of Nilsson’s whereabouts, she knew better. Roger Starrett and John Nilsson were tight. Starrett knew exactly where Nils was—and it was just a matter of time before Nils contacted him.

  Locke had taken it upon herself to be Starrett’s shadow during all her off-duty hours. She’d talked Jules into helping her out, and between the two of them, they had Starrett covered.

  Who needed sleep anyway? Locke sure as hell wasn’t getting any. Not with her sister Tyra on the verge of going into the hospital. Trailing Starrett helped keep her mind off that—at least it should have. But today she was so damn distracted, she barely could have
followed herself.

  She trailed Starrett now down a crowded city sidewalk. He was pretty far in front of her, but then he took a hard right—into a McDonald’s.

  Figures he liked fast food.

  It took her close to a minute to reach the door, but once there, she could see his cap through the front window as he stood in line to get his daily dose of high cholesterol.

  So she waited outside, pretending to windowshop at a jewelry store while keeping her eye on that blue cap, wishing she had the money to buy one of those expensive watches for Tyra.

  Starrett finally made his way to the head of the line, ordered his Double Heart-Attack to go, paid, and turned to leave.

  “No!” Locke couldn’t believe it.

  The man in the blue cap wasn’t Sam Starrett or Roger Starrett or Houston or Bob or whatever dumbass redneck nickname the SEAL was going by today. In fact, the man in the blue cap wasn’t even a man. He was a woman who was about as tall as Starrett, but that’s where the similarities ended.

  She’d been screwed.

  Locke wasn’t aware she’d even spoken aloud until a honeyed voice behind her drawled, “Just name the time and place, sugar—I’ll be there with bells on.”

  Starrett.

  She spun around to find him grinning at her. His cap was gone, and she took grim satisfaction in seeing that without it, he had hat hair. There was a big, unattractive, sweat matted, indented ring around his head where heat and the cap had given his hair that special, unmistakable style.

  “Your big mistake was focusing on following a piece of clothing rather than an entire person,” he told her. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of—that’s a pretty typical beginner’s error.”

  “What did you do?” she asked. “Pay that woman to wear your hat?”

  “Twenty bucks if she’d keep it on for ten minutes.” Starrett’s teeth were much too white and straight. Redneck assholes were supposed to be missing at least a few.

  “So you knew I was following you?” Duh, obviously. She rolled her eyes, disgusted with herself. “Stupid question.”

  “I spotted you back by the Starbucks.”

  “That soon?” She couldn’t hide her dismay.

  To her surprise, he didn’t make fun of her. “You’re really pretty good,” he said. “Actually, you’re exceptionally good. But remember, I’m a SEAL, Alyssa. When you trail someone who’s had that kind of training, you’ve got to be better than exceptional. You got to figure I don’t go anywhere without constantly checking my six—turning around and seeing who and what’s behind me. It’s automatic—I just do it. And another thing. You might want to work a little bit more on blending, you know, into the crowd?”