The SEAL's Special Mission

by Rogenna Brewer

  Stan latched on to her wrist. “Tyler—”

  “Save your strength, Stan. Which way did they go?”

  He pointed her in the right direction. Digging the Mustang keys from her jacket pocket, she raced the few feet to the garage. She stripped the drop cloth from the Skylight Blue exterior of the 1964 ½ classic, opened the door and sank into the blue and white pony leather. Blood from her hands stained the white leather steering wheel and gearshift as she backed out of the garage.

  Assuming Special Agent Christopher Tyler was chasing Nash on foot, and that the ex-marine was in better shape than Stan right now, there was still a chance she’d find Nash hiding out in her neighborhood. Loaded down with a small boy and their two bags, he couldn’t have gone far. He wouldn’t try to outrun the agent—he’d try to outfox him. Maybe even lead him on a merry chase before circling back to wherever he’d parked his getaway car.

  Which had to be around here somewhere.

  Close. But not too close.

  Not a car, an SUV. He’d want to blend in with the neighborhood.

  She was wishing for the radio now or some way to communicate with the agent, but Stan had needed it more than she did. Why hadn’t she stopped to grab her cell phone? “Come on, Tyler. Flush him out.”

  The average criminal wasn’t too hard to figure out. When he ran, you ran after him while your partner cut him off.

  But Nash wasn’t your average criminal. He was better trained and he’d be familiar with their training.

  But what he didn’t know was that she spent six days a week in the gym and had spent six long years studying everything she could about Navy SEALs in anticipation of this moment.

  So if she was part of his plan A...

  You and the boy are coming with me.

  Somewhere in his contingency plan B, C or D, either he planned to leave her or, if she stayed visible and vigilant, he’d find her. Except she intended to find him first.

  Mal never realized how many dark SUVs there were on her block until now. She rolled down the windows and opened the top of the old Mustang.

  Listening. Praying there’d be no more gunfire.

  Block after block she made her way in a crisscross pattern toward the highway. There were several on-ramps near her neighborhood, which bordered the park. Nash would have parked facing one of them. Somewhere he wouldn’t draw a lot of attention.

  Somewhere familiar.

  She backtracked toward the house where he’d grown up only to be disappointed.

  Nash had the advantage over Tyler of knowing the old neighborhood. But maybe, maybe she had the advantage of knowing Nash. If she just put her mind to it, she should be able to figure this out. Unless of course he anticipated her trying to second-guess him.

  “Where the hell are you, Nash?” She had to find him before he took off down the highway. Otherwise she might never see Ben again.

  That bloodcurdling thought made her want to scream.

  “Think, Ward. Think.” She prowled his old block tapping the steering wheel.

  The street where Nash had grown up was catty-corner from their street.

  One block up, one block over.

  She was facing the direction of her house now.

  Wait—what if he’d never left the alley? It was basically made up of a combination of wooden privacy fences and low chain-link ones. How hard would it be to jump a fence or break into a detached garage? There were two dozen backyards facing that alley. He could have ducked into any one of them. She glanced up the next block toward Jackie’s house.

  Her persistence paid off; an engine roared to life down the otherwise sleepy street. Streetlights out. Headlights off. Directly across the alley from her house.

  Exactly what she was looking for.

  The driver pulled out just as Mallory entered the intersection.

  She pulled a hard U-turn into its path. The driver slammed on his brakes, coming to a screeching stop inches from her driver’s-side door.

  Mallory scrambled over the side of the convertible with her weapon drawn. She had Nash in her sights across the hood of his SUV.

  Point-blank range. Finger on the trigger.

  They stared at each other for a full second.

  Nash revved the engine. All he’d have to do was roll forward and she’d be pinned between the two vehicles. All she had to do was pull the trigger to stop him. “Let him go!” She could hear sirens in the distance from the fire and paramedic station located right on the edge of the park. The police would follow. All she had to do was hold him off.

  He leaned across the front seat and threw open the passenger door. “Get in!”

  Ben’s dark head bobbed behind his father’s.

  Nash motioned for her to get in.

  “Mal, now!” There was no mistaking the urgency in his voice as the sirens grew louder.

  “Ben, honey,” she pleaded. “Get out of the car.”

  Nash put the SUV in Reverse and then floored it.

  “No!” Mallory raced after them.

  He slammed the brakes long enough for her to catch up. “Last chance.”

  Up the street a dark figure ran toward them—she could only guess that it was Tyler. Upon seeing the unfolding scene down the street from him, the FBI agent hopped into the passenger side of another vehicle.

  That couldn’t be Stan behind the wheel. And why was that ambulance growing distant now?

  She looked into Nash’s eyes across the open door and hesitated. Tyler would be on them any second. But when the SUV edged forward, she knew she didn’t have even that long to decide. Nash would leave her before the agent ever reached them, and she wasn’t about to lose Ben. Before the SUV could pick up speed, she threw herself into the rolling vehicle just as the back window shattered. “What the—”

  “Down,” Nash ordered, forcing her head into his lap.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “BEN?” MALLORY STRUGGLED to sit up.

  “Stay down. Both of you.” Nash pinned her to his denim-covered thigh.

  “I am,” Ben argued from the backseat.

  Relieved to hear his voice, as well as the defiance in it, Mal tried to make sense of the past few seconds. Tyler had to have known Ben was in the SUV. At the very least, he must have seen her undignified dive into the moving vehicle. It didn’t make sense that the FBI agent would risk their lives to take down Nash.

  Mallory held on to Stan’s gun and could, in theory at least, force Nash to stop the Explorer. But she wouldn’t—not without knowing who was in that other vehicle and why they were shooting at them.

  Nash ran up and over the curb on the right. Presumably to go around the Mustang she’d left in the intersection. The SUV’s passenger door knocked into the street sign and then swung shut with enough force to catch the lock. As they dropped off the curb and banked a hard left, she felt the jarring impact, heard the sickening crunch and realized they hadn’t cleared her father’s vintage Mustang.

  Engines raced. Tires squealed.

  The passenger door rocked on its precarious catch.

  She felt the tension in Nash’s thigh as his foot worked the brake and gas petals in tandem through each hairpin turn as the other car chased them. Only the single shot had been fired. Maybe Tyler hadn’t meant to shoot at them but over them, as a warning, or he could have been aiming to take out a tire.

  That’s what she would have done in his position.

  He’d have to be a really bad shot in order to hit the back windshield instead....

  Still trying to justify the agent’s actions, Mal shifted so she wasn’t nose to zipper with Nash’s bulging crotch. The center console dug painfully into her ribs and her ass end was up in the air. She needed to formulate a plan, and the undignified position made it difficult to think. But he pushed dow
n every attempt she made to sit up. Or maybe it was just his hands on the steering wheel keeping her in place. Either way, she did not appreciate his elbows jabbing her in the back.

  She could hear cars in the distance. But did the lack of a screeching echo mean Nash had lost the other vehicle? Why weren’t there police cars on the scene already?

  He continued driving at a frenzied pace.

  Her stomach dipped as the SUV sped down an incline—the on-ramp—to I-25, northbound. They wove through traffic and then back up an off-ramp minutes later.

  Nash white-knuckled the steering wheel until traffic noise faded to the background. After a couple more turns he pulled over. Mallory had lived in this city all her life and had only a vague idea of where they were once she raised her head. The entire chase had taken less than fifteen minutes. But her accelerated heart rate continued to pump adrenaline through her veins.

  They were parked on a side street in front of a warehouse. The run-down neighborhood appeared to be equal parts commercial and residential. The kind of neighborhood a person did not wander into after dark.

  Her grip tightened on the gun in her hand.

  “Did you lose them?” she dared to ask.

  “For now.”

  She shoved her weapon into his side.

  He winced and challenged her in the same breath. “We both know you’re not going to pull the trigger.”

  “You don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

  “I know you well enough, Mal. I also know when the safety is on.” He disarmed her with a quick, painful twist that had her letting go of the grip, otherwise she’d have risked losing her trigger finger. “You’re not a cold-blooded killer.” He presented it to her butt first. “Holster your weapon and I might let you keep it.”

  “Ben,” she said over her shoulder. “Get out of the car—now.” Ben scrambled for the door, but apparently the child safety locks were engaged.

  “Ben, son.” Nash put a halt to the boy’s escape with that single word.

  How dare he use Ben like that? How dare he call himself Ben’s father! She hauled back and hit him right where it hurt—in his side—and was rewarded with a grunt. Even though she hadn’t seen his injury, she knew his T-shirt had to be seeped in blood. She’d felt it, smelled it while lying in his lap. From what Stan and Tyler had said, it was most likely a bullet wound.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” She reached across him for the child safety switch. He snagged both her wrists and she head butted him in the nose.

  “Damn it, Mal,” he said in a nasal drone that told her she’d hit her mark. “Stop!” He grabbed her by the hair and held her at arm’s length. There was nothing warm or familiar in his eyes. “I will leave you and you’ll never see him again. Do you understand?” He gave her roots a yank for emphasis. “I got what I came for. You’re expendable.”

  “Please don’t hurt my mom.”

  * * *

  NASH LET GO as that single word singed his brain.

  “Get out,” he ordered.

  “Not without Ben—” she started to protest.

  “Both of you. Now. We’re switching cars.” He nodded toward a newer-model white Chevy Tahoe parked across the street as he got out of the Explorer on his side and opened the back door for Ben. The boy scrambled out with his backpack, and Nash reached inside for Mal’s gym bag. He hadn’t meant what he’d said about her being expendable. But he needed her to believe it for now.

  He could only imagine the terrifying uncertainty the kid must be feeling at finding that the man claiming to be his father was in reality a brute. But there wasn’t much he could do to reassure him right now.

  He put a restraining hand on the boy’s shoulder while Mal got out of the car. A dog barked in the distance. They needed to get going before they attracted the wrong kind of attention. He ushered the boy across the street.

  Mal stormed after them while he unlocked the vehicle with the key fob in his hand. The interior remained dark because he’d had the foresight to turn off the map light earlier. He let the boy in, and the kid scrambled over the seat. “Are we stealing this car?”

  He dangled the keys for Ben’s benefit. “Does it look like we’re stealing?”

  Nash had cars and cash stashed from one end of the continent to the other.

  He didn’t like owning newer vehicles, but he’d made an exception for this one, though he’d still gotten it used. He’d paid cash four years ago and then disabled the tracking system before he’d even driven it off the lot.

  Then he’d driven it to Colorado to replace an older vehicle he already had in storage.

  Even before his escape from Gitmo he’d kept a getaway car in Colorado packed to the hilt with essential supplies, including a police scanner, hoping he’d never have the need for it. Not that he wouldn’t have stolen one if he needed to. Grand theft auto was a simple game and the least of his worries right now. Getting Ben and Mal to safety was his priority.

  Of course the plates were stolen. And he didn’t have insurance. So he wasn’t truly street legal.

  Nash tossed Mal’s bag to the floorboard on the passenger side and stepped aside to let her in ahead of him. She stood in the open doorframe and lowered her voice, he assumed so Ben wouldn’t overhear. “Isn’t this where you’re supposed to say come with me if you want to live?”

  “I thought that was obvious.”

  “I have questions. Lots of questions, Nash.”

  “I don’t have time for answers right now. Just know that they want me dead more than they want you and the boy alive.”

  “Which is why you should let us go.”

  “Which is why I can’t let you go, Mal.” He’d asked her to trust him, but he and Mallory had a complicated history and were a long way from trusting each other. Trust had to be earned. And as he’d found out the hard way, it could be easily destroyed.

  “At least tell me where we’re going.”

  “Where do all SEALs go when they’re in trouble?”

  The correct answer was water. But she’d get the gist of it. “Coronado?”

  There was no need for either of them to elaborate. Coronado was synonymous with the Teams. He was taking them to the Spec War Base in Coronado, California. Once he acknowledged her with a nod, she backed off and climbed over the driver’s side seat to the passenger side of the car.

  Nash considered it a victory just getting her in the vehicle.

  She drew the seat belt across her body and reminded Ben to secure his before she turned her attention back to Nash. “I still have a gun.”

  “Yeah, I’m the one who let you keep it. And who also taught you how to use it in the first place,” he reminded her. That blast from the past earned him a fiery glare before she glanced away. He clamped down on the memory and allowed himself to slip back in time to that firing range where he’d taught Mal to shoot, and where he’d purchased her graduation present.

  * * *

  “YOU KNOW MY sister has a crush on you.” Cara materialized beside him as he pointed downrange and pulled the trigger. He missed center mass—the heart, of the paper target—by a good two inches because of the distraction. But a beautiful distraction she was.

  Nash set down his weapon and removed his range muffs in order to give his wife his full attention. “What?”

  “You heard me.” She teased him with her beautiful smile.

  Nash glanced over at Mal. Two stalls down.

  “You buy her this gun and she’ll be yours forever.”

  “It’s just a graduation present.”

  “She hasn’t even left for the academy yet.”

  “Okay, so we’ll call it incentive. She wants this, and I want her to do well.”

  “Just be careful with my sister’s heart. You know you’re going to have to break
it someday.”

  Nash did what he always did when Cara teased him with the subject of her sister’s crush. He distracted her with kisses. “I wish you’d let me teach you how to shoot,” he said against her lips.

  “I’m not touching that thing.”

  “I seem to remember you saying something similar at sixteen. And yet—”

  She swatted him for being cheeky. Okay, so her sister had a crush on him—it didn’t matter. Cara was the only woman for him and had been since they were in their teens. He and Mal had long ago settled into an easy friendship.

  “Just for protection,” he said, getting back on topic.

  “You’re all the protection we need.” Cara drew his attention to the slight swell of her belly. At sixteen weeks, she was just beginning to show. He gave her baby bump a rub. He’d promised to let Cara and Mal drag him along for maternity clothes shopping later that day—if Cara came with him and Mal to the range first.

  Probably her least favorite place.

  “Get a room, you two.” Mal joined them with her target in hand. “Check this out. ‘Shot through the heart, and you’re to blame....’” Mal sang a little ’80s Bon Jovi, “You Give Love a Bad Name” from the Slippery When Wet album.

  “Yes, you do,” Cara agreed. “‘Give love a bad name,’ that is.” She pointed at him.

  “What did I do?” he asked, all innocence, as the sisters ganged up on him.

  After packing up their equipment, the three of them exited the shooting range through the gun shop.

  “I want you to set Mal up with Kip,” Cara was saying.

  “Ensign Nouri? What? No.”

  “Yes,” she insisted. “He’s single.”

  “I’m only here for the weekend,” Mal interrupted. “I want to spend it with you guys.”

  “See?” Nash argued.

  Cara raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow as if she’d made her point.

  “She doesn’t want to go on a blind date,” he argued.

  “I didn’t say that exactly,” Mal chimed in. “Maybe we could double?”