Protected by a SEAL: Hot SEALs (Volume 5)

by Cat Johnson

  He pulled out a stack of papers before he glanced up. “Um, it’s probably nothing.”

  The blood draining from his face as he flipped through the pages didn’t back up that statement.

  “Roger . . .” Sierra took a step forward. “Let me see.”

  He pressed his lips together and hesitated before he drew in a breath. He held out the stack toward her, still looking reluctant to hand over what the ominous envelope held.

  She closed the space between them with a few steps and took the papers, her hand shaking as she did so. Turning them toward her she saw what looked like digital photos printed out on computer paper. One of her out for her daily run. Another of her getting into her car outside the hair salon. She recognized the outfit she was wearing in that photo. It had to be taken just last week when she’d gotten her highlights touched up.

  “They could have been taken by paparazzi.” At Roger’s suggestion, Sierra glanced up.

  “How did he get inside to deliver it?” she asked.

  “Maybe the envelope was dropped off at the front gate of the lot and one of the crew brought it here.”

  The paparazzi theory would have made sense except for the next picture Sierra saw in the stack. It was of her inside her hotel room, sitting at the table eating. Heart pounding, she held it up for Roger. “How’d they take this one?”

  He looked from the picture to her. “Through your hotel room window with a zoom lens?”

  The moment she got to her hotel she was closing the blackout curtains and not opening them again for the duration of her stay.

  The thought of spending the night alone in her suite, knowing someone was watching her, was frightening. Maybe she could convince Roger to sleep on the sofa in the living room of the suite. Hell, he could sleep in the bed with her if it meant she didn’t have to sleep there alone. Not that she’d get any sleep after this.

  The question still remained, more than how the pictures were taken, was why? And why deliver them to her here and now?

  Afraid of what else she would find, Sierra warily looked at the next page in the stack.

  It was different. There was another photo of her—this time smiling at someone she couldn’t see in the frame of the picture—but this one had words scrawled across it in what looked like the same black marker as the envelope.

  What she read had her blood running cold.

  You can’t see me but I can see you.

  The room seemed to sway as the darkness crept around the edges of her vision, narrowing her sight to just the dressing table in front of her. Sierra reached out to steady herself, letting the papers scatter onto the surface.

  “Sierra.” Roger was next to her in a split second, holding her upright with a strength that belied his trim build.

  She swallowed hard and struggled to slow her breathing. “I’m all right.”

  He let out a breath. “No. None of this is all right and I’m going to take care of it right now.”

  “What can you do?”

  “First, get you sitting down before you fall down.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Sit anyway.”

  The dizziness had passed, which was a miracle considering her pulse rushed so loudly in her ears she could barely hear Roger. But she was shaking and sitting wouldn’t be a bad thing. She did as told and eased into the chair.

  She glanced up and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. The wild-eyed fear she saw was not at all comforting. Sierra turned in the chair to face toward Roger and away from the reflection of the frightened woman who looked nothing like her.

  Acting calmer than she felt, she asked, “What do we do?”

  He already had his cell phone out. “We hire security.”

  The studio lot had security. The hotel had security. Obviously none of that had worked, so Roger must mean something else. More personal. “Like a bodyguard?”

  “Exactly.”

  Her privacy was the thing Sierra valued more than all else. Now she’d have a man dedicated to doing nothing but watching her every move, day and night. But whoever had taken those photos was already doing that.

  There were times she hated this business. Enough that she sometimes dreamed what it would be like to quit and go back to being nobody. Anonymous. Able to go shopping, or jogging, or hell, dancing, without having the cameras in her face and her face on the front page of every tabloid.

  This situation was more than over eager paparazzi. This was someone scary. Possibly deranged. That was the only reason Sierra nodded her head and said, “Okay. I’ll agree to hiring someone.”

  With the cell pressed to his ear, Roger let out a snort. “Do you really think I was giving you a choice in the matter?”

  In spite of it all, she couldn’t help her short laugh as Roger turned into a protective mother hen. “No.”

  Still, the irony wasn’t lost on her that to gain back her privacy, she’d have to sacrifice what little of it she had left.

  CHAPTER 3

  Even Sun Tzu wasn’t enough to keep him entertained.

  Rick put down his cell and rubbed his eyes. Reading on his phone’s screen wasn’t ideal, but he had to do something to occupy his brain.

  He was so bored this shift, he was ready to crawl right out of his skin. Rereading one of his all time favorite books seemed like the best way to keep him from blowing up the nuclear reactor where he worked just so he’d have some excitement.

  But The Art of War wasn’t doing it for him today. He had a feeling nothing would as long as he continued to work here. In this action-less pit that sucked out a man’s soul, one long eventless hour at a time.

  All right. Maybe it wasn’t that bad and he should be grateful to have a steady job, but he wasn’t feeling very fortunate at the moment.

  Chris had been right. Rick missed the action and the camaraderie and yeah, the adrenaline rush.

  He’d become an adrenaline junkie being in the teams all those years. All the guys he knew had. He knew going cold turkey when he had been medically retired would be tough, but it had been way harder than he’d ever imagined.

  Visually, he swept the bank of black and white security monitors in front of him.

  Black and white. Just like his life felt lately when it used to be filled with bursts of color.

  Rick let out a sound of derision at his own bullshit.

  Too much time spent alone did that to a guy he supposed—made him philosophical, and not in a good way.

  The night shifts were the worst, when there was a skeleton crew working. At least during the day shift there was more action to watch on the damn screens.

  He needed to look for a new job. But his annual job review was coming up and with it, more vacation days. Days he could use working ops for GAPS.

  A new job would mean starting from scratch and having to earn those days off all over again over time. Time he didn’t want to wait.

  The existence of Guardian Angel Protection Services and the fact he was even a small part of the company his former SEAL teammates had formed might be the only thing keeping him sane.

  Nope, until GAPS was up and running at full speed, and had enough work to employ Rick steadily enough he didn’t have to hold down another job, the smart move was to stay working where he was.

  He just hoped it didn’t cost him his sanity.

  The text came through right after Rick, in his desperation, had resorted to calculating how many more minutes he had until his shift was over—a hundred and thirty one. Just as he was considering seeing if he could stream a movie on his cell phone’s browser, the vibrating buzz of the cell on the desk in front of him had Rick diving to look at the readout.

  He’d take any distraction at this point. Even a text from his sister would be welcome. One glance told him this wasn’t from Darci. It was a group text to all the guys.

  GAPS MEETING 19:30 @JON’S

  Rick had to stifle his shout of excitement. A GAPS meeting meant there must be a job on the horizon.

  Jo
n wasn’t the type to call them all together just for the sake of meeting. They’d all had enough of that bullshit when they’d been on active duty.

  That was one thing that made working with a private military contractor different and better. That was only one reason Rick was happy to be a part of this particular PMC with his friends.

  A GAPS job meant there could be some excitement in his near future. That thought alone was enough to have Rick standing up and pacing the room with excess energy.

  His body remembered what having a mission felt like and it didn’t care there was one hundred and thirty minutes left for him to be cooped up in here.

  He’d wait it out. There was nothing else to do. But in the meantime, Rick replied to the group text.

  I’M THERE!

  As he waited, biding time, the rest of the guys replied too. Chris with a HELL YEAH, and Zane with a DELAYED ETA NLT 20:00.

  Zane would be half an hour late?

  He rolled his eyes at that, but honestly Rick didn’t care all that much. He’d be there early and chomping at the bit.

  The text conversation continued as Jon asked if Brody was back in town. When Chris responded yes, Jon said to bring him along.

  That added another element of interest to Rick’s boring shift.

  What was this job that Jon wanted Brody—still active duty in DEVGRU—there to consult with them?

  Rick’s agitation and his anticipation to get the night moving ratcheted up another notch.

  Damn, he did need action to feel alive.

  If he’d needed any more proof, this was it—his pacing back and forth in the security office like a caged tiger desperate to get out. He would have to consider what to do about that reality later.

  Right now he was too excited about tonight’s meeting to put a damper on it with introspection.

  The door of the office swung open and he jumped. Mike walked in and turned to face Rick standing in the far corner of the room with his cell in his hand.

  Mike frowned. “Everything all right?”

  “Yeah, fine. Just making plans for later after I get off.”

  A wide grin lit his coworker’s face. “Lucky you. Anything good?”

  “It could be but I don’t want to jinx it until I’m sure.”

  Mike’s disappointment was clear in his sigh and his crestfallen expression. Apparently they both needed some inspiration to get through the workday.

  “So, uh, remember when I took those extra shifts for you so you could go on your honeymoon?” Rick asked.

  “Yeah. Why? What’s up? You need me to cover a shift for you?”

  “Well, nothing yet, but if it turns out I need a couple of shifts off, you think you’d be able to cover for me?”

  “If I’m not already on, yeah. No problem. Bree and I are saving for a house and I could use the extra hours, so sure.”

  That was the second best news Rick had gotten all day—the first being the meeting that could very well be the end of his dry spell. An oasis in what was a desert devoid of action.

  Rick couldn’t help his smile. “Thanks, dude. You might have just saved my life.”

  ~ * ~

  Those one hundred and thirty minutes nearly killed him, but Rick made it. He powered through the torturous end of his workday one minute at a time, just like how he’d gotten through BUD/S and later Green Team training to become a DEVGRU SEAL.

  He’d learned early the only way to swallow Hell was one bite at a time.

  Before Rick knew it, he was pulling his truck into his driveway. As much as he wanted to get to Jon’s, even if he would be way early, he wanted to change out of his damn uniform first.

  If Rick was going to successfully pretend his life was anywhere close to what it had been when he was in the teams, it couldn’t be while he was wearing the vestiges of his dreaded day job.

  He was coming to hate the stiff navy blue polyester shirt and matching pants and the black gum-soled shoes.

  When he’d been crawling through the mountains of the border provinces in Afghanistan, sneaking up on possible insurgent strongholds in the dead of night, he never thought he’d miss the pounds of body armor or the weapons that weighed him down. Damned if he didn’t miss it all now.

  But Jon had called a GAPS meeting and that was like a light at the end of a dark tunnel. That propelled Rick into the house with a quick stride.

  “Where are you in such a hurry to get to?” Darci called after him from the kitchen when he was already through his bedroom door.

  “Jon’s,” he yelled back.

  He felt a mean but justifiable satisfaction Darci couldn’t be there for the meeting because it was at Jon’s condo.

  Last time GAPS had met here at their house, Darci had ended up going on the damn job with Chris instead of Rick. And it was at a resort in Florida.

  Darci, who had no training in anything other than banking, had gone on his mission. All while Rick, with years of SOF training, had gotten to go to his boring job.

  While Chris and Darci had been treated to an all-expenses paid trip to a ritzy resort in the Florida Keys, he’d been cooling his heels in the cold dank Virginia February weather.

  As Chris got to single-handedly save the resort’s yacht and all of its passengers when it had been hijacked, Rick got to watch monitors and make hourly rounds of the nuclear facility.

  That was not going to happen again. Rick was not going to sit the next mission out. He didn’t care if he ended up owing his soul and every one of his days off for the next year to Mike for covering for him at the plant to do it. It would be worth it to see some real action.

  He pulled off his ID badge and tossed it onto the dresser. The weapon came off next. That was the only thing about this job he liked—he got to carry a gun.

  It wasn’t like the kickass, customized weapons he’d had at his disposal as a DEVGRU SEAL. The handgun was like a peashooter in comparison to what he’d become used to, but hell, at least it was something.

  Darci wandered to his doorway. “What’s going on at Jon’s?”

  He glanced at her and then back to his dresser, where he pulled open a drawer and grabbed a shirt.

  “Meeting.”

  “For GAPS?”

  “Yes, and no you can’t come.”

  “Why not?”

  Rick didn’t have to turn around to know she was unhappy. He heard it in her tone.

  He shot her a glare over his shoulder. “Because in spite of you going on that one—and only one mission—you are not a team member.”

  The resurgence of the topic got him pissed off all over again. His sister had been on more missions than he had in the past month. Okay, it was only one, but in this case, one was too many.

  “Is it secret or something?”

  “No.” Rick realized he wasn’t sure of that answer and backpedaled. “I don’t know. Maybe. Jon didn’t say in the text.”

  “He must have texted Chris too. Because Chris texted me and said he couldn’t come over tonight.”

  Ah, ha. So that was it. Darci was at loose ends because Chris was going to be busy tonight. His sister got bored easily. Hell, it must be hereditary.

  Rick turned to face Darci. If she was going to leave him alone so he could shower and get dressed to go to Jon’s, he figured he was going to have to finish this conversation with her.

  He sighed. “Why don’t you call Ali? She’ll have nothing to do either since Jon is busy.”

  Darci lifted one shoulder. “I guess I could give her a call. We haven’t hung out and had a night, just girls, in awhile.”

  “Sounds good. I’m going to take a shower.” Standing with his clean clothes in one hand, he waited. When Darci still didn’t move, he said, “Go call Ali.”

  If she was procrastinating and waiting for him to suggest she come with him to Jon’s for this GAPS meeting, she would be waiting for a very long time because that was not gonna happen. Besides, if Jon had wanted females there, he would have invited them. He hadn’t and that was just fin
e with Rick.

  This meeting, this assignment, was going to be his if he had any say in it. Selfish bastard that he was, he wasn’t sharing it.

  CHAPTER 4

  “I wanna go out.” Sierra heard the underlying whine in her own tone, but she didn’t care.

  “You can’t go out until the security team is in place.”

  “It’s not like I want to go clubbing. Just let me go for a run.” She needed to expend some of the nervous energy and get out of the hotel before she lost her mind.

  “Use the gym here.”

  “I hate the treadmill. You know that. I want to be outside.”

  “Sierra, you’re acting as if I’ve had you locked away in a dungeon for a month instead of in a luxury suite in a hotel for one day. Just hang on a little while longer.”

  It didn’t matter how nice of a place Roger was keeping her in, she was still a prisoner there. Pouting wouldn’t help. Whining wouldn’t either. She needed to reason with him. Appeal to his good sense.

  “Look, Roger, we already met with the police and filed all the reports. The hotel knows what’s happening and they say they’ve beefed up security.”

  She’d repeated the details, what few she had, ad nauseam. Sierra had told the story of the mysterious envelope appearing in her trailer to every uniformed person who’d asked.

  “That’s exactly right. The hotel is taking extra precautions, so you need to stay here, in the hotel, where you’re safe. Until we get your personal security in place no going outside.”

  “You mean get my new watchdog over here.” She scowled over the thought of the bodyguard Roger was forcing on her.

  “A dog would be good actually. I’ll contact the company I hired and see if they have guard dogs.”

  Sierra rolled her eyes at Roger. “I was kidding.”

  “Yes, I know, Sierra, but I wasn’t.” Roger raised his coffee cup to his lips, shooting her a glare over the top as he drank.

  “I know that and that’s exactly what scares me.”

  He was going to have her watched day and night, at work and at home.

  Roger taking this so seriously made Sierra have to think about the situation she’d rather ignore. And now, on top of that stress, she was going to have some stuffy Secret Service wannabe following her around.