Or I’ll quit and go back home to San Francisco.
Her Honda was still clean after last Sunday’s bath. When she’d been ready to launch her career. Been dressed to the nines. Hopeful. All this had been just four little days ago, back when all things were possible. Before the guy with the three-legged tattoo had wound her pantyhose around her wrists and challenged her very existence.
And was there a part of me that liked it?
As she exited past the lumbering automatic rolling grates of the garage, afternoon sunlight caught her like a blast from a furnace. Her eyes hurt from all the crying she’d done. One look into the rear view mirror told her it showed. The car had no forgiving light fixture like the one in the bathroom. Harsh sunlight showed every wrinkle, every bloodshot vessel in the whites of her eyes, every part of her puffy red eyelids. Crying and lack of sleep made her look ten years older, she thought.
Come on, Christy. Get yourself together. Focus.
Nothing looked familiar yet in San Diego. Every street was new. Every building, office, or restaurant was more eye candy. The colors of the bay, the clouds in the sky—everything was different from San Francisco, a city she knew so well. A city where she’d felt safe. Not like here, although San Diego was probably safer with all these hunky guys running up and down the beaches. The only constant was that she felt she didn’t belong here yet.
Her Honda pulled up outside the sandwich shop Kyle had taken her to on the island as if she’d willed it that way. She’d traveled without being conscious of where she was driving. Over the Coronado bridge that always scared her just a little bit. She hadn’t noticed.
Why?
Though Kyle was the biggest asshole she’d ever met, he was also a complicated package doing a hard job. She was collateral damage. Plain and simple.
The thought didn’t help her as much as she wanted it to. She’d wanted to be more than collateral. That was the whole point. She wanted to be the center of someone’s universe. And she knew with Kyle, that could never be. His duty, his job, would always come first.
My own damn fault.That’s right, Christy. You knew it would hurt. Well, babe, you were right.
God, how she hated to be right, especially when she didn’t listen to herself.
“Fuck it,” she whispered as she exited the car and tweeted it locked.
The grill was hopping, with a full crowd. Too early for happy hour. She spotted a table full of America’s finest eating hamburgers and drinking shakes. She knew, just knew they were SEALs. They were all dressed casual, with their hair a little longer than regular military, and even a couple had moustaches. Their muscles were bulging and from what she could see, she figured that among the eight of them, there were probably fifty tattoos. She didn’t want to stare.
But she did.
Almost on cue, all of them turned and quietly assessed her. They looked in her eyes, every one of them. She could tell they were scanning elsewhere, but wouldn’t show it, with that damned peripheral vision Kyle used.
Did they know she’d been with Kyle here? No way. How in the heck could they tell?
She nodded in their direction, smiled, and took a flying leap of faith. Her legs automatically took her to their table’s edge and she addressed them.
“Hi there, fellas.”
“Afternoon, ma’am,” one said. Several of them stood.
“No. Stay seated, but thank you.”
“You like to join us?”
God, he was good looking. Dark, almond eyes and light, coffee-colored skin. They all were specimens. She smelled something familiar in their group.
Confidence.
“Well, I…”
“Sure she will, gents.” Griz came over and handed her a menu. “I’m giving her this, but I already know she likes the fresh crab sandwich.” He winked, and several of the men nodded.
So that’s how it’s done. Griz just let them know she’d been there with someone. Didn’t matter who. Someone had claimed her.
But do they know he’d dumped me?
It probably didn’t matter. She could tell she was permanently off limits. And it wouldn’t be the first time an ex-girlfriend…and what in the hell are you thinking, Christy?
I’m no ex anything. I was a two-night stand. Nothing more.
That did it. Her eyes stung because the tears were being dredged up all the way from her feet. She’d cried so much last night she was plain out of tears and hadn’t recovered, probably wouldn’t recover for days.
She shoved the menu against Griz’s chest, chanced a quick glance into his puzzled eyes, then took off. She ran. She ran down the sidewalk three blocks, hoping the wind would take the tears away before she felt them running down her cheeks.
And then she stopped.
What am I doing?
She’d run past her car. She saw water glistening on the inlet and she walked toward it, down to where the waves were lapping on the shore. The sand was warm under her feet. A couple of little kids were playing in the surf. The beach was dotted with visitors.
Christy turned to the left and saw a portion of the beach roped off in orange. Out in the bay several gray boat crews were bobbing up and down, their oars dipping deep into the murky water, held by muscled arms. It kept them from being pulled onto the rocks ahead of them on the shore. Another small crew of men ran in tandem down the beach, carrying a rubber boat over their heads, looking like ants under a bulky sausage. A lone man with a bright orange vest was shouting through a white bullhorn. He stood atop the large boulders of the breakwater.
She walked closer to the spectacle. A small crowd of tourists was standing outside the orange zone. As another crew passed them, someone shouted, “Smile, gentlemen. We got pretty girls ahead.”
Half of the men didn’t look up, but the handsome boat crew leader showed off his pearly whites to a couple of well-tanned lovelies in their all-too-skimpy bikinis, each holding up their iPhones to take pictures.
“Bet he won’t be smiling tonight,” someone said in the audience.
Another instructor with a bullhorn shouted behind one brave soul, who was limping.
“I said sandy. Good and sandy, mister.”
The whole beach could hear him.
“Yessir.”
“Don’t yessir me. Get sandy, sailor.”
“Yessir.” The recruit did somersaults all the way to the edge of the surf, where he lay back and allowed the little slapping waves to cover him. He threw wet sand over his camis and boots that were laced up mid calf. The young man looked up to see where his tormentor was.
“Did I say you could raise your head, sailor?”
The soldier put his stubbled head back onto the wet beach and continued to splash water and wet, sloppy sand on his own face.
Christy heard the bullhorn blurt out something toward the waiting boat crews on the water, and she watched as one crew cheered and began paddling in. Reaching the rocks, they dismounted, held their boat above their heads, and inched up, painfully slow, as one crab-like animal. They brought the precious boat up and over the rocks without damaging it. They cheered as they must have been rewarded with something the instructor said. They ran the rest of the way to take their position next to another crew, who was sitting on the edge of their boat, sunning themselves. Waiting.
So this is what he did.
She’d seen the TV programs. She was touched that this little routine of triumph and defeat was so openly visible for everyone to see. If someone failed today, some of the people they were supposed to defend were going to witness it.
Have I ever faced that kind of reality?
She had to say yes. She’d come during her mother’s last days, taken a few days off from the lingerie shop in San Francisco. When her mother died, she felt totally alone. No brother, sister, or father.
The first few days after her mother’s death, she didn’t even cry. It wasn’t until her mother’s pastor stopped by to visit as she was boxing up some of her mother’s things that she’d collapsed against
his chest and let loose. Was that all it took? Someone’s big strong arms to hold her so she could free herself of the pent up grief, and loneliness? Someone to help her feel what it was like to be truly alone?
After that, she’d taken a breather from packing, and for the next two days walked down to the water’s edge, watching the boats. She watched the sun setting both nights. On the second evening, as the pink and orange sky turned purple, she decided she’d stay in San Diego. Something in the water called her.
She dialed Madame M and told her she wasn’t coming back to the shop after all.
“Ah, ma chère, I feel a great adventure awaiting you. Is there a man, perhaps?”
“Hardly. Unless he’s the doorman, or a driver for Goodwill.”
“No romantic dinners by the water’s edge?”
“No.”
“Galleries. They have wonderful galleries. Not as great as here, of course.”
Nothing was ever as good as it was in San Francisco. Madame squealed about every new yogurt shop or cupcake bakery that opened. It was their secret mission to visit all the new ones within the first week of their opening.
“And then there are the boys on the beach. The ones that run bare-chested.”
“I’ve not even seen them.”
“Then you must. In fact, I will never forgive you unless you do.”
Christy knew Madame would be stressed and shorthanded with her absence. But while the women knew her customers, she knew her staff even better. There’d be nothing she could say to change Christy’s mind.
Christy had intended to transition to work for a wealthy San Francisco developer and customer of the shop. He’d been delighted when she told him she’d passed her test.
She called Tom Bergeron’s office and told his secretary she was going to hang her new license somewhere else, and would be permanently relocating to San Diego. The secretary feigned disappointment, but Christy knew the older woman was secretly jealous of the attention the handsome owner paid to her. At least he did before his recent public spectacle of a wedding to the famous international supermodel. Married on the bay, on a full moonlit night. She’d watched the couple and hoped someday her wedding would be just as beautiful.
If she could only meet the right guy.
Mr. Simms was going to be the Realtor she had selected to sell her mother’s condo, but when he offered her the job instead, she took it. And that was how she got here, on the beach. Watching some poor mother’s son get wet and sandy.
Finding out where his limits were.
And where hers were, as well.
Christy left the beach and returned home. In her dusky-lit condo, Christy made some client calls and then checked her emails. She checked her cell. Nothing from Kyle, of course. She fixed herself a salad and ate alone on the balcony, watching the sunset over the channel.
She wondered what he was doing. If he was safe. If he’d found Armando.
Stop this. Not good for you.
The orange sunset reminded her of that first night they’d shared together. His dark hair had a red streak to it in the sunlight. Even the hair on his thighs and calves had orange tips, like they were on fire. She’d looked down and touched him there at their joining, then had drawn her hands up over his flat abdomen, drifting over the smooth muscles that moved under his warm skin as he made love to her. His body had undulated close and then apart as he’d thrust slowly and completely in and then out, ministering to her, giving her something she’d never had.
She’d wanted to see it all. Wanted to watch what they looked like making love. Then she’d felt his gaze on her as she looked up to his face. He’d stopped. And as they’d shared the gaze between them in the quiet afternoon, he’d entered her deep and stayed there, and filled her.
Something had happened. She knew it did. Did he feel the same?
Her face was warmed as she stared out at the glistening water. If she thought very hard, she could still feel his lips on hers. Her body responded. She remembered what it felt like to touch his chest with her nipples and arch up to his warmth and see his pleasure in those blue eyes.
It was going to be another restless night. Maybe her workout would sweat it out of her.
Maybe not.
Chapter 14
Kyle and the team took off, running toward the cabin to do a snatch and grab on Armando, but a rain of automatic gunfire from that direction stopped them. Caught between the cabin and their safe house on wheels, they elected to go off toward the road and lead their pursuers away from the van. Then they slipped back and waited.
“They’ve got some decent equipment,” Fredo whispered.
“Ex-military?” Cooper asked.
Kyle nodded. Whoever was hunting them had night vision too, so their advantage of surprise and their equipment had been equalized. He decided the best method was to retreat and sneak back later. He wasn’t sure who was lying in wait for them. Perhaps it had been a trap—one they’d walked right into.
Every few yards they stopped to listen. Nothing was moving. No animals, no sounds from anything. Just rustling wind. It chilled Kyle to the bone and worried him.
“You don’t worry about the animal sounds around you in the jungle. It’s when there’s no sound it’s the most dangerous,” Gunny had told him.
Cooper tapped him on the shoulder and pointed west. Kyle turned and saw two heavily-armed men, wearing all black, running between rocks and trees, using them as cover. He motioned for Fredo and Cooper to split up. The three of them would come at the men from behind.
Fredo set off a small timed IED under a tent of charred branches, and then the three dispersed. In thirty seconds, the explosion echoed throughout the forest and up into the foothills above them. While the men were focused on the blast, Kyle and Cooper came up behind them and with quick jerks to their neck, rendered them unconscious. The team tied the pair up back-to-back and added strips of heavy military duct tape across their eyes and mouth, then secured their wrists and ankles with zip ties.
The team waited for evidence of more gunmen, but all was silent. Coop injected something in the men to make sure they remained passed out.
“That buys us an hour,” Coop told Kyle.
They returned to the clearing with the cabin. This time the brown sedan had just pulled up alongside one black Suburban, and two occupants jumped out. Armando’s Land Rover was parked off in the bushes to the side.
Dust from the off-road trail was settling all around them. Another vehicle approached—a Jeep. Its engine whined, then sputtered to silence behind the Suburban. A single male occupant in police uniform, armed with an automatic strapped to his chest, got out of the Jeep and headed for the front door of the cabin. Kyle realized they were out-gunned, maybe three to one.
Not bad odds, if there were no wounded.
Heated voices came from within.
What Kyle and his team heard next froze them to the ground. A hail of bullets came from inside the house, along with a woman’s scream.
Mia’s emotional pleas were difficult to understand, but Kyle could hear the occasional “No.” That meant the men were doing something horrible to her or to Armando. After the expended rounds, her sobs pierced the otherwise silent and dark night.
Kyle’s eyes filled with water as he drew on one horrifying thought: Armando might be dead.
Fredo and Cooper checked Kyle’s expression before he quickly sent them off. Practiced at reading each other without words, the team made their way to cover the house, Kyle in the rear, Cooper up front, near the porch overhang, hidden behind a water tank, and Fredo on the side of the house, where he hopefully took up a vantage point by the living room window.
Kyle looked into the first bedroom and saw the two men kicking someone he thought was Armando at first. But he soon realized his buddy was handcuffed to the doorframe, looking more out of it than before. The man on the floor had been the one who had injected Armando with the junk. From the blood pooling around him, Kyle figured he’d been shot. The smoke from re
cent gunfire wafted through the room like incense. The man on the floor put up no resistance to the barrage of kicking and fists pummeling his body. Kyle knew the man was probably dead.
The policeman was at the doorway and swore when he saw the corpse.
“What the hell were you thinking, Caesar? You’re gonna fuck us all,” he shouted.
“He pumped Armando so full of junk he didn’t even know Mia’s name. And just now I caught him going down on Mia, the sick fuck. She’s my woman. And Armando has told us nothing,” Caesar answered. “I caught this guy yesterday with his hands all over her ass.”
“The girl means nothing except for him,” the dirty cop said, nodding to Armando who remained motionless, eyes closed. If he was awake, Kyle couldn’t tell. Bloody drool was dripping down his chin and onto his stained white T-shirt. Maybe a bicep flinched in response to information about the man’s attempts with Mia. Maybe. Kyle couldn’t be sure.
Caesar was glaring at the policeman, keeping one hand on the knife strapped to his thigh.
“You gonna use that? You fucking dickhead. We’re gonna have to torch this place. The squad will be here any minute with all that fucking gunfire. Can’t leave evidence.”
The cop gave instructions in English to two huge guys. The pair dashed off to the Suburban.
Caesar swore and left the room.
Kyle couldn’t get Armando’s attention, so he moved on. Mia was whimpering in the next room, sobbing uncontrollably. Her body jolted in rhythm with her sobs as she writhed on the dirty mattress, trying to dislodge herself from the restraints. She seemed beyond hope, naked and beside herself.
Caesar was wrapping her dirty flesh with an old quilt, trying to calm her sobs. She raised herself up as far as she could and spat at him, earning her a slap across the face that sent her back onto the dirty mattress, where she lay still. Kyle gripped the handle on his sidearm. If it wasn’t too dangerous, he’d put a bullet through the guy’s skull, but it was too risky.
Caesar checked Mia’s pulse and swore.
Accidental SEAL (SEAL Brotherhood #1) Page 13