by Paige Tyler
She was reminding herself to ask Isabella about it later when movement on the dock caught her eye. Bristol turned to see Nick and Dalton coming their way. Other than noting that his bodyguard was dressed in a suit like her father’s guards, Bristol had a hard time seeing anything but the subject of her earlier conversation with Isabella.
Nick was wearing a pair of black swim trunks and a tank top. Bristol wasn’t sure which she appreciated more, his lean, muscled legs or the broad shoulders, bulging biceps, and the hint of serious pecs and abs hiding under his shirt. Maybe Isabella was onto something when she suggested Bristol was intrigued by him. It wasn’t just the obvious physical attributes that did it for her either—though there were a lot to be impressed with. It was also the confident way he walked as well as the casual way he laughed and joked with his bodyguard, as if being in crazy situations like he was in at the moment was a normal part of his life.
“That is one extremely handsome man,” Isabella said softly from beside her. “I can see why a woman might dream about him as she drifted off to sleep.”
Bristol turned and saw that they were alone on the deck. “You shouldn’t be saying stuff like that out loud,” she teased. “What if Alejandro overheard? He might get jealous.”
Isabella smiled. “One can only hope.”
CHAPTER FIVE
I DON’T MIND waiting on Bristol,” Dalton said, placing two glasses of champagne on the polished teak table in front of them and giving her a smile he probably thought was charming before looking at Nash. “But if you want anything else, you can get it yourself. I’m paid to take a bullet for you, not bring you drinks.”
In reality, Nash supposed that was true enough. But having his buddy at his beck and call was pretty damn entertaining even if it was only for show.
“Okay,” Nash said. “But there goes that expensive Christmas present I was planning to buy for you.”
Dalton snorted. “Well, damn. I guess I’ll have to go out and buy that Old Spice gift set all on my own then.”
“Have it your way,” Nash called out as his teammate disappeared down the steps that led to the galley. “But that gift set is going to run you almost thirty dollars and you could have had it for free.”
Beside him, Bristol laughed. “I can’t believe your bodyguard talks to you like that.”
“Tell me about it,” Nash muttered. “I’d fire him, but he’s like family so I’m stuck with him.”
Bristol sipped her champagne, eyes sparkling in the sun sneaking into the half covered deck area where they sat on comfortable bench seats. He’d pulled off his shirt after the big yacht had left the dock, and Bristol had followed suit, taking off her cover-up. He’d done his very best not to stare, but it’d been damn hard. She had a spectacular body. The sleek, high-cut one-piece showed off her generous curves and revealed legs so long he’d found himself daydreaming more than once about how many hours it would take him to lick every inch of them.
“Why would you want to fire him?” she asked, setting down her glass with a smile. “I think it’s great the two of you are close enough to rib each other. None of my father’s guards even talk to him, much less tease him.”
He put on a shocked expression. “You mean Leon and your father don’t go barhopping together?”
Bristol laughed again. Nash couldn’t decide what he liked better, the way she did it or the way a certain part of her anatomy jiggled just right when she did.
Okay, that was a lie. He definitely knew which one he liked more. But he was smart enough to refrain from thinking about her perfect breasts too much. Unless he wanted to pitch a tent in his swim trucks. Which he didn’t. So instead, he focused on her sexy smile. That turned out to be just as dangerous so he turned his attention to the amazing yacht they were on.
Yeah, he knew Munoz had bought the boat with drug money, but it was still the nicest seagoing vessel he’d ever been on. While the Navy had all kinds of cool ships from subs to aircraft carriers, they weren’t the same. Lydia’s Dream was beyond luxurious. With two pools big enough to do laps in, a sweet Jacuzzi, three bedroom suites, a temperature-controlled wine vault, and a kickass movie theater, it was almost enough to make him think he’d made a poor career choice.
Until he once again reminded himself that Munoz had gotten rich by selling drugs and murdering people. Then it wasn’t difficult remembering why he liked being a SEAL.
Nash picked up his glass. “I really wouldn’t fire him. Dalton I mean. He’s like a brother. And while he jokes about taking a bullet for me, the truth is, I’d take one for him, too.”
Bristol regarded him curiously, like she was surprised by that. Nash cursed silently. An arms dealer like Chapman didn’t risk his life for some guy who worked for him. But for some crazy reason, he wanted Bristol to know he wasn’t like the other lowlife criminals her father associated with. Even if he did risk blowing his cover by doing it.
“How did you and Dalton meet?” she asked softly, slipping off her sandals and curling her legs under her. “I don’t know too much about this kind of stuff, but I get the feeling you can’t find a bodyguard like him on the Internet.”
Nash opened his mouth then closed it again. Crap, he had no idea how to answer that. He and Dalton hadn’t even considered coming up with a story to explain their connection. If he said the wrong thing, this whole mission could easily blow up in their faces.
How much did Bristol already know about him? Her father must have told her something about Chapman, right?
He quickly fabricated a story in his head, one that was vague enough on the details to avoid any tripwires when he suddenly realized he didn’t want to lie to her. It was stupid. He was working undercover for the friggin' CIA. Everything about this was a lie. He prayed Bristol wasn’t involved in whatever her father had planned for those surface-to-air missiles, but for all Nash knew she could be in this stuff up to her pretty little neck. Hell, she could be playing him right now on her father’s orders.
Maybe so, but he couldn’t ignore the way his gut clenched when he thought about selling her on a completely made-up life. Something told him that Bristol was different, that she was nothing like her father. Nash wanted her to know the real him—or at least as much of the real him as he could tell her.
He rested his arm on the back of the seat. “We met while we were both in the Navy,” he finally said, relieved he could tell her something true while still protecting his cover. Chapman had been in the Navy, so meeting Dalton there made sense. “We’ve watched each other’s backs ever since.”
Bristol did a double take. “You were in the Navy?”
He nodded.
“Huh.” She studied him thoughtfully. “Is that old recruiting slogan right about it not just being a job but an adventure?”
Nash chuckled. “Oh, it’s definitely an adventure.”
She placed her palm on the seat and leaned forward a little, giving him a sexy glimpse of cleavage. “You can’t say something like that and not expect me to want to hear more about it. What kinds of places did you get to visit? Or did you spend all your time on a ship somewhere in the middle of the ocean?”
Actually, SEALs spent very little time on a ship compared to the rest of the Navy. He couldn’t tell her that though. He couldn’t talk about any classified combat missions either. But there were lots of other things he could tell her about, like the places he’d been for training and mission briefings. He left out everything related to the SEALs, but at least he didn’t have to lie about anything. He even told tell her a few of the tamer stories that involved Dalton, like the time his dumbass friend climbed over the wall of the Chinese Embassy in London because one of the women who worked there had smiled at him from across a crowded restaurant.
Bristol’s eyes went wide. “That’s insane! Did he get caught?”
He shook his head with a laugh. “No. It was close, but according to Dalton, they ended up having a very nice evening. Of course, that’s only because I spent half the night running around the embassy distra
cting the guards so he and his new girlfriend could have a little alone time.”
She smiled. “Now that’s only something a real friend would do.”
Nash thought back to the crazy things he and Dalton had done and was shocked to realize how many situations like that they’d been in. He wondered where this current undercover mission would rank.
“Yeah, I guess that’s true,” Nash admitted. “He’s done the same for me. Maybe nothing as stupid since Dalton seems to have a special gift for doing boneheaded stuff that I’d never do in a million years.”
“That’s a relief.” Bristol sipped her champagne. “I know people in the military travel a lot, but you sounded like you were away more than you were home. What kind of job did you do in the Navy?”
“I’m a SEAL.”
The words were out before he realized it. He was still scrambling to say something to salvage the situation when he remembered Roman saying Chapman had been in the SEALs before getting booted out of the service. He should be good.
Then why was Bristol frowning?
“Don’t you mean that you used to be a SEAL?” she asked. “You aren’t in the Navy anymore.”
Shit.
Damn, he really sucked at this undercover crap.
He gave her a sheepish grin. “Yeah, well, you know what they say—once a SEAL, always a SEAL. The people I worked with, the training I’ve had, and the things I’ve done will be a part of me for the rest of my life.”
Her expression turned wistful. “It sounds like you really loved being in the Navy. Why did you leave it? And how did you end up going from being a SEAL to an arms dealer? That seems like a leap, not to mention goes against everything you must have believed in.”
Nash hesitated. The question was innocent enough, but the way she’d asked it made him wonder if she already knew the answer. Did Munoz suspect he wasn’t Chapman and was using her to find out if he was right? Considering she could barely seem to be in the same room with her father, that was unlikely. But then maybe she was a damn good actress.
Or maybe he was being overly suspicious.
He shrugged. “I’m not really sure how to answer that. One day, I’m jumping out of a plane and landing on a deck of a ship, being a hero and doing SEAL things. The next thing I know, everything has changed, the world you used to be part of is gone, and you’re working with people you don’t know doing things you’d never imagined doing. Sometimes it feels like you’re not even yourself anymore. Like it’s all make believe. Like you’re playing a role without any idea what comes next.”
Nash held his breath as he waited for Bristol to throw the BS flag on that esoteric pile of crap he’d just spit out, but instead she nodded.
“It’s kind of like being in porn, I guess,” she said lightly.
He frowned. “What?”
She laughed and waved a hand. “It’s something the sports radio show host I listened to when I lived in Connecticut always said. About how nobody plans to work in porn, that they just end up there. It sounds like you didn’t plan on becoming an arms dealer. You just ended up doing it.”
Nash thought about it for a moment then chuckled. “I guess that’s a good analogy. I sure as hell didn’t plan to end up where I am, that’s for sure. But I’m here now and trying my best to make sure I don’t lose myself.”
If Bristol thought that was a funny thing for him to say, she didn’t remark on it. Instead, she gazed out at the turquoise blue water for a long time before turning her attention back to him.
“Does your family know what you do for a living?” she asked quietly.
“They have a vague idea, but I never tell them any details. They know that what I do is dangerous and we leave it at that.”
That was true. His family knew he was a SEAL, that it was dangerous, and never asked a lot of questions about it. Ignorance is bliss and all that.
“Do you ever go home and see them?”
“Yeah. Not as often as I’d like though,” he admitted. “With my job, getting back to Colorado can be tough.”
“You’re from Colorado?” she asked curiously. At least he prayed it was curiosity on her part and not the fact that she knew exactly where the real Nick Chapman was from.
He nodded. “Born and raised. I’m the middle of seven kids.”
“Seven?” She gaped at him. “Seriously?”
He almost laughed. That was usually the reaction he got when he admitted he had a big family.
“Uh-huh. Three brothers and three sisters.”
“Wow,” she said, still clearly incredulous. “Do they all still live in Colorado?”
“Yup. My parents own an outdoor adventure company and my whole family works there. They take tourists hiking and rafting in the summer then skiing and snowmobiling in the winter.”
Her lips curved. “That sounds like fun. What do they think of you not going into the family business?”
“They want me to do whatever makes me happy,” he said. “I helped run the place when I was growing up and figured that I’d work there full time after graduating from high school.”
“What happened?”
“I saw the ocean, that’s what happened.” He grinned. “My class went to California on our senior trip and I got my first look at the Pacific. Seeing those huge, rolling waves of water and seeing nothing but miles of ocean made me realize just how big the world really is.”
“And you had to explore it,” she murmured.
He nodded. “I joined the Navy the day I got back and left home right after I graduated. My parents weren’t thrilled, but they knew it was what I wanted to do. Since I love the water and all things outdoors, becoming a SEAL was the obvious choice. I never looked back.”
Bristol regarded him with something that looked like awe. “Does it make me sound horrible if I say that I’m almost jealous of you? Seeing what you want and going after it like that…” She shook her head. “I wish I could do it.”
Nash was about to ask what she wanted to do and what was keeping her from it, but the captain of the ship, an older man with salt-and-pepper hair, cleared his throat to interrupt them. Crap, he’d been so caught up in Bristol that he hadn’t seen the man come onto the deck.
“Forgive me for interrupting, but I just wanted to let you know that we’ll be at the island in a few minutes,” he said. “After Isabella sets everything up, I’ll take you ashore.”
Bristol blinked. “I didn’t know we were going to the island.”
The captain’s mouth twitched under his bushy mustache. “You know Isabella too well to think she’d let you get away with having a meal on board when there’s a beautiful beach nearby. She knows how much you love the water. I’ll come collect you and Señor Chapman when we’re ready.”
“Okay. Thanks, Alejandro.”
“If you want to skip the beach, I can talk to the captain for you,” Nash offered after the man left. “Tell him that we’d rather have lunch here.”
She smiled. “Actually, I’d rather have lunch on the island. I was just surprised we were going there. Isabella’s right. I do love the beach.”
Nash loved it, too. Especially when there was a beautiful woman to share a blanket with. “What island are we going to?”
“A small private island my father owns.”
Of course Munoz owned an island, Nash thought dryly. He was a cartel boss with more money than he knew what to do with. Nash wouldn’t be surprised if the man owned half of Mexico. Hopefully, that didn’t include the police.
* * * * *
Bristol sighed as her toes sank into the warm sand. She couldn’t have picked a better place to make her escape if she’d come up with it herself. The details of how she was going to get off the island were sketchy to say the least, but she’d think of something. Since the guards had stayed on the yacht instead of coming ashore with them, it should be easy enough. It was a long swim to civilization, but she was practically part dolphin when it came to the water so she was confident she could handle it. Even i
f she wasn’t comfortable in the water, she’d still brave the ocean if it meant getting away from her father.
But first, she had to give Nick the slip.
As insane as it sounded, she felt a little badly about that. Especially since he’d risked his life to protect her from Leon last night. He’d been nothing but a gentleman since he’d arrived at the villa. That said, he was still an arms dealer who was there to do business with her father. If it came down to it, would Nick actually choose her over money?
But while the island might be the perfect place to make her getaway, being there was also a little bittersweet. She and her mother had come here a lot growing up. From playing hide and seek in between the palm trees when she was a little girl to snorkeling among the area’s many colorful fish as a teenager, they were some of the happiest times of her life.
The graceful stone and terracotta gazebo just inside the beach’s tree line was exactly as she remembered it. The picnic table inside was covered with a linen tablecloth and what looked like enough food to feed a small army. Bristol noticed that one of the bench seats was missing, leaving the other for her and Nick, ensuring they’d have to sit close together. No doubt Isabella was responsible for rearranging the furniture.
“You sure you’re okay hanging out alone with me?” Nick asked as they stepped into the gazebo.
She set her tote on the ground and slid onto the seat. “Why wouldn’t I want to be alone with you?”
He regarded her with that ridiculously charming smile of his as he sat beside her. “If I remember last night correctly, you didn’t seem very keen on this outing today.”
Bristol smoothed a linen napkin over her lap. “Not because of you. I hate being manipulated, and my father took it to a whole new level with that stuff he said about my mother.”
She expected Nick to ask her to elaborate, but he merely nodded thoughtfully. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or not.
Still wondering about that, Bristol surveyed the table and noted that street fare tacos seemed to be the theme. In addition to Isabella’s warm homemade corn tortillas waiting to be filled with spicy, perfectly-cooked pork, there were all the garnishes including guacamole, salsa, queso fresco, and cilantro, along with one of Isabella’s specialties, a corn salad made with a creamy mayonnaise-based dressing laced with jalapeños, chili powder, garlic, cilantro, lime juice, and Cotija cheese.