She opened John’s first—he could accuse her of being nosy later. There was a letter addressed to her brother, which she didn’t touch, but her heart squeezed, realizing that her brother had been his only family, too—that’s why he’d had his stuff sent here. Now they would have each other.
The rest of the items were mostly clothes, including a stack of very ugly Hawaiian shirts that she was tempted to toss in the garbage. She wasn’t surprised that there wasn’t much that was personal except for a framed picture of him and his mom taken at one of his water polo games. He had a gold medal around his neck and his mom was beaming.
The lack of the personal didn’t surprise her, but she vowed that would change. For both of them. She reached down to pet what she hoped would be the beginning of that: their new kitten, which John didn’t know about yet.
Brittany was tempted to name her something ridiculous like Fluffums or Snuggly Bear—just to make him have to call her that—but she couldn’t do that to any female even in the name of fun. Besides, the orange tabby with shimmering light green eyes, rescued from the local pound, was much too dignified for that.
Brittany had decided on Ariel.
Suspecting she was going to need her wine for what came next, Brittany took a fortifying sip before opening Brandon’s box. Unlike when she’d gone through John’s, it was strange to go through her brother’s belongings. She barely knew him, whereas with John it hadn’t felt that way.
It wasn’t until she’d gotten to the bottom of the box that she saw the envelope addressed to her.
Tears filled her eyes even before she opened it. She curled up on the couch with her wine and Ariel in her lap and started to read.
By the time she finished, tears were streaming down her cheeks. She was so overwhelmed by what she read that she didn’t even hear the door open.
“Jesus, Brit, what’s wrong?”
Brittany looked up to see John standing there. Despite how happy she was to see him, she didn’t move other than to hold the letter up to him. “Did you know about this?”
He’d obviously seen the opened boxes when he walked in and realized what they were. He barely glanced at the letter before nodding.
Brittany’s chest was so tight with emotion she could barely speak. “This is what you were talking about when you said I should have trusted him?”
John nodded again and sat down next to her. He was momentarily surprised when the kitten hopped on his leg before jumping off the couch, but he didn’t stop to ask questions before taking Brittany into his arms.
Feeling those big, strong arms around her opened the floodgates. Her crying got harder—a lot harder—as she wept for her lost brother.
The brother she would never have the chance to apologize to.
The brother she hadn’t really known.
The brother she should have trusted.
She had blamed Brandon for changing his story after their parents were killed, but he’d only done it to protect her. The Saudi diplomat had threatened to have her kidnapped and sold as some old man’s sex slave. In the letter, Brandon apologized for what he’d done, saying that he’d only been eighteen. He’d been scared and hadn’t known what to do.
But he’d never forgotten. After he’d become a SEAL he’d investigated and learned the whole story behind the cover-up and why the government had wanted to protect this guy so badly. The diplomat was a CIA asset, and they were using him for information about terrorists. He’d been of negligible use, stringing them along for years before they cut ties with him.
In the envelope, Brandon had given her all the information she needed, even suggesting that it would make a good story.
He’d just given her the starring centerpiece in the article she was writing on abuses of diplomatic immunity.
There was one more piece of information Brandon had given her. The diplomat’s son had been killed in a car accident a couple years ago, when his father was stationed in Pakistan.
When her tears had finally dried, she looked up at John. “Was Brandon ever deployed to Pakistan?”
John’s expression went stony—maybe a little too stony. “I can’t say.”
She’d thought the secrecy thing would make her angry. After what they’d gone through, she was surprised that it didn’t. She understood why he couldn’t share things with her.
But she knew the answer anyway. There was something in his eyes. And maybe she knew her brother a little better now, too. Brandon had gotten his justice. It might not have been the way she would have done it, but she wouldn’t pretend she was sorry.
God, how wrong she’d been. She would give anything to be able to go back and change things. “Why didn’t he tell me?”
“I think at first he was ashamed.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“He thought he should have protected you better.”
“He was only eighteen.”
John shrugged as if he understood Brandon’s perspective. “After he found out the whole story about the cover-up behind your parents’ death, he changed his mind. He wanted you to know the truth. But every time I asked him, he said he was waiting for the right opportunity.” John looked at her. “He never stopped loving you, Brit. You were the most important person in the world to him.”
Brittany felt her throat closing again. “Aren’t you supposed to be making me feel better?”
He gave her that one-sided smile that she loved so much. “You will. But he wouldn’t want you to feel guilty because of what you read in there.”
No, she supposed not—especially because her brother had something to feel guilty for, too. So did John. “You lied to me.”
John frowned. “How?”
She handed him the letter and pointed to the last section. “You told me Brandon didn’t interfere five years ago. But he did. He told you to stay away from me.”
John scanned the letter, obviously surprised by what he was reading. Brandon wrote that he was wrong to have interfered. At the time he hadn’t known John as well, but there was no one he would have been happier to see her with. John finished and then shook his head. “Not exactly.”
“What do you mean?”
“He didn’t tell me to stay away from you. He gave me a choice.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What kind of choice?”
“The ‘state your intentions’ or ‘beat it’ kind of choice.”
Her eyes widened. “He told you to marry me?”
“Not in so many words, but that was the direction I needed to be heading.”
Brittany made a “jeez” sound. “No wonder you went running for the Boobsie Twins.”
He winced with a grimace—and not just at the bad joke. “Yeah, well, about that. That was kind of a lie, too.”
Brittany was floored. “You didn’t sleep with them?”
He shook his head.
“You’re such an asshole!” She gave him a hard enough shove to make him grunt.
“Ow. What was that for? I thought you’d be happy. Would you rather I’d slept with them?”
“Of course not, but that was for letting me think you had. Couldn’t you have just come to me like a grown-up and explained? Didn’t you think I might understand? That I might not be any more eager to marry you than you were me?”
Something crossed his face that she didn’t understand. He looked a little worried. “Yeah, it occurred to me. But I wanted something final.”
“You wanted me to hate you?” He nodded. “Why?”
“Because I wasn’t sure I’d be strong enough to stay away from you.”
She eyed him, seeing that he was telling the truth. “You know, in a warped way that’s kind of sweet.”
He grinned, but then he looked at the clock and got the worried look on his face again. It was almost seven p.m.
“You expecting someone?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
He looked a little green and appeared to be sweating a little.
What was wrong with him?
She was about to ask when she heard what sounded like a drum. No, not one drum—a lot of drums. Followed by a bunch of trumpets and flutes and the unmistakable tune of Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk.”
Oh my God . . . he didn’t?
She turned to gape at him, and he smiled sheepishly.
He did.
“A marching band?” she said with utter disbelief.
He shrugged. “I still have some contacts with the USC band. I had your friend Mac call one of them.”
The same USC band that had performed in “Tusk.”
Brittany raced to the door to open it and felt the chills racing down her spine as she was blasted with the sounds of at least fifty members of one of the country’s most famous college marching bands. Instead of Lindsey Buckingham on the vocals, one of the cheerleaders was singing.
Just say that you love me.
Just tell me that you’ll marry me.
Brittany was too overcome to notice right away that they’d changed the lyrics of the last two lines of the chorus.
John stood to the side of the door, watching her reaction but careful not to let anyone outside see him.
She turned to him wordlessly, and he gave her a smile so sweet and uncertain that she thought her heart might burst through her chest.
He was worried that she would say no because of what she’d said a few minutes ago. But that was because she’d been twenty-two!
Instead of putting him out of his misery, however, she arched a brow and turned back to the band. Most of the block had come out to enjoy the unexpected entertainment, and they ended up playing a few more songs. She went out to thank them before finally returning to the house and to a clearly crawling-up-the-walls SEAL.
She barely had a chance to close the door before he blurted, “It doesn’t have to be right away. I know it’s only been a few weeks, but I just wanted you to know that I am serious about this. That marriage is where I want this to head.”
“What about our jobs?”
He frowned again. “Mine is a little uncertain right now. Scott wants us to stay off the grid a little longer.”
She understood. They still had a lot to figure out. “So is mine. What about after it’s safe?”
“You don’t want me to be a SEAL?” He looked devastated.
“I didn’t say that. Do you want to be married to a reporter?”
“Not unless she’s you.” Seeing that wasn’t going to be enough, he added, “I would never ask you to give up what you do. I’m sure there will be times when I don’t like what you are writing, but I will never ask you to put aside your work for me again. I never should have done that. I hope you will forgive me.”
She already had after the first fifty times he’d apologized at Kate’s house while they were waiting for Colt.
“What if I decide to write an exposé on secret SEAL teams?”
He lost a little color in his face and swallowed as if he were eating a rotten egg. “As long as you weren’t publishing anything you’d gotten from me, I would probably try to convince you not to, but if I couldn’t, I would deal with it.”
Good thing for him she never had any intention of writing an article like that. Not all conspiracies needed to be uncovered; some secrets kept him safe. He seemed to realize she was testing him and turned it back on her. “What about you? Are you going to be okay with me gone for months and not able to tell you anything about where I am or what I’m doing?”
It was her turn to swallow hard on something that wasn’t very palatable. “Nothing? Not even a tiny hint?”
He crossed his arms in front of the spectacular chest she admired so much and shook his head. “Nada.”
She made a face. “Then I guess I’ll have to try to deal with it, too.”
He grinned. “Does that mean . . . ?” He took her into his arms again. “Will you marry me?”
She smiled back at him and nodded, her eyes filling with tears of happiness. “But wait! Didn’t you say something about naked and swinging a baton?”
“You didn’t just make a dick joke in the middle of my proposal?”
She laughed. “I guess we’ll have to leave that part out when we tell the kids.”
“Kids? Don’t you think I should get used to the cat first? What’s its name?”
“Ariel.”
It didn’t take him long to figure out. “The Little Mermaid?”
She nodded. The statue they’d seen on their second sightseeing day in Copenhagen.
He bent down and covered her mouth with the sweetest, most tender kiss he’d ever given her.
A kiss that led to that naked-and-baton part of the proposal that she’d been looking forward to.
It was a long time later, when they were lying in bed, that Ariel came out of her hiding place. She’d apparently decided that John was all right because instead of seeking out Brittany, she snuggled next to him.
Traitor. Brittany knew she should have gotten a boy cat. “Maybe I should change her name to Brutus?”
He started laughing much harder than the joke warranted. His eyes were twinkling when he finally stopped.
“What?” she asked, leaning over to prop herself on his chest.
“Brutus is taken.” She gave him a look that told him she had no clue what he was talking about. “I hope Ariel likes dogs, because I arranged to have the platoon dog sent here from Honolulu. Brand used to take care of him when we were at the base.”
Brittany fell back on the pillow. Brutus. Oh jeez. So much for no personal life. She now had a kitten, a dog, a house, and a fiancé.
And she’d never been happier in her life.
Keep reading for a special preview of the next book in the Lost Platoon series,
OUT OF TIME
Coming from Berkley Jove in fall 2018!
Prologue
Vorkuta, Russia
May 28, 1500 hours
“What are we gonna do now, sir?”
It was Travis Hart who posed the question, but there were five gazes pinned on him, waiting for his response. Scott was the officer in charge. The leader. The one who was going to get them out of this shit creek without the proverbial paddle. FUBAR, the age-old military acronym for “fucked up beyond all recognition,” was putting it mildly.
They were lucky to be alive. Even if it didn’t feel that way. Instinctively, his hand went to the circle of medal in the chest pocket of the high-tech tactical black uniform they wore for clandestine missions. He didn’t even know why he’d brought it with him. An engagement ring wasn’t exactly something you carried on a mission like a blowout kit or extra ammo. A good luck charm, maybe? If so, it had worked.
For six of them at least.
The platoon had been on a highly covert no-footprint recon mission to Russia in search of doomsday weapons that broke God knew how many laws and treaties, and they had seen more than half their Team killed in a missile strike that would have killed all of them if the girlfriend Scott wasn’t supposed to have hadn’t warned them. Six of them had survived the missile strike with little more than the clothes on their backs, and now they had find their way out of BF Russia without letting anyone know they were alive—good guys or bad—because they didn’t know whom to trust.
Just another day at the office for SEAL Team Nine.
After fifteen years in the service, Scott should have been ready for something like this. First, there’d been four years as a Midshipman at the Naval Academy—his last year as brigade commander—then twenty-four of the most miserable weeks of his life in BUD/S, followed by three weeks of jump school and twenty-six more slightly less hellish weeks of SEAL Qualification Training, another two years of training, w
orkups, and overseas deployments with Team One as a JG (lieutenant junior grade), six months of sniper school and finally, after another two-year tour, the brutal six-month selection process that gotten him into the tier-one (aka highest-level Special Mission Unit) SEAL team.
He’d jumped from airplanes at high altitudes too many times to count, run until his feet were bloody stumps, swum in icy-cold water until he thought his fingers and other more important appendages might fall off, gone without sleep and food for too many hours to remember, been deployed to more shithole corners of this world than anyone in their right mind would want to see, and led hundreds of successful missions in the past five years as lieutenant (as of a few months ago as lieutenant commander) of one of America’s most elite special operations units. He’d been shot at, stabbed, ambushed—he’d even gone down in a helicopter once. Along the way he’d picked up two bronze stars for valor, a purple heart, and enough ribbons and commendation medals to fill out the jacket pocket of his dress blues.
But none of his qualifications or years of training and experience had prepared him for how to get six military-age men—who even with longer hair and beards weren’t going to pass for locals—from an isolated coal-mining city north of the Arctic Circle a few thousand miles to safety without travel documents, supplies, or anyone to call for help. Hell, they didn’t even have phones to call right now. They’d tossed everything electronic they had into the fiery explosion that had killed their eight Teammates. Ghosts didn’t have electronic footprints, and they didn’t want anyone to be able to track them.
It was almost axiomatic that SEAL commanders always had a plan. They had backup plans for their backup plans. But possibly being betrayed by someone on the inside wasn’t exactly covered in SEAL officer 101, and Scott was in full-on improvise mode here.
As he was pretty sure “no fucking clue” was not what these guys needed or wanted to hear right now, Scott knew he’d better figure it out fast. He’d gotten them this far through two days of some of what had to be the most inhospitable, bug-infested countryside known to man; he’d get them the rest. Challenge was what he excelled at; it was what had drawn him to be a SEAL, and then to the elite echelons of the tier-one Team Nine.
Off the Grid Page 33