SEAL's Rescue

by Sharon Hamilton

  “What about the hospital again?” she said, angling her head.

  “He came to thank me. And he did.”

  “End of story? Somehow, I don’t think so.”

  “He gave me his card and said sometime he’d like to talk to me, share ideas, and that stuff.”

  “And?”

  “Well, you know, Brandy, I can’t share what I do with anyone. I’m not supposed to have those conversations. I could lose my clearance, be out of a job, and I love my job.”

  “He offered you a job. I knew it.”

  “No, he didn’t. He wanted to talk.”

  “So talk to him. He’s a billionaire.”

  Brandy had suspected something had happened that night at the hospital, because Tucker had been hell-bent on renting a car and driving her home. He’d practically fought the nurses on staff to get her released. He made quite a scene. She knew something had caused that. And Brawley wasn’t talking.

  “I want to see the envelope. If it’s what you say, there shouldn’t be anything you can’t show me. Or is there?”

  “No, Brandy. I have no secrets.”

  “But you do.”

  “No, I don’t.” He wrinkled his brow. “What are you talking about?”

  Brandy stood up and walked to a bag of groceries and plucked out the Big Butt magazine she’d pulled from his gun bag when they moved. It was frayed and dog-eared. But it was one of his, and she knew he’d been saving it as one of his favorites.

  “Geez, Brandy. I didn’t know I still owned that.”

  She loved the look on his face as she slowly placed the magazine in front of him. “Consider it dessert,” she whispered in his ear.

  She headed for the stairs and then stopped.

  “Are you going to join me on the front porch?”

  Tucker leapt to his feet and slipped past her, running down the stairs ahead of her. She met him on the outside. He removed the envelope, opened it, and took out a cream card. Brandy looked over his shoulder at the distinctive handwriting.

  Brandy and Tucker,

  As I’ve said before I can’t thank you enough for your wonderful gift of my daughter’s life. These trees should reach the height of thirty feet or more, so I hope you will plant them where you can enjoy watching them grow, as you grow your family and enjoy your new home. But don’t place them anywhere they will spoil that fantastic view.

  I’m glad our paths have crossed. I hope someday to be able to be more a part of your lives. During the time these trees grow, and hopefully before they get to be thirty feet, and I’m gone, I’d like to sit down and thank you in person and talk about a future that could be for all of us.

  Thank you again,

  Your friend,

  Colin Riley.

  Tucker’s eyes were filled with tears.

  “Honey?”

  “Well, I was just thinking. Can you imagine how he feels, losing a son and nearly losing a daughter? And let me say just this, knowing he gets to spend the rest of his life with her is payment enough. He doesn’t need to thank me. I’ve lived with death before, and it’s terrible. I’ve had people die in my arms. I thought we lost Brawley at one point. I thought I lost you.”

  She hugged her big man with the big heart.

  “No, Tucker, you’ll never lose me. Not ever.”

  Did you enjoy SEAL’s Rescue? Stay tuned for another new book coming out later in the summer, featuring this wonderful couple, SEALed Protection, Book #5 of the Bone Frog Brotherhood.

  Do you love to binge read? If you are new to my books, a great way to get acquainted with the SEAL Brotherhood world is to get the

  Ultimate SEAL Collection #1

  This contains books 1-4 of the original SEAL Brotherhood Series, plus two bonus novellas.

  But you know you want more? Right? Why not purchase the next in the series,

  Ultimate SEAL Collection #2

  This 3-book set starts with a cross-Atlantic cruise with SEALs and their wives, and ends up with a ship hijacking, including an international cast of hundreds, and three thousand guests.

  But I’d like to give you as a bonus for being one of the early purchasers of this story, SEAL’s Goal, my standalone book that will be made into another series starting next year. Enjoy and stay tuned.

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  SEAL’s Goal

  Sharon Hamilton

  Chapter 1

  Patrick Harrington stared out the bus window at the bevy of pretty ladies who always congregated at the player entrance, which looked like a cage. The Seattle facility wasn’t as bad as those in Europe, where women frequently were in and out of the locker room. In the States, only female sports reporters were allowed in. But the steel barriers meant to keep out the public still felt like prison bars.

  Several of the guys on his team were looking forward to a session with the local female newscaster, who liked to interview them naked. Her sultry voice gave them commando hard-ons. Patrick always figured she had a serious kinky streak, but she really wasn’t his style.

  The girls hanging around the bus today appeared a bit haggard. He liked his women athletic, but not too skinny. He liked wholesome girls who enjoyed sex and were quiet about it. Well, they didn’t have to be quiet in bed, just not ones to go blabbing to the press.

  The Tottenham squad strutted their stuff, ambling through the gauntlet of women, carrying their more important personal gear while the team handlers lugged all the heavy equipment. Patrick never left a stadium without his gloves, and his backup gloves, and the ones that could be back up to the backup ones. And he was never without the red, white, and blue American flag Duck Tape he used to hold up his shin guards and tape his ball-handlers in place. His Brit coach didn’t like it, and because he’d been so vocal in the rebukes aimed at Patrick, the rest of the team, consisting of mostly African and Eastern European players, adopted the Duck Tape too, just for spite. Patrick was not the team captain, but he was the team moral leader, especially when it came to minding stupid rules.

  Duck Tape was essential because Velcro could be ripped with a set of cleats…but Duck Tape? Duck Tape was the bomb. Not only was it good for the game, it was good for other antics, and since he bought it by the case and had it shipped from Ohio, he always had lots of it on hand.

  Phone numbers were being exchanged between the players and fangirls behind him while the rest of Tottenham first team descended the ramp, way down into the bowels of the Seattle Sounders stadium. A few VIP fans had been allowed to wait for them outside the changing room, to applaud the team’s arrival. The British Consulate-General and his wife had flown up from San Francisco to watch the game. They and several other dignitaries and friends of the Sounders’ ownership, as well as major investors in the Tottenham franchise, were there to shake hands and wish them well.

  From the small crowd of VIPs emerged the sexy, lithe body of Gayle Bingaman, the babe from SportsTime, who liked to conduct naked interviews. She wore a very proper navy blue suit with an impossibly tight, thigh-hugging skirt that stopped five inches above her knees. She had the right kind of body to pour herself into that suit, with the little bit of ruffle showing along the low-cut, frilly blouse looking like it was on the verge of a major clothing malfunction. He didn’t understand quite why he was on her radar today, but there was no mistaking he was. He’d seen it happen before, and so he decided to play along. He heard whistles behind him as a way of warning.

  Which he hadn’t needed.

  Her athletic body summoned him almost as if he’d been ensorcelled by some dark angel inside her. His Veeger, the childhood nickname he and Ryan had invented for his pecker, was liking the play and stood to attention right on cue. He didn’t have a problem with that, either.

  “Hello, Patrick.” She examine
d his face for a trace of embarrassment, which he would not give her. Unless he wanted to be harassed for the next ten days while on the team “Friendlies” road trip, he better be stronger than the poor Tottenham Hotspur last year who got his spurs tangled with his tongue and started stuttering. She’d moved on to a bank executive, they were told.

  “Hello, Gayle.” He cocked his head to see if he could figure her out, searching for any hesitation.

  She stared back at him without flinching and then slowly perused the length of his upper torso, as well as the length of the tent in his pants. That’s when she finally smiled. To Veeger, she said, “Some days, I just love my job.”

  Yeah, some days I do, too. I have a fuckin’ soccer game to win. Although he suspected her timing was perfect, right now it was going to give him a few problems.

  He glanced at his coach, who was having a heart attack, eyes wide and worried his keeper would end up spending the day in the locker room shower or a bathroom stall. Patrick did think about it, but shook himself mentally. They paid him a million dollars a year to chase a little ball around in a box and make sure it didn’t score.

  But he sure was going to score, just not right now.

  The rest of the squad wandered past him. The VIPs got autographs, and mothers sheltered their children and teenage daughters while Patrick invited Gayle into the locker room.

  “I thought you’d never ask,” she whispered with all the buttered rum she could manage. Her perfume made him sneeze, but her voice made him want to put something inside her mouth. Veeger agreed.

  Ronnie, Patrick’s roommate on road trips and team best friend, opened the door while whistling a casual tune. This allowed Gayle to sashay her hips into Patrick’s thigh. It was a neat trick and got the effect she was obviously looking for.

  They stood in the main opposing team locker room, so he nodded in the direction of the training room entrance.

  “Why not?” She threw her head back, glanced at everyone who was staring, and at the manager, who was scowling and shaking his head, and then headed toward the labeled door.

  “Five minutes,” his coach said, holding up his paw with the fingers splayed. “Then I send in Soto and you’ve got yerself a thousand-dollar fine, Paddy.”

  “I think this can be wrapped up in five minutes,” he said without looking back.

  Patrick brought his equipment bag into the little training room. He had to change his shorts from his warmups, so he set his bag on the table and began to get out his gear. She stood about ten inches away while he removed his shirt. Her nostrils flared while she studied him over pretty thoroughly. “I have to get ready while we talk. You don’t mind, do you?” He leaned into her, upping the ante, halfway hoping she’d back down. Any second now he expected her to fold or give some kind of nervous laugh, or turn bright red, avoiding eye contact.

  She didn’t do any of that.

  “I don’t mind at all. I rather enjoy the view. All of it.”

  “Really?” Impulsively, he slipped down his warmups and stood in front of her commando-style, Veeger straining forward to touch her. The height difference had him calculating things, angles and hip movements, just like he calculated goal kicks and body language on the field. He started to get more interested in the challenge of this little game.

  She thrust the microphone in his face while he attempted to put on his cup and sliding pants. She held the bulbous object like a sex toy. He liked the looks of her fingers wrapped around the silver unit attached to something in her shouldered briefcase.

  “Tell me what your thoughts are about the game today.”

  He squinted at her. “You want it straight or—”

  “I like it straight. I don’t like to share. There’s a time and place to be funny, and this isn’t it.”

  Okay, so she’s a ballbuster of the first order. All the rumors about her were totally on target. Veeger was complaining about the cup, the constriction of the sliding pants.

  Shut up, Veeger.

  “Okay, Miss Gayle. I’m going to fuckin’ amaze you.” He paused to ask, “Is that thing on?”

  “Yes.” She wasn’t smiling. She was paying rapt attention to his every word.

  “I’m going to jump all around the box like a monkey. My arms will be long, my legs and body in full extension to make some incredible saves you’re not going to believe.”

  “Really? I do have quite an active imagination,” she whispered.

  “I’ll bet. We are talking about football now, aren’t we?”

  He thought for sure she’d eventually flinch, and he’d be let off the hook. Instead, she closed the gap between their upper torsos, brushing her thighs against his, threw the microphone on the table next to his bag and put a lip lock on him with her tongue so deep down his throat he thought she was going to crawl inside. When they parted, she nibbled on his lower lip and rubbed her breasts against his bare chest. “How about we get together after the game, so you can show me some of those moves?”

  She had a point.

  “Done deal,” he heard himself say.

  It was one of the most difficult games he’d ever played, and of course he did none of the things he’d promised. Their team lost nil to four. The coach briefly reminded them that, just because Paddy hadn’t saved them the way he normally did, the lack of scoring on the part of the forwards also contributed to the loss. But Patrick saw the coach was disgusted with him, and he was a little sorry for that.

  That’s when it hit him. He’d been looking for distraction, because the game didn’t call to him anymore. It had been that way for a while now. And he was even beginning to tire of the extracurricular activities, too. Was this all he had to look forward to, and was it enough? He’d loved the game growing up, but now it was just a job without a higher calling.

  He wasn’t up to a night of calisthenics with Gayle, but his male ego required that if, by some miracle, he was saved from screwing her, he better make the team think otherwise.

  Since it was a “Friendly” game, and there would be another the next day, the fact that they’d lost wouldn’t affect their standings. But he’d started to get on the coach’s bad side, and that was never a good sign. He realized his attitude sucked big time. The poor guy’s job was on the line, since coaches didn’t have the same contractual protection the players did. All his coach wanted to do was win. And Patrick had just taken away a bargaining chip for the man.

  Against his better judgment, he’d arranged for Gayle to meet him at their hotel. His roommate Ronnie had already hooked up with a dark-haired beauty who was taller than he was by a good two inches.

  Patrick leaned over and whispered to Ronnie’s ear as they entered the hotel lobby, “You’d best ask some questions before you get too far. I think she is a he.”

  “Oh, shut up, Patrick. She’s a bird.”

  “Just a friendly word of caution.”

  “She bringing the whole film crew?” Ronnie said as he saw Gayle approach with a cameraman in tow.

  “Holy crap,” Patrick muttered.

  “Bah, you’re in for it tonight with that one. Kinda wish I hadn’t set all this up. I wanted to get to bed early. You should too.”

  “Trust me, I will be. So then, you want the room?”

  “Yes. You’re the one with the seven-figure income. I say you get your own room, Paddy.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Gayle was keen to make another attempt to embarrass him on camera, but he stayed cool and aloof. Maybe she thought he was playing hard to get, but the truth was he was tired and needed a good night’s sleep.

  She asked him questions about his performance on the field today, which was painful. He lost interest in her in proportion to how much she probed and came onto him. Normally, this kind of play was fun, but tonight, he was just tired. Tired of it all.

  “What do you think got you so flustered today?” she asked as she smoothed over his chest. The cameraman had started to follow her hand but then abruptly kept the focus on their faces.r />
  Patrick really didn’t like her lack of discretion.

  “Sometimes you have good days and sometimes you have bad days. Today was just a bad day,” he said with a shrug. “Unlike European players we have in the Premier League, I’ve played with some of these guys on Seattle’s team before, here in the states, and they know my method of play well. I’m guessing the element of surprise was gone.”

  It was a truthful, or what he hoped would be a truthful, answer. The interview was quickly over.

  She nodded at the cameraman, dismissing him.

  “Time for a little fun?” She jiggled the contents of her bag, and he heard a lot of metal clanking.

  Okay, so much for an early night.

  “Gayle, not sure what you had in mind, but I do have to get some rest.”

  “I promise to let you do that.”

  “In that case, let me just do one thing first.”

  He took out his cell while he slipped the key card into the new room door, letting her into the darkened room.

  He sent a text to Ronnie,

  If I’m not down at breakfast, get an extra key and come untie me. Room 10214.

  Satisfied he’d covered all the bases, he entered after her, closing the door behind him.

  Chapter 2

  As the only American on the squad, Patrick always got a lot of attention when he played in the United States. He hoped Gayle’s short interview with him would get ample exposure, since some of his friends and family watched the games from their homes as often as they could.

  The next morning, Patrick sent Gayle off abruptly, and she bristled over being rushed. He’d reached the threshold where he wasn’t so sure he’d be doing anonymous hookups any longer. Was it his imagination or were women suddenly going crazy all around him? Where were the normal women? Or, was it just that, in this arena, the normal types were not part of the entourage?