And it still stung that Derrick Armstrong, his swim buddy in BUD/s and one of his best friends—or so he’d thought—refused to man up and admit he’d tried to bash Brett’s head in. The man had no honor…or had lost it somewhere along the way. But Derrick was the one who was going to have to live with it, and with his prison term for unlawful imprisonment, breaking and entering, assault, and several other charges.
Brett had moved on.
“Hey, Cutter,” Frank Denotti called out and waved an unopened MRE in his direction.
“Hold it for me. I have to speak to Senior Chief. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.” He knocked on the door to the office space and went in after Engle barked, “Enter.” He offered Senior Chief the SAT phone. “Thanks for letting me call.”
“Everything okay?”
“Yes, sir. A bump with the rehearsal dinner, but everything else is on target.”
“Good.” The Senior Chief took a seat behind a table littered with schematics. “I wanted to touch base with you on your latest round of evaluations. Hell of a time to bring it up, but you’re in line for a promotion, Cutter. After this mission, it will probably come through.”
Too stunned to speak, Brett, stared at him. “I was out of commission for a long time.” Wariness kicked in. It was hard to believe after all he’d been through. Months of speech therapy, months of training to renew and hone his skills. More sniper training. Then this deployment.
“You came back strong. And you did single-handedly take out three tangos at Captain Jackson’s house. You’ve done top-notch work for us here, too.”
Brett allowed himself a small smile. “Thanks for saying so, Senior Chief.”
Engle eyed him. “Well, how do you feel?”
“I’ll think about that after it comes through. Too many good things happening at once might throw me off my game.”
Engle chuckled. “You’re the least superstitious operator I’ve met in the SEALs, Cutter.”
“Not superstition, Senior Chief. But fate does have a way of balancing the positive with the negative and biting you in the ass.”
Engle laughed. “All right. I’ll keep it to myself, and you can break the news to the others when the time comes.”
Brett grinned, allowing himself a short burst of pleasure. “Thanks, Senior Chief.” He reached to offer the man his hand.
Engle smiled as he shook it. “You earned this, Cutter. Not many men would have roared back like you did. That says a lot about what kind of SEAL you are. I’m glad you’re on our team.”
“Thanks, Senior Chief. I’m glad to be here.” Though he missed his old team, he was grateful to still be a SEAL, and to be fit enough to continue doing what he loved. And he did love it.
He left the makeshift office and walked back into the hangar. The team was lingering over their meal. They’d been doing drills for hours, and now that the lull before the storm had hit, they were taking a break before preparing their gear.
“Everything okay, Cutter?” Martin Swan asked.
“Everything’s fine. A hitch with the rehearsal dinner. The fucking restaurant burned down. Can you believe that shit?”
“That might be an omen, Cutter.” Denotti took a bite of stew from his MRE envelope. “Better call the whole thing off.” He grinned, his dark eyes alight with mischief.
“Not happening.” Brett shook his head. “I have the perfect woman She’s the one.”
“You miss the wedding, and she may shit-can you.” Denotti looked up from stirring his food, his expression serious.
Lieutenant Harding passed Brett an MRE.
He took the meal from the package, even though the real possibility that he’d miss his wedding leached his appetite. He opened the chemical heating envelope, poured in some water, put his meal in, and folded the top down.
“She said if we have to cancel at the last minute to try and get in touch with her and we’d deal with things when I get home.” He put the heating envelope into the cardboard sleeve and propped it up against an empty box on the table so the water wouldn’t roll out of the warmer.
“She’s more understanding than any woman I’ve ever dated,” Harding said.
Rosenburg made noises of agreement.
“Women say what they want you to hear while you’re down range, then get all resentful and shit when you can’t come through for them because of the job. You miss that wedding, Cutter, and you’re fucked,” Swan said, pointing his fork at him, his thin, pale features set in anger.
“Lay off, Swan,” Gilly Giles cut in. “Not all women are like that.”
Who’d have thought Swan was old enough to harbor that kind bitterness. “If I miss my own wedding, Swan, what kind of universal asshole will that make me? It’s a two-way street.” “You’re not going to miss the wedding, Cutter,” Lieutenant Harding said. “If we have to strap you to a drone and fly you out of here, we’ll do it.”
The guys all laughed and the mood lifted.
Harding’s reassurances helped some, but shit happened. In the military a personal life came second to the job. He’d signed on the dotted line and it was his duty. But damn, sometimes it was hard.
“You got a picture of her?” Arrow asked.
Brett pulled the Velcro pocket of his shirt and removed a dog-eared photo of Tess. He’d put it in a Ziploc bag to protect it and he smoothed the plastic. She was dressed in her wetsuit because they’d been surfing. The neoprene material hugged her slender figure like a dream. Her dark auburn hair was down around her shoulders, copper highlights shining in the sun. Her dark brown eyes had a gleam of humor.
She’d had his back, when no one but family believed in him. If he missed their wedding, he’d deserve whatever fallout came his way. He’d scrape his knees bloody from groveling if he had to. He couldn’t lose Tess.
Rosenburg pounced on the picture before anyone else could reach for it. “Jesus, Cutter, she’s freaking gorgeous. Victoria’s Secret supermodel gorgeous. Where the hell did you find her?” Hearing the admiration in Rosenberg’s voice, the other guys crowded around to get a look.
Brett smiled. “I met her at a luncheon at the Hotel del Coronado. That’s where we’re having the wedding.” They’d decided, since they’d first met in the Hotel del’s Crown Room, to have their ceremony there. Sort of bringing the beginning of their life together full circle. And the perfect lead in to their married life. “My former CO sent me there to give a ten-minute Q&A about SEALs to a ladies’ group. Tess was there to cover the luncheon for the entertainment-lifestyles section of the San Diego paper. She asked if I’d be interested in being interviewed for a series of articles about SEALs.”
There was a lot more to it, but it wasn’t something he could ever discuss.
“We started dating, and about six months later I proposed.”
“What took you so long?” Elijah Ashe asked.
Lieutenant Harding made a gimme gester. “Let me see that picture, Ashe, before your drool ruins it.” Several of the guys laughed.
Why had it taken him so long? He’d known she was the one damn near from the moment they met. “I didn’t want to scare her off. With the way we operate, all the time we’re gone, I wanted to be sure she understood what she was signing up for. Luckily she’s independent as hell. She’s as career-oriented as I am.” But Tess had an underlying vulnerability she tried hard to hide. He’d seen it from the beginning. Although, now they were engaged, she seemed more confident.
“She was promoted to the news section and now covers crime mostly.” And he was so darned proud of her, for her. “Her stories end up on the front page all the time.”
“Hey, I’ve read her stuff,” Book said. “Tess Kelly. She nailed Senator Welch for having a special interest in military funds.”
“Yeah.”
“Sounds like she’s working her way up to big things, Cutter,” Lieutenant Harding said.
“Yeah. She’s good.”
“Does she hound you to tell her where you’re at and what you’re
doing?” Swan asked.
Brett grinned. “No. She knows the score. She’s just like any other girlfriend. She just wants to know I’m okay.” Senior Chief came out of the office and wandered over. “I’d like for you guys to come to the wedding if we make it back in time.”
“You can’t just spring an extra fifteen or sixteen people on her at the last minute, man,” Swan said.
“The food will be buffet style, and the dance floor and the bar, open. Bring your girls and come on.” He scanned each of their faces. “Seven o’clock, April tenth, in the Crown Room at the Hotel del.”
“Count me in, man,” Denotti said reaching forward to bump knuckles with him.
“She really is beautiful, Cutter,” Lieutenant Harding said, handing the picture back.
Brett smiled as he looked at the photo again. “Yeah. I’m a lucky man.” He tucked the picture back in his pocket and reached for his MRE. Learning about his promotion, knowing he was about to marry the perfect woman, and that he was building a reputation for good work with the team was as good as it got.
But he hadn’t been joking when he’d made the comment about how too much positive might attract the negative. He had to push all that out of his head until the mission was over. He couldn’t allow it to distract him. But it still gave him an itchy feeling, like Fate had painted a bullseye on his back.
Chapter Three
‡
Reluctant to break her connection with Brett, Tess let the empty silence at the other end of the line stretch out before pushing the “end” button on her cell. Hearing Brett’s voice filled her with relief and joy. But every time he called she ran the gamut of emotion from happiness to despair. She wiped at the tears streaking her cheeks and took several deep breaths to try and regain control and stem the flow.
If someone came into the lounge and saw her crying it would make for an awkward moment. She didn’t share her personal life with people at work. They were all too busy running around covering stories to get into personal stuff.
Brett’s delay in coming home added a special bit of stress. She never should have suggested they have a formal ceremony. He had only agreed because she’d wanted it.
Though he had thrown himself into getting as many of the details taken care of as possible before he left for…places unknown. In fact, he’d gone at it like it was a SEAL mission, all focused and serious. The memory made her smile.
They’d both wanted their families there, and that included his SEAL buddies. But it was a crapshoot whether any of them would make it. Even Hawk, his best man, could go wheels up.
She should have told him about the Washington Post job offer, but she hadn’t wanted to dump any worries on him. She wanted to share it with him face-to-face. Or did she? If she told him about it—he loved her, he’d want her to be happy. But they couldn’t be happy together if she was on one coast and he was on the other. No marriage could survive that kind of distance between spouses. Her father and mother were proof. The thought triggered a heavy, tight feeling in her chest.
Screw it. For the first time in her life, she was crazy in love. Really in love. That wasn’t going to change. She knew Brett felt the same.
She was going to marry him come hell or high water. If all they got was a trip to city hall to do it, so be it. She wiped at the residual moisture on her cheeks and sucked in a deep breath.
No more tears. She had work to do. Concentrating on something else would help her get back on an even keel emotionally.
Tess left the lounge and wove her way through the crowded news section desks to her own. She ignored the hum of activity, picked up the phone, and dialed the number of Daniel Delgado’s court appointed attorney. The honor roll student had been arrested for armed robbery of the store where he worked. But neither a gun nor cash had been found on him, even though the cops captured him only a few feet from his house. They had also searched the route he usually took home and found nothing.
Tess wanted a quote from the boy’s lawyer. Fifteen minutes later, when she cradled the phone back on her desk, she was left with a feeling of concern rather than the excitement she usually felt when she was on the trail of an interesting news story. The kid’s lawyer had all but thrown him under the bus, identifying him as the brother of Miguel Delgado, the leader of one of the most notorious gangs in the National City neighborhood. He’d said his client was cooperating with the police, which implied strongly he’d snitched on his brother. It would be next to criminal for her to print anything the lawyer had said for fear the kid would be killed in jail before he ever went to trial.
Still reeling from the man’s blatant incompetence Tess picked up the files she’d printed off the flash drive Mary Stubben had given her. She could still hear the fear and concern in the woman’s voice. She dialed Mary’s number again, only to get the voice mail message. Anxiety cramped her shoulders with tension and gave her stomach a twist.
If Mary’s suspicions were true, it could be one of the biggest stories Tess had ever covered.
She returned to working through the background checks Mary had emailed—the people Frye had personally vetted and hired recently, and the ones who had worked for him several years.
The reports from Chanter Construction were very thorough, and included a picture of each employee and details of their personal life. Checking the info on the reports was easy, but confirming each person was who they said they were took much longer. It had gotten easier now everyone had social media pages and posted information about themselves everywhere.
How any of these people enjoyed any sort of privacy was nothing short of a miracle. No wonder so many people reported their identity stolen, their houses broken into, and their lives disrupted by stalkers.
“I will never have any kind of social media page,” Tess murmured to herself and grinned at the irony.
She searched for newspaper stories about each person on the list, and perused arrest records, awards, family obituaries, participation in local groups, and tragedies.
Two stories triggered her reporter’s instincts. She set those dossiers aside for further study.
One story detailed a car accident. Forty-five-year-old Brian Gooding, an employee of Chanter Construction, was hit head-on by a drunk driver. Though Gooding escaped with moderate injuries, his sixteen-year-old daughter, Lisa, suffered severe brain trauma and now remained in a vegetative state in a nursing home. The driver, an insurance executive, was charged with DUI and assault and given ten years in jail, but had been released in seven.
She discovered a short article about Gooding bringing a civil suit against the man. Though he’d won enough to pay for his daughter’s care for a time, it couldn’t restore his daughter’s physical and mental health. Two years later the couple sold their home, and the wife, Jessica, filed for bankruptcy. A few weeks later they divorced.
A family wiped out because of one man’s decision to get drunk and climb behind the wheel of a car.
Tess typed in Alan Osborne, the man responsible for the wreck…and found an obituary. Alan Osborne, fifty-five, died of alcohol poisoning in a motel room two weeks before the Brittain Development Corporation accident. The article said he’d remained sober since his incarceration. Speculation circulated it might have been a suicide.
She decided to look into what happened to the Goodings after Osborne’s death. She could interview Shelly and Brian and see how their daughter was five years after the accident.
The other story detailed the arrest of twenty-five-year-old Marcus Kipfer. Although he was arrested for cocaine possession twice, he never served time. Tess guessed he’d probably turned evidence against his dealer and wiggled out of a jail sentence, though he had gone to rehab. And Frye hired him to work for his construction company.
Tess studied his mug shot. Kipfer had tattoos on his face and neck and a full beard. In the photo his eyes looked glassy and hard.
She searched for a family connection, but found none. The man worked construction, but his work history was spotty.
Why would Frye hire him unless there was something there she couldn’t see yet?
Both Kipfer and Gooding could be desperate for money. One to take care of his daughter and the other for his drug habit. But had they been pressured into doing something illegal? And could either be connected to the other corporations?
Her eyes burning, Tess leaned back in her seat, closed her eyes, and let her thoughts range back over what she’d learned. The moment her attention shifted away from her research, her thoughts turned to Brett. He’d sounded okay. Upbeat, comforting, loving.
“I hope you’re working on that story about the gangs and human trafficking, Tess,” her editor, Elgin Taylor, said.
She suppressed a grin as she opened her eyes. “It’s already finished and should have hit your inbox.” For a moment she thought she saw surprise on Taylor’s face. “I was able to get an interview with one of the girls, and she described what they went through.” She shook her head. Talking about it made her feel queasy. “It will have the readers outraged and sympathetic.”
“What are you working on now?”
Tess hesitated and bit her lip. She scanned the desks closest to her. Seth Maxwell, another reporter, sat close by. “May I speak to you in your office?”
Taylor’s bushy brows hiked up. “Certainly.”
She gathered the material she’d printed out, slipped it in a folder, and followed him.
Taylor settled into his chair and she took a seat across from him. Nearly a year had passed since he’d switched her from the entertainment-lifestyles section to the news page and the crime beat. Her series about SEALs—and her subsequent coverage of a terrorist hostage situation involving SEAL Captain and Mrs. Jackson and their son Alex, and Brett’s heroic rescue of the family—had gotten her there.
But she’d gotten even more than a promotion from the experience, as dangerous as it had been. She’d gotten Brett.
“A woman contacted me about a story yesterday. It’s about the Brittain Development Corporation accident. Most of what she told me was supposition, so I’m doing research to ascertain if what she thinks might have happened could be true.”
Building Ties (Military Romantic Suspense) (SEAL Team Heartbreakers Book 4) Page 3