Shielded by the Cowboy SEAL

by Bonnie Vanak

  Fiona stared at Meg, her dark gaze intent. “Stop telling me what I want or don’t want. If her death is on your conscience, then do the right thing and stay here and let’s sort this out together. I know you’re frightened, but you must stand strong.”

  Fiona’s voice softened. “You must stay here and stop running. Talk to us and let us know why you are really here, Meg. Are you here to bring justice for my Brie?”

  Tears clogged her throat, but she refused to let them fall. “Yes.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cooper hovering in the doorway. “I’ll tell you when Cooper joins us. I’ll tell you everything.”

  She had nothing to lose now.

  Cooper leaned against the doorjamb. “I’m listening.”

  His cold blue eyes were so icy. But she gathered all her courage and plunged on.

  “I’m here to get evidence that my ex knew the body armor was defective and he sold it anyway.”

  “Go on,” Cooper ordered, his gaze remaining hard.

  Meg focused on Fiona. “I founded Combat Gear Inc. to make high-quality, low-cost body armor for military and law enforcement personnel. But I left it to Bert Baxter, the family lawyer, to file the paperwork.”

  Sweat trickled down her back, gathered in the waistband of the flannel trousers. “Randall Jacobs, a senior partner in the company, warned against shipping the vests because they would fail. But Prescott didn’t listen and sold them. Randall told me he had evidence of Prescott’s wrongdoing. His conscience bothered him.”

  “Give him a goddamn medal. What a hero,” Cooper muttered.

  His mother silenced him with a look that could slice steel.

  Ignoring them both, she tightened her hands. “Randall said he would let me know where the documents were to give them to authorities to prove Prescott committed fraud. He also promised to hide money for me until I could get on my feet again. He knew...what Prescott did to me.”

  She paused, remembering the hard work her grandparents had poured into the company. “That’s why I’m here. I’m going to find the documents.”

  Cooper made a low whistling sound. “I’m so impressed.”

  The snark in his voice indicated otherwise. She looked directly at Fiona. “I want justice for your daughter. And she will have it. However, I need help. It’s why I need Cooper’s expertise as a Navy diver.”

  Now she did turn and face Cooper, whose jaw tensed so much he could have shattered granite.

  “Randall gave GPS coordinates to a lake by his home. I need you to dive down there to retrieve the documents.”

  Cooper glanced at his mother and then scowled at her. “And you expect me to believe you? When you’ve been lying all along?”

  “I didn’t deceive you. I didn’t know Brie was your sister until I saw the photo tonight!”

  Fiona stood. “I’ll leave you two to discuss this. Right now I’m going to talk to Aimee and tell her everything—very gently.”

  As the woman started out the door, she felt a fresh pang of regret. “Fiona, I’m so sorry. I never would have hurt you.”

  Fiona nodded, but brushed away at tears streaking her face.

  Meg didn’t know if she could feel any worse. And then Cooper sat on the sofa, facing her. The dark scowl on his face made him look furious. She couldn’t blame him.

  But she hoped he would see reason and emotions would not overshadow what she must say. Lacey told her SEALs were rock steady and focused, not emotional, and she prayed her friend was correct.

  “I’m certain the lake behind Randall’s summer home is where he hid the proof that Prescott knew the vests were defective when he sold them to police officers.”

  Cooer’s jaw turned to stone. “Now you’re telling me?”

  “I didn’t want to involve you—” she sighed “—any more than necessary. I had no idea your sister was the officer killed because of this.”

  He opened his mouth and shut his fists, as if itching to smash something. Or someone. Meg tensed, hoping it wasn’t her. Cooper said he’d never hurt a woman. Would he change his mind now with this news?

  Finally he released a deep breath. Laser-blue eyes narrowed at her. “I loved Brie. She was my kid sister. I vowed nothing bad would ever happen to her and that damn vest, hell, it killed her.”

  Misery engulfed her. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

  The last thing she’d expected was to cause them more grief. Hadn’t she caused enough?

  “Now what?” she whispered. “Are you going to call the authorities? Turn me in?”

  Please don’t do this. Because if you do, your sister will never truly get justice and I’ll spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder.

  “No.” He rubbed a hand over his bristled chin. “You and I are going to find those missing documents.”

  “When?”

  Cooper pointed at her. “Tomorrow night.”

  Chapter 13

  The woman he had started to care about was the criminal he’d been searching for all these months.

  At midnight the next day, his diving gear in the back of the truck cab, Cooper drove to the location Meg gave him. He’d barely talked to her since her confession, only telling her Mike called to say the car’s transmission was shot. It would cost thousands to replace.

  The princess was stuck with him for now, without wheels.

  She sat in the passenger seat, twisting her hands together and staring out the window.

  If this wasn’t a cluster, he didn’t know what was. He almost laughed at the irony. All these months praying for answers and a means to put the corporate powers at Combat Gear behind bars. And now the answers fell into his lap. Along with a pretty brunette he’d promised to protect, a woman he couldn’t help thinking of every other minute.

  Or every minute.

  She headed the corporation responsible for Brie’s death.

  How could he forgive such a crime?

  But that wasn’t important right now. Finding that evidence was. He had been a SEAL for eight years and thrived on good intel. And right now the source of all he needed to know sat beside him.

  “You’ve been avoiding me all day,” she said softly.

  Cooper grunted. He’d been busy trying to coax Betsy into eating. Finally he’d managed to get her to eat a carrot. But she wasn’t looking good.

  His mother had kept an eye on Meg as she worked in the inn’s small office, going over all the guest records to see if any of the men might have worn size 14 shoes.

  He glanced at Meg. “I’m here now. Tell me everything about the vests and why they malfunctioned.”

  At his order, she turned her head slightly. “Where should I start?”

  “The beginning’s a good place.”

  Meg pushed at the fall of her long dark hair. The move lifted her breasts and made her seem even more vulnerable. Cooper steeled himself against a surge of sympathy. No emotions.

  “The material in the body armor we manufactured is called Liholn. It’s a synthetic, extremely durable and tough fiber invented by Randall Jacobs six years ago when he was director of research for Taylor Sporting Goods. It’s lighter than Kevlar and resistant to impact.”

  She recited all this as if by memory, her voice monotone and her gaze fixed on the black ribbon of roadway stretching before them.

  “So you used it for athletic equipment?” He tried to loosen his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel and relax. Hard to do, with everything racing through his mind.

  “We used it for everything from tennis rackets to bike spokes. It secured our place in the market and helped us get out of the red. We received orders in such vast amounts, we doubled production of the fibers in our plant. Under Prescott’s business model, Taylor Sporting Goods began to operate in the black again.” />
  “Whose idea was it to manufacture the body armor?”

  Looking down, she stared at her hands. “Mine. I was at a Memorial Day function for the charity I helped, talking with a vet about my brother. Caldwell died in combat. I wished that Caldwell hadn’t rushed to enlist, prove himself. He was too...eager, and headstrong. I wanted to do something to help vets, since I couldn’t help my brother.”

  Cooper said nothing, steeled himself against another pang of sympathy.

  “The man told me he wished someone would invent a bullet-resistant vest that was more flexible, lightweight. And that’s when I came up with the idea of using the Liholn for bulletproof vests, and Combat Gear Inc. came into being. I used the money in the trust fund my parents left for me to start the company.”

  Suddenly she turned to him with a beseeching look. “I wanted to create a product that would save lives. I couldn’t save my brother, but I could help other soldiers. An American-run company, creating products made in America at our Massachusetts plant. Low-cost, high-quality vests that would allow the wearer greater range of motion, flexibility, while still preserving the integrity of the vest’s protective elements.”

  His jaw tightened as he thought of Brie. “Protective elements? Not how I’d describe your product, Meg. Defective is more like it. So why the hell didn’t you test them in the lab instead of using living, breathing subjects like my kid sister?”

  Her little hitch of breath warned he’d pushed hard. A modicum of guilt filled him. She’d been a victim, too, but his anger needed a target.

  But Meg looked him straight in the eye. “I did test them out on a living subject. I believed in this product to the point where I volunteered as a test subject.”

  Cooper reeled. “You’re joking.”

  “After we did several tests on crash dummies, I wore one and had Randall fire a .38 caliber bullet at me.”

  He whistled, deeply impressed despite his anger. Having been shot, he knew the impact. He’d also been hit while in Afghanistan, but body armor saved his hide. The impact of the bullet had left him wheezing, with a nice big bruise as well.

  “That had to hurt.”

  A shadow entered her green eyes. “No worse than what Prescott did to me with his golf club.”

  And then the dry humor he always admired. “Of course, it was a prestigious custom driver worth around $2000. Nothing but the best for Prescott, even when he was beating me.”

  The anger inside him battled against the fierce need to pull her into his arms, shelter her from any past hurt she’d suffered. He’d promised to protect her, and he would.

  Meg touched her left arm, as if remembering the bruise.

  “Prescott started marketing the vests right away, before we even finished testing. He had advance orders for ten thousand vests. I pushed Randall into more tests. And when he exposed the vests to water and then intense heat, the fibers started to degrade, to the point where one of the team fired a bullet into it, and it pierced the vest.”

  Cooper nearly jerked the truck off the road. “You knew the vests were defective?”

  “Yes,” she said softly. “Randall was working on a way to correct this, but the first five thousand vests were already waiting in the warehouse, ready to be shipped. And Prescott ordered them sent out.”

  “You didn’t stop him.” His tone was more than slightly accusatory, and he regretted it. The woman’s husband had been abusive. Dangerous.

  “I didn’t know he’d done it. By then Prescott was handling all affairs for Combat Gear. Gran was seriously ill and I was caring for her. In the hospital, out of the hospital, and then the aftercare facility...doctor’s appointments, trips to the pharmacy... I had my hands full.”

  “You trusted that psychopath with the company?”

  She gave a tiny sigh. “I trusted Randall, who was in charge, to keep Prescott in check. But then one day I logged onto the company accounts and saw the shipment sent to Boston. Prescott had already shipped vests to an ammo shop there more than six months ago. And to other shops.”

  He named the Boston shop and she grew pale. “Yes, that’s the one.”

  Coop knew, because he’d purchased the vest for Brie at that shop. The cost was extremely low and the shop’s owner assured him the vests were top of the line.

  “He was also shipping them to a police district in Boston as a test market. He claimed word of mouth would spread once the cops started wearing the body armor, and we’d get many more orders. But he already sold those vests at a huge loss. The vests should have retailed for $900 each, and Prescott sold them for $200.”

  That kind of loss filled him with nagging suspicion.

  Meg buried her face into her hands. “I tried to get Prescott to recall the vests, warn the consumers who purchased them. He answered with his fists. I could barely move for two days afterward.”

  The bastard had nearly beaten her to a pulp, Cooper realized. “It’s not your fault,” he said, all the anger draining out of him. “Your ex set you up.”

  But she lifted her head, and her expression was fierce. “A person should always take responsibility and I am the CEO of Combat Gear Inc. I’ve had nightmares thinking about cops wearing those vests, thinking they were bulletproof and going into a volatile situation.”

  Her voice dropped. “And then getting shot and killed, which is what happened to your sister.”

  Time to tell her the truth as well. “Many cops put their body armor on a dummy and fire bullets at it.” Cooper took a deep breath. “Brie did. But the vest was dry.”

  Meg turned to him, and in the light of the dashboard, he could see the sheen in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Cooper.”

  He couldn’t talk about Brie anymore without that gut-awful feeling and his throat closing. Instead, he changed the subject. “When you get this proof that you think is in the lake, what are you going to do with it?”

  “Give the evidence to the FBI and turn myself over to authorities for arrest.”

  The words, spoken so calmly, jolted him. “What?”

  She sighed. “It’s why I couldn’t say anything to you. I had to wait to verify the documents. Prescott needs to be imprisoned, too.”

  Meg was willing to go to jail for what she did. Her sense of integrity staggered him.

  “You shouldn’t be sent to prison,” he muttered, his hands tight on the steering wheel.

  She looked at him calmly. “Why not? Surely you, of all people, would love to send me there. You want justice for Brie.”

  “Justice, not revenge. Big difference.” All the anger drained out of him, leaving him weary. “Why Boston? Did Prescott ever say why he chose that as a test market?”

  Even though the city was closer to the plant, he thought it mighty peculiar her ex was in such a rush to send out the vests.

  “No, but I always thought it was odd he spent much of his time there.” Meg looked around as if expecting to find her ex lurking in the back of the cab. “I overheard Prescott on the phone one night. He mentioned the name O’Neary.”

  Cooper’s mouth went dry. O’Neary, the same name Jarrett had brought up. Prescott August was rumored to associate with Miles O’Neary, an Irish mobster. The head of the O’Neary gang controlled part of Boston. If Prescott deliberately sent out the vests to police at an enticing price, and he knew they were defective, his motivation might not have been greed.

  What if Meg’s husband had been ordered to send the defective vests there because O’Neary planned a hit? It didn’t make sense. The conditions would have to be perfect—perfect for the mob—for the vests to fail. Weather wasn’t something they could plan.

  And it seemed far too complex an operation, even with the reach O’Neary had in Boston. Their gang was one of the most ruthless, more dangerous even than the Winter Hall Gang, who had ruled the city for many years until disbandi
ng.

  He didn’t know the answers, but it became more important than ever that they find the evidence that would imprison Prescott August.

  And protect Meg, because if the vests were manufactured for reasons other than profit, she wasn’t merely the target of her ex-husband’s obsession.

  But of something much more deadly—the Irish mob.

  * * *

  A cold wind rippled across the mirror-smooth surface of Lake Beebersim. Silhouetted by the light of the half-full moon, Cooper moved with the shadows as they made their way through the woods to Randall’s summer house.

  He hefted a heavy-looking black bag and climbed into the rowboat docked behind the home.

  Dressed in black, Meg huddled on the dock. Cooper wore a dry suit to protect him from the icy water. He’d ordered her to remain on the dock, but she wasn’t having any of that.

  Sending him out onto that water to retrieve hidden documents was one thing. Sending him alone was another.

  As he untied the boat, Meg climbed into the boat. Cooper lifted his head.

  “No,” he whispered.

  “Yes,” she whispered back. “You need me.”

  “I work solo on this.”

  “And if someone chances upon you, and you’re with me, you’ll have a good excuse. Romantic midnight boat ride. And what if I’m sitting on the dock all alone and someone comes along?”

  A frustrated sigh tore from his throat. “You sit down, keep quiet and do exactly as I say.”

  Cooper picked up the oars. They barely made a sound as he dipped them into the inky blackness of the lake.

  Muscles flexed smoothly beneath the form-fitting black scuba suit he wore. The suit covered every delicious inch of his body and had a hood that allowed only his face to show. A pair of black swim fins and a dive mask, along with a large, boxlike apparatus, lay on the boat’s bottom.