Her Loving Hero

by Caitlyn O'Leary

  “You’ve been gone for a while,” Carly said wryly. “You don’t know everything. Trust me, things are hinky.”

  “Is Dad acting weird?”

  “Not that I can see. I even questioned him and told him what I’ve heard, but he says there’s always gossip, and I shouldn’t worry my pretty little head about it.”

  Emily heard the hurt and frustration in her sister’s voice.

  “Honey, don’t you believe him. Butter wouldn’t melt in Dad’s mouth. He’s been trained not to say anything to anyone. You know that, right?”

  Emily was at her desk and firing up her laptop. How had she missed things heating up near her family?

  Carly didn’t answer.

  “Sweets, are you still there?”

  “I’m here. You were always the smart one, remember? He would have confided in you.”

  Emily snorted. “Carly, he loved all of us in his way, but he never paid attention to any of us. The only time he really sat up and took notice of me was when I took that tutoring job in Saudi Arabia. He was just really excited to be able to tell all his diplomat friends that I was working for a Saudi prince.” Emily’s voice trailed off.

  Emily looked at the date that she had last logged onto the closed chat room for Oman expats. It was an exclusive club that very few people ever got invited into. Dang, it had been five weeks ago. No wonder she didn’t know anything about anything.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories,” Carly said quietly.

  “You didn’t.”

  “Then why did you go quiet?” Carly asked.

  “I was checking up on some things. Did you know about the three fires in Dhalkut?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Emily read fast. “According to one guy that I know, he’s saying that the authorities are trying to keep things under wraps at the border. Things that they are obvious terrorist attacks, but authorities are claiming they are accidental fires or just run-of-the-mill crimes. They don’t want to get anybody worried.”

  “Wouldn’t word have spread? What about journalists?” Carly asked.

  “The international press wouldn’t be interested with everything that’s been going on in North Korea and Syria.”

  “What about local Omani press?”

  Emily tore off her sweater, she was too hot. She set down her phone and put it on speaker. “Carly, if the authorities want to suppress a story, they do it. They either bribe or intimidate.”

  “That’s not true, I read the papers here in Muscat and they report on scandals all the time about the Sultanate.”

  Emily laughed at Carly’s naivety. Any real story was definitely squashed, she’d learned that up close and personal having worked for Prince Khalid bin Al Halabi while she was tutoring his two boys. She sure thought she’d known about how power was wielded before moving to Saudi Arabia, but she’d known nothing.

  “I take it by your laugh that I’m gullible.”

  “No more than I was at your age,” Emily sighed.

  Emily typed back to Anthony, her British expatriate friend who had posted to ask if he thought it was Al-Qaeda who was behind the incidents in Dhalkut. But of course, he wasn’t on-line.

  There was a knock at the door. It had to be Wyatt.

  “Emily?” Carly’s voice sounded tinny and far away.

  She looked at her computer screen and it seemed to waver, and she felt sick to her stomach.

  She waited, tense, for the knock to come again. It didn’t.

  “Emily?” Carly asked again.

  “I’m here Sweets,” Emily said in a relieved voice. She somehow knew that Wyatt would wait. He wouldn’t continue to knock, he wouldn’t push her. It allowed her to focus. Even when he couldn’t see her, he somehow knew what she needed.

  “Carly. I’m going to check up on some things. It’s a Saturday morning. For God’s sake, go back to bed, you’re a teenager.”

  There was a long pause. “You’ll call me back?”

  “Absolutely. I’m so glad you felt you could call me.”

  “You’re my Big Sister, who else would I call?”

  Wyatt stayed well back from Emily’s door. He knew that she was very protective of her space, and there was no way he wanted to invade it. He was considering texting her when she opened her door wide. He didn’t know what surprised him more, the gorgeous yellow sundress or the sight of her tiny sanctuary.

  Wyatt smiled. He sure as hell knew which he appreciated more. Then he noticed her expression.

  He stepped forward. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”

  Emily’s blue eyes were anxious. “Uhmm.”

  He looked behind her. Everything seemed spotless from what he could see. It was a miniscule studio apartment, so he saw almost everything. He looked her up and down and she was pretty as a picture, but he didn’t like that worried expression on her face.

  “Uhmm, isn’t really an answer Emily. Do we need to cancel today? Or maybe there’s something I can do to help?”

  It was next week they were planning on going to the amusement park, today was only a trip to the pier in San Clemente. He planned to take her to a diner with the best baked goods in the world, provided by one of the wives of another SEAL. She’d agreed because he promised her that they’d walk the pier and talk.

  “There’s nothing you can do. This is a keep your ear to the ground situation before you can take action.” Her fingers were twisting in the skirt of her dress.

  “So, kind of like intelligence gathering?” Wyatt kept his tone light.

  She nodded. “Exactly.”

  “You know that’s what I do, right?”

  Emily grimaced. “Wyatt you don’t talk about what you do. When you come back from deployment you don’t say a word, and I don’t ask. You only ever tell me about something funny one of the guys say, or we talk about the kids from the center. So how the heck would I know you do intelligence gathering?”

  Oh shit, she was building up quite a head of steam.

  “I’m a Petty Officer Second Class on the Black Dawn SEAL team. How much do you know about SEALs?”

  She gave him an intent look. “After my rescue, I did a lot of research, both online and I checked out at least five audio books from the library. I wasn’t interested in the fictional accounts, I wanted the biographies.”

  “That’s good. So, you know about the basic training we go through, right?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I told you what I read, Wyatt. So yes, I know about BUD/S. Do you want me to tell you what it stands for? Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL. What about the acronym SEAL? Sea, Air and Land.”

  He held up his hands. “I’m sorry.”

  She took a deep breath and shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. Things have been piling up. What other kind of specialized training have you had?”

  “Communications and Intelligence,” he answered slowly. Then thinking about his time with Kane he continued. “I just started to learn a little about Cyber Warfare.”

  She frowned. “Didn’t you join the Navy right out of high school?”

  “Yes. I’d been working towards an associate degree, on the eight-year plan, but after my injury I started to speed things up. I began taking on-line courses so that I can get a Bachelors of Science in Information Technology.”

  Emily’s eyes got wide. Wyatt started rubbing the back of his neck as it stiffened up. Ah dammit, he really hadn’t told her anything. He waited for the shitstorm.

  She opened the door even wider and grabbed his forearm. “Come inside.”

  What the hell? Entrance to the inner sanctum?

  Her apartment was drab and dreary. She must have seen his look. “It came furnished,” she explained.

  His heart skipped a beat. Emily was still keeping herself boxed in a shell. She needed to punch her way out. This was no way to live. She took him to a corner where a tiny desk was set up and her laptop was open. She bent over and keyed in her password.

  “Sit down,” she s
aid as she practically pushed him into the dining chair that she used as her office chair. Wyatt realized he was looking at a closed chat group. He scrolled through the posts, almost all of them were in English, but some were in Arabic. He could read some words in Arabic, but mostly he could only speak it.

  “So, your handle is TeachThat?” he asked as he continued to scroll through the chats.

  “Yeah, I thought it was cute back when I was eighteen.”

  “It’s still cute now that you’re twenty-three,” Wyatt grinned up at her. He clicked on one of the posts about a student gathering in Muscat that had been dispersed by authorities three weeks ago. As he dug in, it steered the conversation over to a private chat.

  “Shit,” he said.

  “Exactly,” Emily agreed. “That’s why I wanted you to come in. My sister Carly called. She’s hearing some gossip at the private school she attends over at the capital city. It’s filled with kids of embassy personnel, oil, pharmaceutical and airline execs. Seriously, while I was there it was a hotbed of information.”

  “What are they saying?”

  “That some of the unrest going on in Yemen is finally going to spill over into Oman. She’s worried. That’s why I came over to this chatroom.”

  Wyatt’s fingers flew over the keyboard trying a myriad of ways to bypass the security that they were using to block the private chat. It was killer.

  “What are you doing?” she asked as she bent closer to see the screen. Today she smelled of cinnamon and vanilla. Her warm breath tickled his ear.

  “Somebody really doesn’t want us to find out what they’re talking about,” he said as he typed faster.

  “Motherfucker!” Wyatt watched in amazement as Emily’s screen was covered in tiny little pictures of the middle finger spiraling around in one big coiled snake. Then it went black.

  Her hands gripped his shoulders as she cried out. “What just happened?”

  “We’ve been owned,” Wyatt slapped his hands down on either side of the keyboard, causing the flimsy particle board desk to rock.

  “Huh?”

  “I’m pretty sure your hard-drive has just been screwed over, totally wiped clean if I had to guess. I’ll see what I can do, but these assholes probably killed you.” He turned around to look at her. “Goddamn, I’m so damned sorry Em. I should have been more careful.”

  She bit her lip. “Does this happen a lot? I mean, how often has it happened to you?”

  “It doesn’t happen to me. I’m secured up the ass.” He jerked out of the chair, then caught it when it started to tip over. He grasped her shoulders. “I’m so sorry. I’ll buy you a new laptop. Do you back this up?”

  She looked at him like he was a backward five-year-old. “I’ll take that as a yes,” he smiled wryly.

  “Good thinking. Now why do you think there was such intense security on a chat?”

  “Smart, beautiful, and you’re willing to smack me upside the head. You know, I could easily fall in love with you, right?”

  He waited with bated breath to see how she would respond to that.

  “Stand in line Navy Boy.” Her smile was brilliant. He let out a silent sigh of relief.

  Could he push for a hug? He looked in her eyes and decided to leave it alone for now.

  “Let’s go grab dinner at the diner like we planned. We can discuss what you know about Oman and give me more info about the regular chat room, and then I’ll discuss it with Dex. I should know more when I bring by your new laptop.”

  “You are not buying me a new laptop,” she said firmly.

  “Grab your sweater.”

  “Wyatt, are you listening to me?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Are you going to obey me?” she asked as he draped the sweater over her shoulders.

  “Not a chance in hell.”

  5

  “This thing is officially a doorstop,” Wyatt said in disgust. He opened the door to his townhome and ushered Dex in.

  “You know I have a set-up at my house, we could have gone through everything there.”

  “You are such a mother hen. You can’t even see that Kenna was about ready to kick your ass out the door.”

  Dex winced as he watched Wyatt deposit the laptop onto the kitchen island and pull two bottles of beer out of the refrigerator. “She can barely lift her foot six inches off the floor. I’m worried about her.”

  “I know, but seriously, you need to calm your ass down,” Wyatt advised.

  “She did look pretty happy when Aurora and Aliana showed up.”

  “Damn right. Seriously Dex, you need to lighten up,” Wyatt reiterated.

  “She’s due in two weeks. Forgive me for being anxious. I can’t believe she’s so calm.”

  “Yeah, well this isn’t her first rodeo. You need to listen to me and relax.”

  Dex’s lips twitched before he took a pull off of his Pacifico. “Tell me oh wise one, how’s it going with Emily? I want to learn at your feet.”

  Wyatt ran his hand through his hair and realized he needed a haircut. “You’re an asshole, Evans.”

  “No, I’m not. You’re the one offering all the relationship advice,” Dex said innocently. “Obviously I need to sit down, shut up and listen.”

  “Well it serves you right. You and Aiden were busting my chops pretty hard a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Actually, we weren’t. We were just making sure that you knew where your head was at. We really weren’t offering you advice, we were just helping you look in the mirror.”

  The man was right.

  “I’m going to do everything in my power to make her my wife. She’s nowhere close to ready, but I’m okay with that.”

  Dex grinned and held out his beer. Wyatt clinked their bottles together.

  “Okay, let’s get over to command central.” Wyatt grinned at the idea of showing off to his mentor.

  He snagged the keys off of the counter where he had left them, then tilted his head so Dex would follow him down the hallway. Wyatt stopped at a door to the right and fished out a key to unlock the door.

  “You have a playroom? Man, Emily is never going to be ready for that,” Dex teased. Wyatt threw a dirty look over his shoulder.

  “No, I’m not into a kinky dungeon. You’re thinking of the wrong SEAL.” He pushed open the door and Dex whistled. The back wall had six screens attached to the wall. There was a desk with three top of the line curved monitors, and Wyatt’s baby sat in front of the desk. His Aeron chair. The thing had a lifetime warranty. It was comfortable as hell.

  “You’ve outdone Clint Archer, and that’s even adding in Lydia’s equipment. Do you spend your money on anything besides computer equipment?”

  “Not for the last couple of years. I haven’t been dating as much. It’s been this and volunteering at the ‘Y’.”

  “Well it sure hasn’t been clothes. Have you heard about anything besides cargo shorts and T-Shirts?” Dex asked.

  Wyatt looked down at what he was wearing.

  “What’s wrong with this. Look at how many pockets they have, it’s great. Anyway, I distinctly remember you living in this kind of thing too, before Kenna started dressing you. It was Dalton and Aiden who were the clothes horses before their women.”

  “Especially Aiden,” Dex grinned as he sat down at Wyatt’s chair. “Man, this is nice.” He swung around in it and started fiddling with the settings on the side. “Lumbar support, you are living the good life.” Then Dex sat forward. “Whatchya running?”

  “Started with a Dell XPS Tower, then added a few things and made some mods.”

  Dex gave him a considering look before grinning. He peeked under the desk. “Do you mind?”

  “Knock yourself out,” Wyatt said.

  Dex crawled under the desk and Wyatt smiled. It was great to actually show off what he had done to another geek. He leaned back against his desk and thought over his date with Emily, because it had been a date.

  Her interest in him hadn’t felt intrusive, in
stead it felt like she was genuinely interested in him. He told her about the teacher in high school who had introduced him to Stephen R. Donaldson and the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and got him hooked on reading.

  “What was your biggest take-away from the book?” she’d asked.

  “Easy. There he was, plopped in a world of magic, convinced it couldn’t be real no matter what he was seeing, tasting, smelling and touching. He refused the truth. It taught me you can convince your mind of anything. What about you Emily? What book has most influenced you?”

  It had been one of the few times he’d had to pull the information out of her. She’d finally told him it was The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks.

  “Why didn’t you want to tell me? That was a good movie.”

  “It’s a romance with a happily ever after.” She’d looked sad and embarrassed at the same time. She’d been twisting the straw wrapper into a tight ball. When she’d unconsciously reached for his, Wyatt had touched her hand.

  “Don’t you believe in happily ever after’s anymore?”

  Tormented blue eyes looked up at him, and her silky blonde hair flew around her head as she shook it. “No,” she whispered. “Maybe for some people, not for me.”

  Wyatt had pulled her hand toward him and held it between both of his. Then he smoothed his thumb over her palm, caressing the silky soft skin. He heard her sharp intake of breath. “You deserve happy, Em.”

  “Maybe I did once, but it’s out of my reach. I’m too scared. I’m too scarred.” Her laugh was raw. “That’s funny. It kind of rhymes. Scared and scarred.”

  “Emily Lynn. You’re letting me hold your hand, that’s not the actions of a scared woman, you’re braver and stronger than most of the men I’ve ever worked with.”

  She tugged at her hand, and he let her go. “Now you’re just yanking my chain. Do you realize how scared I was when I realized you were in my apartment? I almost burst into flames. Wyatt, you said you could be attracted to me earlier today, well don’t.”