Her Loving Hero

by Caitlyn O'Leary

He set down the coffee in the middle of the table and scooped up little Livvie Porter.

  “Uncle Wyatt.” Tiny pearly white teeth shone as she gave him a huge smile.

  “That’s me.”

  “I’m pretty.” She fluffed her dark hair.

  He burst out laughing. No self-esteem issues here.

  “You’re not just pretty, you’re gorgeous and beautiful.” The little girl kissed him on his chin.

  “Let me down. I watch David. Me in charge.”

  “Yep, you sure are like your Mama,” Wyatt said as he gently placed her back down on the floor, watching as she strode over to David and crouched down to stroke the baby's back and hand him a stuffed turtle.

  “I do not go around saying I’m pretty,” Miranda’s eyes sparkled with laughter.

  “You can occasionally be bossy, though.” Riya said to her supervisor.

  Evie raised her hand.

  “Yes Evie?” Miranda pointed to her.

  “I’ve seen you primp. I think your daughter gets it from somewhere and it’s not from Griff.” All of the women started laughing.

  “I don’t know, Griff sometimes acts like a pretty boy,” Wyatt said solemnly.

  “What kind of shit are you talking?” Griffin Porter asked as he walked into the waiting room.

  “He’s calling you a prima donna,” Dalton Sullivan said as he went over and kissed his wife Aurora. “What’s the word on Kenna?”

  “She’s hours away from giving birth,” Aurora answered.

  Hunter pulled up a chair and started distributing cups of coffee. Gray sat on the arm of Riya’s chair and kissed the top of her head.

  Wyatt’s phone rang. It was Emily. He walked to the hallway.

  “Hi, Em, what’s up?”

  “Are you busy?”

  He looked around the hallway, then peeked into the waiting room. All of his teammates were there. Dex was covered. “Absolutely not. Is there something you need?”

  “I hate to ask. There’s probably nothing you can do.”

  He muted his phone and went into the room. “Guys I’ve got to leave.” He pointed to his phone.

  “You okay?” Gray asked.

  “It’s Emily,” he said as he put his phone back up to his ear and strode down the hospital hallway. “I’ll be in my truck in just a minute. Can you start filling me in?”

  “Like I said, there’s probably nothing you can do.”

  “Just talk to me.”

  Wyatt slammed the door on his truck, causing his truck to actually rock.

  Dammit!

  He called Kane.

  Voicemail.

  Dammit!

  He hit the keys to leave a voicemail, and it was not pleasant or kind and it contained a lot of colorful expletives. The bastard had better call him back fast.

  It would normally take him five minutes to make it to the freeway, but he made it in two. He saw Kane’s number flash up on his dashboard.

  “Do you ever pick up your phone?” Wyatt demanded.

  “It’s one o’clock in the morning here in Virginia.”

  “Whining is not an attractive trait in a SEAL.”

  “I wasn’t the one who was whining,” Kane said smoothly. “I’m up now, what do you need? I’m at my computer.”

  Wyatt zipped over to the fast lane on The Five freeway and quickly explained what was going on with Emily’s sister in Oman. “So, tell me, what do you have with the private chat?”

  Wyatt prayed that Mr. Cyber Warfare had been able to figure out something.

  “After I got off the phone with you, I started running it through a couple of high-end diagnostics that bumped up against the rogue code. Wyatt, I’ve never run into anything like it.”

  Wyatt heard a woman’s voice in the background, then he was put on mute. When Kane came back on the line, he sounded kind of pissed, but then he focused. “If it hadn’t been for the malware protection that I had modified and installed, I would have been hosed.”

  “Stop with the multi-tasking, and telling me a bunch of superfluous bullshit, did you get to the bottom of this, or not?” Wyatt was ready to kill Kane.

  “Yes,” Kane answered. “I got into the chat. Three languages. Flemish, Arabic and English. They jumped around in the three languages in such a way that you couldn’t pinpoint that it was damn near impossible to pinpoint what they were saying. They used the diverse languages as code.”

  Wyatt slapped his steering wheel. “So, you’re telling me you don’t know shit.”

  “That’s not what I’m telling you. I had Asher read it, his Mom is from the Limburg Provence of Belgium, so he’s fluent in Flemish. We had it nailed with his help.” Kane sucked in a deep breath. “Wyatt, these people are nuts.”

  “Define nuts,” Wyatt demanded.

  “Oman has been paranoid about its border with Yemen for a couple of years now. They don’t advertise just how many troops and covert operatives they have patrolling that area, but Oman watches it as closely as the Arabs and Israelis watch the Gaza strip.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell me something that everybody and their brother doesn’t know,” Wyatt said through gritted teeth.

  “Well, they’ve been so paranoid about that border that they’ve let their guard down on the Saudi and UAE side. Especially UAE. Oman has been doing so many imports and exports since the new trade deal that they’re going to widen the Batinah Expressway.”

  “So, who was doing the talking on the tape? Al-Qaeda? What’s their plan? Who’s their target? When are they planning to do something? What else do you have besides someone possibly coming in from the UAE, and some woman in your bed?” Wyatt hit his brakes, so he didn’t rear end the flatbed truck in front of him.

  “They’re al-Qaeda. We know this because they mentioned Hamza al Libi as well as Saif al Fadi.”

  Wyatt nodded as he drove over three lanes of traffic so that he could take the exit he needed. “Wait a minute, I thought those two were supposed to have been killed in a raid in Pakistan.”

  “We triple checked it. I don’t care what the intel said, it was Hamza giving orders according to what Asher and I put together. He's saying he has operatives on the ground in Oman, but now he’s waiting for the loyalists to arrive so he could join them, which should be within the week.”

  “Are you saying what I think you are?” Wyatt had circled the block two times before he could find parking. Emily’s neighborhood was great if you wanted to have a bachelor party, but it was a lousy place to live. She had to move. Her apartment might have controlled access to the underground parking, and an actual buzzer to get into the front, but it was like an urban Cancun with all of the revelry.

  As he hot footed it to her building, he saw two guys beating the hell out of one another, and another guy puking his guts out into a trash can. He had to get her out of this place.

  “Wyatt are you listening to me?” Kane yelled loudly into the phone.

  “Yeah, you were saying something about loyalists.”

  “Not loyalists, martyrs. I said that it meant that they are pulling in their martyrs for a suicide mission,” Kane answered. “This is going to be big. You need to tell your girlfriend’s sister to stay the fuck out of this and let the adults handle it.”

  “I intend to.”

  Emily was perched on the edge of her couch, counting down the seconds from when she had called Wyatt. She’d told the people at the front desk to let him come up. Even though she knew he was coming, his knock still scared the stuffing out of her, but the good news was, she didn’t feel sick to her stomach when she went to open her door. She felt her lips turning up into a smile. She was getting better.

  “Hello, Beautiful,” he said. His hazel eyes smiled down at her.

  How did eyes smile?

  “Hi. Thanks for coming so quickly. Were you asleep?” She waved her arm for him to proceed her into the apartment. She didn’t like the idea of him following her. She wanted to be able to see him.

  “I was at the hospital. Kenna
is having her baby.”

  “Oh no, you shouldn’t have come.”

  Wyatt unzipped a computer bag he was holding. “Yes, I should. Let’s get your new laptop fired up, and you can fill me in on everything your sister said.”

  “I was going to go to the electronics store tomorrow and buy myself a laptop,” she said as she looked over his shoulder at the thin, sleek computer. There was no way she would have purchased something like the one that he was opening up on her desk.

  “Emily, yours wasn’t secure. It was old and the operating system was so out of date that it probably wasn’t even getting updates anymore. It must have taken forever to access the internet.”

  “It wasn’t that bad,” she demurred.

  He looked over his shoulder at her. “Really? You want to stick with that answer?”

  She knew he was flirting with her to put her at ease while the computer fired up. She appreciated it, but it didn’t stop her from worrying about Carly.

  “So, are you good with our plan?” Wyatt asked as if reading her mind.

  She bit her lip and nodded her head. “You’re going to pretend to be one of my friends from Oman. Do you think you can talk them out of this crazy scheme?”

  “I’m going to do my damndest.”

  “Will they believe you? I mean, you can’t be Wyatt Leeds. I’ve talked about you.”

  Wyatt snorted. “Don’t worry, Kane’s working on it at this very minute. He’s building me an entire new identity. If it were just Carly, we wouldn’t need it, but this Chris kid sounds savvy. Kane’s building an on-line presence and everything.”

  Wyatt’s phone rang. He looked down at it.

  “It’s Kane.” He put it on speaker.

  “Em’s listening in. Keep it clean.”

  “I’m always a gentleman in front of a lady,” Kane responded. “It’s nice to meet you Miss Hoag.”

  Wyatt snorted.

  “Let me tell you what I’ve done,” Kane continued. “Wyatt, you’re now Scott Lyle. You met Emily when she was going to the American School in Oman because you were teaching a class in Information Technology. You were doing that to practice your Arabic so you could eventually pick up some consulting work with some of the big Middle Eastern businesses.”

  “Got it,” Wyatt said.

  “Emily, you kept in touch with Scott even after you moved to Saudi Arabia. He’s stayed in Oman and ended up working for one of the top five international consulting firms working in risk management. His specific area of expertise is ensuring that companies security systems are state-of-the-art and can withstand any kind of cyber-attacks. As a result, he’s in everyone’s business in Oman.”

  “Sounds plausible,” Wyatt said.

  “So far I’ve made our buddy Scott a comprehensive IG account, so if anybody checks him out, he’s legit.”

  “This guy has an on-line presence?” Wyatt asked. “It seems to me he would want to stay under the radar.”

  “He’s into extreme sports, so his Instagram has a lot of photos of him doing dangerous shit. Our boy Scott has a bit of an ego.”

  Emily could hear the satisfied grin in Kane’s voice. Wyatt immediately called up Instagram and keyed in the name Scott Lyle, images of Wyatt showed up.

  “You’re an asshole,” Wyatt growled. “How did you manage to download my pictures in a half hour?”

  “At least know it was pretty damn difficult. I like some of your base-jumping shots, those were nice pics. Anyway, they’re up on Scott’s phony Instagram account.”

  “You base jumped?” Emily asked.

  “Don’t forget the paragliding and cave diving,” Kane mentioned helpfully.

  “Let me get a closer look,” Emily pushed at Wyatt so she could see the Instagram account for Scott Lyle. She couldn’t believe her eyes. “You did all of that? Wyatt, you could have been killed,” she gasped.

  Kane laughed.

  “Let’s focus on our next steps, Honey,” Wyatt said gently. “Okay, I know what my backstory is. Let’s make this phone call.”

  Emily walked over to the kitchen counter and plucked her cell phone out of her purse. Her hand trembled and she hoped that Wyatt didn’t notice. Those pictures really scared her. Here she’d been thinking that she’d been doing better, but the idea that Wyatt put himself at risk like that was really frightening. She didn’t want anything too bad to ever happen to him.

  The worst part is that she realized how much she had come to rely on him, and that was the scariest thing of all.

  “Em? Are you ready to make that phone call?” He walked over to the couch, and she followed. “Kane, I’m going to put you on mute, while we put Emily’s phone on speaker so you can listen in.”

  “Fine,” the man said.

  Wyatt nodded at Emily and she pressed Carly’s number. Of course, it went to voicemail. Darn it. She pressed in Mercedes’s number and she picked up.

  “Hi Emily. Carly’s trying on Petra’s dress. Hold on for a sec.”

  Wyatt raised his eyebrows at Emily, and she shrugged. They waited.

  “Hi Big Sis, thanks for calling back so soon.”

  Despite the circumstances, Emily still smiled because Carly was back to calling her Big Sis.

  “I lined up my friend Scott for you to talk to." Emily said. “Can you get everybody together so we can talk. I can conference him in. He has some information.”

  Emily cringed. They’d talked about a cover story, but she had no idea what in the world Wyatt was going to say to Carly and her friends to deter them from setting out on their own. He gave her a comforting smile and squeezed her shoulder. “Trust me,” he mouthed.

  He sure was good at reading her mind.

  “Petra is getting Chris right now,” Carly said.

  Wyatt gently took the phone out of her hands and muted it. “Tell her you’re going to conference me in now.” He handed her back the phone.

  “Carly, I’m going to conference Scott in now. I don’t want to keep him waiting any longer.” She muted the phone once again for thirty seconds. “Scott are you here?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Wyatt answered.

  “Carly, can you hear me?”

  “Yep, I’m here,” was her sister’s chipper answer.

  “Scott, I told you that Carly is my sister. We’re waiting for a couple of her friends to join us on the call, then we can get started, okay?”

  “That’s acceptable,” Wyatt said in a serious tone of voice. He sounded different than what she was used to.

  “Carly, I told you I don’t like this,” a young man’s voice said into the phone.

  “What is this Emily?” Wyatt said in a slow tone. “Do they want my help or not?”

  She opened her mouth to ask Wyatt what he was thinking but he put his hand over her mouth. Emily almost dropped the phone in fear. But she fought back the terror as she heard Carly yelling in the background. It helped her realize where she was. Who she was with? That she was safe.

  “I told you that my sister was getting somebody to help us. You promised to listen,” Carly said loudly to someone.

  Emily looked into Wyatt’s pleading eyes. He knew how scared she was of a man’s hands covering her mouth. He was begging her to trust him, and not blow things. She gave a tiny nod of her head.

  Her heartbeat slowed, then stopped. His eyes turned molten gold as his fingers slid downwards, his thumb a slow caress across her bottom lip as he released her. He dipped his forehead against hers. “So brave,” he whispered almost silently.

  Her blood flowed like thick honey.

  “Emily, are you listening to me?”

  “Carly.” Emily’s voice only shook a little bit. “Honey, I’m worried. Scott really knows the landscape there. He can help. I promise you, I trust him with my life.” She watched as Wyatt’s tense shoulders slumped with relief and he gave her a grateful smile.

  “What can you two do for us?” the male voice asked belligerently. “I’m worried about my family. Nobody’s taking us seriously, and I know s
omething bad is going to happen. We need to get proof. If my dad won’t listen, maybe with proof we can get the Ambassador to listen.”

  Emily’s heart ached for the boy trying to protect his family.

  “My name is Scott Lyle, I work for one of Ernst and Young’s competitors, and I’m doing risk assessment for some of the largest operations here in Oman,” Wyatt said calmly.

  “I don’t understand, what does that do for us?” A new female voice asked.

  “It means I have access young lady. A lot of access. It also means I know people and have my ear to the ground. Emily has explained to me what the school counselor Miss Bannister said. I’m inclined to agree with your parents and the Ambassador, it seems odd that she heard the name Hamza al Libi, since he’s dead. But the fact that the journalist had a car wreck two days after giving her that audio is very suspicious, so I’ll look into it.”

  “We should look into it.” Chris said. It was clear he was angry.

  “If there is something to find out, I know the right people to contact to put out the fire and take out the bad guys, do you?” Wyatt asked in that same cool and deliberate tone.

  He was met by silence.

  “Look, we don’t have time to wait around. There’s going to be a big party Saturday night with some of the Sultanates cabinet ministers, oil, pharmaceutical and airline executives. If you’re as connected as you say you are, we’ll see you there.”

  Wyatt’s lips twitched at Chris’s deliberate throw down, but Emily wasn’t amused, she was scared spitless.

  “Don’t go,” Emily cried.

  Wyatt held up his hand. Again, he mouthed ‘Trust me.’

  “Now hold on Emily.” Wyatt sounded bored. “What is it you intend to accomplish? Emily told me how Carly is going to act as interpreter, but what exactly are you hoping to find out?”

  “We’ve already found out a lot. Carly already told Emily all about that call, didn’t she? Even that the guy was talking about the orphanage that got blown up. I mean how much more do you need?” Scott asked snidely.

  “How and what more do you expect to find out? I know how you intend to sneak Carly in, but do the three of you really think you can pass as servers?”

  "Nobody ever pays attention to servants at these events,” the young man said. “I’m going to be looking out for Carly. My sisters are just going to serve drinks and listen to people. We’ll compare notes after the party. We only really expect Carly to hear anything good.”