Her Tempting Protector: Navy SEAL Team (Night Storm Book 2)

by Caitlyn O'Leary

  “Thank you, Doctor. You saved us.”

  “You did all the work,” Carys said as she watched the beautiful sight of Shada feeding her child.

  “I have decided on a name. I shall call him Adam.”

  Carys sucked in another shaky breath.

  Again, with the tears?

  “I am honored.”

  Shada continued to stroke her baby’s hands as she nestled him next to her. He’d scored a nine on his Apgar test and had all indications of being a big and sturdy little boy if he got enough food. Now she watched as Shada started to whisper things into her son’s ear. Carys could hear the promises she was making. She wanted a better life for her son, one without pain.

  She couldn’t handle it for another second, she fled out into the main area and once again ran straight into Cullen.

  “Whoa there.” His voice was low as his hands took hold of her upper arms and her nose was practically buried in the hard-muscled planes of his chest. Startled, she looked up and up until she was finally looking into the bluest eyes she had ever seen before. They were filled with compassion. “Carys, are you okay?”

  She shook her head. Her hair had long since escaped her French braid and tendrils flew across her face. She flinched. As if he knew that bothered her, he brushed them away from her eyes and lips.

  “Let’s get some fresh air, would you like that?”

  She nodded. She couldn’t seem to get any words out.

  His look was so warm, so compassionate, she felt like she could melt into his arms. It felt so odd. She had never felt like this before. Not even with her husband had she felt like she could actually lean on someone. Well, except for that time, that man, in Santa Flores. But this was stronger even than that.

  “Carys, come with me,” he coaxed. His hand clasped hers, their fingers entwined. He drew her outside, to a velvet night with sprinkles of stars glowing down on them. Cullen put his arm around her, and she rested her head against his shoulder.

  “This isn’t me, you know,” she warned him.

  “I know. But I think you need a little bit of care after your nightmare. Do you want to share?”

  For the longest time, they just leaned against the tiny little house in the center of the world, staring up at the moon. Did she want to share with this man who she really didn’t know?

  “It was a bad situation. I was almost raped. Almost killed. A SEAL saved me.”

  Cullen brushed back another stray lock that the almost non-existent breeze had blown against her cheek. The feel of his fingers warmed a spot in her heart that had remained dormant for years.

  “That sure is a short story.” His smile was sad.

  “It’s true.” Her breath ruffled his chest hair.

  He pressed her a little closer to his body and she felt safer. “I didn’t doubt that. Did you tell me enough to help with your nightmares, or are you going to have another one the next time you close your eyes?”

  “It was a long time ago, Cullen, and with the things I see, the atrocities? I’m hard, Cullen. I’ve had to be rock hard to do this job. You know?”

  “I know.” His voice rumbled under her ear. “But after the fight, there are times the ugliness comes up and bites me in the ass. Is that what happened to you today?”

  She nodded. The feel of him against her cheek felt good. She moved just a millimeter closer. That was all she would allow herself. And, as if Cullen knew, he didn’t pull her any nearer, but his warmth sank into her bones just the same.

  “Carys?” he prompted.

  “It’s been a culmination of things. I resigned. I always knew this kind of work had a shelf-life. I was in the middle of getting my life together in Oregon when Hamdok’s people contacted me. I had resigned from Doctors Without Borders.”

  She felt his stare, felt his questions, but he didn’t ask. He just waited for her to continue. Pain lashed through her as she remembered the last project she’d been on before she went home to the States to try to see if she would continue.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked softly.

  “It was the Moira camp in Greece that was the last straw,” she said woodenly. She wondered why Cullen sucked in his breath, then saw that her nails gouged into his chest.

  “I’m sorry!” She tried to untangle herself from his embrace but he somehow managed to hold her close in such a gentle manner that it felt too good to give up, so she relaxed back against him. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she apologized.

  “Yep, it was going to be the scratches from your nails that were finally going to get me that Purple Heart, and I stopped you. Dammit, what was I thinking?”

  For just a second she felt like smiling. How did he manage to do that?

  “Finish your story, Carys. Tell me about Greece.” His voice lured the words from her broken heart.

  “I revived a boy who was ten years old. It took me twenty minutes. When he woke up and looked around, he started crying and screaming. When I asked the translators what he was saying I found out that he’d tried to kill himself.”

  She sucked in the hot African night air, trying to brace herself. “I lost it, Cullen. What was I doing this for if things had gotten so bad that in refugee camps the children were trying to kill themselves? What good was I?”

  “Jesus. I don’t know what I would have done except hold him and cried right along with him,” Cullen admitted.

  “I wanted to do just that, but I was in the middle of a never-ending assembly line. There’d been a camp psychologist, a good woman from France, but she was in over her head, I think we all were. Just too many refugees, not enough space or resources, and no solutions. When I found him again, they were taking his father away to be buried. He had no hope, and neither did I at that point. I gave his mom everything I owned before I left to go Stateside. Marie-Clair, the psychologist, told me that the boy and his mother finally made it out of the camp. She’s given me a couple of updates. But there were so many others. I just lost it, Cullen.”

  “So how did you get here?”

  “One of my med-school friends was a surgeon in Khartoum. She had recommended me to the new prime minister to help put together a coalition with the Sudanese and international communities. After being under a dictatorship for so long, they needed a jumpstart. Prime Minister Hamdok is a very convincing man and he desperately wants a better life for his people. I figured this would be more of a coordination role and I could cope.”

  “But then everything piled up and you ended up here with nightmares, right?”

  She nodded, her cheek sliding against the muscles of Cullen’s chest. He trailed his hand down the thin shirt covering her back.

  “I’m surprised the Santa Flores incident came up. That was almost four years ago, I should be past that.”

  Her head jerked up in surprise when he snorted.

  “What?”

  “If one of my sisters told me that she was almost raped and killed, but she’d put it behind her, I’d have her committed.”

  How can a tone be both rough and caring?

  He tilted her chin up and she saw his crooked smile. “Come on Carys, you’re a smart woman, you know better than that,” he gently admonished.

  “It’s been over a year since I had that nightmare. I thought I was finally over it. I honestly did.”

  “And how did you manage that? Therapy?”

  She couldn’t keep his gaze.

  “Was there someone else you talked to? A parent? A sibling?”

  She shook her head, looking at the red clay beneath her shoes.

  “A lover?”

  She let out a long sigh, “No one.”

  7

  Cullen felt like he was holding a porcelain statue. A beautiful piece of art that had been through the fire many times and ended up exquisite, something meant to last through the ages, yet could still shatter if not treated with the love and care it deserved.

  He closed his eyes and prayed for guidance on how to protect this woman.

 
How had he always known that it would hit him like this? His dad had told him that it had taken only one day with his mother, and he was a goner. Cullen was nothing if not his father’s son.

  But really, in the middle of Africa?

  He was expecting the grocery store. Home Depot. Maybe the Cheesecake Factory. But Africa?

  She stiffened and drew away from him. Okay, now it started. He smothered his sigh.

  “I must be a heck of a lot more tired than I realized. I never spill my troubles out on the first person who comes along.” She pushed her hair back from her face with a trembling hand and started to tighten up her braid. “I need to get back to Shada.”

  She disappeared into the shack and left him looking out into the green tree line. Cullen looked down at his watch and pulled out his iPhone. Nope, no cell service, so he grabbed the satellite phone and called Raiden. No answer. Max was next.

  “About damn time you checked in. I’ve been trying to get your ass on the line for hours,” Max said. “Get the doctor to Khartoum, we’re out of here yesterday.”

  “Max can’t do it. There is no way she’s going to leave her patient,” Cullen explained calmly.

  “You don’t have a choice, because you can be sure as shit there are eyes on the both of you. Get the fuck out of there. I don’t care how you do it. Get. Her. Here.”

  Cullen toed open the rickety door with his boot. Above the static of the phone he could hear the baby crying.

  “Max. The mother could die.”

  “Cullen, you’re not hearing me. Dr. Adams has a target on her back. Four of her associates have been killed. Another two are missing. The rebel forces are making a point. They don’t want this democracy to succeed and they have decided to make examples of all the aid workers. The C.I.A. found a list with Dr. Adam’s name on it. You’ve got to get her out of there.”

  Cullen’s blood ran cold.

  “Got it.”

  “Do you?” Max asked. “Because her life is on the line. I understand that she feels the need to take care of her patient, but nobody should die the way Nurse Kowalski did.”

  “I said I understood,” Cullen ground out. He didn’t need to hear any horror stories. “I’m going to get her to safety. I need to get a vehicle.”

  “Keep me updated.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said, then disconnected.

  He took a moment to get his head on straight. The last thing he wanted to do was scare the hell out of Carys, it wouldn’t do a damn bit of good. Cullen pushed open the door with his shoulder and looked over the little home. To think of it as a shack did it a disservice, not when the little girl’s bed was covered with vibrant fabric and the walls had been painstakingly painted in blue and white. Hell, there was even a water glass on the little table with a wilted flower in it. Yep, this was a home, and there was a woman of the house who needed to be taken care of, and there wasn’t a chance in hell that Max would have considered leaving her behind if he were in Cullen’s shoes. Not a chance in fucking hell. He knew his friend too well.

  “Cullen?” He looked over at Carys as she came out from behind the blanket. “Is everything okay?” she asked in English.

  “I’m going to go find some transport. We need to move out.”

  “We can’t. Shada needs at least, at the very least, another twenty-four hours of rest. Her blood pressure isn’t good. She’s bonding with the baby now, but even that is going to tire her out.”

  He moved closer and looked down at her so that he could talk quietly. “Carys, things have changed. It isn’t safe here. I’m going to go find some kind of vehicle, and when I get back here you need to be ready to go. This is life and death.”

  Her green eyes searched his face.

  “There’s really is no other choice, is there?” she asked. She must have read the answer in his expression, because her chin lifted, and her mouth firmed.

  “If there were, I would take it. I promise. I’ve got to go right now.” He started pulling on the gear he’d taken off to care for the newborn. Carys watched him with steady eyes.

  “What can I do to help?” she asked.

  “Have everyone ready to leave when I come back.”

  She nodded once. She seemed steady as a rock.

  “Anything else?”

  “Keep your gun with you at all times. If anybody but me, or one of my men, comes through that door, shoot to kill.”

  Having him gone was a blessing and a curse. She looked down at the gun in front of her on the rickety table. She had the door of the shack propped open just a little bit so she could hear if any vehicle was coming.

  A headache of epic proportions was coming on so she had taken some ibuprofen—hopefully, that would do the trick. Hopefully.

  “Admit it, you’re confused and scared.”

  Talking things through out loud was a trick she’d learned from a psychologist she’d worked with years ago. He’d told her that if she said things out loud, and owned those feelings, they wouldn’t have as much power over her.

  “I’m confused. I’m scared.”

  This didn’t seem to be getting the job done. She jumped up from the table and strode across the room to look in on her charges. They were both asleep. She plopped back into the chair. She tried again.

  “I’m confused. I’m scared.”

  She heard Derek’s voice in her head laughing at her. He would know she wasn’t claiming all her emotions.

  “Cullen has me more scrambled than an omelet. Are you happy, Derek?” she hissed.

  She hadn’t felt this mixed-up in years. What the heck was wrong with her? Maybe her hormones were acting up.

  She traced the grain of turquoise painted wood with her thumbnail and laughed at herself. Yeah, her hormones, the ones that hadn’t even clamored when she’d been married for two years. Those non-existent hormones. Derek sure wouldn’t believe that she was fiercely attracted to a man in less than twenty-four hours, when she’d made him wait until their wedding night to sleep with her.

  Her head shot up as she snorted with laughter. She waited to see if she’d disturbed either Shada or the baby. When she didn’t hear anything from behind the blanket, she went back to her thoughts. If you could call them thoughts. More like letting the squirrel loose in her brain.

  What the heck was wrong with her?

  Ouch!

  She pulled the sliver of painted wood out from under her nail and sucked on her thumb.

  She’d come a long way since those residency days when she’d tried to juggle a new marriage and starting her career. Why had she let her parents and Derek push her into that? To this very day, her parents still harped on the fact that Derek now ran his father’s car dealership in Omaha and lived in the gated community with his wife and two children, and that could have been her.

  They’d had the gall to have him and his wife at one of their Christmas parties when she was there five years ago—since then she’d avoided going home for the holidays. It was painful, even to take phone calls from her parents since they made it clear that she had chosen the wrong path in their eyes. Instead, when she was Stateside, she spent a lot of time with her friends David and Sarah Sloane, and a very few others.

  She pushed away from the table and scooped up the gun. She hated the darn thing, but it was necessary. She needed fresh air. Thinking about her parents always did that to her. She looked up into the night sky.

  How gorgeous.

  For just a moment, she caught a breeze and it felt sultry against her skin, magically it seemed to heat her from the inside. Cullen, with his blue eyes and broad shoulders, heated her from the inside out, too. She shivered, not from cold, but from a long-dormant feeling of desire.

  Whoa there, girlfriend. Desire? I must be tired.

  She closed her eyes and leaned against the side of the house, knowing she’d hear anyone coming down the distant road.

  What was going on?

  “It’s a phase. You’re going through a phase,” she assured herself.

  Th
inking about all the changes she’d made in the last year, quitting Doctors Without Borders, and the time she’d taken to really look at her history and think about her future, she wondered how she got to this moment. Right before she’d taken this assignment, she’d decided it was time to start an actual life. She’d been shortlisted for a job at a small hospital in Eugene, Oregon. She’d been in escrow for a house, it was only a few hours’ drive from Sarah and David’s place.

  They were part of her real family. Over the years, she had realized that she could create her own family, and slowly, it had increased. A few people had slipped in fast, like two members of the SEAL team who had rescued her and a couple of doctors and nurses that she’d served with, but her actual family? Nope.

  She looked down at the pistol, unable to believe she was once again in a life and death situation. What had she been thinking, coming to Africa? She knew that there was always a risk. Then she considered Shada and her swollen face. And her poor abused children, and that beautiful newborn. That’s why she was here.

  And maybe, just maybe, Cullen?

  Those blue eyes. Was he her actual life?

  That wasn’t really possible, was it?

  Cullen had called Kane and asked for some coordinates. The man could pinpoint a nit on a gnat. So, he was able to pull up a small, or as Kane had described it, a microscopic municipality. Where his friend came up with his descriptions, he’d never know.

  “Cut the shit Kane, does it have a car, a truck, a bus? Anything? I need to transport a woman in a prone position. A moped isn’t going to cut it.”

  “I heard you the first time,” Kane said. “I’m telling you that five klicks north from where I’ve got you pinpointed, there’s a village with a couple of trucks. You’re golden, as long as you can get in there and steal them without getting killed.”