Accidental SEAL (SEAL Brotherhood #1) (5 page)

“Good. Saves me the trouble of calling the police.” As soon as she’d said it, she wondered why. Calling the police was not what she was really thinking.

“That won’t be necessary. Just hear me out first, and if you still want to call them, I won’t be able to object. It’s your right. But I’m sorry about…”

“This him?” Simms immediately stepped next to Christy, and, after sizing up the physique and bearing of the stranger, pegged him. “Navy, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

Wayne appeared at the end of the hallway, but his ego had turned to pudding. He hovered in the shadow, half protected by a wall.

Simms continued. “I’m Carl Simms, the manager here. Ms. Nelson was just telling me how you terrorized her yesterday. Scared this nice young lady to death. I’ve advised her to call the police, and if she doesn’t,
I
will.” Simms delivered this with determination, but Christy noted he stayed a healthy two steps away from the large Navy man.

The visitor had been looking at Simms, but in the silence that followed, his blue gaze turned back on Christy, as if to beg for time alone with her. And damn, she was going to give it to him, too. There was something there she needed to find out about. She had too many questions about the day before to be consistently angry. And how could she, when he looked at her like that?

“Why don’t we go to the conference room and discuss this?” Christy offered softly.

“That sounds fair to me,” the stranger replied. He didn’t take his eyes off Christy when he added, “Simms, you can join us if you like.”

“Christy?” Simms asked.

“I think I’ll be okay. Thanks.”

“Can someone take these please?” the man said, holding up the heavy metal signs like they were a carton of Chinese food.

“Those are mine.” Wayne darted from the shadows and grabbed them away without looking at the stranger. The signs clattered and he almost dropped them.

“I’m guessing you must be Wayne.”

Wayne shot him a murderous look, then adjusted his bravado and walked away, carrying the signs awkwardly in both hands. He was swearing under his breath, his sport coat stretching across his shoulders and his knees bumping the metal signs as he lumbered off.

Christy drew back the sliding door to the conference room as the stranger passed by too close. A fresh soap scent made her eyes flutter and her nose itch. He found a spot at the head of the table facing out to the reception area and remained standing until Christy slid the door closed. When she took the chair at his left, he sat in tandem with her.

He pushed the flowers in her direction across the laminate tabletop. She noticed again the tattoo of footprints from some unknown three-toed creature that traversed up his forearm.

“These are yours. Once again, I am very sorry.” His voice, raspy and soft, drew her complete attention. His large hand squeezed the plastic outer wrap with a delicious crunch. The package displayed a colorful spring gathering of daffodils, stock, and baby green chrysanthemums. A few sprigs of lavender had been added for garnish. The glorious smell of the bouquet filled the room. The flowers had obviously been hand selected and the bouquet freshly made. She noticed things like that. Some of her past boyfriends hadn’t even bothered to take the price tags off the supermarket bunches. This bouquet probably set him back a good twenty dollars.

A whole lot cheaper than bail.
Some of her anger returned, but she gave him a curt thank you.

He pulled his hand back and leaned against the table. He took a deep breath, and then exhaled as he began his story. “My name is Kyle Lansdowne. I am in the Navy. I’m looking for my Navy buddy and best friend, who is missing.”

“Okay.”

“The house…where we…met…belongs to my friend, Armando. I’d begun to look for him and thought I would start there.”

“Naked?”

“Well.” Kyle suppressed a grin and nodded his head. “I understand this may not make sense, but I actually meditate like that all the time. I didn’t expect company.” He flashed those blue eyes up at her again.

“Obviously.”

“Look, I’m sorry, but I’m really not a weirdo.”

Christy knew she had to break eye contact or she would never get through this. She rubbed her temples and closed her eyes.

Mr. Simms popped his head into the conference room. “Everything all right?”

Christy realized how weary she must have looked from her night of tossing in her sleep. The stress of the last twenty-four hours got to her. She could barely hold it together.

“It’s okay,” she said to Simms.

Simms nodded, staring back at Kyle, but leaving them alone again as he closed the door. Kyle rubbed his palm where her teeth marks remained clearly evident. When he noticed her looking at them, he stopped and buried his hands under the table.

“So why the questions about all this covert stuff? The tying me up with my pantyhose? What was that all about?”

“Again, please let me apologize. I thought maybe you were involved with Armando’s disappearance.”

“Me?”

Kyle rolled his shoulders. “I just assumed you might be one of the bad guys.”

“You think I look like a bad guy?”

“Of course not. I see that now.”

Christy glared at him. She decided he was telling the truth so she backed down. “Well, I still don’t see what the big deal is. Maybe your friend went out on a bender—it happens, you know.”

“Not to us.”

“I’m
sorry
?”

“We’re SEALs.”

“Oh.”

“And we never disappear without someone else from the SEALs community knowing about it. We’re trained to disappear, but that’s not how this happened. Something’s wrong.”

“Sounds a little over the top. Don’t you guys have a life?”

“That’s exactly what we’ve got.”

Christy watched Kyle survey the top of the conference table, his eyes sweeping up to the flowers laying flat against the Formica surface.

“Staying alive is the goal,” he said.

Christy didn’t know what else to say.

“Well, I’ve taken enough…” He started to rise.

“No. Wait a minute. That was unkind of me.”

Kyle shrugged, then sat back down. He looked at his lap.

“What can I do to help?” she asked.

Kyle folded his hands neatly in front of him and a crooked smile angled up to the left, causing a dimple. “Nothing you can do. I’m here because you never should have been involved in the first place and I wanted to personally apologize for my behavior.”

Some of the pieces started to connect. She rolled her neck back and forth and felt some of the tension leave.

“Did I injure you? I tried not to.” His eyes were steady as he raised his brows, forming crease lines on his forehead. “You hurt anywhere?”

Good question.
“No. I’m fine.” She didn’t understand why he chuckled at this and nodded his head twice.

“You’re a very strong young lady.”

“I’ve been told that a time or two.”

“I can imagine.” He scanned her face like he had yesterday when they were on the floor. She could tell he wanted to look at her farther down, but held himself in check. She liked that about him.

He looked to the side as if thinking about something before he spoke again. “I would like to make it up to you, if you’ll let me.” He turned on the blue-eyed charm again and smiled. “Give me a chance for you to see my decent side, not my animal side.”

She was thinking about his animal side. Did he know?

“Well, I don’t normally bite people when I first meet them, either.” She found it in herself to smile and enjoyed that he returned her smile, focusing on her lips.

An awkward silence followed, but she determined not to break it. His move and how he played it would indicate if she would trust him.

“Maybe I could buy you lunch sometime. Tomorrow?”

She’d been hoping for dinner but knew lunch was the right answer. “That would be fine.” She wanted to say “nice” but was pleased she made the last-minute word substitution. No denying her attraction to this man, but it would be dangerous to let him see it.

“Okay, then. Can I pick you up here tomorrow at, say, noon?”

“If I still have my job.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I technically quit,” she whispered, peering down at her hands. “I thought Wayne did this.”

“And so now you know. It was my fault. Entirely.”

“Yes, I see that now. Okay, I’ll see you here tomorrow.”

They stood as she gathered up the flowers, burying her nose in them, inhaling the delicious scent. He caught her little lapse in judgment and smiled.

“I thought you’d like them. They look like you.”

Christy didn’t remember when or how she said good-bye. She’d been numbed by his words,
they look like you
. For the rest of the day she operated out of the comfortable cocoon that warm numbness created, that shielded her from ordinary life.

She didn’t completely trust or believe Kyle, but looked forward to tomorrow with an eagerness she hadn’t known in years.

Kyle’s first string of second thoughts rushed in before he got into his Hummer. He stopped halfway there, almost turning back to call the whole thing off.

You’ve got no business doing this. You are one messed up sailor if you think someone like her is fair game.

He wondered why in the world he’d asked her out for lunch. Well, being honest, he knew why. She reminded him of someone from his past.

He couldn’t stop thinking about her and the way her eyes held him courageously, staring at the possibility of her own death. She didn’t beg—a true fighter.

Just like me.

That kind of a person deserved an apology, and more. Her defiance in the face of mortal danger reached in and grabbed him. She commanded respect. Sure, he was marking time, waiting for Timmons to get the information on Armando’s cell phone, but something else was going on, and he couldn’t quite identify it. Or, maybe he didn’t want to.

He continued telling himself buying her lunch was the right thing to do, his way of an apology. After all, he’d terrorized her, a civilian, an innocent—something he never thought he was capable of. He was half-surprised she’d said yes.

Hanging around a woman like Christy was dangerous. Would it set things in motion Kyle knew were better off buried? It was difficult enough dealing with Armando’s disappearance. Did he need this complication as well?

Despite what he tried to suppress, he realized she enchanted him. There was something about her fiery attitude and that leveling gaze that made his heart drop to his knees. He couldn’t wait for tomorrow.

Chapter 5

Kyle checked in with his chief, but was disappointed to hear from Timmons that finding Armando’s cell phone location would take at least another day. He bought a sandwich and went out to look at the boats berthed at the wharf. He liked studying the expensive toys of the privileged—no trace of anything military. Being at the water’s edge always calmed him, helped him think. It was either watch boats or practice meditation again, but since the last practice hadn’t turned out so well, he was reluctant to try again.

He shook his head.
What were the odds his meditation would have drawn such an audience?

He watched a man and a boy, who was probably the man’s young son, coming down the wooden pier. The boy looked about six, skipping along, holding hands and trying to keep up with the man, who rolled a small ice chest down the planks with a bumpity-bump. At one point the boy tripped, getting the front rubber bumper of his tennis shoes caught between a gap in the wood. Before he could skid and get a splintered scrape to his knees, the man hauled him up to safety. The boy squealed with a giggle and then kept up an incessant chatter as they made their way down the dock.

This wasn’t anything that happened in Kyle’s life. There were no picnics down by the harbor, no father-son outings, no camping trips. Happy afternoons fishing with his father had never happened as he was growing up. He got other things that made him strong and hard: a leather belt on his rear or the back of his dad’s hand. It wasn’t until he joined his SEAL team that he learned about the meaning of family.

He’d called for a meeting with two other members of Charlie Team, along with Gunny. They agreed to gather early at the Rusty Scupper, which meant the place would be nearly deserted. There were only two reasons the community came into this favorite team hang-out. If a group of team guys sat out front at one of the tables, tilted on indestructible chairs, they were passing time, watching the meat parade meandering down the sidewalk.

Even high schoolers, totally off limits, of course, but hotties nonetheless, were only too willing to tease them. The skirts got shorter, and the shorts showed everything. Skimpy clothes were worn so tight a guy could tell if they wore panties, thongs, or nothing. Tops were becoming practically non-existent. Girls wore kids sizes, too, so a firm three- to four-inch swath of tanned skin without a single stretch mark bounced deliciously around pierced belly buttons. Just a hint of a tattoo poking up from underneath sometimes, or perhaps a little black lace. It was distracting for sure, if a guy looked for that sort of thing.

The other reason to go to the Scupper was to plan something without prying eyes. The Scupper’s dark corner at the back of the bar was perfect for such a meeting. That’s where Kyle sat, waiting for his guys to show up, watching the bubbles traveling up the side of his glass of beer.

His apprehension about Armando grew the more he considered all the clues, or rather, lack of them. He also worried about being too late. He faced the reality that in waiting too long for their only clue, the location of the cell signal, he might have put Armando in further danger. Perhaps grave danger.

Nah. Not Armando. Guy is a fuckin’ warrior machine.

Kyle had never had an unsuccessful mission. This wasn’t going to be his first. Not today. Not this week. He hoped to God never.

Help me out here, buddy. Give me another sign. Don’t try to do this alone, Armando.
Kyle knew the missing SEAL would find a way to steer him in the right direction. And he knew Armando still lived. He could feel it in his bones.