Defender (Navy SEALS Romance Book 4) (4 page)

T
he sun was lingering just
below the horizon, lighting up the sky with a pinkish blue watercolor hue, when the team returned to headquarters. They landed on the adjacent helipad and waited respectfully for Michael to complete his checklist: no one got left behind, not even a pilot.

Together they made their way inside and collapsed on couches and cots, still wearing their salt-soaked gear. Knox stumbled in and muttered a few words of congratulations on a job well done, then fell onto a nearby cot himself, still clutching the phone handset in case they got another call.

“You ready to go home, baby?” Angel mumbled in Madison’s ear, his arms twined around her and his eyes still closed. She nodded, half-asleep, then thought better of it and shook her head.

“Only if we take a cab. I can’t stay awake long enough to get to the door, let alone drive.”

“Right. We can just stay…here…” he agreed, his voice trailing off.

The team continued in various states of half-sleep until one by one they all managed to doze, the grueling hard work that had kept them awake for more than twenty-four hours finally settling on them. They slept for over an hour, but the ringing doorbell woke Jake from where he slept with his head on his arms, seated at the control station in case any alerts came in.

He stumbled to the front door and peered out, then opened the door to a bored-looking teenager in a yellow uniform. He held out a Styrofoam cooler and said, “Got a delivery for you.”

Jake took the note the kid held, unfolded it, and read its contents. He smiled to himself at the letter of congratulatory thanks from the downed plane’s airline, then took the cooler. Inside the oversized box was a full breakfast, individually wrapped in thermal plates and piping hot.

“Tell them thanks, they didn’t have to do this,” he answered. Jake reached into his locker and got out his wallet, then gave the young driver a tip. He closed the door and set the cooler on a table, then unpacked it so it would be spread out whenever anyone woke up. He had just finished when the doorbell rang again. Jake eyed the full table and wondered where he would find space to put more food as he turned to open the door.

Instead of the same delivery driver, he looked at Veronica through red, bleary eyes. In any other instance he would have happily slammed the door in her face, but he didn’t have the energy. He simply stood in the doorway, staring at her, waiting for her to speak.

“Well you’re a sight for sore eyes,” she began, but instead of snark in her tone there was something else. Respect? Concern? Jake couldn’t tell.

“What do you want?” he slurred, his voice barely above a whisper.

“I’m here to set up a meeting, remember? I told you I’d be back,” she began, oblivious to the nearly comatose bodies sprawled on different pieces of furniture. She peered over Jake’s shoulder and saw everyone, then wrinkled her brow in confusion. “Is this how you guys run things around here?”

“Listen lady, I don’t know what your deal is, but we’re all a little tired from diving in the ocean all night and rescuing people. You know what that means, right? It’s what the ‘R’ stands for on the front of the building. We ‘rescue’ people, and in case you couldn’t figure it out for yourself, it’s a really hard job. So if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to sleep. Feel free to drop by some other time when we haven’t worked our asses off… which means good luck finding a time when we’re sitting around twiddling our thumbs.”

He moved to shut the door but Veronica stopped him. He turned on her angrily, waiting for her to explain.

“I know how hard you work. I was just hoping to catch someone who was… conscious,” she said with a slight look of disdain.

“Well, no one’s conscious right now except me, and I plan to correct that in four seconds. So if you don’t mind…” He gestured for her to shut the door, and turned away.

Instead of leaving, Veronica stepped into the office and closed the door behind her. Jake turned around and saw her following him inside and nearly lost it.

“I meant with you on the other side of the door! Good grief, what could you possibly want that can’t wait til I’ve gotten some sleep? Is it money? Do you need money? ‘Cause I’ll totally give you fifty bucks to go away and leave me alone.”

“Cute,” she answered with a smirk. “I already told you. I’m on assignment and I have to connect with you guys, and I’m not leaving ‘til I know when my job will be done. I have a boss, too, just like everyone else. If I can’t at least verify that I’ve reached out to you and that I have a concrete time to interview your group, then I’ve fallen down on my job.”

“Lady, your job isn’t my problem,” he said, hissing as he fought to keep his voice down for everyone else’s sakes.

“I’m not leaving, so you might as well grab that notepad and write down a day and a time,” she said, pointing to the desk. Jake eyed her for a moment, wobbling on his feet as he struggled to stay awake, then he grabbed the post-it pad and a pen and scribbled some information for her. He tore off the post-it, pushed it against her shoulder, and turned to walk back to his cot.

Veronica picked the yellow sticky paper from the front of her shirt and read the note: “When hell freezes over.”

She crumpled it angrily and tossed it on the desk, then grabbed the notepad herself and wrote down some information. She stomped over to where Jake was already lying on a cot, his hands folded across his chest, then stuck her own note directly to his forehead. He didn’t bother reaching up to remove it.

“Don’t let the door hit you in ass on the way out,” he called out when he heard her retreating footsteps. “On second thought, go ahead. Let it hit you, what do I care?”

He awoke several hours later, the note having fallen off and stuck to the side of his face when he rolled over on it. The others were milling around the offices, trying to be quiet as they shed their dirty gear and tried to put their equipment back in its proper place. Jake sat up, rubbed his eyes, and held out the post-it note, forgetting for a moment what it was even about.

“Oh goody, I’ve got a date tonight,” he grumbled, holding up the note between two fingers so the others could see it.

“A date? How’d you pull that off when you’ve been passed out here with the rest of us?” Michael asked from his cot. Jake filled them in on Veronica’s return, and Knox looked up in alarm.

“Why are we meeting with her? Did she say?”

“Nope, and not you guys. The note says just me,” he answered, turning it over as though there might be more clues on the back. “Well, she can kiss it off, I’m not going.”

“I bet she wants to take you out and make up for the failed blind date. Maybe this time you two could be a little nicer, maybe go duke it out in a cage match,” Angel offered sarcastically.

“Tempting as that sounds, uh, no. I don’t have a death wish, and I’d have to be dying to purposely see her again. Nope, not going.”

“You have to!” Madison said, sitting up. “What if it’s something important? I mean, she just moved here, she can’t know enough about you guys yet to have some crazy girl-crush obsession with you. It must be business related or something, or related to your company…”

“I’ll think about it,” he conceded, dropping his head into his hands. “But there will be food and a much longer nap before I can even do that much.”

A
fter a good bit
of ribbing from the other guys, Jake finally showered and got dressed to go find out what Veronica wanted. He told himself it was a necessary evil in order to get her off his back, but if that’s what it took…

All during the drive to the coffee shop she’d mentioned in her note, his mind reeled with thoughts of this crazy but mysterious woman. She’d blown into all of their lives like a hateful hurricane, but one that even he had to admit was beautiful. There was something about a take-charge kind of woman that appealed to him far more than a giggling, simple-minded girl with no deeper thoughts than what she was going to wear next week.

He pulled into the shop and saw that her car was already there, the one she’d been driving when she pulled up next to him at dinner and hit him in the leg with the door. Of course she was early, he thought with irritation. Just for the heck of it, he made sure to park in the thin space between the front of her car and the painted white line of her parking spot.

“What’s up?” he said by way of greeting when he dropped down into a chair across from her, falling back against the seat and slouching.

“Well, hello to you too,” she answered, looking at him in astonishment. “You’ll have to forgive me, I’m not used to men falling down when they see me.”

“That might be the company you keep,” he answered blandly, waving a hand and signaling to a barista for a coffee. “So let me ask you again…what’s so important that I couldn’t even get a full day’s sleep before you had to meet?”

“I already told you, I’ve been assigned to contact you and the rest of the S&R group—I already know Madison—and get to know you, see how you operate.” Veronica took a sip of her iced tea and waited, as though that was all the explanation he needed.

“You’re not making any sense. Under who’s orders? Who cares enough about a small-time over-glorified lifeguard shack to send…you…to come see it?”

“Just something my boss picked me for.” Veronica smiled briefly, then said, “So how about we get started? Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself?”

She pulled a notepad and a pen out of her purse, then waited expectantly. Jake looked at her like he couldn’t believe he was actually sitting there humoring her. Veronica smiled, gesturing with a wave of her hand for Jake to begin.

“What do you want to know,” he asked with an irritated sigh.

“Everything. How did you get into this business, what’s it like saving a life, why do you do what you do, how do you find the motivation to get back out there after it goes bad…everything.” Veronica beamed expectantly, her pen poised over the paper, and waited.

Jake closed his eyes, unable to fathom how he’d ended up in this position with someone he couldn’t stand. A small part of his brain urged him to bolt for the door, but the rest of his mind was occupied with getting through this so Veronica would back off.

He answered her first question with as little information as he could provide. The last thing he needed was for the local paper to print up a story about the fallen heroes, the team of soldiers who got called down for no reason. He kept his answers vague and professional, distancing himself from the questions—and the woman who was asking them—as much as he could.

But something changed. It was slow at first, but after half an hour had passed, the feeling of wanting to flee the premises lifted and he found himself waiting for her next question so he could explain what was on his mind.

“So I know this is going to be a weird question, and I don’t mean it to sound rude or like I’m making light of anything… but do you enjoy what you do?” Veronica asked, cringing slightly as she waited for Jake to blow up. Only this time, he didn’t.

“I guess I do,” he answered after giving it a moment’s thought. “I mean, no one enjoys thinking about what could be waiting for them out there. It could be anything, and we never know what’s waiting for us. It could be really, really bad. But sometimes—most of the time—if I do my job right and I get there in time, the person lives. And they got to live because of me and my team. It makes the few bad outcomes worth it, every single time one person’s life is saved.”

“Have you… hmmmm. Have you had a lot of bad outcomes?” she asked softly, putting down her pen. She watched Jake’s face for any sign that she’d pissed him off, but he stared at his empty coffee cup, lost in thought.

“No more than anyone else in this field. But I’d be lying if I said they didn’t bother me. It’s the kind of thing that you just have to put in the back of your mind. You learn from it, you get better at your job because of it, mostly because you ask yourself, ‘What could we have done differently?’ Like maybe if we’d had the chopper ready to go… that was one of the first changes we made as a group. We made sure that it’s ready to fly every single day, every single moment. Instead of waiting for a call, we get up every single morning and get those vehicles ready to move. Those few minutes could make the difference.”

“But you know it’s not your job to save the whole world. You didn’t put those people on that plane the other night, or put some people out on a sailboat when a storm came up.”

“I know, and that was the very first lesson we had to learn. If we made a judgment call that turned out to be wrong, we look at it and figure out why it was the wrong decision. And every single time we’ve been able to sleep at night because we know it wasn’t a negligent choice or an uncaring choice, it just wasn’t the one to make in that moment. And you’d better make sure you learn from it and adjust.”

“Well, from what I can tell,” Veronica said, sitting up straighter and rolling her shoulders, “you guys haven’t had a lot of learning to do. You’ve got the best save record of any search and rescue operation on the west coast.”

“See?” he answered with a knowing smile. “That kind of thinking right there is what gets people killed. We refuse to believe we’re the best, because no one can ever be the best in this line of work. You can only be as good as the victim needs you to be. When you start thinking about how many saves you’ve got and how big a hero you are, that’s when you screw up. So we go to work every day prepared to do our jobs, but also prepared to learn from it.”

Veronica stopped, unable to think of another question. Instead of the scowl that Jake had worn since literally the moment she first met him, he gave her a friendly smile, almost a look of gratitude that someone had taken the time to understand what it was that kept him going.

“It’s, uh, getting late,” she said in a soft voice, reluctant to leave. “I think I have everything I need. Unless you want to go get that pizza we missed the other night?”

Jake thought it over for a second, then nodded. “That sounds good. And I promise to look for an actual parking spot this time.”