Fall for a SEAL (4 page)

“And I’m not used to ditching my phone in a parking garage and going on the lam!”

He ducked his head and propped his hands firmly on his hips, willing himself not to laugh. When she put it like that…it was a miracle she’d let him drag her out the restaurant.

When he looked up, prepared to defend his wild and crazy and totally random plan, the look
on her face surprised him, and not just because the fiery spark had softened. He swallowed hard at the bare trust staring back at him.
Jesus
. He was on her side and he’d keep her safe but he wasn’t a fucking hero.

Something dark and possessive clenched hard in his chest. He
wanted
to be her hero, probably for all the wrong reasons. How could he know that he was making the right call here?

She
stepped forward and pressed her hand to his arm. Her touch, cool and smooth, slithered under his skin and took root. He stared down at her, wanting more of her touch. A lot more, and as if she sensed his desire, she stroked her palm up to his shoulder. “Drew, I appreciate all of your assistance. But if you think this is truly some sort of spy-game, then we need to go to the authorities.”

It was
time to share. His heart thudded in his chest. The uncommon reaction bothered him more than he wanted to admit.

“Senator Rob Harris, senior ranking Democrat on the Armed Forces Committee,” he said quietly, his muscles shifting with each word as he chose them carefully. “He’s a good friend of the Director of the CIA. There are other connections that I’m not sure I can tell you about right now,
but let’s just say I’m aware of him and his colleagues.” Harris had never meddled directly in any operation Drew had been involved in, but others had. “The senator also has a 9 year old son and a beautiful wife.”

— THREE —

Drew said the last sentence slowly and carefully, his eyes tracking over her face as the words sank in, but his measured delivery didn’t stop the point from knocking her for a loop. She gasped out loud, then slapped one hand over her mouth to keep the sobs inside and pressed the other hard against his chest.
Oh my god
.

Even as the pieces slid together, she didn’t want to believe
it. “You can’t know—”

“Not for sure.” He held her gaze, his own strong and confident, and she blinked hard to keep the tears at bay. “All I’m saying right now is I’m not sure going to the authorities is a good idea. I have a friend I can call, who was in Washington at the same time as your brother, but I can’t do it from the phones we had. The main bus lines will start running soon, and we’ll
head back downtown. Then we’ll get some more information and make a new plan.”

“You think that Kevin...and Senator Harris’s wife...”

“I think someone knows Kevin’s secret, and misunderstood your request for a meeting.” He glanced down at her hand, still pressed against his chest, and groaned under his breath. He tugged her hard against him and ran one large hand over the back of her head. “You
okay?”

“No?” She let out a watery groan of her own. This was crazy. “Then what was the phone call about?”

“Testing the water? Hell if I know. But we can’t...fuck. We can’t just walk onto the base and open a can of worms without knowing more.”

He made a good point. She sagged against him, letting his strength seep into her bones. It felt...right, and she didn’t pull away until he reminded her
they needed to keep moving. They found the bus stop, noted the next arrival time, and waited.

— —
 

Drew didn’t know if he was anywhere in the vicinity of making the right decision. Frankly, other than getting as far as possible away from what was guaranteed to be a tracking device, he hadn’t
made
any decisions. And for the first time in seventeen years, he didn’t have orders or a plan.
Sure, he’d run into unexpected situations. He had to make snap decisions all the time, with lives on the line.
 

But this time, the situation had knocked on his front door, and he didn’t have any back up. No team. Just his gut instincts warning him that Annie had accidentally wandered into something ugly.
 

Drew paid cash to the driver of the first bus to come along, and Annie led the way to seats
in the very back. Under the hum of the fan overhead and the dull noise of the engine, Annie asked him the question he was just asking himself. “Where are we going?”

“I have no idea,” he answered honestly, looking out the window. “We’re heading downtown. Might as well loop back to my place and grab some stuff, then...” He trailed off. He needed a new phone. There was a convenience store two blocks
east of his apartment, and he could have Annie wait there while he dodged home for supplies. “Will you be offended if I hide you somewhere while I do that?”

Her eyes got really wide and her lips parted. Dark pink lips, soft pillows on an otherwise lean face. Fuck. She was scared and he was lusting after her. Asshole.
 

“Uhm, I guess not. Do you think that’s necessary?”

“The odds of you actually
being in danger are pretty low. But if you are, for whatever reason, the odds that they’ve tracked you to me are pretty high.”

“With my phone?” She closed her eyes and rubbed the tiny crease between her eyebrows. “Damnit. I should have just gone to the police in L.A.”

“And let me miss all this fun?” He rubbed a knuckle against her jaw. “Annie, you can put the weight of the world on my shoulders,
okay?”

She let him lift her face, and she blinked up at him, but doubt and confusion still warred in her eyes. “Why?”

Because it was his job.

But this didn’t feel like work. For the first time in ages, he felt that tug from the inside out, a sense of right and wrong and he knew what side he was on. But it was more than that. It was personal, too, and not just because of Kevin.

Dude...

Sorry,
bro. Just being honest with myself.
And he’d keep it to himself, too. No good could come of admitting he was motivated by her pretty face and pouting lips.
Focus
. “Because it’s my job. I mean,
you
aren’t a job, but this is what I’m trained to do.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re going to tell me that a lot?”

“It’s the only answer I’ve got, sugar.” The only one he could voice out loud, anyway.

She stretched her legs out in front of her, rotating her ankles left and then right, then lifted her chin and pinned him with another look. “Do you call everyone that?”

“No.” She wasn’t mad, but he couldn’t read her expression. “It just slips out. I’ll stop.”
 

“It’s okay.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t mind...” She held his gaze for a minute, her eyes crinkling at the corners before a smile
split across her face. “Brotherly affection is better than nothing, I guess.”

If that’s how she read it, he wasn’t going to correct her. He looped his arm around her shoulder and tugged her close. “You’re not alone, Annie. I can’t give you much, but I can give you this.”

“Wow, an early morning escape from a deadly cell phone, by city bus no less. It’s the stuff of action movies.” She snickered
and tossed her head back, letting it rock against his bicep, and he fought an urge to pull her even closer, until there was no space left between their bodies, and his hand could slip off her shoulder and down to the delicate curve of her high, round breast. He’d just graze it with his fingertips, the barest of touches, and she’d tip her face toward his. The laughter in her eyes would fade, replaced
with heat and then they’d kiss...

Instead, she slapped his thigh and stood up. The bus was waiting at a red light, and Annie pointed out the window at a twenty-four hour discount store. There was a bin of baseball hats in the entrance, and a rack of sweatshirts. He nodded. Smart girl. He tapped the signal strip, indicating to the driver they wanted off, and ten minutes later he was paying cash
for a burner phone, two hats, two hooded sweatshirts, and a spare outfit for Annie, who’d apparently leapt in her car without packing an overnight bag.
 

While they waited for the next bus, he sent an international text to one of the few numbers he had memorized.
Rik, it’s Drew. When you’ve got a chance, call this number. Soon, if possible. Have some questions about your time in DC with KM.
 

The phone rang three minutes later, his friend’s slight accent barely noticeable in the three short words he spit out. “What is it?”

“Kevin’s sister came to visit me last night.” He spelled out the details of the message, and what he’d learned over breakfast. He could hear Rik’s smirk as he described their current mode of transit, but it didn’t last long.
 

“You’re such a law-abiding citizen,
Drew. It didn’t occur to you to steal a car?”

“Some of us still work within the law. I know it’s a novel concept.”

“Your mistake is working, period.” Rik had gotten married the year before, and was officially retired from the Norwegian FSK. Unofficially...well, Drew didn’t want to know how his friend could afford to live on a private Caribbean island. “Give me her phone number.”

Drew realized
he didn’t have that information. He covered the handset and turned his attention back to Annie, who was staring at him with unabashed curiosity. “What’s your number?”

He relayed the information to Rik, who said he’d call back in a few minutes. “And Castle...you know enough to stay clear of security cameras, right?”

“We’ve got baseball hats and a plan to get back into my building underground,
yes.”

When he disconnected, it took Annie all of five seconds to let the questions fly. “Underground? Within the law? Who did you just tell my life story to?”

“Rik Amundson, a total son of a bitch and the only other person in the world who might know about your brother’s child. He was stationed at the Norwegian Embassy in Washington when Kevin was at the Pentagon. They got pretty tight, and
two years later, we spent time with him overseas. We’ve kept in touch.” He paused before sharing the next piece of information. “Kevin saved his life once.”

“In Afghanistan?” Big eyes, small voice. Annie’s knowledge of what they did was probably limited to whatever was on TV.
 

“No...”
 

“Never mind, I know about operational security, I shouldn’t have asked.” She waved her hand and turned around,
looking down the increasingly busy street for their bus. Her long brown hair swung loose to the middle of her back, and he swallowed against the temptation to gather it into a handful and tug her back against him. He shoved his hands into his pockets, not trusting his will power, and once again wondered where this attraction was coming from. She was pretty, but she’d been pretty before. He’d
noticed her beauty when he’d visited with Kevin on their way to Hawaii, and the three of them stayed up late in her kitchen, but it didn’t affect him then like it was now. It should have… she’d made them cookies and teased him about being a bikini snob, and now that he was thinking about it, he couldn’t understand why he hadn’t been attracted to her then. But there’d been some sort of block. Even
last night...it wasn’t like he opened the door and saw her as a woman for the first time.

So what had shifted? Was it having her in his bed, even if he’d been on the other side of the wall? He must have conflated her with some fantasy and if he wasn’t careful he might act on it. Which would be stupid, because easy come, easy go. He’d wake up tomorrow and she’d just be Annie again. For today...he
needed to spend more time talking about Kevin and less time wondering if she’d tremble when he kissed her neck.
 

If, not when, asshole
.
 

“It was in the Artic,” he blurted out. “Rik got on the wrong side of a polar bear and Kevin took the beast out at five hundred meters.”

Her head lifted, paused, and then started bobbing with silent laughter. She slowly turned back, her hands held up in disbelief.
“Please tell me it wasn’t a cute little one like on the Coke commercials.”

“Nah. Although that would have made for excellent ribbing, this was a big motherfucker, definitely scary and planning to tear Rik limb from limb.”

“A bear!” She took a deep, steadying breath and let out one more giggle. “I didn’t realize SEALs operated in the Arctic.”

He shrugged. “Training exercise.”

“Mmm-hmm.” They
both heard the hiss of bus brakes at the same time, and the conversation faded as they stepped onto the next bus. Forty-five minutes made a huge difference, and this time they weren’t alone. They stood near the back door, holding onto opposite sides of the same pole, and before he knew it they were disembarking a few blocks east of his apartment.
 

“I don’t need to buy a phone anymore, but I’d
still like you to stay somewhere safe while I go home and grab my stuff. There’s a coffee shop over there. Can you go read a paper for twenty minutes?” He wrote down two numbers on a receipt and pressed it into her free hand. “If I’m not back in half an hour, call my CO. I’d rather not involve him until we know what’s going on, but you say my name and he’ll come and get you. Then call Rik. He’ll
find a way to keep you safe.”

Another nod, and she sprinted across the road, ball cap firmly in place, their shopping bag dancing in her hand. He faded into the shadow of the building behind him, watching for a few moments, then turned and headed for the building behind his. A rarely locked door connected the underground parking garages. He took the stairs up, listening for shifting movements
above and below, but there was nothing. He eased the stairwell door open, reassured himself his hallway was empty, then let himself into his apartment. He went first to the small safe in his bedroom, removing his emergency stash of cash. Then he retrieved his loaded FN57, the spare magazines for that as well as for the Glock 29 on his hip.
 
He grabbed a backpack, stuffed some clothes in it, and
since he was standing at his dresser, the box of condoms he kept in his top drawer.

Don’t even think about it.