Loved by a SEAL (18 page)

Two actually—Chris was either captured or dead.

Brody glanced at his watch again. “Five more minutes and I’m walking into that JOC and telling them I’m going out looking for him.”

Rocky cocked a brow. “You think they’ll let you?”

“Let me?” Brody’s eyebrows shot high. “They should have already organized a search. I shouldn’t have to ask permission. An operative is out there alone and missing—”

“If and when they do send out a team, I’ll go. You’re not going.” Mack stood in the open doorway.

“I gotta agree.” Rocky nodded. “Let the rest of us go but you shouldn’t. You’re too involved in this.”

“But he’s my brother.”

Mack dipped his head. “Exactly.”

While Brody’s mouth hung wide as he tried to come up with an argument, Mack continued, “It’s the same reason why they don’t let surgeons operate on their own family. They’re too close to it.”

“That’s ridiculous. Chris and I used to be on the same team. We’ve had each other’s back in more dangerous situations than this.”

“Maybe so,” Rocky agreed. “I wasn’t there but obviously things worked out fine back then, but can you guarantee you can think clearly right now? You trust yourself to make the best decision for the team, emotions aside?”

Brody drew in a breath to tell Rocky yes, but he couldn’t say the word because he wasn’t sure.

Things had changed. This felt different. He felt different.

“Fuck.” Brody sat heavily in the chair and raised his gaze to the two other men in the room. “I’ve lost my edge.”

Rocky rolled his eyes. “You haven’t lost shit. I saw you today when we drove into that camp. You took out one guy in hand-to-hand combat at the same time that you whipped out your sidearm and shot another. It’s just this situation. That’s all. He’s your brother. Cut yourself some slack.”

Mack nodded. “A smart operative knows when to fight and he knows when to sit one out.”

Brody eyed Mack. The man didn’t say a whole hell of a lot but when he did, he usually knew what he was talking about.

Mack had known when to bow out of his team. Known that he had to ask for a transfer or risk not being able to perform.

Maybe Speedy’s death had hit Brody harder than he’d thought it had.

Sad to say, but Brody preferred that idea over the alternative. It was easier to swallow that it was the loss of a fellow operative and not his reunion with Ashley that had rattled him.

Though if Brody was honest with himself he’d admit both events were tied together.

It was his feeling his own mortality so keenly, fresh from Speedy’s memorial service, that had driven him so quickly into Ashley’s arms. Back into that emotional quagmire that had been their relationship since they had been teenagers dancing around each other.

Before they’d finally started dating.
 

Before they’d broken up.

“A’ight. I’ll stay put. But I’m still going to the JOC and demanding they send out a team.”

“Mmm, hmm.” Rocky nodded. “Or the three of us can go and express our collective concern as experienced operatives and ask the command what their thoughts are.”

Brody frowned at Rocky. “Since when are you the diplomat on the team?”

Rocky lifted one brow. “Since you took over being the team’s loose canon.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Brody saw Mack’s lips twitch with a smile.

“Fair enough.” Brody let out a sigh and stood. “Let’s go.”

CHAPTER 22

Weeks.

It had been weeks since that ominous middle of the night phone call from Brody.

Since then, Ashley had survived one day at a time. Every morning she held her breath as she drove up to the Cassidy’s house.

Every day that she arrived and didn’t find the family grieving over horrible news was a relief. But the reprieve from worry only lasted a few seconds before Ashley went on alert listening for the sound of the phone or a car in the drive.

There’d been no notice from anyone official in the military, but there also hadn’t been any more calls from either Chris or Brody. She knew because she’d asked as often as she thought she could get away with without sounding suspicious.

All of that enormous patience she’d shown during the complete communications drought over the past weeks broke as she pulled her car into the Cassidy’s driveway today.

There was a pick-up truck parked there. It wasn’t Brody’s but it did have a Virginia license plate.

What did that mean? Had someone from Brody’s base driven all the way to Alabama to break the bad news to the family in person?

What Ashley didn’t know about military protocol far outweighed what she did know. She loved Brody since she’d been a kid, but this was uncharted territory for her.

Not knowing seemed preferable to knowing as she sat shaking in the driver’s seat.

If she didn’t go inside the house, he could still be all right. If she didn’t know for a fact that something bad had happened, then she could still pretend that everything might be fine.

Ashley struggled to breathe as her stomach roiled.

This was ridiculous. She had to go in.

She pulled the key from the ignition, swung open the door and stepped onto the driveway. She slammed the door only to realize she’d forgotten her purse. And she needed the bag with Miss Eleanor’s new prescription medications that she’d stopped by the pharmacy to pick up this morning.

Frustrated, Ashley opened the car’s door and crawled across the driver’s seat to reach the bags on the passenger side.

Now that she’d made the decision to go inside and face the news, good or bad, it seemed she couldn’t get there fast enough.

Bag in hand she hurried past the truck, giving it a wide berth. It was ridiculous really, but she didn’t want to risk seeing anything inside. What might be in there for her to be afraid of she didn’t know but she didn’t take any chances

Then she was on the top step by the front door.

Blowing out a big huff of air through her mouth, she reached for the knob and turned.

The moment the door opened she heard it—voices in the kitchen. Male voices. Two of them and she recognized them both.

Nearly sagging to the floor at the sound, Ashley reached for the doorframe and braced her palm against it trying to regulate her breathing before she hyperventilated.

Unless she was hallucinating, they were both there. Both safe.

Chris and Brody were home.

After so much worry, she had to fight tears of relief as she pushed the front door closed. Moving closer to the kitchen she began to be able to decipher words instead of just voices.

The conversation she heard had her pausing before she entered the room.

She heard Chris say, “Just letting you know that I’m fixin’ to go to the bathroom. A’ight with you?”

“Fuck you.” The tone of Brody’s response showed he wasn’t pleased with Chris’s comment.

“Just didn’t want you to get too worried while I’m gone, bro.”

“You took off after a tango with no backup and didn’t check in with command for hours. I’m not supposed to worry about you?”

“I was a little busy, bro.”

“Tracking the squirter. I know. So you said. But the ROE were to neutralize the targets, not track them like you’re on a damn hog hunt.”

“I’m retired. I work for GAPS now and GAPS is a PMC so your ROEs don’t apply to me anymore.”

 
Moving closer, Ashley heard Brody snort at Chris’s comment. Meanwhile, half of the conversation, spoken in acronyms she didn’t understand, went right over her head.

Chris continued, “Besides, that tango I saw escaping into the trees could easily have led me to another camp. Possibly to where Shekau was hiding. It could have been where those missing schoolgirls were being held. I needed to take the chance.”

“He ended up leading you nowhere.”

“Yup, but I brought him back alive so command can persuade him to share anything he does know.”

Shekau. Missing schoolgirls. Ashley had researched so obsessively over the past weeks, just from hearing those words she could guess where Brody and Chris had been.

Her grandmother would tan her hide if she ever caught her eavesdropping like this, but Ashley also knew Brody and Chris would never share details like this with her so she had no choice.

Still, the guilt began to creep upon her. So did the desire that she’d been away from him for long enough. She wanted to see Brody. Hug him. Feel his arms wrap around her.

“Just don’t ever pull that kind of shit—” Brody stopped mid-sentence when his gaze landed on Ashley after she moved into the open doorway.

“Hi.” Ashley had imagined this moment for weeks. Now, in the same room with Brody, she was feeling inexplicably shy.

“Ash. Good God Almighty, you’re a sight for sore eyes.” Chris pushed himself off the counter he’d been leaning against and came forward.

Before Ashley knew it, she was ensconced in arms of steel and pressed against his hard chest.

“Hi, Chris. It’s good to see you too.”

When Chris pulled back and finally released her, she turned to find Brody had stepped closer.

The corner of his mouth tipped up in a partial smile. “Hey, Ash.”

“Brody.” She didn’t wait for him to move. She went to him and threw her arms around his neck.

Maybe she shouldn’t have, but it wasn’t like she hadn’t just hugged his brother. Why shouldn’t she embrace her childhood friend upon his homecoming?

He squeezed her so tightly it forced the air from her lungs. She wasn’t about to complain. He was home and it felt so good to be in his arms.

Through his T-shirt, she felt his heart beating against the cheek she had pressed to his chest. She would be happy to remain right there like that forever, but knew she couldn’t.

She pulled back and dared to glance at Chris.

He’d gone back to leaning against the kitchen counter again, but now he wore an amused expression as if he could see right through the sham she’d hoped to perpetrate against the whole family that she and Brody were just friends.

Chris glanced at Brody. “I was wondering what went on here during your last visit home.”

The older family members had been so easy to fool. Chris obviously was not.

Still, Ashley tried. “What are you talking about? Nothing—”

“Ash. Stop. I went along with it when we were kids but I’m not doing it anymore. If we’re going to be together, my family has to know.”

Chris’s amused expression gave way to a frown. “When you were kids? You were together back then?”

“Yup.” Brody grinned. “Fooled ya, huh?”

Chris mouthed a cuss. “Yeah, you did. But at least now I know why you’ve been acting so crazy the past few weeks.”

Now it was Brody’s turn to frown. “I have not.”

“Ashley!” Miss Eleanor, her timing impeccably annoying as always, summoned her from the bedroom.

Maybe that was for the best. Ashley could use an excuse to remove herself from Chris’s scrutiny. She felt as if he was trying to look deep into her soul and discover all the secrets she’d worked so hard to hide for so many years.

“I’d better go bring this to her.” Ashley held up the paper bag containing pill bottles that she’d forgotten was still clutched in her hand.

“A’ight. Hurry back.” Brody’s smile, so familiar, so sexy, had her stomach twisting.

She didn’t answer, opting instead to duck out on the whole embarrassing situation.

“Dude. Ashley? You dog.” Chris’s comment followed her down the hall and Ashley saw clearly how her plan to leave and avoid embarrassment hadn’t worked out so well.

Brody came back at his brother with an annoyed sounding, “Shut up.”

A deep chuckle was Chris’s only response.

With a sigh, she abandoned worrying about what was happening in the kitchen between the brothers and entered the bedroom. “Good morning, Miss Eleanor.”

“About time you got here. Help me up. I want to get dressed.”

“Okay, but why don’t you stay comfortable in bed and have your breakfast and take your pills first?”