SEAL Under Siege (Men of Valor) (4 page)

All because of that man. That man who was planning to bomb her in San Diego was also stealing her future.

She smacked her mouth against the bitterness rising in her heart and squeezed her hands into fists.

The sea-foam-green wall above the sink did nothing to calm her boiling ire, so she pinched her eyes closed and pressed her fists over her ears.

“God, don’t let me be this angry so close to meeting You.”

The words hurt her throat, but she whispered them again and again, praying for a release from the fear intent on inciting her deepest-seated resentment.

“Staci, it’s L.T.” Though his voice came from the direction of the front door, it carried to every corner of her house.

“I’m in here. In the bathroom. Like you said.”

A herd of bison ran through the foyer toward the kitchen, but she didn’t hear anyone approach her haven until the doorknob turned and popped open. Like he had the first time she saw him, Tristan filled the doorway. But this time, he leaned against the jamb and crossed his arms, his blue eyes narrow.

As he stood there, not saying a word, she shifted over and over again, the weight of his gaze making the bathtub even more uncomfortable.

She grasped for something to say. Anything.

But words failed in the face of the man who looked completely at ease while she huddled as far away from the package as she could.

Finally he broke the silence, his voice as casual as if they were making small talk in a church foyer. “What time did it arrive?”

“Um...” There was too much going on. How could she be responsible for remembering the details, too? She pinched her eyes closed and tried to remember. “Maybe ten minutes before I called you.”

“All right.”

After the short exchange, the silence physically hurt, pressing on her shoulders as she waited. Even if she had no idea what she was waiting for. “Before, on the phone, you told me not to go outside. Why?”

He glanced behind him before responding. “Any assassin worth his salt would wait around to make sure his delivery did its job. You’d have been a sitting target outside.”

“Oh.” The word had no volume, just wide eyes and an open mouth. “Did you see him when you got here?”

L.T. shook his head. “We did a quick sweep, but didn’t see anything unusual.” He shrugged a shoulder, his brown T-shirt stretching tight around the muscles in his arms. “Who knows? Maybe it’s nothing.”

Maybe he was right. Maybe she was overreacting.

Except he’d rushed over with a team of SEALs.

He didn’t really think it was nothing.

“L.T.,” one of the men called from the kitchen.

L.T. turned his back to her, but didn’t move toward the kitchen. “What is it?”

“A pipe.”

The taut muscles of his back flexed, but his voice didn’t change pitch. “Take care of it.”

“Will do.”

When he turned back toward her, L.T. still wore a Sunday-morning-church expression, calm and easygoing. “Do you want to scoot over?”

Her heart hammered, shaking every part of her. “Why? What’s a pipe?”

“Just move over.” He waved her to the side.

She slid toward the drain and faucet and he stepped into the tub, sinking down and somehow folding his long legs into the cramped space. His face twisted when he was finally in place, his shoulder just three inches from hers.

“Are you scared?” She wrapped her arms around her stomach.

“No.” So nonchalant. So confident. “But I figured you might be getting lonely in here. And if that thing explodes, I want to be right by your side.”

FOUR

S
taci gulped a breath as Tristan put his arm around her shoulders. It was too intimate, too familiar, but she didn’t have a choice but to go along with it. Getting out of the tub meant exposing herself to the force of a potential explosion.

“Are they going to be okay?”

He frowned at her, the blue of his eyes turning stormy like the Pacific in a hurricane. “They’re pros. You’ll be fine.”

She shook her head, her hair flopping over her shoulder. “I’m not worried about me. I’m asking about them. Will those guys in my kitchen be okay if the bomb goes off?”

He squinted at her, lines forming between his eyebrows. Pinching the end of his nose until his fingers slipped free, he nodded two quick bobs. “They’ll be fine. They’re trained.”

“Then why are we in here?”

“Contingency plan.”

She pulled away from the weight of his arm across her shoulders, a chill running down her back at the loss of heat in the absence of his embrace. “Which means that something could go wrong and someone could be hurt. I can’t let someone be hurt because of me.”

Rubbing fingers on either side of the bridge of his nose, he let out a slow breath, his shoulders falling on the exhale. “Don’t sweat it. This is what we do. The chances of anything going wrong are almost nil. Ziggy is almost as good with explosives as Rock.”

“Ziggy and the Rock?”

“Just Rock. You met him in Lybania. He’s my senior chief.”

Images from that night flooded her mind, every scene playing with precision across the back of her eyelids. L.T. had burst into her cell. And then there had been another man. “The one with the gun out in front of us?”

“That’s right. He’s doing some training on the other side of the country right now. But Zig is the next best man for the job. He’s been blowing stuff up since he was thirteen.”

“What?” Her voice squeaked as it shot up an octave, right along with her eyebrows that reached for her hairline.

He laughed, the sound full and throaty. “I don’t mean he’ll blow up your kitchen.” He added a wink as he patted the top of her knee. “He just knows how things blow better than most. Which means he knows how to keep things from blowing better than them, too.”

“And his name is Zig?” Maybe it was a family name, but who would saddle their child with a name guaranteed to get him teased?

“No. It’s Zach McCloud.”

He’d told her a few days before that the SEALs called each other by nicknames. “So how did he get the name Zig?”

“You’ll understand when you meet him.”

“How—”

A bald head poked in around the door frame. “All clear.” The rest of his body—broad shoulders, arms laced with muscles and long legs—followed into the doorway.

Tristan pressed his palms against the edge of the tub and popped to his feet before wrapping his long, callused fingers around her wrist and pulling with a quick burst that had her standing—and far too close to his chest—before she could do it herself.

“You’re safe now, ma’am.” The bald head shone in the bright bathroom lights as the other man offered part bow, part nod.

“Zig?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She lifted one leg to step out of the tub, L.T. cupping her elbow with a grip just firm enough to catch her should she slip. Giving him a tentative smile, she turned back to Zig. “I’m hardly old enough to be called ma’am. Don’t you think?”

His big brown eyes twinkled, although the expression on his face never shifted from stoic calm. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, then, Zig. Tell me how you got your nickname.”

Again his eyes glimmered with otherwise unseen humor. He rubbed a flat hand over the dome of his head. “Guess I reminded the instructors of their favorite cartoon.”

She frowned, pressing her hands to her hips. The tall, lean man looked as much like the short, plump cartoon as a peacock looked like a guinea pig. There was no comparison. He was the type of man who would have made Judy elbow her in the side and whisper something about finding a good husband.

L.T. stepped out of the tub behind her, his breath brushing the top of her head and sweeping a whole different kind of chill down her spine. She didn’t need Judy there to tell her
he
was a good man.

She also didn’t need another reminder why she had no business thinking along those lines.

When Chris had broken up with her, he had made it explicitly clear why she’d never be good enough for him or any other man. It shouldn’t matter to her that good men were hard to find. She wasn’t in the market for one anyway.

Zig’s eyes swung toward L.T., the humor there vanishing. “You want to see it?”

“Yes.” L.T. moved around her, and she fell into step behind him. Before they reached the bathroom door, he stopped and spun around. “Where are you going?”

“To the kitchen. With you.”

“Uh-uh.” He shook his head so hard his neck popped. “You don’t need to see or hear this.”

“Yes, I do.”

He huffed out a breath between tight lips. “Listen to me, Staci. This isn’t something that you want in your mind.” He cupped a hand around her shoulder, holding her still to make her meet his eyes, to see how serious he was. “This is the stuff nightmares are made of, and you don’t want to see any of it. It’ll make you scared to live in your own home.”

She pressed the tips of her fingers into her palms and tried for a lighter tone. “That’s funny. I’m already scared in my own home.”

As the words sprang out of her mouth, she knew their truth. The only secure place she had in the entire world wasn’t safe anymore. Seeing the remnants of a bomb that was meant to injure her wasn’t going to change that.

“I’m the pro here.” His fingers squeezed gently. “Remember what I told you in Lybania. I need you to trust me on this.”

She stared hard into his eyes, fighting the urge to blink away from the intensity there and break their standoff. “I’m already in danger. At least if I know what to look for, maybe I can keep my eyes open and recognize another threat.”

His lips pursed to the side, his forehead a sea of wrinkles.

“Please. I need to know what I’m facing.”

“All right.” He turned and walked toward the kitchen, and she shadowed him the whole way there.

There were three others standing around the island, filling every nook and using up all of the oxygen in the room. Her head swam, her legs abruptly unstable, and she tripped as she reached the counter.

Again, L.T. came to her rescue, righting her with a rock-solid hand around her arm without even looking at her. He and Zig joined the conversation around a colorful pile of wires laying on the brown-paper wrapping.

“Go ahead.” L.T. nodded to his men, and the weight of three pairs of eyes shifted from her shoulders. “What did you find?”

The youngest guy bobbed his mop of messy hair. “Whoever made this is a pro.”

She shot a quick glance at L.T. out of the corner of her eye. His attention never wavered from the kid, who didn’t look old enough to be out of college, let alone a SEAL.

Zig leaned forward and pointed to one of the wires. “He had a fail-safe in case this one didn’t do the job. I nearly missed it. It was wrapped up and under here.” He pressed a finger to the lip of a pipe. “But it wasn’t just a detonator. It was an incinerator.”

“You ever see anything like that?”

Zig nodded, his motion deliberate and thoughtful. “I had an instructor once talk about using this extra wire as both a fail-safe and to ignite an incinerator, but I’ve never seen it used before in practice. Like I said. He’s a pro. And downright creative.”

Staci swallowed at the lump in her throat, taking a tiny step toward the warmth radiating from L.T. “Why would there be an incinerator?”

L.T. met her gaze, his facial features motionless and benign. But she couldn’t tear her eyes away from his. She felt him take hold of her hand and latch on tight.

Zig cleared his throat behind a fist. “In this case, the incinerator makes the whole thing look like an accident.”

She blinked twice at L.T., pain rocketing across her forehead from one temple to the other. Apparently he could read her mind, because his lips barely moved as he explained, “It would have blown so hard and fast that the wrapping, pipe and igniter wouldn’t have been distinguishable from anything else in your house. It would have looked like a gas explosion, and no one would have known to look for a bomber.”

Her hands curled into fists, but he didn’t flinch as she squeezed his fingers.

The youngest team member shrugged. “Guess that explains why there wasn’t a sniper outside, huh?”

L.T. shot the kid a glare that would have wilted flowers. “Not now, Willie.”

As the lieutenant swung his gaze back to her, Staci squeezed his hand and borrowed as much strength as she could from him.

“What does that mean?”

“I’m not exactly sure.”

She squinted at him, and he lifted one shoulder. “Not really, anyway. All I know for sure at this moment is that someone wants you out of the way. And he wants it to look like an accident.”

* * *

Tristan immediately regretted telling Staci the entire truth. Her face turned white, and her hand shook in spite of its tight grip on his.

She didn’t need to know the lengths that someone would go to to get rid of her. It would have been enough that Tristan and his team were aware of the real threat. Someone definitely wanted Staci out of the way, most likely because he thought that she had enough intel to stop him from reaching his ultimate objective.

Tristan patted her shoulder with his free hand, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t dissolve into tears. Sure, he had practice thanks to his sister, Ashley, who was prone to emotional outbursts. Even if she claimed they were a result of her pregnancy. But he could barely handle a weepy Ashley, and he didn’t have a clue what to do with a near stranger in a crying fit.

Staci took a shaking breath, straightening her shoulders and letting go of him to lock her hands in front of her. After several quick flutters of her long lashes, she cleared her throat. “Well, that’s going to put a damper on my reacclimation.”

Zig and Willie let loose with laughs so loud that they almost dwarfed her hesitant grin. But her smile wouldn’t be thwarted so easily, and she glanced up at him out of the corner of her eye. The lift in the corner of her mouth showed off just a few white teeth and tugged on the puckered skin along the red scar in front of her ear.

He offered her a matching half smile. “I guess it would.”

What was this woman like in the real world? In the grit of an op, in the face of a death threat, she followed orders and then cracked jokes.

But what about on a sunny Sunday afternoon? Did she like to walk barefoot on the beach? Or sit in a comfy chair, reading a book? Or snuggle on the couch in front of a football game?

Her gaze flicked from his face to the dismantled bomb and back, her posture tightening just enough for him to notice. The device was useless now, but the pile of wires still had enough power to make her uncomfortable in her own home.

“Zig, why don’t you and the guys take that out to the truck?” He motioned toward the brown wrapper. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Willie wiggled his eyebrows but stayed blessedly silent as the three men scooped up the dismembered pieces and marched toward the front door, closing it so silently behind them that Staci looked around his shoulder to make sure it had been pulled tight.

When she was certain they were alone, she crossed her arms over her chest, sinking against the counter, using it to hold her up. He’d done that for her a time or two. He’d kept her standing and running in Lybania and kept her from hitting the ground after her car accident.

And if the sudden pinch in his gut was an indicator, he wouldn’t mind having that job again.

And that was a dangerous attitude to have.

His CO had always been clear about the rules surrounding rescue missions. Tristan’s anonymity was paramount. He’d seen the commander lay into SEALs who’d played loose and fast with pictures on social media, posting hints to their role on the teams and leaving the kids too visible to go undercover.

The rescued was the story. Not the rescuer.

And outside of all of that, there was still the personal reason. He knew how exciting and romantic women
thought
it would be to date a SEAL. And he also knew just how risky those relationships could be. It wasn’t just a question of the danger he had to face, or the secrets he had to keep, even from the ones he loved the most. No, the hardest part was just how often he was away. How many birthdays he missed, how many anniversaries went uncelebrated. How many times someone he loved needed him at home, when instead he was half a world away. If he couldn’t trust himself to be there to take care of the woman he loved, then he had no right to get involved in the first place. He’d learned that the hard way, and he sure didn’t need any reminders.

If he were a smart man—and graduating at the top of his class at the Naval Academy suggested he was—he’d walk away from Staci Hayes before his head got filled with dumb ideas like trying to be the guy who’d be there for her on a permanent basis.

He could help her get set up in a safe place and call his linguistics instructor again to see if he could translate the words on the map. He’d keep an eye out and alert the right authorities to make sure someone followed up on the tip.

Hopefully it would all be resolved soon, and then he’d be free to forget this mission altogether. He’d already done more than anyone could expect.

“So, what do we do now?” She licked her lips, twirling the end of a long curl around her finger, and tugging until it bounced back into place.

We?

A rope around his lungs tightened, pinching his chest. When had they become a “we”?

He stepped back. Putting a few more feet between them couldn’t hurt. After ten minutes in the tub, enough time to memorize the sweet scent of her perfume, he needed to get far enough away to think about anything other than tropical fruits.

“You should go someplace safe until this guy is caught. Do you have a relative you can stay with?”

Her lips pursed to the side, her brows lowering over her jade-green eyes. “But he knows who they are. At least who my sister is. I’m not going to stay with her or anyone else and put them in jeopardy. If he came after me, my family would be in danger, right?”