SEALs of Honor: Dane (3 page)

She turned to face him and read the suspicion on his face. “You don’t trust me?”

He snorted. “I don’t know you.”

“True, but then again, you were the one in my garden not the other way around.” She smiled and held out her hand. “Marielle, Stanfield. Chemistry Ph.D. student at UCLA and Tenesco.”

He shook her hand and said, “And your relationship to the owner of the house?”

She gave him a brief explanation including when she’d arrived and where she’d come from.

He nodded. “We’ll have more questions later. But first, do you know anything about this office?”

She studied the books on the shelves in front of her. Chemistry books. “He worked in here. Not his lab of course, but this was his office.” She pointed out the books. “All chemistry books.”

And a huge selection. Interesting. She wandered the shelf and back again. Her own professional curiosity peaked. There were some really old tomes on this shelf. As in expensive collector items.

Her fingers itched to open them up and see what gems lay inside. On the other hand, she didn’t dare do anything to arouse more suspicion directed her way. Walking back to the desk where the big man was opening drawers at a rapid rate, she asked, “Is there something specific you’re looking for?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Where he’s gone? Who he works with? What he’s really doing here?” He snorted. “I’m not looking to find out how he takes his coffee.”

There wasn’t much to say to that. There was an odd panel on the other wall. She walked over and studied the mechanism in the front of it. And pushed the largest of the buttons. Instantly, a panel opened up and showed a big monitor behind it. She could hear humming as the computer flared to life.

“How about this? Does this interest you?”

He was at her side in an instant. “How did you know this was here?”

“I didn’t.” She motioned to the tall desk. “I’ve just started using a standing table myself and wondered at its positioning here. Then pushed that big black button.” She pointed to it.

“So it’s built into the wall. Why do I think he really meant house of secrets?”

“Yeah,” she said dryly. “There’s likely to be a lot of other things like this.” The monitor flashed up and active. Asking for a log in.

“I don’t suppose you know what the password is?” He stared at the screen.

“You know…maybe.” She typed ChemistryRocks into the password request box. And didn’t the damn screen start scrolling.

“You know his password?” Now the suspicion was truly directed her way.

“Yeah, see in class he had this phrase he repeated over and over again. ‘Chemistry Rocks.’ He joked that he should use it as a password because he’d never forget it.”

“That’s not normal to tell people things like that.”

“But I doubt he expected any one of his students to actually
be
at his computers. And besides, we don’t know that anything important is here.” She gestured to the clean desktop screen now showing. “He doesn’t keep much on his desktop.”

“Move over,” he said in a hard voice.

She stepped aside willingly for him to make his own discoveries and take the heat off of her. She had no intention of getting mixed up in any more of this. Her cell phone went off.

She glanced at the number and gasped.

“What is it?” he asked.

“It’s him. He’s calling me.”

The man spun around and stared at her. “Answer it.”

Hesitantly she hit answer and said, “Hello?” She held the phone out so the man could hear the conversation too.

“Hello, Marielle. Sorry we didn’t get a chance to chat this morning. I was a little more concerned with getting away.”

“I don’t understand what’s going on?” she cried. “I came here to see you and you pulled a damn gun on me.” In truth, righteous anger was getting the better of her. She’d spent a horrible day travelling, looking forward to the visit and a short holiday and look what had happened.

“Well, if those men hadn’t come and ruined my morning, then I wouldn’t have had to ruin
your
holiday, would I? We could have had a nice visit, and I might have been able to persuade you to come and work for us.”

“And do what?” she asked. “You knew I wasn’t looking to change jobs.”

“No, but we didn’t get a chance to talk terms now did we? And my employer is paying great wages.”

“I’m not interested in money,” she said wearily. “I never was.”

“No, I understand that. It doesn’t matter now, the game has changed.” His voice turned ugly. “You see, you
will
work with me now and you
won’t
get paid. But if you’re lucky, your mother will get to live.”

He hung up.

*

S
HIT, TALK ABOUT
a game changer.

Dane stared at the regal looking blonde and knew she was trying to hold the tears back. A threat against family was never easy.

He grabbed the cell phone and realized there was no number showing on the caller ID. Of course, it would be a throw away phone anyway. As he watched, she slowly collapsed into the closest chair and whispered, “Oh my God, what have I done?”

He couldn’t be sure what she was talking about. He’d already contacted the other team members about the call. Now with his phone safely away, he needed her to open up. To see what was going on.

“Have you
done
something?” he asked in as gentle a voice as possible.

She shot him a fulminating look. “No. I haven’t. I came here to have a professional visit with a colleague. And see his work. Talk about my studies.” She threw out her hands and said, “Apparently he was wanting to convince me to work for his company. Likely adding my research to his. I had a suspicion of something similar but…”

“Yours?” he pounced on her words.

“Yes, my latest study has chemical weapon applications. I didn’t intend for that to be the direction of my work, but it appears to be heading there regardless.”

She ran a hand over her face. “My mother, I have to warn my mother.”

“I need your full name, her name and both your addresses and we’ll get on it,” he said. “Chances are he’s not interested in hurting her as much as using her for leverage.”

“If I could get her away safe, I’d just tell to him leave me alone.” She pulled out a notebook and wrote down the information then ripped the page off and handed it to him. “Can you stop him from going after my mother?”

“If it isn’t her it will be someone else close to you.” He shot her a hard look. “This isn’t the time to hold back. Honestly, your excuse for being here sounds a little thin.”

The broken sound that came out of her mouth made him wince. “I work. That’s what I do in my life. I work all day and do research and paperwork all evening – and look after my mom.”

He waited, hoping there was more of an explanation coming.

“When he offered me this place for the week as a holiday and a professional opportunity I grabbed it. I was burning out,” she admitted. “I needed to get away. So what seemed like a too good to be true opportunity…was.”

“And your mother? Is there a reason he’d know about her?”

She nodded. “I’m an only child and my mother is sliding into dementia. She’s not full blown yet but is not fully functioning either. She lives in an apartment beside me and has a part-time caregiver. She’s perfectly fine some days and then other days…” Marielle stared off into space and never finished the question.

“You’re not married?” He was willing to admit he wanted the answer for both his own sake and professional reasons. “Anyone else in your life these guys could pick on? A child? A half-sister/brother?”

She shook her head. “Just Mom and me.”

“I’m sorry, that has to be tough.”

“Dad died a few years ago and she hasn’t been the same since.” She lifted her hand then let it fall away. “I don’t know what I’m going to do when she’s gone.”

“You’ll bury yourself in work like you do now,” he said. “You need to change that.”

She sent him a mocking look. “Your world is so different?”

“Well, I do have lots of entertainment on my days off.” He grinned. “And my name is Dane, by the way. Pleased to meet you.” He winked at her.

Heat flashed in the room.

She blinked.

And blushed bright red. “Of course you do. Being gorgeous and all,” she muttered. “I prefer to work, thanks.”

“Then you’re in need of a serious loving if you think work makes up for sex.”

In spite of herself he could see the curiosity moving across her face. She really had no clue. Damn he’d like to change that for her.

But he was on a mission. And she was possibly as guilty as the man they’d chased to his lair in Germany. He didn’t want to believe it of her, but…

Just listening to her made his heart ache. She looked so lost. So forlorn. So in need of that damn holiday that had blown up in her face.

He’d love for her to have a real holiday.

But it was not going to happen.

Chapter 4

W
HAT HAD HAPPENED
to her life? “I need to protect my mother.”

“Someone is checking on her.”

“Can we move her to some place where they can’t find her?” In truth her mother wanted to be in a home where her friends were. But on her other days she didn’t know where she was so up until now, Marielle hadn’t managed to put her into the home. Instead, she’d relished the last few moments they had together.

She needed her mother to be safe. To let her mother have as much clarity as possible. Within months she’d be lost to her own world.

And Marielle was going to be alone.

Forever.

She couldn’t quite hold the tears back. She bolted out of her chair and paced the room, crying out, “Why would they do that to her? She’s done nothing.”

“They won’t care. They are building weapons of war.”

“I won’t build those,” she said mulishly. “They are an abomination.”

“And what they are doing by threatening you and your mother is also an abomination. If they have weapons you can stop or you have the technology that can create these weapons, then
we
need them. Not the enemy.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to create weapons for anyone,” she cried. “It’s a horrible concept.”

“What does your research do?”

“What it was supposed to do and what it does are two very different things.” She stopped in front of him and swiped at her overly bright eyes. “I found a way for deadly chemicals to be used in a very targeted way.”

He stared at her. “And you didn’t plan on doing that?”

“No!” She threw up her hands. “I was working on something else when I realized the chemicals just a foot away were no longer toxic. But at that one targeted spot, they were deadly.”

He frowned.

She shrugged. “I didn’t think anything of it until other people starting commenting about my work and the military applications. Like chemical bombs that wouldn’t kill civilians outside the targeted building for example.”

His gaze lit up. “Wow. That would be huge. Chemicals like that drift in the air and are dangerous for hours, days or longer in some cases.”

“I know. There is some similar research out there and some chemicals that have similar properties but nothing exactly like mine.” She gave him a wry smile. “Still, I hadn’t expected to have this happen.”

“And you told this guy…” he waved his arm around the house.

“Sure. We’d been exchanging emails for years. I was a student in several of his classes and we stayed in touch. My research took me in a lot of different directions. When he left the university and moved over here a year ago, I never thought anything of it.”

“Do you know the company he worked for? The type of research he’s doing?”

She snorted. “Apparently he’s doing similar work. He wanted me to work under him.”

“And give the research to his company?”

She nodded. “And of course he’d get the credit too. Plus, if he’s been hired to develop this type of research and hasn’t been able to yet, then my work would save his bacon too.”

“In other words. He’s not going to let you walk away. And worse…” Dane’s voice deepened. “The company, if they know who you are…can’t let you go. You have research they want.”

*

A
ND THAT CHANGED
the game. She had to be protected. He didn’t know if she was friend or foe, but for the next while until they got to the bottom of this, he wasn’t going to let her out of his sight. Not if she had the information she seemed to have. No enemy was going to get that amount of research either. Yet Michaels thought he had a way to collect it. In fact, he’d sounded damn sure he could get it.

If she turned out to be a traitor then he’d take her down himself, but until then he’d give her the benefit of the doubt. Only an award winning actress could have put on the performance she had today.

Shadow walked in, and Dane motioned to the computer setup.

Shadow’s eyes lit up. “Nice.” He rubbed his hands in anticipation.

Marielle made an odd sound in the back of her throat. “I gather you love computers?”

“Love them. They talk to me all the time and sometimes, like a beautiful woman, I can make them sing.” His back was turned toward them so Marielle couldn’t see Shadow’s face, but Dane watched hers.

The team loved women of all kinds, shapes and sizes. But because of the easy availability, it wasn’t exactly a challenge getting them. Now that a couple of the team had found exquisite examples, Dane, like the rest, found himself looking for someone special. He had no idea which member of the team was going to get lucky next, but he wished he wouldn’t have to wait too long himself.

Life was lonely. He worked hard and he played hard. But that wasn’t the same thing as coming home to a woman who loved him like his buddies did. Somehow not one but two had managed to find special partners like none had seen before.

Now they all wanted a similar partner for themselves. And the standard had been set, with a very high bar.

He studied Marielle. Trust him to trip over a woman who he might not even be able to trust. Mason rescued a brainiac programmer and Hawk found a beautiful search and rescue specialist.