A SEAL's Vow (SEALs of Chance Creek Book 2) (20 page)

“Got it covered.”

Definitely Walker. No one else was so terse.

“Are you talking about Avery?” Jericho demanded.

Walker grunted.

“Whoever it is, you’d better get moving. I don’t plan to draw the short stick next time,” Jericho said.

Their conversation turned to other things, and Nora tried to concentrate on the document on her screen, but she had made little progress with her story before Clay came to check on her. He settled down nearby with a clipboard and a sheaf of papers. “Planning,” he said when she raised an eyebrow.

Nora got back to work. Kai, joined by Curtis, cleaned up the meal, and although they made quite a bit of noise hauling in dishes and joking around in the kitchen, she found she didn’t mind. It was cozy having people around, and she felt… safe. She decided to put off worrying about her future—and Clay’s. Rolling her shoulders, she eased the tension from them. The bunkhouse’s windows were open, and snatches of conversation from outside drifted in, too. After years of living alone, it felt good to be part of a large group like this.

“You’re smiling,” Clay said softly.

Was she? Nora hadn’t meant to be; there were important problems to face… soon. “I think I’m… happy.” In this moment she was, anyway.

He took her hand. “I’m glad. It’s good to have you here, Nora.”

“It’s good to be here,” she admitted.

“Are you done?” He nodded to her laptop. “We could take a walk.”

“Okay.”

What was she doing? Nora chastised herself as she stood up. This was a perfect time to break things off for good. There were no camera crews around. They’d gone to eat the food Renata ordered for them, and wouldn’t be back for a few more minutes.

“What about my laptop?”

“Leave it. Come on. This way,” Clay said. He waited for her to shut it down, then led her through the kitchen, giving Kai a salute.

“Slipping out the back?” Kai asked.

“Gonna try.”

Clay hurried Nora out the kitchen door and around the far side of the bunkhouse.

He took her on a circuitous route that enabled them to remain unseen until they were far from the bunkhouse. Clay walked confidently, and soon they were well beyond the area of the ranch Nora knew.

“Where are we going?”

“There’s a great view over here. We used to come here as kids. Boone, Walker, Jericho and I. And Riley, too, most of the time. She loved to do whatever we did.”

Nora smiled at the picture he painted, despite her concerns. She tried to conjure up in her mind a vision of the four men as teenagers and Riley, a few years younger than them, tagging along behind the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, as she’d called them back then. What a wonderful childhood, Nora thought wistfully. She’d lived in the city all her life.

The walk settled her nerves and soon she’d convinced herself that this was all it was—an innocent way to pass the time.

“What made you join the Navy?” she asked. Pacing next to him, her dress swishing as she walked, holding hands with a strong, tall man she fancied, she felt almost transported back in time to an era where life wasn’t quite so hectic.

“The Navy was Jericho’s idea originally. He got hold of the requirements to join, and we trained like crazy so we’d make the cut. None of our families had the money to own their own ranch. We knew none of us would inherit a spread, so we needed to do something. The Navy was a good answer.”

“Funny you didn’t choose the Army or Air Force—”

“Hell, no. Navy SEALs all the way. That was the goal and that’s what we did.”

Clay and his friends hadn’t changed over the years, had they? They still set goals together and did whatever it took to meet them. She had to admit she found that admirable.

Even if it took them down some crazy paths.

“If you love the SEALs so much, why leave the Navy? Was there something in particular that made you focus on climate change instead?”

“Yeah. You could say that.” They’d been walking along a barbed wire fence that defined a pasture, and Clay opened a gate, guided her through it and closed it behind them again. He led her to a rise in ground from which the landscape fell away, laying out a panoramic view.

“Oh, that’s beautiful,” Nora said, forgetting her question for the moment.

Clay sat on the ground and tugged her down beside him. She sat carefully, not wanting to damage her dress.

“It all started in Yemen. Or ended there, depending on how you want to look at it. I’m proud of the way I served my country, and I’m proud of the SEALs for the work they do, but you’ve got to understand by the time we’re called in, a situation has gone to shit. There’s no fixing it—there’s only dealing with some disaster that generally could have been prevented from happening in the first place if the right people had done the right things. Does that make sense? As much as I pride myself on being able to get into a tight spot and save someone’s ass, or minimize the damage, or get the bad guy, I’m also a thinking man. I can’t help noticing what should have been done about the situation months or years before I was called in. I can’t help thinking about the bigger picture.”

“What happened in Yemen?” She vaguely knew there was a civil war going on over there.

“A major fuck-up. We went there to rescue four aid workers who couldn’t get out when the hostilities flared up. They were in a convoy, trying to bring medical supplies to a civilian hospital. They couldn’t go forward, and they couldn’t go back, so they holed up in a bombed-out building—and found they weren’t alone. Turned out the building was a school. There were children hiding there, too. Their teacher was dead, and they couldn’t get home.”

“Oh, Clay.” Nora couldn’t imagine what that had been like. If a war had broken out while she’d been teaching, she would have done anything she could to keep the children safe. “How old were they? The kids?”

“Young.” Clay shook his head, and she could tell his thoughts were far from this pasture. She covered his hand with her own. “The aid workers had a satellite phone. Solar charged. We were able to talk to them, even though we couldn’t get to them. We took turns, trying to keep up their morale. Usually I talked to a man named Hendrik Fergusen. He used to be a plastic surgeon, but he gave that up to join the aid organization after he split up with his wife. I felt so bad for him. If only they’d stayed together—if only he’d stayed in Beverly Hills, you know? But when I said that to him, he disagreed.”

Clay tilted up his head to look at the sky. Nora did, too. Its deep blue was darkening, and a star or two was out. Under its large expanse, Yemen didn’t seem so far away. She wondered if there was a woman over there looking up at the sky, wishing for peace.

“Hendrik said, ‘I’ve lived my whole life doing what others thought I should do. My wife wanted the security that wealth would provide. In the end, though, she left me. So much for security.’”

“That poor man,” Nora said, angry on his behalf.

“That’s not the way he saw it,” Clay said, glancing her way. “‘It’s the most freeing thing that ever happened,’ is how he put it. He told me, ‘I took a chance and did exactly what I wanted to do. I helped people who really needed it. I may survive this, I may not, but the first time in my life I’m fulfilled.’ I’ll never forget that,” Clay said. “For the first time, I’m fulfilled.”

“What happened?” She thought she knew, but she had to ask.

“We didn’t save them,” Clay said softly. “We tried. Over and over again. We couldn’t. Boone was on the phone with a woman named Francine when the school was hit. They all died, every last one of them.”

She heard the pain in his voice and wished she could take it away. She doubted you lived through something like that and ever got away from it, though.

“That’s when we decided we had to try something else. It’s hard to explain how tiny houses in Montana affect civil wars in Yemen—”

“I get it,” Nora said. “Of course the two are connected. Everything we do is connected.”

“I can’t stop fighting for Hendrik. For Francine. For those kids.”

Nora understood—more than she wanted to, really. He’d experienced something life-altering and made a vow he had to uphold. How could she complain if that trumped her qualms about a quick marriage?

Especially when she could change the ending to their story by simply saying yes to Clay.

“I didn’t mean to ruin a beautiful evening with hard memories.” He turned to face her, and Nora wanted to smooth her fingers over the worry lines around his eyes. He was so dear to her, she realized. She ached to make him happy.

And all she had to do was agree to marry him.

“You didn’t ruin anything,” Nora said, shifting slightly to put more space between them. “If anything, you made me understand something I couldn’t before.”

“Did you think I’d signed on to Base Camp out of ego?” Clay lifted her hand into his lap and began massaging it gently. She had the feeling he needed to do something. That coiled energy of his again.

“I’m not sure what I thought. I wasn’t sure why you let Fulsom boss you around, I guess.”

“I do have an ego,” he said. “A big enough one to want what I’m doing here to make a real difference. That means people have to know about it. Lots of people. Fulsom’s out of his mind, but he’s great at generating buzz.”

“That he is.”

“I only wish it wasn’t causing problems between us.”

When he looked at her like that, like he was starving and she was the only food for miles, she knew she was in trouble. All that energy he tried to hold in check burned bright in his eyes. He wanted her.

And, God help her, she wanted him, too.

“Nora—”

He didn’t finish his sentence. He leaned in and kissed her and she greeted that kiss gratefully, falling into it like she was diving into a cool lake on a hot summer’s day. He lifted her onto his lap, and Nora could only cling to him as he deepened the kiss, tasting her, tangling his tongue with hers.

Nora leaned into him, wrapped her arms around his neck and savored the feel of him. His hardness against her bottom made it all too clear what he wanted, and she ached to unzip his jeans and get a good look at those handfuls.

“Your tent? Or mine?” Clay said finally, and Nora blinked, coming back to herself.

“They’ll film us,” she protested.

Clay thought about it. “We’ll enter camp separately. You go to your tent, I’ll go to mine. I’ll come to you when the coast is clear.” He stole another kiss. “We’ll be very, very quiet, but we’ll make some noise. Know what I mean?”

She knew exactly what he meant, and heat pulsed low inside her at the thought of what was to come. All her earlier fears were gone. Clay was a good man through and through. She wanted him. She might just… love him.

The realization rocked her. When had that happened? She’d worked so hard to keep her distance and keep her common sense about her. Now she was sitting in his lap, sharing memories, kissing him…

Planning to make love.

They walked back together, their arms entwined, stopping now and then for a long, languorous make-out session. Nora was desperate for more by the time they reached the outskirts of camp.

“See you in a minute,” Clay said.

“See you.”

The walk alone to her tent, and the time she spent finding the things she needed to prepare for bed by flashlight, calmed her racing pulse—a little. She gathered a towel and her toiletries before heading for the bunkhouse to wash up. She hadn’t paid much attention to the men coming and going into the bathroom while she’d been working at the desk earlier, but now she did the math. One toilet, fifteen men and women. That didn’t seem sustainable at all.

When she went indoors, Clay was already exiting the bathroom, his hair damp and his towel around his neck.

“How’d you beat me?”

“I’m fast when I want to be.” He grinned down at her. She scanned the room, but no one else was in here, and the cameras must have been occupied somewhere else.

She reached up and snatched a kiss. “My turn.” She hesitated. “Won’t it be pretty crowded in here in the morning?”

“The privies will get their share of traffic,” he said.

“You dug privies?” She couldn’t keep the shock from her voice.

“Composting toilets, actually. We’ve got five of them set up in little buildings around the place. I’ll show you where they are tomorrow.”

“Composting toilets?” She didn’t even want to know.

“Don’t worry about them. Just get ready for bed. And hurry up—I’m not sure how much longer I can wait.”

Nora, glad the cameras were busy elsewhere, knew what he meant. She went into the bathroom, brushed her teeth and washed her face—

And then realized she had a problem. She opened the door a crack. “Clay? I need Avery. Or Savannah.”

He disappeared and came back a moment later. “I don’t see them anywhere. I think they already went to bed. Anything I can do to help?”

“No.” She’d have to get out of these stays herself. But even as she thought it, she knew it was impossible. They laced up her back. It would be like extricating herself from a straitjacket. “Yes,” she said. “But you have to promise to behave.”

Clay was by her side in an instant. “Behaving is my number one skill.”

“Right.” Nora allowed him in, shut the bathroom door and turned her back to him. “I need you to get me out of my dress.”

“I thought you’d never ask.” Clay’s fingers went to the ties at the back of her dress and undid them. When he saw the stays beneath her gown, he whistled. “Holy shit, sweetheart, what’d you do to deserve this?”

“It’s what one wears under a Regency gown.”

“No wonder your breasts look all…” He cupped his hands and held them up to where she could see in the mirror. “Talk about handfuls.”

Nora elbowed him. “Hurry up.”

“I’m at your service.” He got to work on the stays. For a few anxious moments Nora thought he might be tightening the knots rather than loosening them, but finally he figured it out.

“I can take it from here,” she said.

“I had a feeling you’d say that.” Clay didn’t move. Instead, he reached inside her dress, under her chemise, and slid his fingers an inch or so under her stays. His touch felt good. Too good.