SEAL for Her Protection (SEALs of Coronado Book 1) (11 page)

Brad didn’t look like he thought that was such a good idea, but he was smart enough not to say anything. He knew she could get snappish once she started getting frustrated.

She was about to take another bite of her quesadilla—kind of surprised at how much she’d eaten when she wasn’t paying attention—when she looked down at her laptop and saw the search screen she was sure she’d closed on Jack Yates was back open. She reached over to close it again, but the screen changed to the article she’d been reading on
The People
. Then, in quick succession, window screens started tiling across her desktop, the various drafts of her article on Nesbitt, her notes and timeline page, even the browser history.

She tapped her on her mouse pad to close the windows, but the cursor on the screen didn’t even move.

“What the heck?” she said, poking at the keyboard next.

“What’s wrong?” Brad asked, looking across the table at her.

“My stupid computer is going haywire.”

He sighed then reached across and picked up her laptop so he could check it. “What the heck did you do now?”

“I didn’t do anything,” she insisted. “It’s doing stuff on its own.”

He nodded as he put her computer on his lap. “Right. Like that time you reformatted your hard drive because you thought it would fix the margins on your articles.”

She winced at the memory. “They shouldn’t use any word that looks like
format
in relation to anything so destructive. Anyone could make that mistake.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, handing her laptop back to her. “There’s nothing wrong with your computer.”

She was about to tell him there most certainly was, but then she saw there was nothing on the screen but her open article. No jumping windows or Internet pages.

“There was something wrong,” she said softly, picking up the last bite of her quesadilla.

“Uh-huh.”

* * * * *

Hayley had unlocked the door of her apartment when her cell phone rang. She smiled when she saw Chasen’s name on the screen.

“Hey!” she said. “You on the way over?”

There was a slight delay, and a whole lot of noise in the background. “I wish. But our platoon has been called up for a training exercise tonight, so I won’t be able to swing by your place like planned.”

“Do you think you’ll get done at all tonight?” she asked hopefully. “I could wait up.”

“Don’t,” he said softly. “This thing is likely to last all night, maybe longer. I’ll call as soon as I know something.”

Hayley would have been lying if she said she wasn’t disappointed, but she understood. She’d certainly worked more than her share of late nights. So she told him to be safe and to call when he had a chance, then hung up.

The moment she closed the door behind her, that familiar unease came over her again. She’d never had a problem being alone before, not since before coming back from Nigeria.

She changed into shorts and a tank top and curled up with her laptop on the couch, hoping that digging some more into
The People
, Nesbitt, and Yates would take her mind off the creepy feeling she had that she was being watched, but it didn’t. After messing around and not getting much of anything done, she finally got up and went to check the door and windows, making sure everything was locked. It didn’t do much to reassure her.

Hayley turned away from the window in the kitchen and looked around her apartment. No one was there. No one was watching her. It was her imagination. Unfortunately, she had a very vivid one.

Maybe everyone was right and she really did need to get some help.

She walked around the island separating the kitchen from the living room and picked up her cell phone from the couch. Scrolling through her list of contacts, she quickly found Chasen’s number, but then paused, her finger hovering over the button. It had only been an hour or so since he’d called. He was probably hip deep in some awful training involving guns, explosives, and lots of water. He didn’t need his new girlfriend calling to say she needed to hear his voice—or something equally clingy—even if she desperately wanted to.

Cursing her wussy paranoia, she finally dialed Jillian’s number instead.

“Hey,” she said when her friend answered. “Can you come over?”

Jillian didn’t ask why. Or say she was too busy. She simply did what best friends did. “I’m on the way.”

Hayley felt terrible dragging Jillian over here again like this, but she also had to admit she felt more relaxed knowing she wasn’t going to be alone tonight.

Chapter Seven

W
HEN CHASEN PUSHED his way through the typical Friday night crowd around the entrance of the bar and grill where he was meeting Hayley, he was surprised to see her waiting with a guy over by the hostess table. Tall and lanky, the guy had dark-blond hair and gray eyes, and was standing way too close to Hayley for Chasen’s liking. He felt a little stab of something that took him a second to recognize.

Jealousy.

Okay. That was kind of new for him. He couldn’t remember getting jealous over a girl since high school when his date to the spring fling dance had bailed on him to go hang out with the mascot of the football team.

He walked over, wondering if he’d misunderstood Hayley when she’d asked him if he wanted to get together this evening. She had meant this to be a date, right?

Then again, he had pretty much left her completely in the dark for nearly a week while he’d been gone on training. Chasen wouldn’t be the first SEAL to find out a woman he was into had dumped him over her inability to get him on the phone.

The one night of low-stress training he’d expected on the beautiful beaches of Coronado had ended up turning into nearly a week of running around the mountainous terrain of the Army National Training Center in the heart of the Mojave Desert. One thing he could say about the Army. They never let a piece of crappy real estate go to waste. Chasen was pretty sure if cacti could figure out how to buy bus tickets, there’d be nothing left living in that damn place.

He didn’t actually mind the training, or the desolate landscape. It was nicer than a lot of other places he’d spent time. But he’d hated not being able to talk to Hayley for the whole week, especially after the amazing weekend they’d had before he left.

He had to admit, he’d been a little worried when he called her a couple of hours ago and told her he was back in town. Had his sudden week-long departure caused her to change her mind about seeing him? Hell, would she even take his call?

But when she’d answered the phone, she’d seemed genuinely thrilled to hear from him, immediately asking if he wanted to get together that night. He assumed everything was copasetic. Now he was thinking that might not be the case.

Chasen moved into Hayley’s line of sight and caught her eye, trying not to let his confusion show too much. If this was her strange way of telling him they were done before they’d actually gotten started, he’d be pissed. He’d deal with it, but he’d be pissed.

Then turned her head and saw him and a huge smile lit up her face. She laughed and hurried forward to meet him, moving past the blond man to stand up on tiptoes, wrap her arms around his neck, and give him a warm kiss on the lips.

Realizing he’d read the situation completely wrong, Chasen returned the kiss out of pure lusty instinct, slipping a hand behind her back and pulling her closer to him so he could feel that beautiful body of hers pressing up against him.

“I didn’t see you come in,” she said when they both finally broke the kiss and stepped back to breathe a little.

He motioned around the crowded entryway “How could you? This place is packed.”

Hayley twisted in his arms, motioning toward the guy she’d been standing with. Chasen turned to see him regarding them expectantly.

“Chasen, this is Brad Oliver. He’s my photographer, right-hand man when we’re traveling on assignment, and also happens to be one of my very best friends,” she said. “Brad, Chasen Ward.”

Brad made a face. “She forgot to mention I’m also the one she makes eat all the strange foreign food first, in case it tastes like crap.”

Chasen held out his hand, recognizing the man’s name the moment he heard it. It had been in his Team’s initial briefing file handed out before the mission in Africa. “Nice meeting you.”

“Yeah, you too,” Brad said. “Thanks for what you did over in Nigeria. Saving Hayley. I owe you big.”

“I’m glad my Team and I were able to get there in time,” Chasen said.

Hayley looked like she was about to say something, but then smiled and waved at someone over Chasen’s shoulder. He turned to see a tall redhead hurrying over.

“Sorry I’m late,” the redhead said as she hugged Hayley. “Traffic was crazy.”

“Don’t worry about it. Chasen just got here, too.” Hayley turned to look at him and Brad. “Chasen, this is Jillian Brennan.” She glanced at the redhead. “Jillian, meet Petty Officer Chasen Ward.”

Jillian smiled and shook his hand then turned her attention to Brad, a slow, almost shy smile spreading across her lips. “Hey, Brad. Long time, no see.”

All it took was one look at the sudden, wary expression on the woman’s face, and Chasen quickly realized what was going on. This was a double date. Hayley had set Brad up with Jillian.

Apparently Brad had figured out the same thing, because he definitely didn’t look thrilled. Chasen couldn’t blame him. No guy liked getting set up on a blind date. Even worse with the friend of a friend. If the date didn’t go well, Brad knew Hayley would be getting a blow-by-blow synopsis of the entire evening.

“Jillian has been crushing on Brad for a while,” Hayley told Chasen softly as the hostess led them to their table. “I figured this would be a nice casual way to get them together.”

“How do you know they’ll even like each other?” he asked.

Hayley looked at him like he was crazy. “Of course they’ll like each other. It’s obvious that they’re perfect together.”

Chasen shook his head, thinking that was something only a woman would say. But he pushed those thoughts aside while he watched Hayley’s butt sway back and forth as she moved ahead of him between the grill’s close-set tables. Damn, what an ass. The way it moved when she walked had him thinking about all kinds of things he’d like to do to it. Of course, those thoughts immediately had his cock hardening in his jeans, making it difficult to walk. He clenched his teeth to stifle a groan. Damn, what this woman could do to him.

Chasen had been able to spend a lot of time over the last week thinking about what he had developing with Hayley and it seemed obvious he was really falling for her. The first date had been great and the day spent hanging out at the cookout with the Team had been even better. It was easy to see the guys liked her, and she got along with them well, too. And Melissa had definitely liked her. As the senior chief’s wife, she’s was something of a Team mommy bear, always keeping an eye on him and the other guys and making sure they didn’t do anything stupid. And while she was always nice to anyone the guys brought over, you could tell if she wasn’t crazy about someone. It had been different with Hayley. The two women had immediately connected. That meant a lot to Chasen. If he wanted things to work out with Hayley long-term, she was going to have to be able to fit into the SEAL lifestyle. Clicking with Melissa was the fastest way to know if that could happen.

Then there had been the weekend full of wild sex at his place. He’d slept with other women before, but he’d never experienced anything like he had with Hayley during that weekend. They were so perfectly in sync sexually it was almost scary how good they were together. He’d barely made it to work on time Monday morning. He would much rather have stayed in bed with her the whole day.

Sitting up there in the mountains above Fort Irwin at 0300 in the morning waiting for missions to start, he’d tried to tell himself to pump the brakes on things and slow down a bit, that he’d only met the woman a short time ago. But that wasn’t him. Since when had he ever taken anything slowly? From the day he’d decided to bail on college and join the Navy instead, he’d been jumping into everything he’d ever done with both feet. True, it had gotten him into trouble more than once, but for the most part, going with his gut had usually paid off. And right now, his gut was telling him this thing with Hayley could turn into something special. And that if he wanted it to happen—if he truly wanted the same thing Kurt and Melissa had—he needed to act, not sit around and think about it.

Jillian was already deep in conversation with Brad about photography by the time Chasen and Hayley caught up with them and sat down. Actually, Jillian was doing most of the talking. Brad mostly nodded and gave her one-word answers as he studied the menu.

“Were you guys digging into William Nesbitt again today?” Jillian asked Hayley after the waitress took their order.

Chasen frowned. “The city councilman?”

Hayley nodded at Jillian as she sipped her iced tea. “Yeah. Not that we have anything to show for it.” She glanced at Chasen. “Brad and I have been digging into the rumors the man is getting some kind of kickbacks from the Imperial Beach SEAL construction project. That he’s in bed somehow with the prime contractor. We’ve been rattling cages for the last week and still haven’t uncovered anything solid yet, but we will. Sooner or later, someone will talk.”

Chasen was surprised at how his heart started beating faster as Hayley spoke. He knew this was her job, but he didn’t like how cavalier she made the whole thing sound. “Nesbitt might not be a big deal outside of San Diego, but if everything I’ve read about the guy is true, he’s pretty ruthless. He’s got money and a certain amount of power. I doubt he’s going to take kindly to your poking around.”

On the other side of the table, Brad scowled. “That’s what I keep telling her, but sometimes she’s like a bull in a china shop.”

Hayley waved a hand dismissively. “We’ve gone after scarier people than Nesbitt. Besides, he’s a politician, not a mob boss. It’s not like he’s going to take out a contract on my life.”