SEAL for Her Protection (SEALs of Coronado Book 1) (15 page)

They talked for a bit longer, but while the three college kids had lots of circumstantial stuff on Nesbitt, Yates, and even Stavros, they didn’t have anything the police would ever believe. Kyla admitted that was the reason they’d contacted Hayley. They knew they had taken this as far as they could on their own. If they wanted to catch her father’s killer, they needed help.

They gave Hayley and Chasen a phone number to call in case they needed some hacking done—or found anything.

“Be careful around these people,” Kyla said. “They killed my dad to protect their profits. I doubt they’d hesitate to kill you to protect their freedom.”

It was completely dark by the time Hayley and Chasen left the abandoned store. He didn’t say much on the drive back to her place. Then again, neither did Hayley. She wasn’t sure how much of this she could share with her editor. Heck, she was worried to even share it with Brad. She didn’t want to make him any more of a target than he already was.

She and Chasen had just walked into her apartment when his phone rang. He dug it out of the front pocket of his jeans, frowning at the name on the call screen before thumbing the button and putting it to his ear.

“Ward,” he said then listened for a while. “Shit. Yeah, I’ll be right there. Hold your damn horses.”

“What’s wrong?” Hayley asked, though she already had a pretty good idea.

He shoved the phone back in his pocket. “A mission. I have to go.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. And I couldn’t tell you even if I did.” Sighing, he cupped her face with his hand. “I’m sorry.”

She shook her head. “It’s okay. We talked about this, remember? You’re a SEAL. You go when they call. So go…and be careful.”

“I will.” He kissed her long and slow. “You be careful, too. Don’t go poking Nesbitt and getting yourself in trouble. Promise me you won’t go anywhere near this story without Brad while I’m gone, okay?”

“I won’t,” she promised.

“I’ll call you when I can.”

After another kiss—this one not nearly long enough—Chasen pulled away.

“Safe and sound, remember?” she said, forcing a light tone into her voice. “If you want more of what I gave you last night, safe and sound. Got it?”

He grinned. “Got it.”

Then he was gone so fast it was like he’d pulled all the oxygen out of the room. At least that was the reason Hayley told herself she suddenly couldn’t breathe.

She hugged herself, an unfamiliar sensation of loneliness closing over her. It was immediately followed by that freaky feeling of being watched again. After being with Chasen last night and all day today, she’d almost forgotten what that felt like.

Having Chasen bail on a moment’s notice really sucked, but it was worth it for the chance to be with him in the first place.

Chapter Ten

C
HASEN SAT ALONGSIDE his teammates in the strap seats of the Air Force MC-130H Combat Talon II aircraft circling the target area at a hair below thirty thousand feet, waiting for the rear ramp to drop so they could parachute into their objective.

Somewhere far below them in the middle of a small, well-guarded village was a cachet of Russian-made SA-16 shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles that would be incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands. They were small, but they packed a big punch and could easily take down a low-flying aircraft.

The Team’s mission was to find the weapons and the man who’d delivered them to the village. They would get photographic evidence, right down to the Russian Cyrillic markings on the launchers, and get that info back to the CIA via the team’s satellite commo rig. Then they were to destroy the weapons and hopefully apprehend the arms dealer at the same time. If everything went well, they’d move to an extraction point a couple of miles outside the village and be picked by helicopter shortly before dawn. If things didn’t go well, they’d have to make something up on the fly.

It was the type of mission Chasen, Dalton, Nash, Logan, and the other members of SEAL Team 5 had done so many times they could sleepwalk their way through it. Of course, this mission was slightly different than most of their others. It wouldn’t take place in Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, or any other craphole foreign country they’d visited many times in the last few years.

This particular mission would take place at the training complex in La Posta, California. This time the goal wasn’t to complete the mission and get everyone home alive, but to impress a boatload of high-ranking officers from the Special Operations Command—SOCOM—and a few congressional representatives from the Senate Armed Services Committee. The entire thing was a frigging test and everything his team did—or didn’t do—would be critiqued seven ways to Sunday by a bunch of people who never would have attempted the job themselves.

He and the guys had gone through the mission briefing, drawn their basic load of live ammo and explosives, and been rolling down the runway at NAS North Island before a Navy captain had slipped down to their end of the aircraft and informed them this was to be a live-fire training and evaluation exercise.

That had elicited a few groans from Chasen and the other guys. Nobody liked doing no-notice evaluated training events, especially for high-ranking wankers who didn’t know a damn thing about field operations and how they were supposed to be done.

But what the hell? He and the guys got paid the same whether people were actually trying to kill them or not.

He wasn’t exactly thrilled to be heading out for anything at the moment, though. He would much rather have hung around and kept an eye on Hayley. He didn’t feel good about leaving her on her own right then. Not only was he concerned about this PTSD stuff she was dealing with, but he was also worried about the crap she was getting into with Nesbitt. Both situations had the potential to turn ugly if she weren’t careful. And as he already knew for a fact, Hayley was never careful.

Then there was the whole other thing going on in his head that had him spinning, too. It was that minor issue of him falling in love with Hayley like a frozen turkey from space. Which was scary if he thought about how fast it was happening. But when he’d mentioned taking leave and spending it at a B&B with her in San Francisco, it had felt right.

He only hoped this exercise would be over quickly. It could end as early as tomorrow morning or it could last for days. Either way, the thought of taking off on leave with Hayley, doing nothing more than hanging out in bed and enjoying San Francisco with her had him grinning like an idiot.

Chasen cursed silently.
Get a grip, dude.
This might be a training exercise, but they’d be using live ammo and live explosives. Well-trained sailors—even SEALs—had messed up and gotten themselves killed by not focusing on what the hell they were doing. On top of that, there was the whole High Attitude Low Opening technique they’d be employing for this jump. Chasen had done HALO jumps more times than he cared to count, but whenever you hopped out of a plane in the black of night at thirty thousand feet and waited until you were a mere few thousand feet above the ground to pop your chute, you were taking a risk. Getting disoriented was damn easy in the dark and even easier at attitudes requiring you to carry your own oxygen in order to survive.

Yet, as dangerous as the training was, five minutes after berating himself, his mind drifted back to Hayley and how beautiful she’d looked lying in his arms this morning. Then he remembered how good her mouth had felt on him when he’d first gotten back from the last training exercise, and how she’d told him he was in for more of the same when he got back from this mission. That thought got his cock as hard as a crowbar in seconds.

Then a klaxon alarm rang, signaling their approach to the target and his hard-on immediately disappeared. The physiology technicians on board switched Chasen and the other SEALs over from aircraft oxygen to their suit’s internal supply then bailed for the front of the aircraft. A moment later, the jumpmaster came down the center aisle and herded them toward the rear ramp, checking chutes, gear, and packs as they went. The ramp dropped then, filling the aircraft with screaming turbulence that made thinking nearly impossible.

But as Chasen and his guys grabbed hold of each other and charged out the back door of the plane and into the dark, cold air, he found himself wondering about what Hayley was doing at that exact moment and whether if she was thinking about him as much as he was thinking about her.

* * * * *

“You did
what
?”

Hayley cringed at Jillian’s question. “I was simply rattling Nesbitt’s cage a little trying to get him to slip up and say something.”

“By walking right up to his face and telling him you know he was involved in a man’s death?” Jillian demanded.

Okay. When Jillian put it that way, maybe it hadn’t been so smart. In fact, telling a man who was willing to kill someone for convenience sake you were trying to send him to prison for life was pretty stupid. But in her defense, she rarely made smart moves when it came to her own safety. That’s what she had people like Brad, Jillian, and Chasen for.

Hayley had felt twitchy and tense ever since Chasen left on Saturday, especially in her apartment, so after three days, she’d gone over to Jillian’s for an impromptu girl’s night complete with chocolate, wine coolers, and a stack of Chris Hemsworth movies.

“What did Nesbitt say when you confronted him?” Jillian asked, glancing up from polishing her toenails.

Hayley shrugged and nibbled on a piece of dark chocolate. It didn’t taste nearly as good as it had a few minutes ago. “At first he acted like he had no idea what I was talking about. But when I started getting specific about what I thought had happened to Kyla’s dad, he got in my face and told me I need to be careful listening to those Internet nerds. They were going to get me in more trouble than I could handle.”

Jillian froze, the nail polish brush poised above her big toe. “He actually threatened you?”

Hayley sighed. “It was a threat, but nothing the police would see that way. Nesbitt is too smart for that.”

“What was Brad doing during all this?”

“He wasn’t there.”

“Where was he?” Jillian asked.

“He took a few days off,” Hayley said. “I was worried when he didn’t come to work on Monday, but when I called, he told me everything was fine and he was taking care of some personal stuff.”

Jillian went back to painting her toenails. “I think Brad is seeing someone you don’t know about.”

Hayley frowned. “Why do you say that?”

Her friend shrugged. “It was the way he was acting the other night when we all went out together. He was nice and all, but I could tell he wasn’t that into me. It was like he thought he was cheating on someone else by being with me, you know? The fact he’s never told you about whoever it is makes me think it might be a guy.”

“And you think he figured I wouldn’t approve?” Hayley asked. “That’s crazy! He’s one of my best friends in the world.”

Popping the half-eaten piece of chocolate in her mouth, she grabbed her cell phone and scrolled through her contacts.

“Who are you calling?” Jillian asked.

“Brad. I’m going to ask if he has a girlfriend—or boyfriend—I don’t know about.”

“Don’t.” Jillian reached across the couch to catch her hand. “Just give him some time. He’ll tell you about this stuff when he’s ready. That might be the personal situation he’s dealing with right now, trying to figure out how to come out. You need to let him have some space.”

Hayley put the phone back on the table with a sigh. “You’re right.”

Jillian tightened the top on the nail polish bottle then sat back on the couch. “What’s the status with Chasen? You two a serious item yet or are you merely in it for the sex?”

Hayley laughed. Jillian always knew how to get her to lighten up. “Oh, the sex is definitely a highlight. I’d have to be a zombie not to admit that. But on the relationship side, it’s getting serious. He’s going to take some leave so we can go up to San Francisco and spend time together away from everything.”

“Wow…that does sound serious. And romantic as heck. I had no idea things were moving so fast with you guys.”

Hayley smiled and sipped her wine cooler. “It caught me a little by surprise, too. But I can’t deny when we’re together, I’m happier than I’ve ever been. That’s what has me worried. I’ve never tried a relationship with a guy who has a job that requires him to run off to the far side of the world at the drop of a hat. That’s always been my deal. It’s a strange feeling.”

“But you can put up with it, right?” Jillian asked. “For a guy as great as Chasen, you’ll try?”

“I’m going to give it everything I’ve got,” Hayley said. “I’m not crazy. I know what kind of catch he is.”

Jillian smiled. “Good. But if you ever plan on changing your mind, let me know so I can make a move on him. I don’t want all those muscles and sex appeal to go to waste.”

Hayley laughed. “Wouldn’t want that.”

She ended up hanging out at Jillian’s later than she intended watching movies, talking about work, Brad, Chasen, and guys in general. Jillian wanted her to stay, but Hayley had to get to the paper beaucoup early and if she stayed she’d wake up her friend with her morning bathroom ritual. Besides, she couldn’t stay with Jillian every time Chasen had night training or went on a mission.

Since it was well after midnight when Hayley left, the parking garage was totally deserted and she immediately felt the familiar tingle along her back, like she was being watched. She forced herself to ignore it and kept walking.

As she reached her car, she heard the distinct sound of footsteps. She turning to see if there was someone behind her—and whether they might be a threat—but before she could a man rushed her, slamming her against the side of her car and shoving something hard into the small of her back. Was it a gun?

Hayley froze, her heart pounding, her gaze locked on the reflection of the man in the side window of her car. He was wearing a ski mask, so there was no way she’d be able to identify him.