Sexy SEAL Box Set: A SEAL's Seduction\A SEAL's Surrender\A SEAL's Salvation\A SEAL's Kiss (59 page)

She waited for him to protest. To claim she was wrong.

She wanted, desperately, for him to be that guy she’d always thought he was. To be the one who fought the odds, faced down the bullies. The one who protected her. That Brody was her hero.

But this one? His expression didn’t change. She struggled to accept that this was the real him. The boy she’d known was a distant loner with a rough reputation and a questionable attitude. But she’d always been sure that was just a defense mechanism, maybe because his father sucked and he’d had such a bad childhood. On their night together he’d joked, he’d smiled. He’d been so sweet.

“But then, you’ve never known me, have you?”

Again with the mind reading. Genna wasn’t sure if she wanted to cry, or to throw cookies at him. It wasn’t as though she’d spent the last decade waiting around for him. But still, their relationship had been a cherished memory, that one thing that’d always made her feel special. Made her feel as if whatever else was lousy in her life, the hottest guy she’d ever crushed on had cared enough about her, about her reputation, to give up his freedom.

But it looked as though she was the only person who gave a damn about that memory.

Humiliation washed over her, making her blink fast to clear the burning from her eyes.

“I guess I don’t know you. Not any better than anyone else around here. You’re either the badass troublemaker son of the town drunk. Or maybe you’re the abused grandson of a sweet lady who thinks you need saving. Or, wait, I know,” she snapped, “you’re the big bad hero the mayor wants to honor for your incredible service to your country. But whatever you are, it’s not what I thought.”

“Well, then,” he said slowly, his words like gravel. “I guess that says it all. Maybe now you’ll go?”

It wasn’t his words that broke her heart, though. It was the look in his eyes. For one brief second, so much pain and loss flashed in those gold depths that she didn’t know how he could survive it.

Genna didn’t remember leaving the guesthouse. She wasn’t sure if she ran across the alley, went around the house or sprouted wings and flew into her bedroom window.

She’d thought he’d forgiven her.

She’d thought he was interested in her, that those letters had meant something. That maybe he wanted her. The real her, not the perfectly behaved, please-everyone princess he’d so accurately dubbed her.

She’d thought they had something special between them. That those letters, that one night, they were proof of the passion and connection they shared.

Genna pressed her lips together, trying to stop the tears that were trailing, fiery hot, down her cheeks.

Now she was afraid he was a stranger.

One who hated her.

7

T
HERE
WERE
TIMES
, miserable times, that a girl needed work. When it was good to have a job to focus on, to serve as a distraction from heartbreak.

This was not one of those times.

Real life sucked when she didn’t have her secret fantasy to fall back on. After her mind-blowing climax, a nasty descent into reality and the proceeding all-night crying binge, Genna had tasked herself with getting over Brody. It shouldn’t be that hard to get over a hero who had never existed, should it?

Three days later and she still hadn’t figured out how. But hey, she had the rest of her long, lonely, dull life to work on it. She’d get there eventually.

She arranged coffee cups on a tray, making sure to add sugar in the form of cubes, granulated and raw. Yet another pathetic example of how sad her life was when the highlight of her day was getting the exact same amount of sugar in each bowl. It was enough to make her scream. Or maybe that was because her boss was still talking about his new favorite subject. Hometown Hero, Brody Lane.

“This event will be fabulous. We need to be sure enough press is invited. Not just lifestyle. I want current events, politics. War Hero Welcomed Home by Loving Town With Parade. That’ll make a great headline.”

“It needs work,” Marcus Reilly said from his spot at the opposite end of the table from the mayor. “You’re putting up a lot of fuss over a guy who, what? Did his job?”

Glad her back was to them, Genna freely rolled her eyes.
Did his job?
Leave it to her father to be a little black rain cloud. The sheriff had never been what anyone could call effusive. But over the last few years, the worse Joe’s behavior was, the more withdrawn their father became. Almost as if he’d been expecting Joe’s death and had figured on getting in some mourning ahead of time.

“Fine. We’ll let the papers come up with the headline. Either way, hometown hero appreciation is good PR. A parade is good commerce and after all, it is election season,” Tucker pointed out, those words saying it all.

The cookies arranged just so and coffee balanced on the tray, Genna turned toward the men gathered around the long teak table. An informal monthly meeting among Bedford’s movers and shakers included the mayor and sheriff, of course. A couple of high-profile businesspeople, the bank owner and, she sighed, one perfect lawyer rounded up this month’s powwow.

Avoiding the lawyer, Perfect Stewart who was still angling for a second date, she moved to the other side of the room with her tray. She wasn’t sure how her job as community liaison had come to include playing hostess. But given that her job was more a backroom agreement between her boss and her father, she figured the mayor was looking for whatever he could to justify her paycheck. She’d protested the job once, wanting to quit and find something that she’d love. But that night Joe had been hauled in by Highway Patrol on drug charges. Her father had left midprotest to deal with the fallout. By the time he’d bailed out her brother, smoothed over the furor and glossed away the damage to his sheriff’s reputation, Genna had given up arguing.

“Coffee?” she asked the room at large as she set the tray in the center of the table. Then she stepped back, returning to the counter to prepare the backup plate of cookies she knew they’d want soon.

It was bad enough she had to hostess these things. She drew the line at being waitress. As appreciative sounds and compliments on the cookies started flowing around the table, she admitted she didn’t mind playing caterer, though.

Besides, she’d been on a baking binge for the last four days, ever since her encounter with Brody. Every counter in her kitchen was covered in some treat or another. And that was after sharing with all of her neighbors, her friends and the senior center.

“Genna?” Mayor Tucker called around a mouthful of cookie. “Have you spoken to Lane again? Has he agreed to meet with me?”

Go back and see Brody? The man who made her insides melt, turned her body into a panting puddle of passion and then summarily rejected her?

No, no and hell, no. Genna tried to think of a polite way to reword that. Before she could, her father gave a garbled protest.

“What? You sent Genna to talk to him?” The sheriff straightened, his cookie crumbs blasting across the table. His face turned a worrying shade of red and his mouth worked as if he was chewing up words to keep from spitting them out.

Looks of shock and worry flew around the room.

“Of course,” the mayor said slowly. “That’s her job.”

Genna’s face heated. Unspoken, but heard loud and clear by everyone in the room, was that it was a job her father had actively solicited, then called on all his parental guilt pressure to get her to take.

“I don’t want her near Lane. The guy is a loser.”

It was too much. He decided her job. He tried to control her dating. And now he was railroading her boss as to what her duties were? Anger bubbled up, slow at first but rapidly heating.

Forgetting her desire to stay as far away from Brody as possible, Genna stepped forward to argue. Both against her father’s high-handed mandate as he continued to try to run her life, and at the idea that Brody was a loser.

Thankfully before she got a word out, and caused a scene that would send her father into yet another meltdown and her mother to the hospital to have her heart checked, someone cleared their throat.

“Brody Lane?” Stewart asked, confusion clear on his face. “The guy we’re planning a parade for? The navy SEAL recently recommended for a Silver Star?” He let the words hang in the room for a few seconds, then gave a baffled shake of his head. “That guy is a loser?”

“No, no,” Tucker broke in, giving the sheriff a quick glare before plastering over it with a cheesy smile. “That’s old history. Sheriff Reilly remembers when Brody Lane was a troubled teen, well before the U.S. Navy turned him around. It’s quite a rags-to-riches story. Something to include in the article, don’t you think?”

“Get him yourself, then. Genna’s not going near the guy.”

Holy crap, she was sick of men. Sick of them deciding what she could or should do. Sick of them treating her as if she couldn’t make her own decisions, or if she did, of them proving to her just how stupid some of those decisions might be.

“I’m standing right here,” she pointed out in her chilliest tone. “If you want me to do something, or would rather I didn’t, why don’t you tell me directly?”

“This doesn’t concern you, Genna,” her father said dismissively.

Genna’s jaw dropped. It wasn’t her reaction that goaded her father into recanting, though. It was the expressions on the rest of the faces in the room.

“What I mean is that protecting the citizens of Bedford is my job, and this is part of that,” he said, giving Genna a paternal look. The kind a proud father gives a little kid, loving and indulgent and just a little patronizing.

It made Genna want to throw a tantrum just to justify it.

But the minute she snapped, the family drama would start. Guilt, games, hospital trips. Every freaking time.

Her throat closed up and black dots danced in front of her vision. Genna felt as if she was choking. It was all she could do to breathe, which was probably just as well given the words that were trying to trip off her tongue.

Finally, she sucked in a deep breath, lifted her chin and gave her father a chilly smile.

“I guess you don’t need me, then, do you?”

Ignoring the uncomfortable looks ricocheting around the room, Genna packed up the rest of her cookies. They’d all gotten a big old dose of gossip fodder. They weren’t feasting on her baking, too.

The last thing she heard as she swept through the door with all the majesty of the princess title Brody had pinned on her was her father’s muttered words.

“I’m gonna kick Brody Lane’s ass.”

* * *

B
RODY
STOOD
BY
the small lake down the hill from the park, noting that the cattails were chest-high now and the surrounding trees had created a canopy overhead. He used to come down here with his buddies after dark to drink. Or, every once in a while, with a girl, since not much action could be had on the backseat of a Harley. Some enterprising kid had tied a rope to one branch, right above the no-swimming sign.

Bet the local law loved that.

He missed the ocean.

He missed activity.

Hell, he missed reveille, spot inspections and mess hall chow.

“So this is where you’re hiding?”

Brody sighed.

What he didn’t miss were people. Which was one of the reasons he’d chosen this side of the park. It was rarely populated.

“If I was hiding, you wouldn’t be able to find me.” He didn’t turn around when he said it, just kept staring at the murky water.

“You don’t look surprised to see me,” Masters said as he reached Brody’s side, mimicking his stance of both hands in his pockets staring over the lake.

“I heard you stomping down the path.” And he’d been expecting him. Irene had passed on a half dozen phone messages, each one more demanding than the last. Brody had ignored them, of course. But nobody put Masters off for long. If the guy wasn’t so brilliant, his call sign would be Bulldog instead of Genius.

“I came to haul you out of hiding.”

“I’m not hiding. I’m recovering.” Brody gestured to the uneven path. “Walking, working the kinks out, pushing my limits.”

“Moseying through a cozy small-town park at dusk pushes your limits?”

Brody shrugged.

Leaving the house pretty much pushed his limits these days.

“The doctor’s report said you’re ready for PT. Actually, I’m paraphrasing a little. What it said is that you should have reported to base to start thrice-weekly physical therapy a week ago, as soon as you got back to California.”

“I’m on leave.”

“Convalescent leave. Which, according to the manual, means you’re off duty but still obligated to fulfill your duties, such as they are laid out by your superior officer.”

“You read too much.”

“We’ve all got our faults.” Masters shrugged, kicking around the rocks and gravel beneath their feet.

“I figured I’d take another few days. Start physical therapy next week,” Brody said. Not really a lie. If he’d thought about it at all, he’d definitely have put it off.

“Why?”

Brody hunched his shoulders, glaring at the water and wishing he’d opted for a nice, anonymous hotel room in some remote city to recuperate. Masters still would have found him, but it’d have taken the guy a couple extra hours.

“I’m not ready.”

His teammate was silent for a few seconds, still stirring the rocks with his foot as if searching for gold. He bent down, grabbed a flat rock and sent it skipping over the lake. Three bounces. Not bad.

“PTSD?”

“I jacked up my leg,” Brody snapped. “Not my head.”

“Dude, that mission went straight to hell. Landon is still chewing on asses over the intelligence breakdown. And you bore the brunt of it. Nobody’d think less of you if you were having trouble processing it. There’s no shame in that.”

Brody puffed out a breath. He wasn’t dissing guys facing it. Post-traumatic stress disorder was real, and from what he’d seen, it was pure hell. He thought about pointing out that he’d gotten through debriefing just fine, but he knew Masters wouldn’t buy that. Debriefing didn’t mean jack. Guys came back from missions, left the military all the time with their heads inside out. A guy didn’t do or see the kind of things SEALs did without it taking a toll.