Tempted by a SEAL (13 page)

Though technically it was him leaving her . . . to go to work at the Navy base before sunrise. That thought brought a frown back to her brow.

She’d have to look into this military stuff and see if that was normal. What she knew about the Navy came from what she’d seen on TV. But since she didn’t think Mack worked for the NCIS people, he wasn’t running off to solve crimes, so what was he doing?

If he wasn’t so willingly leaving her alone in his apartment she’d be suspicious he had a girlfriend or something. That would be easy enough to check out with his father, she supposed, unless this girl was a secret from his family too.

But then again, there’d be evidence of a woman here and there definitely wasn’t that Lydia could see.
 

Testing the theory, she moved closer to the nightstand. She glanced at the bathroom door. The water was still running so she got brave and pulled open the drawer just a bit.

The sound of the two double-A batteries rolling in the drawer seemed deafening in the quiet room. She hissed in a breath and glanced at the closed bathroom door again, as if Mack was going to come flying through it to catch her snooping.

She slid the drawer closed and breathed in, relieved but still baffled.

Two batteries. Probably left over from a four-pack he bought for his TV remote control, if she had to take a guess.

No junk. No pens or paper or tissues. Not even any condoms.

Still tired and cold, as well as perplexed, she crawled back into bed. Maybe Mack would decide not to go in and instead slip back under the covers with her.

Smiling at the thought, Lydia laid against the pillow.

The sound of the water stopped and after a few moments more, the doorknob of the bathroom jiggled.

She opened her eyes at the sound of Mack’s soft curse. He sat on the edge of the mattress and laid his hand on top of her leg. “You’re making it hard to leave.”

She wasn’t sure what about her being buried deep beneath his fluffy comforter was so tempting but she’d take the compliment. “Then don’t. Stay here.”

“I wish I could.” He sighed and glanced at the clock. “I’d better get going.”

“You don’t even have time for coffee?” She realized she didn’t know if he had coffee, but amazingly enough he did have a coffee maker. She’d seen it on the counter.

He shook his head as he stood. “No time.”

That answer saddened her. “Okay. I guess I’ll, uh . . . ”

What? Talk to him later? See him around their parents’ house at Christmas? She didn’t know the answer to that. Maybe he’d supply it.

Lydia left the sentence open ended but Mack didn’t fill in the blank. Instead he leaned in and while cupping her face with warm large palms, kissed her long and deep.

When he broke the kiss he stood and with a much too brief glance at her, breathless in the bed, said, “Bye.”

After a small lift of his lips into a smile, he turned and strode out the door.

She heard the apartment door slam seconds after that.

He was gone. And she was there, alone, in his apartment naked beneath his comforter.

Mack had to be the oddest man she’d ever met. This whole situation seemed extremely strange for a weekend fling—if indeed that’s what this was. Not that she had much to compare to as far as men or flings went.

Time to get dressed and head back to school, less for her classes and more for Marissa’s opinion. On Mack. On his leaving. On pretty much everything that had happened the past two days.

CHAPTER 13

The sun was up but not by much as Mack pulled his bike into the parking spot. He saw Rocky parking his truck a few spots away.
 

After pulling off his helmet, Mack lifted his chin in Rocky’s direction as the man ambled close. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Rocky returned the greeting as they turned as one toward the building. “So, what do you think we’re getting called in about? The hostage situation in Mali?”

Mack blew out a breath. “Who the hell knows? It could be anything.”

Turkey shooting a Russian bomber out of the sky.
 
Russia bombing Syria. Terrorist attacks on civilian targets in Paris, Mali, Egypt, to name a few, and that was all just in the past couple of weeks.

ISIS. Al-Assad. Peshmerga. France. Russia. Turkey. NATO. Mack was barely able to keep up with all the players and what was happening publicly in the world lately.

Add in everything happening around the globe behind the scenes, the stuff the press didn’t know about so they couldn’t splash it all over the media, and it added up to a clusterfuck worthy of Hollywood, only it was real.

There was no way Mack could be sure why his team had been called into a meeting hours earlier than he’d planned on being back on base any more than he knew where they’d be sent or why.

It would be pointless to even venture a guess. Whatever it was had to be important to yank the whole team in on a one-hour recall, just when he’d been hoping to spend the morning with Lydia.

Rocky drew in a deep breath and let it out. “I guess we’ll know soon enough.”

“Guess we will.” Mack made a rote response but his mind was elsewhere.

His thoughts were on the expression on Lydia’s face as he told her he had to leave early. At the odd way she looked at him when he said she should lock up when she left. On how he’d felt when he’d kissed her before they’d said goodbye.

He never invited women to spend the night, and now he was leaving this one alone in his apartment. What the hell was that about?

In his defense, she was family now, technically. It wasn’t odd to leave family alone at his place.

There was nothing normal about this situation. He couldn’t expect to feel the same as he usually did with women. That need to escape. Detach. Not let things get too serious.

Their parents were married. Couldn’t get much more serious than that, short of marrying her himself.

Banishing that insane, and thankfully fleeting thought from his mind, he grabbed the door Rocky held open for him and entered the building.

Like a switch had been flipped, his mind turned to work, his feet taking him without need for thought in the direction of the meeting room.

He’d changed teams but the nature of the job was still the same. Find the bad guys. Take them out. Repeat.

Simple.

Mack liked simple. As he pulled out a chair and took a seat to wait for the big revelation, he hoped he’d get it today with whatever command had in store for them.
 

Within moments, the unit was assembled.

Grant Milton, once again acting as the team’s commander after a hiatus in training, walked in and directly to the projector.

The photo of a man flashed onto the wall screen.

“Belgian-born French national Salah Abdeslam. Though probably not the mastermind behind the Paris attacks he was most definitely involved. His fingerprints were found in the vehicle that we believe dropped off two of the bombers. Another car he rented was discovered with three AK-47s in the trunk. Photos have surfaced of him purchasing ten detonators, in addition to batteries, at a store days before the Paris attacks. Our newest intel places him currently in Syria . . .”

With that one sentence spoken by his commander, Mack was ready to venture an answer to Rocky’s question.

If he wasn’t completely off base, his next stop would be Syria. Or more accurately, a location along the Syrian border. Possibly Turkey or Iraq. Maybe Jordan. Someplace close so they could get in and out quickly.
 

But a DEVGRU team being sent in to track down a suspect who was on the run? That seemed odd.

Yes, they’d gone in to get Bin Laden, but that was after the CIA spent a very long time gathering proof to confirm exactly where he was holed up.

Unless there was intel the commander hadn’t revealed yet, Mack wasn’t sure why they were being sent in at this time.

“. . . which will provide the perfect cover for us to be in the region.”

After that addition, the command’s intent couldn’t be more clear. The suspect being in Syria was an excuse.

No doubt catching the bastard was important, for international relations and morale, but that was only one part of their mission. They’d really be there to monitor what their allies were doing, not only against ISIS, but also against each other.

The commander went over some more details, concluding with the real information Mack had been waiting for. They’d be going wheels up in two hours, giving him just enough time to get his kit together, grab some food, and—thanks to his recent guilt over not making family a priority—call his dad.

That last item on his short to-do list gave Mack pause. He didn’t usually call home before a mission. Too many questions he wasn’t allowed to answer. Besides the fact that his father’s line wasn’t secure.

He didn’t really think the phones were being monitored, but that they could be was treading a dangerous line for operational security. The bad guys didn’t need to know where his unit was going or why, just that there were troops on the move.

There was another reason he was most likely—unless he talked himself out of it—going to call his dad. Mack didn’t want to admit it to himself, but he couldn’t deny it, he cared about what Lydia thought of him.

He didn’t want her to think he’d spent two nights with her, only to disappear without a word.

Worrying about hurting her feelings. Concern about her opinion of him. That was all shit he didn’t need on his mind when his team was headed to frigging Syria where there were multiple factions working against them.

This was why he didn’t date. This was why he shouldn’t have invited her into his place.

This was why he should do what a lot of the other guys did and stick to the pros for any physical needs or just have one-night stands with nameless women. Meanwhile, thanks to his father’s marriage, Lydia was anything but nameless.

Next to him, Rocky laughed. “Something wrong, Mack?”

“Why do you ask that?”

“Because that was one of the more creative curses I’ve heard come out of you.”

“Was it?” Mack had left the meeting room deep in thought. Apparently he’d been mumbling to himself loud enough for Rocky to notice.

“Oh, yeah. It was almost worthy of the Cassidy brothers and you know they’re southern so they’ve got a lock on
creative cussing
as Brody puts it.”

Mack had to laugh at that. “I just got some shit happening at home.”

“At home, huh. There a new lady in your life I don’t know about?”

That elicited a snort as Mack tried to determine the answer to Rocky’s question.

“No . . . Maybe.” He ran his hand over his face. “Christ. It’s too complicated to get into now.”

Rocky grinned. “Complicated. Sounds interesting. I can’t wait to hear all about it.”

He rolled his eyes. Problems or not, talking about his personal life with his teammates was the last thing Mack intended to do. “I gotta make a quick call.”

“All righty. Say hi to her for me.”

Mack shook his head and walked away without comment, not willing to give Rocky the satisfaction of an answer.

He pulled his cell out of his pocket as he turned down the hallway toward the equipment room. After hitting send he pressed the phone to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Dad. Hey, it’s me.”

“James. Hello.” The surprise in his father’s tone was obvious.

Okay, maybe that was justified. His calls home lately had been few and far between. He was a good SEAL but he was a shit son, he supposed. He wasn’t sure it was possible to be good at both.

“What’s up?” his father asked.

“Not much. Thanks for brunch yesterday. It was, uh, fun.”

“Good. I’m glad you enjoyed it. Laurie and I will have to wrangle you and Liddy together and do it again real soon.”

Liddy
. Who was likely still in his bed where he’d done things to her no mother or father would be happy knowing about.

Mack tried to not choke on that knowledge as he pretended everything was normal. That Lydia was just a new acquaintance he’d met at brunch. A girl who also happened to be his stepsister. “Uh, yeah. That’d be good. But let me call you before you make any plans. Okay?”