by Zoe York
Contents
Title Page
About This Book
Foreword
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
About The Author
FALL BACK
a SEALS UNDONE novella
by
Zoe York
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— FALL BACK —
When Navy SEAL Cade Duncan partners up with Mel Vincent for an endurance race, he doesn’t expect to tumble into a romantic fling in paradise—or to be so pissed with the beautiful woman when he finds out she’s been keeping secrets.
This book was first published in the Romancing the Alpha adventure romance boxed set.
The SEALs Undone Series
Fall Out - Drew and Annie
Fall Hard - Jared and Cassie
Fall Away - Trick and Gaby
Fall Deep - Miles and Piper
Fall Fast - Nathan and Emme
Fall Back - Cade and Mel
Fall Dark - Vince and Larken
— FOREWORD —
Many thanks to Edie Danford for editing this book, and the whole SEALs Undone series, and my Facebook reader group, The Wardham Ambassadors, for their support and encouragement.
I don't usually dedicate my SEALs Undone books, but this one is for my mom, who always wanted to go to Hawaii.
— ONE —
Melissa Vincent threw herself into the backseat of the taxi she’d just called, grateful that the driver had the air conditioning going full blast. It was a scorching August afternoon in Coronado Beach, and when she went flying into Cassie’s hospital room, she didn’t want to look like the panicky hot mess she felt inside.
“Balboa Hospital, please.” After giving directions to Navy Medical Center San Diego, she leaned back against the vinyl seat and closed her eyes. Please let Cassie and the baby be okay.
Her best friend had dealt with infertility through two marriages, and her first IVF treatment hadn’t worked. Now Cassie was thirty-two weeks pregnant, and everything had been going so smoothly. They’d gone swimming in the ocean just two days earlier, and the pretty blonde had rocked her baby bump in a cute two-piece.
They’d been celebrating the return of Cassie’s husband, a Navy SEAL, from overseas. Just when everything was supposed to be easy for Mel’s friend, now she was in the hospital? It wasn’t fair.
When traffic slowed to a snarl, she pulled out her phone and tried to distract herself with work, but the first email that popped up was a reminder about the Viking endurance race she’d signed up for with Jared, Cassie’s husband. Like that matters now.
The next email was from her most high-maintenance client, concerned that her cream walls were too creamy. Mel made a note to herself to check the lighting when she dropped off the fabric swatches—sometimes a couple more lamps made all the difference.
That reminded her to check in with her upholsterer, and that prompted a quick visit to her rug guy’s website—thank you, modern technology—and when the cab came to a stop in front of the hospital, she realized she’d actually gotten lost in work.
Good. Now the panic could begin in full earnest.
She tossed two twenties at the driver and scooted out of the car, her purse firmly in one hand, the piece of paper with Cassie’s room number in the other. Dashing around an older couple moving slowly, she found the elevators and pressed the button for the third floor.
“Come on, come on,” she muttered as the doors took their sweet time closing. Just as they jerked to life, a hand slid inside the car, causing the doors to open again. She bit back a sigh as a tall, dark-haired white guy stepped into the elevator. Shifting out of the way so he could press the button for his floor, she performed the little inventory she did on all hotties, because she wasn’t dead inside.
He looked like he could move mountains if he wanted to. Extra tall and built like a fortress, with thick, corded arms and a broad chest that stretched the limits of his t-shirt. She couldn’t help but notice how his torso tapered to narrow hips, then long legs. Even in this heat, he was wearing cargo pants and boots. Obviously military, although he wasn’t in uniform—Mel had flirted with enough sailors and Marines to know the type. He was as big as Cassie’s husband and seemed just as determined. That single-minded SEAL focus, Cassie called it.
This guy had that in spades; he didn’t even notice her. Instead he looked at the lit-up number three then hit the doors-closed button.
Of course they closed right away for him.
And still he didn’t glance her way. Oh well. It was for the best. If he did, she’d be obligated by her ovaries to flirt with him, and then it would be super rude when she ran away once the elevator got to the third floor.
But her best friend was in the hospital, with real lady-part problems, so Mel’s libido would have to take a back burner.
Ding. The elevator stopped on their floor, and Mr. Mountain Mover stalked off as soon as the doors slid open. He turned right without any of the where-the-hell-am-I hesitation Mel felt. She scanned for a sign pointing to Ward 3, then headed down the same hallway where the hot guy had disappeared. She found Labor & Delivery triage through a closed set of doors past the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The pictures of tiny babies in special incubators made her eyes burn. No way could her bestie be having a baby—her little boy wasn’t ready for the world yet.
As she entered the waiting area, she saw all the rooms were past a gatekeeper—the nurse at the desk.
And the gatekeeper was currently flirting with the guy from the elevator. Great.
“That’s fantastic,” he murmured as he looked at the other woman, holding her gaze like he was a hypnotist. His voice was as big and strong as the rest of him, and warm, too.
Mel edged around him and poked her face into the middle of the love fest because she didn’t have time to be polite. “Excuse me, I’m looking for Cassie Sutter?”
The hot guy glanced down at her and moved a few inches to his right. “Me too, actually. I’m Cade.”
Mel stared at the hand he was offering her, then back at the nurse, who gave her a polite smile. Did neither of them understand this was an emergency? She held up the piece of paper with Cassie’s room number on it. “If you could just point me in the right direction?”
The nurse opened her mouth, then snapped it shut, and pointed through the door to her side.
“Thanks,” Mel said, not sparing another second. She went into the triage space and looked at the room numbers outside the assessment rooms. Three, four, five…
“Slow down, hot shot,” a warm, sexy voice drawled from behind her. “She’s not in there.”
“What?” Mel stepped into the sixth room, Cassie’s room, and after finding it empty, whirled around to look at Mr. Mountain Mover—Cade—leaning in the doorway. “Where is she?”
“They took her to Imaging to have a more detailed ultrasound. So there’s no rush to get to an empty room.” His eyelids dropped, hooding his eyes as he gave her a slow grin. “That’s what that nurse would’ve told you in the waiting room if you hadn’t looked like you’d bite her head off.”
Mel straightened her spine and cocked her head. “I didn’t bite her head off.”
“Nope. But you sure looked like you wanted to.” He grinned. “That’s okay. You’re just worried about your friend. I ge
t it.”
She took a deep breath. Then another.
“You need to let those out in order for them to be effective,” he teased, moving closer to her.
Exhaling roughly, she nodded. “Right.”
“You’re close friends with Cassie?”
Another ragged nod. “I’m Mel. I assume you know Jared?”
“Yeah. We work together. Cassie is a sweetheart.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “The nurse was saying that she’s not in labor. So that’s good news.”
“Maybe.” There was a lot that could go wrong. Mel had read What to Expect When You’re Expecting from cover to cover. That book was terrifying. “Did she say how long they’d be?”
“Not long.”
“Do you know how hard it was for them to make this baby?” Mel asked, her voice wobbling.
“I do. Jared shared some of it. But this is a world-class medical facility. They’re in good hands.”
“How do you know that?” She wrapped her arms around herself to keep her hands from shaking. “I mean, isn’t this a teaching hospital? I don’t want people practicing on Cassie. I want experts.”
“They have those, too.” He laughed, a surprisingly gentle sound, and his green eyes crinkled at the corners. “I have a friend who’s an OB/GYN resident here. She’s scary smart and up to date on all the latest research. Trainees aren’t allowed to do anything they aren’t ready for.”
She could just imagine this guy—a Navy SEAL, calm under pressure—dating a doctor. They’d be cool and save the world together. She gave him a weak smile. “I hope that’s true.”
He twisted and glanced over his shoulder into the hall, then stepped out of the way. “Speak of the devil.”
Mel gasped as Cassie was pushed into the room in a wheelchair by a nurse, Jared close behind.
Her best friend rolled her eyes and gave her a broad smile. “Everything’s fine, Mel. They just make me sit in this because of silly hospital rules.”
“Have you seen a doctor yet? What’s going on?”
Jared helped Cassie onto the exam table, then took up a position next to her head, his hand firmly wrapped around his wife’s.
Cassie smoothed her hand over her belly. “My blood pressure was a bit high at our regular appointment at the clinic this morning. So the midwife sent me over here to be checked out a bit more thoroughly, and the first doctor we saw didn’t like something on the bedside ultrasound, so he was talking about admitting me to the antenatal ward.”
“But the baby’s not ready to be born yet!”
Jared made a low, reassuring sound and gave her a look.
Mel realized she’d just shrieked at the pregnant woman. “Sorry. I mean, this is a world-class medical facility and you’re in good hands. Of course.”
From the doorway, Cade chuckled, then swallowed the noise with an amused smile when Mel glared at him. The man put her on edge in a weird way, and today was not a great day for stress.
He straightened up like he knew he should make himself scarce and nodded to Jared. “If you’ve got a minute, can we talk about work?”
Jared kissed Cassie’s forehead. “I’ll be right ouside, okay?”
“Okay,” the blonde whispered, holding her husband’s gaze for a moment. Mel looked away, not wanting to intrude on their privacy.
— —
Cade paced in the hospital corridor, a rapid-deployment to-do list forming in his head. Get the pretty girl’s number was at the top of the list, even though it wasn’t operation-specific.
Cassie’s friend had caught his attention in the elevator before he knew she had any connection to his friends. Short, sweet curves poured into a white linen dress. Strappy heels. Glowing brown skin and dark, bouncy curls—she was gorgeous. But she’d had “leave me alone, I’m worried” plastered all over her, and he wasn’t a jerk, so he’d done just that. Plus he’d been on his own mission.
Now that he wasn’t some random creeper in an elevator, maybe—when the time was right—he could get some time alone with her.
But first he needed to go to Seattle for a joint-training exercise with the Canadian special forces. He was actually on two weeks of annual leave, but Jared had texted him, knowing that Cade wasn’t planning on doing anything with his time off.
“Thanks for doing this for me, man,” Jared said as he joined Cade in the hallway. “You’re the only extra body around right now, and I’d like to put forward a solution when I request to stay home.”
“No problem. I’m sure the LT will approve me switching my vacation to after the training exercise. You want to fill me in a bit on what’s gonna happen so I can hit the ground running?” Cade and Jared were on different SEAL teams. Jared’s team had recently returned from overseas, and Cade understood the broad strokes of the exercise—take their boots-on-the-ground operational knowledge and share it with their NATO allies through training exercises.
Cade’s team was currently tasked with shorter-term missions in the Pacific theater. He’d flown home two days earlier from Hawaii, where most of his team had stayed for some post-operation R&R. Trick Novak was planning to propose to his girlfriend. The only other team member who’d come back to the continental US was Nathan Meyers, and he’d headed straight to San Francisco to see his girlfriend.
Being single and without any vacation plans meant that Cade was Jared’s man.
“Okay, so the shit that went down in July. That’s the exercise—taking down that kind of brazen storming of the gates. Read the debrief notes before going into the prep for this exercise and you’ll be golden.” Jared’s team had been caught in the middle of an attack by ISIS insurgents on the front lines in northern Iraq. They’d fought back and reclaimed the checkpoint, but the reliance on allied forces to man the checkpoints needed to be revisited. And all NATO special forces needed to be better prepared for such failures. “Dumbrowski will take over as team leader for the exercise. I’ve already spoken to him.”
“Got it.”
“And if we can find Nash and haul him back, then you won’t be needed. But right now nobody officially knows where that asshole has disappeared to.”
Vince Nash was technically on leave, running up to his retirement. But leave and retirement were funny words in the Navy. Always at the pleasure of a commanding officer, all requests were liable to be rescinded at the first hint of a body being needed somewhere that wasn’t a beach.
Cade laughed because of course Jared knew—he was tight with Nash. “Where did he go?”
“You know Drew Castle?”
Cade did know Drew. He was a retired SEAL, now living in Los Angeles with his wife. “Yep.”
“Between you and me… Vince is going to work for Drew’s friend Rik Amundson. My brother’s on his team and they do good work.”
“The private black-ops guy.” Cade whistled. “Sweet gig for Nash.”
“Yeah. So I imagine he’s on that private Caribbean island right now, drinking mai tais and watching his cell phone wash away in the ocean.”
“Sounds like the right idea.” Cade laughed and bounced back, avoiding Jared’s jab to his shoulder. “Just kidding. I’d rather take down bad guys with you any day of the week.”
“Awesome. I owe you one. Just name your price.”
That was easy. “I want Mel’s number when I get back.”
Jared gave him a surprised look, then shrugged. “Sure, I can do that. But you’re not really her type.”
“Why the heck not?”
“Mel’s not big on guys in uniform.”
“What does that mean?”
Jared just shook his head. “I don’t know. And I’m not going to ask, either. It’s none of my business. But I’ll let her know you asked—”
“No, wait.” Cade’s brain was spinning. “Don’t do that. Not if she’s just going to say no based on some assumption of who I am.”
“Okay. Listen, I gotta get back in there.”
“Sure. I’m gonna get going. But when I get back…invite me over
for dinner, okay? And maybe her at the same time?”
Jared scrubbed his hand over his face, clearly not caring about Cade’s interest in Cassie’s friend. “Whatever. Definitely. Thanks again.”
Cade clapped his friend on the shoulder and watched him head back to his wife’s hospital room.
Not big on guys in uniform? He could imagine what she might assume. But once he got back, he was going to do his best to be a complete gentleman and get a date with the prettiest girl he’d seen in a long time.
He was a Navy SEAL. Nothing was impossible.
— —
Once Jared stepped outside to talk to the other SEAL, Cassie raised her arms, and Mel flew across the room to give her friend a great big hug. Gently.
“Really, I think everything is going to be okay. They’ve backed off on the talk about admitting me. It looks like I might just need to take a few months off work and chill at home. Sleep lots, drink heaps of water, and have Jared take me to the ocean each night.”
“The ocean?” Mel wasn’t sure that sounded like sound medical advice.
“Apparently immersion in water is good for the blood pressure. And the soul.”
“Isn’t he supposed to go to Washington for a training thing in a few days?” Mel squeezed her friend tighter. “I’ll fill in. I can take you to the ocean.”
Cassie laughed. “I think that’s why he called Cade. He’s going to see if Cade can help him get out of leaving town. When they were talking about admitting me, he asked where he would sleep. I doubt he’s going to let me out of his sight for long now. Which is crazy, because I did just fine for the last six months, but…”
Mel smiled as her friend trailed off. She got it. They had a special kind of love, that one-of-a-kind connection that most people would never experience. A love strong enough to sustain them through prolonged absences while Jared was away, or through medical challenges. A love that meant he’d only leave her side if he needed to, and when he had a choice, Cassie was always his first priority. Even when he was overseas, Mel knew that Jared had made sure his friends checked in on Cassie, and he’d left her little surprises to remind her of his love.
