Garret clenched his ivory veneers together.
“Yvette, go put some clothes on right now.”
Pouting, his nineteen-year-old daughter slunk back into the sprawling estate, but Garret could not help but watch after her with affection.
Unlike her older brother, Yvette was the spitting image of Garret with her thick wheat-blonde hair and blazing blue eyes. Moreover, she was a fighter like him, unlike the insipid Zave who was content to watch the world slip through his fingertips.
Thanks to Lisbeth’s incessant coddling, Zave turned out to be weak, effeminate and useless. There is no training for making him a man. He is a momma’s boy and always will be; Garret thought with distain. There was no time to reprimand Zave; Jorge was steering the boat into a clearer view.
Garret could make out two figures seated behind the driver. He desperately wanted to get a proper glimpse of Dylan McMaster before he arrived. While he had developed an impressive mental image of the man, Garret had no real idea what to expect.
I bet he looks like a tank. Shaved head, tattoos. Never smiles, Garret surmised.
“Zave, stand up,” Garret growled, stalking toward the end of the pier to meet the incoming vehicle. He did not bother to turn, knowing that his eldest child would eventually lumber reluctantly to his feet.
In thirty years, I will be dead, and the Elgin empire will be in the hands of that ungrateful boy. There is still hope for Evie though. I should focus more attention on training her.
But Yvette was not without her flaws.
She is young. She’ll get over this trust fund kid attitude and embrace her inner Elgin soon enough.
He fought back a wave of depression as he considered his options.
A marijuana smoking dandy or an actual girl. Grandfather Elgin will never let me hear the end of it in Hell.
It wasn’t his fault he was the only living heir to the Elgin empire. By all rights, Garret should have had siblings, a cousin with whom to share the burden of a company that size but he was alone in the world.
Maybe I should have another child, he mused. But given my track record, I don’t have a lot of faith in the odds.
He reasoned that it was Lisbeth’s genes who had tainted Zave and Yvette. A true Elgin would fall happily into his reign.
Maybe, my next wife, he thought sarcastically. After the mess with Sonia, he wasn’t even sure he would date another woman. Marriage was completely out of the question.
And if I were to remarry again, who knows if she wouldn’t just do what Sonia did and opt out of having children once she got that ring on her finger.
Garret shoved the woes of his legacy and love life aside, craning his neck to see the boat better. They were mere miles off shore, and he found it was becoming more difficult to breathe with each moment. His desire to meet Dylan McMaster was unlike anything he could remember experiencing as if he was a child waiting to meet a movie star or rock icon, but there was a good reason for this.
Dylan had come highly recommended through dark channels, and Garret had trusted the source who had cited war accolades, a military background, martial arts training and sniper credentials. When Garret went searching for more information on Dylan, he could find nothing about the man. There was no mistake; Dylan McMaster had to be a real person given the source of the reference, but Garret surmised Dylan was merely a pseudonym.
It would have to be – the man faces danger every day of his life. He’s like the real-life G.I. Joe.
Garret glanced nervously at his son, glad that the younger man could not hear his child-like thought.
Water sprayed up gently as Jorge brought the boat toward where he stood.
“How do I look, daddy?” Yvette chirped in his ear, but Garret could not pull his eyes away from the boat. Hunter Burnwich, his assistant, had ridden to the mainland to bring Dylan back, and he had risen to his feet, blocking his view of the visitor.
“Daddy?” Evie called in a singsong voice. “How do I look?”
“Great, Princess,” he replied absently, silently will Hunter to move his weasel-like frame.
“You’re not even looking!” Yvette protested, and Garret knew she would not stop until he doled her with the proper attention.
He spun in annoyance but softened instantly when he saw her in a white knit sundress and a floppy sunhat. He was somehow reminded of her at two or three years old playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes.
“You really do look beautiful, sweetheart,” he told her earnestly, placing a kiss on her soft, sweet smelling cheek. She truly was the apple of his eye.
“What about me? How do I look, daddy?” Zave asked, mimicking his sister’s nectar laced voice. Garret lost his smile of endearment and glowered at Zave, taking in his son’s wrinkled cargo shorts and a tank top.
“You could have gone back to change too. This meeting with this man is very important,” he growled. To his irritation, Zave’s face lit up into a bemused grin as he stared at the docked boat.
“That man?” he asked innocently, raising his finger to point. Yvette looked embarrassed and shifted her eyes, and Garret was filled with a sense of dread before spinning back toward the boat.
Jorge and Hunter were already on the sturdy wood, Hunter leaning forward to help a stunning redhead out. She waved them aside, seeming annoyed with the excess of attention.
Garret strode forward, his mouth a terse line of anger.
“Who the hell is this and where the hell is Dylan McMaster?” he hissed at his long-time assistant. Hunter peered at him as the shapely beauty straightened and adjusted her sunglasses. She reached into the boat and grabbed her duffle bag, and Garret noticed as Jorge ogled at her tight jeans.
“What?” Hunter replied, blinking in confusion. He looked at the woman and back at his employer.
“What do you mean what?” Garret roared. “Who are you? Where is Dylan McMaster?”
The woman snorted and lowered her shades to stare at him balefully.
“I am Dylan McMaster,” she replied, her green eyes ablaze.
Chapter Two
“Are you sure about this, Dylan? The guy is just about the biggest asshole in the western hemisphere.”
Dylan sat back on the sofa and grinned, her slightly askew smile meeting her emerald green eyes fully.
“Ah, but those are the most fun,” she replied, winking at her best friend and raising her glass in a toast. “And they have the most money.”
“He’s the wealthiest man in the world,” Jasmin commented, staring at the computer screen and taking a sip of her wine idly. Dylan guffawed at Jasmin’s exaggeration.
“He is not,” she replied, chortling. “But he’s up there.”
“What does he want from you?” Jasmin asked, her dark brown eyes lit with liquor and impishness. “Do you suppose he’s looking for a sugar baby?”
Dylan groaned and whipped a pillow across the room which didn’t land anywhere near the Black Goddess. The effects of the last glass of wine were beginning to take their toll on her aim.
“If he does, you’ll be the first person I text,” the fiery redhead responded, stretching out on the red leather couch. “Although I don’t know how Harry will feel about that.”
“Hey, if I can’t tell anyone about your covert missions to God knows where you can’t tell Harry that I’m looking for a sugar daddy.”
Dylan snorted and rolled her eyes.
“You’re lucky that man puts up with you. I would have murdered you long ago if you were my woman.”
“That ship sailed in high school, Dy. You snooze, you lose,” Jas fired back. “Now I am a lowly married woman who lives a boring life in Colonial Beach while you sail around the world like a pirate.”
Dylan chuckled.
“A pirate, huh? My dad would be so proud.”
Jasmin turned to face her friend from her spot at the dining room table; her ebony eyes shadowed with seriousness.
“It must be something big if Garret Elgin is calling,” she sighed. Dylan sh
rugged indifferently.
“Whatever it is, I’ve got it. Don’t worry.”
“How can I not worry?” Jasmin snapped, irritated with Dylan’s flip tone. “When are you going to get this out of your system and get a normal job?”
“A pirate can never retire from the high seas, argh!” Dylan chortled drunkenly, but Jasmin was not impressed.
“Dylan, seriously. You’ve been in mourning over Ollie long enough. This is going to kill you.”
Maybe that’s the point, Dylan thought grimly, but she forced a smile on her lips. Jasmin did not need any more reasons to worry about her.
“You sound like my mother,” Dylan replied lightly, but she felt her back tense. It was not an unfamiliar conversation. She and Jasmin had gone back and forth on her career choice more times than Dylan cared to recall.
“Your mother is a smart woman with a nine to five job,” Jasmin shot back. “A woman who would die a thousand deaths if she knew what you were doing for a living.”
“It’s funny, isn’t it?” Dylan commented, switching to a seated position so she could meet Jasmin’s gaze.
“What?”
“When I went on tour when I was on the front lines dodging bullets and pulling bodies from bombed out buildings, everyone thought that was patriotic but this, this is awful and dangerous somehow. A little bit of a double standard, isn’t it?”
As if she sensed the anger in Dylan’s voice, Jasmin’s face softened.
“I didn’t want you to join the army either, Dy,” she answered. “For the same reason. And after what happened to Oliver…”
The women held each other’s gaze for a moment until Dylan shifted her eyes away.
Please don’t bring up Ollie. I don’t want to talk about that tonight. I am just starting to feel normalish again.
Dylan was lying to herself – she doubted she would ever feel normal again.
“Anyway, you’re making a big deal out of nothing. Sometimes these bigwigs want extra padding when they’re entertaining delegations, or someone important is coming in from overseas.”
“What else do you know about the job?”
What else do I know? Dylan thought. I know that someone very high in the government called me yesterday and told me I am taking a plane to Belize tomorrow. I know I am meeting Garret Elgin. I know I was told to come fully stocked. That is the extent of my knowledge.
Of course, she said none of these things to Jasmin.
“I’m going to Belize,” Dylan offered. “Or, just off the coast of Belize. Elgin has his own island.”
“Yeah,” Jas muttered, glancing at the Google search. “Urchin Caye.”
“See? You know more than I do,” Dylan joked.
“I shouldn’t,” Jasmin answered flatly. Dylan could tell her friend was drunk and a lecture was on the horizon.
“I should get going,” Dylan said smoothly, standing and stretching. “I’m beat.”
“Stay here. I’ll drive you to the airport tomorrow.”
Dylan almost laughed aloud.
“I’m not leaving out of the airport,” she replied, swallowing a smile. “And I have some packing to do.”
She averted her eyes, worried that Jasmin would read something in her irises but the caramel skinned vixen only nodded, also rising. Jasmin had learned long ago not to question Dylan too pressingly. It would only serve to shut her down and Jasmin knew bringing her best friend back from that place was a daunting, horrific task.
She had done it after Oliver died.
“Will you call me when you get to Central America?” she asked, and Dylan nodded quickly.
“Of course,” she replied, doling out a dutiful kiss on Jasmin’s flawless cheek. She had no way of knowing if she could honor that promise. Sometimes it was not feasible to communicate with the outside world when she was on jobs but explaining that to Jas while she was in that state was futile and would only result in an argument.
Dylan bid goodbye to her best friend and slipped out into the hot August air, deciding to walk home. It was only twelve blocks, and she could use the time to clear her head. Hailing a cab in their small town would take more time than the walk anyway.
The insomnia was inevitable, so she was in no rush to stare at the walls of her apartment until the black car arrived at four o’clock in the morning to pick her up.
Maybe I should have stayed at Jas’. I could use the company.
While she would never admit it to Jasmin, she had a bad feeling about what she was walking into with Garret Elgin.
Probably an assassination attempt, she reasoned. He would have his own security for officials. They don’t call in the big guns for private parties.
She made her way down 7th Street toward Beach Avenue, inhaling the sweet Virginia air. Dylan had lived in Colonial Beach for one year, and it was her favorite place yet.
After being discharged three years earlier, she had bounced around from city to city, country to country, hoping to find a place to call home. Yet everywhere she went, she saw her dead husband’s face.
“Come to Colonial Beach,” Jasmin had begged her. “Once you come, you’ll never want to leave.”
And she had been right, but Dylan could not be sure if that was because of her best friend or if she genuinely loved the town.
The loneliness seemed bearable in her small apartment, steps from Jasmin’s modest house.
When I retire, I will buy a property here on the Potomac and watch the riverboats cruise by all day long, she vowed. If I live that long.
Virginia had also made the most sense when she had ventured into the private sector. She was close to DC and her handful of very loyal clients. It also made flying in and out of the country undetected much easier.
Jasmin is not wrong. You can’t do this forever. One day you’re going to get shot or maimed, and you’ll be forced to work a nine to five just like your mom.
The thought filled her with dread; the mundane desk job, not being injured.
I better pray that I just get killed and not injured, she thought wryly.
Living a life of action/adventure was in her blood. She and her brother had been army brats, moving from country to country with their marine father while their mother quietly filed for a divorce.
Dylan’s brother, Fletcher had been abhorred by violence; as a result moving back to Wisconsin with their mother at first opportunity. Dylan had graduated from high school and promptly enlisted in the army to her father’s chagrin.
“You’re a navy girl!” he had whined. “How can you join the army?”
“The sea is boring,” Dylan had replied, relishing the look of shock on her father’s face. Yet she had meant it. She wanted to be on the ground in hand to hand combat.
The grass is always greener, she thought bitterly, trying to force back the images of the war-torn Middle East.
The sight of Ollie’s bloodied, broken body was forever etched in her psyche.
She had done well in the army, earning several accolades including a Purple Heart but Dylan’s spirit was growing shattered, and her husband’s death had given her the reason she needed to pack up and never look back to the military.
“We will miss you, Captain McMaster,” her staff officer told her sincerely, and she believed him. Despite the chauvinism and harassment, she had endured, she was the best soldier in their squad.
I can always go back if I get sick of the private sector, she tried to reason as she turned onto Myers Avenue. It was another lie. She would never go back. Not without her husband at her side.
Her rented house was on the left and Dylan slipped onto the porch and unlocked the front door.
In truth, Colonial Beach was so safe, none of her neighbors locked their doors, and they broadcasted the fact openly.
When I am retired, I will also leave my door unlocked, she thought, flipping on the light to the hallway. On the right was her basement and she tripped down the stairs into the dank belly of the house.
Directly in front of her was anot
her locked door which she opened, pausing to flip on a light before standing back. Dylan sighed inwardly at she looked at the arsenal before her.
Of course, when I am retired, I hopefully won’t have a use for semiautomatic assault rifles in my house.
Mr. X’s plane was a smooth, luxurious ride. She had taken it several times before, but there was something different about the trip to Belize.
Mr. X was not on the plane.
His name was not truly Mr. X of course, and he knew that Dylan knew who he was but he preferred the game of secrecy and she respected his wishes. He was, after all, her biggest supporter.
If one of the most recognizable faces in the world wants to be known as Mr. X, I am not one to argue. If he keeps spreading my name around, I will call that loony old bat anything he wants to be called.
She had been fortunate to land him as a client. She had anticipated that being a woman would put a damper on her business, but Mr. X had seen to it that she was never without rent.
She never really knew how he had learned of her and truthfully all his security gigs seemed a waste of time which led Dylan to believe that someone high up in the army had set up the serendipitous encounter. Still, she was appreciative of the guardian angel, and she dared not look a gift horse in the mouth. He was her bread and butter after all.
It’s almost getting to be too much now, she thought, but she instantly silenced herself. The grass is always greener with you, Dylan.
Typically, Mr. X would accompany her to unknown clients, but this time he had not come along. It made no distinctive difference to Dylan. She did not need an introduction. She was told that a man named Hunter Burnwich would be meeting her on the mainland and they would be boating to Urchin Caye, Garret Elgin’s private island.
I wonder if Garret Elgin is as insufferable as his reputation.
Dylan was apt to believe that people did not earn notoriety based on one or two experiences but rather through a mass of opinions. Stereotypes were not necessarily prejudice in her experience, and they should be taken seriously.
In other words, this man is going to be a giant thorn in my side.
It was nothing Dylan had not encountered; the pompous, arrogant and rude were commonplace in her line of work, but in the end, everyone seemed to agree that safety was more important than quibbling.
The Lost Seal: A Seal Romance Page 12
