Taylor's Temptation

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “How’s the shoulder?” the admiral interrupted. Admirals were allowed to interrupt whenever they wanted.

  “Much better, sir,” Bobby lied. It was exactly like Admiral Robinson to have made certain he’d be informed about the injuries of anyone on the SEAL teams—and to remember what he’d been told.

  “These things take time.” It was also like Robinson to see through Bobby’s lie. “Slow and steady, Taylor. Don’t push it too hard.”

  “Aye, sir. Admiral, I had no idea that your secretary would patch me through here, to your home.”

  “Well, you called to talk to me, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, sir, but you’re an admiral, sir, and—”

  “Ah.” Robinson laughed. “You wanted it to be harder to reach me, huh? Well, if you need me to, I’ll call Dottie in my office and tell her to put you on hold for a half an hour.”

  Bobby had to laugh, too. “No, thank you. I’m just…surprised.”

  “I don’t take everyone’s call,” Jake Robinson’s voice was serious now. “In fact, Dottie’s probably kissed off half a dozen captains, commanders and lieutenant commanders already this morning. But when I set up the Gray Group, Chief, I made a point to make myself available 24/7 to the men I call to go out on my missions. You work for me—you need me? You got me. You probably don’t know it, but you were on a Gray Group mission when you were injured. That cycled your name to the top of the list.”

  “I wasn’t told, but…I knew.”

  “So talk to me, Chief. What’s going on?”

  Bobby told him. “Sir, I’ve become aware of a situation in which a dozen U.S. citizens—mostly students from here in Boston—are about to walk into Tulgeria with a single, locally hired armed guard.”

  Robinson swore, loudly and pungently.

  Bobby told the admiral about the earthquake relief organization. About the bus and the children in the orphanage. About the fact that these American Good Samaritans were not going to be talked out of making this trip.

  “What’s your connection to this group, Chief?” Robinson asked. “Girlfriend?”

  “Negative, sir,” Bobby said hastily. “No, it’s Wes Skelly’s sister. She’s one of the volunteers who’s going.”

  “What, did Skelly send you to Boston to talk her out of it?” Robinson laughed. “God, you’re a good friend to him, Bobby.”

  “He’s out of the country, Admiral, and I had the time. Besides, he’d do the same for me.”

  “Yeah, and I suspect your sister is a little easier to handle than this sister of Skelly’s—what’s her name?”

  “Colleen, sir.”

  “Is Colleen Skelly as much like her brother as I’m imagining her to be, God help us all?”

  Bobby laughed again. “Yes and no, sir. She’s…” Wonderful. Beautiful. Amazingly sexy. Intelligent. Perfect. “She’s special, sir. Actually, she reminds me of Zoe in a lot of ways. She’s tough, but not really—it’s just a screen she hides behind, if you know what I mean.”

  “Oh, yes. I do.” The admiral laughed softly. “Oh, boy. So, I know it’s none of my business, but does Wes know that you’ve got a thing for his sister?”

  Bobby closed his eyes. Damn, he’d given himself away. There was no point in denying it. Not to Jake. The man may have been an admiral, but he was also Bobby’s friend. “No, he doesn’t.”

  “Hmm. Does she know?”

  Good question. “Not really.”

  “Damn.”

  “I mean, she’s incredible, Jake, and I think—no, I know she’s looking for a fling. She’s made that more than clear but I can’t do it, and I’m…”

  “Dying,” Jake supplied the word. “Been there, done that. If she really is anything like Zoe, you don’t stand a chance.” He laughed. “Colleen Skelly, huh? With a name like that, I’m picturing a tiny redhead, kind of built like her brother—compact. Skinny. With a smart mouth and a temper.”

  “She’s a redhead,” Bobby said. “And you’re right about the mouth and the temper, but she’s tall. She might even be taller than Wes. And she’s not skinny. She’s…” Stacked. Built like a brick house. Lush. Voluptuous. All those descriptions felt either disrespectful or as if he were exchanging locker-room confidences. “Statuesque,” he finally came up with.

  “Taller than Wes, huh? That must tick him off.”

  “She takes after their father, and he’s built more like their mother’s side of the family. It ticks Colleen off, too. She’s gorgeous, but she doesn’t think so.”

  “Genetics. It’s proof that Mother Nature exists,” Jake said with a laugh. “She’s got a strong sense of irony, doesn’t she?”

  “I need you to help me, sir.” Bobby brought their conversation back to the point. “Colleen’s determined to go to Tulgeria. This whole trip is an international incident waiting to happen. If this isn’t something you want to get Alpha Squad or the Gray Group involved in, then I’m hoping you can give me—”

  “It is,” the admiral said. “Protection of U.S. citizens. In a case like this I like to think of it as preventative counterterrorism. The Tulgerian government will bitch and moan about it, but we’ll get you in. We’ll tell the local officials that we need two teams,” he decided. “One’ll accompany Colleen Skelly and her friends, the other’ll go in covert. The timing is really good on this, Taylor. You’re actually the one doing me the favor here.”

  Admiral Robinson didn’t say it. He couldn’t say it, but Bobby knew he was going to use this seemingly standard protection op as a chance to send in an additional highly covert and top-secret team on an entirely different mission. It was probably related to the ongoing investigation of those rumors that the Tulgerian government was mass slaughtering its own citizens.

  God, what a world.

  “Alpha Squad will be back from their current training op in three days, tops,” Robinson continued. “I’ll have them rerouted here to the East Coast—to Little Creek. We’ll both meet them there, Chief, you’ll fill them in and work out a plan, then bring them back up to Boston to hash out the details with Colleen Skelly and her idealistic friends.”

  The admiral wanted Bobby to be part of the op. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “I may have misled you about the status of my shoulder. I still have limited movement and—”

  “I’m thinking you’re valuable because you’ve already established rapport with the civilians,” Jake cut him off. “But I’ll let it be your choice, Bobby. If you don’t want to go—”

  “Oh, no sir, I want to go.” It was a no-brainer. He wanted to be there, himself, to make sure Colleen stayed safe.

  Yes, it would have been easier to toss the entire problem into Admiral Robinson’s capable hands and retreat, swiftly and immediately, to California. But Wes would be back in three days. Bobby could handle keeping his distance from Colleen for three days.

  Couldn’t he?

  “Good,” Jake said. “I’ll get the ball rolling.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Before you go, Chief, want some unsolicited advice?”

  Bobby hesitated. “I’m not sure, sir.”

  The admiral laughed—a rich burst of genuine amusement. “Wrong answer, Taylor. This is one of those times that you’re supposed to ‘Aye, aye, sir’ me, simply because I’m an admiral and you’re not.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “Trust your heart, Chief. You’ve got a good one, and when the time comes, well, I’m confident you’ll know what to do.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “See you in a few days. Thanks again for the call.”

  Bobby hung up the phone and lay back on his hotel room bed, staring up the ceiling.

  When the time comes, you’ll know what to do.

  He already knew what he had to do.

  He had to stay away from Colleen Skelly, who thought—God help them both—that she wanted him.

  What did she know? She was ridiculously young. She had no clue how hard it was to sustain a relationship over long distances. S
he had no idea how difficult it was for anyone to be involved with a SEAL, let alone someone ridiculously young. She was mistaking her desire for a physical relationship with a man she had a crush on, with her very real need for something more powerful and more permanent.

  She said she wanted passion—well, he could give her that. He had no doubt. And maybe, if he were really lucky, she’d be so completely dazzled that she’d fall in love with him.

  Yeah, right, then where would she be? In love with a man who spent most of his time out of the country with her brother—provided her brother would ever forgive him enough to speak to him again. But the key words there were out of the country. Colleen would get tired of that fast enough.

  Eventually she’d be so tired of being second place in his life that she’d walk away.

  And he wouldn’t stop her.

  But she’d want him to. And even though she was the one who left him, she’d end up hurt.

  The last thing he wanted in the world was to leave her hurt.

  Follow your heart. He would. Even though it meant killing this relationship before it even started. Even though it was the hardest thing he’d ever done.

  Colleen slid the back door of the truck closed with a resounding bang.

  “Okay,” she said, as she attached a combination lock that was more to keep the door from bouncing open as they drove into Boston than to deter thieves. “Did someone lock my apartment?”

  Kenneth looked blankly at Clark, and Clark looked blankly at Kenneth.

  Colleen gave up on them and looked at Bobby, who nodded. “I took care of it,” he said.

  It was no surprise. He was dependable. Smart. Sexier than a man had the right to be at ten in the morning.

  Their eyes met only briefly before he looked away—still it was enough to send a wave of heat through her. Shame. Embarrassment. Mortification. What exactly had she said to him last night? I want you. In broad daylight, she couldn’t believe her audacity. What had she been thinking?

  Still, he was here. He’d shown up bright and early this morning, hot cup of coffee in hand, to help lug all of the boxes of emergency supplies out of her living room and into the Relief Aid truck.

  He’d said hardly anything to her. In fact, he’d only said, “Hi,” and then got to work with Clark and Kenneth, hauling boxes down the entryway stairs and out to the truck. Bad shoulder or not, he could carry two at once without even breaking a sweat.

  Colleen had spent the past ninety minutes analyzing that “Hi,” as she’d built wall upon wall of boxes in the back of the truck. He’d sounded happy, hadn’t he? Glad to see her? Well, if not glad to see her, he’d sounded neutral. Which was to say that at least he hadn’t sounded unhappy to see her. And that was a good thing.

  Wasn’t it?

  Everything she’d said to him last night echoed in her head and made her stomach churn.

  Any minute now they were going to be alone in the truck. Any minute now he was going to give her the friends speech, part two. Not that she’d ever been persistent and/or stupid enough before to have heard a part-two speech. But she had a good imagination. She knew what was coming. He would use the word flattered in reference to last night’s no-holds-barred, bottom-line statement. He would focus on their differences in age, in background, in everything.

  One major difference between them that she already knew was that she was an idiot.

  Colleen climbed in behind the wheel and turned the key. Bobby got in beside her, picking her backpack up off the floor and placing it between them on the wide bench seat, like some kind of protective shield or definitive border.

  She and her brother Ethan and her sister Peg, both who’d been closest to her in age among the seven Skelly children, had made similar boundaries in the far back seat of their father’s Pontiac station wagon. Don’t cross this line or else.

  “Hey,” Clark shouted over the roar of the diesel engine. “Can we bum a ride into Kenmore Square? You’re going that way, right?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Squeeze in.”

  She felt Bobby tense. And then he moved. Quickly. He opened the passenger-side door, and would have leaped out to let the younger men sit in the middle—no doubt to keep from sitting pressed up against her—but Kenneth was already there, about to climb in.

  As Colleen watched, Bobby braced himself and slid down the seat toward her.

  She took her pack and set it on the floor, tucked between the seat and her door.

  He moved as close as he possibly could without touching her. It was amazing, really, that he could be that close yet have absolutely no physical contact.

  He smelled like baby shampoo and fresh laundry with a hint of the coffee that he seemed to drink each morning by the gallon. His hair was back in a ponytail again. She couldn’t imagine him letting her braid it later today. She couldn’t do it now, not the way they were sitting. And she knew that after Clark and Kenneth got out of the truck, Bobby wasn’t going to let her get close enough to braid his hair ever again—not after what she’d said to him last night.

  “Sorry,” she said, her voice low. “I guess I must have embarrassed you to death last night.”

  “You scared me to death,” he admitted, his voice pitched for her ears only. “Don’t get me wrong, Colleen, I’m flattered. I really am. But this is one of those situations where what I want to do is completely different from what I should do. And should’s got to win.”

  She looked up at him and found her face inches from his. A very small number of inches. Possibly two. Possibly fewer. The realization almost knocked what he’d just said out of her mind. Almost.

  What he wanted to do, he’d said. True, he’d used the word flattered as she’d expected, but the rest of what he was saying was…

  Colleen stared at that mouth, at those eyes, at the perfect chin and nose that were close enough for her to lean forward, if she wanted to, and kiss.

  Oh, she wanted to.

  And he’d just all but told her, beneath all those ridiculous shoulds, that he wanted her, too. She’d won. She’d won!

  Look at me, she willed him, but he seemed intent upon reading the truck’s odometer. Kiss me.

  “I spoke to Admiral Robinson, who greenlighted U.S. military protection for your trip,” he continued. “He wants me to remain in place as liaison with your group, and, well—” his gaze flicked in her direction “—I agreed. I’m here. I know what’s going on. I have to stick around, even though I know you’d rather I go away.”

  “Whoa, Bobby.” She put her hand on his knee. “I don’t want you to go anywhere.”

  He glanced at her briefly again as he gently took her hand and deposited it back into her own lap. “The thing is…” He fixed his gaze on a point outside the truck. “I can’t stay in the, uh—” he closed his eyes briefly “—the capacity in which you want me to stay.”

  She laughed in disbelief. “But that’s crazy!”

  He leaned forward to look out the passenger-side door, checking to see why Clark was taking so long to get in. Her roommate’s brother was holding on to the door, blue head down, intent upon scraping something off the bottom of his shoe. “The admiral told me that Wes’ll be back in about three days,” Bobby told her.

  Three days. That meant they didn’t have a lot of time to—

  “Once he’s back, it’ll be easier for me to, you know, do the right thing. Until then…”

  “Do the right thing?” she repeated, loudly enough that Kenneth looked uncomfortable. “How could this,” she gestured between them, “not be the right thing when everything about it feels so perfect?”

  Bobby glanced back toward Kenneth and Clark before finally meeting and holding her gaze. “Please, Colleen, I’m begging you—don’t make this more difficult for me than it has to be,” he said, still softly, and she knew, just like that, that she hadn’t won. She’d lost. He wanted her, too, but he was begging her—begging her—not to push this attraction that hung between them too far.

  He wanted her, but he
didn’t want her. Not really. Not enough to let what he was feeling take priority over all their differences and all his asinine personal rules.

  Colleen felt like crying. Instead she forced a smile. “Too bad, Taylor, it would have been amazingly great,” she told him.

  His smile was forced, too. He closed his eyes, as if he couldn’t bear looking at her, and shook his head slightly. “I know,” he said. “Believe me, I know.”

  When he opened his eyes, he looked at her, briefly meeting her gaze again. He was sitting close—close enough for her to see that his eyes truly were completely, remarkably brown. There were no other flecks of color, no imperfections, no inconsistencies.

  But far more hypnotizing than the pure, bottomless color was the brief glimpse of frustration and longing he let her see. Either on purpose or accidentally, it didn’t matter which.

  It took her breath away.

  “I need about three more inches of seat before I can close this door,” Clark announced. He shifted left in a move reminiscent of a football player’s offensive drive, making Kenneth yelp and ramming Bobby tightly against Colleen.

  Completely against Colleen. His muscular thigh was wedged against her softer one. He had nowhere to put his shoulder or his arm, and even though he tried to angle himself, that only made it worse. Suddenly she was practically sitting in the man’s lap.

  “There,” Clark added with satisfaction as he closed the truck door. “I’m ready, dudes. Let’s go.”

  Just drive. Colleen knew the smartest thing to do was to just drive. If traffic was light, it would take about fifteen minutes to reach Kenmore Square. Then Clark and Kenneth would get out, and she and Bobby wouldn’t have to touch each other ever again.

  She could feel him steaming, radiating heat from the summer day, from the work he’d just done, and he shifted, trying to move away, but he only succeeded in making her aware that they both wore shorts, and that his bare skin was pressed against hers.

  She was okay, she told herself. She’d be okay as long as she kept breathing.

  Colleen reached forward to put the truck into drive. Raising her arm to hold the steering wheel gave Bobby a little more space—except now his arm was pressed against the side of her breast.