by Paige Tyler
He wanted to lash out at Kimber for allowing it to happen, but he knew that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t like she’d tricked him into putting his penis in her without a condom on. He remembered being a more than willing participant.
He gazed down at the picture again, crazy emotions rolling through him. Part of him was furious with Kimber. Why hadn’t she told him he had a kid? How could she have walked away without telling him? But just as quickly, the anger drained away, replaced with a million other concerns…and a million other questions.
Dalton opened his mouth to ask the first one that popped into his head when the bedroom door opened and Holden poked his head in. Wes peeked around him. They both looked like they’d discovered Santa Claus was real.
“You have a kid?” Holden asked.
Dalton scowled. “You were eavesdropping?”
Holden opening the door the rest of the way and stepped into the room, Wes on his tail. “Some people might call it that, but I prefer to think of it as standing outside the door while you were in the middle of a conversation. It’s not our fault you and Kimber were talking loud enough for us to overhear.”
Dalton rarely felt the need to punch one of his teammates, but right then he felt like putting his fist in Holden’s face. “Isn’t that the same thing?”
Holden considered that. “I guess. But the way you say it makes it sound like a bad thing. I like my version better.”
Wes opened his mouth to reply, but Dalton cut him off with a glare. “I don’t have time for this. I’d throw both of you out right now, but you’d just stand outside and eavesdrop again.”
Besides, his teammates were going to learn about it eventually.
He looked at Kimber. “Tell me exactly what happened to Emma.”
Kimber glanced at Holden and Wes, as if hesitant to talk in front of them. Apparently, she decided it wasn’t worth fighting over.
“Yesterday morning, Emma and I were at a park near our apartment. She loves the swings there.” Kimber smiled sadly. “She was playing with her friends when the elderly woman on the bench beside me started chatting. I didn’t take my eyes off Emma for more than a minute and when I glanced over at the swings to check on her, she wasn’t there.” Kimber swallowed hard. “I wasn’t too worried at first because she and her friends like to play hide-and-seek among the trees, but all the other kids were still on the swings. I ran over to ask them where she was and they said she went with some man who said he was a friend of mine. I was about to call the police when I heard a cell phone ringing in my coat pocket. Only it wasn’t mine.”
“The old woman planted it on you?” Wes asked.
Dalton shot him a hard look, but Kimber only nodded.
“It had to have been her. She was the only one close enough. And the minute I started looking for Emma, the woman left.”
“Was she the one who called?” Dalton prodded.
“No. It was a man. Probably the one who talked her into going with him.” Tears filled Kimber’s eyes, spilling over onto her cheeks, and it took everything in Dalton not to reach out and wipe them away. He might have done it, too, if Kimber hadn’t dashed them away. “He told me that they had Emma and that I needed to do exactly what they wanted or they’d hurt her.”
Dalton was shocked at how much hearing his daughter was in danger terrified him. He’d never met Emma and yet the urge to protect her was overwhelming. In all the time he’d been in the SEALs, he’d never felt the desire to truly hurt someone. Yeah, he’d killed people, but that had always been part of the job, plain and simple. When he got his hands on the people who’d kidnapped his daughter, he was going to fucking annihilate them.
“How much money do they want?” he asked tightly.
He didn’t have much, but he’d give Kimber everything he had.
“They didn’t want money.” She sniffed. “They want me to steal a batch of prototype computer chips from the company where I work.”
In college, Kimber had majored in marketing with a minor in information technology. He’d rarely understood half of what she’d talked about back then, but she obviously finished her college degree while raising their daughter and ended up getting that dream job she’d always talked about.
“Something tells me getting these chips is more complicated than walking into your office, picking them up, then walking out, huh?” Holden asked.
Kimber nodded. “JASCO Technologies designs integrated circuits and software routines for a lot of different applications. Everything from video games, satellites, and self-driving cars to classified Department of Defense programs. The chips they want are in the secure side of our facility and there are mountains of barriers between it and the areas I normally have access to. I tried to tell the man who called me that they had the wrong person. That there was no way I could get what they wanted—”
“But they didn’t care,” Dalton finished for her.
“No.” Kimber looked so defeated and hopeless that it tore his heart out. “They told me to figure out a way and gave me three days to do it or…or they’ll kill our daughter.”
Dalton stared down at the photo of his daughter, his heart beginning to pound. They’d given Kimber three days. Assuming the clock had started ticking when they’d grabbed Emma, that left them less than forty-eight hours to make this happen.
“And you have no idea who these people are?” Wes asked. “You didn’t recognize the man’s voice?”
She shook her head, another tear running down her cheek. “I don’t even know what kind of chips they are. They just gave me a product ID number, which is how we track components in the facility. The only people who know exactly what the chips do is the CEO of the company, a few of the top security people, and the engineers who built it.”
“Have you told any of them about the kidnapping?” Holden asked. “Or called the cops?”
Kimber shook her head again. “They warned me not to. I was afraid that if I did, they’d hurt Emma.”
“Good thing you didn’t,” Dalton said. “If you mentioned it to JASCO, their first concern would be securing the chips. And if you told the police, the first thing they would have done was tell the company. By the time everyone went through all of their protocols and official procedures, the kidnappers would kill Emma.”
Kimber winced and Dalton immediately cursed himself for saying the words out loud. “Which means the only choice I have is to get the chips for them.”
Dalton frowned. “Even if you could get your hands on the chips, you have to know they’re almost certainly going to kill you and Emma the moment they have what they want, right?”
“I know, which is why I came to you.” She looked up at him, her beautiful brown eyes pleading. “I can’t steal those chips or save Emma by myself. I need help, Dalton, and you’re the only person I know who can pull something like this off. You have every reason in the world to say no, but I’m begging you to say yes. Please.”
CHAPTER TWO
YEAH, WES AND Holden are going with me,” Dalton said into his cell phone. “We might need you to convert that four-day pass into a leave form though. This little vacation might stretch into next week.”
Kimber drove south on Highway 101, her stomach in knots as Dalton lied to the senior chief petty officer in his platoon about heading to San Francisco with his friends to do some sightseeing. He’d been going to call before flying up from San Diego, but they barely made it to the airport in time to catch their flight.
“A buddy called me out of the blue and offered to let me use his condo while he and his wife are out of town,” Dalton continued. “You’re always saying we need to get away from work when we can, and this sounded like a perfect opportunity.”
Kimber touched the brakes as the cars ahead of her slowed and began to stack up. Sunday afternoon traffic heading out of San Fran wasn’t normally this bad, and she prayed they weren’t stuck in it for long. She leaned a little to the left in her seat, trying to see what was holding everyone up. The security people at JAS
CO usually locked the doors around six o’clock on the weekends. If they were lucky, Dalton would have plenty of time to get a look at the building’s security before that. But that would only happen if they got to Silicon Valley in the next twenty minutes.
On the bright side, being stuck in traffic gave her an opportunity to take a breath and think, something she hadn’t done since knocking on Dalton’s door.
She’d been absolutely terrified standing there waiting for her former boyfriend to answer the door. What if he hadn’t been home? What if he’d moved? What if he’d told her to go to hell and slammed the door in her face before she’d gotten a chance to tell him about Emma?
Just thinking about how terrified their little girl must be right then made it hard to breathe. Was Emma hungry? Cold? Had those assholes hurt her? If anything happened to her little girl…
Kimber suddenly went lightheaded and she tightened her grip on the wheel, forcing herself to keep it together. She had to stop thinking like that and focus on what they had to do to get Emma back.
Like Dalton was doing.
She watched out of the corner of her eye as he said something to his boss about being careful and not getting into trouble. She wondered if his boss had to worry about Dalton and his fellow SEALs getting into trouble a lot. She couldn’t imagine that being an issue. She knew for a fact Dalton wasn’t a troublemaker. From the way Holden and Wes had immediately said they’d help, she could tell they were good guys, too.
Dalton’s friends had flown up with them, then Holden had rented a car, saying something about seeing some people so he could get the equipment they were going to need for this mission. She’d wanted to ask who the people were, but Dalton had merely nodded and told them to be careful.
Beside her, Dalton hung up and slipped his cell phone into the cargo pocket on his khaki pants, then stared straight ahead, his expression unreadable.
She kept taking quick peeks at him every now and then in the stop-and-go traffic. She felt horrible he had to lie to his boss, but Dalton hadn’t hesitated because he knew Emma’s safety depended on what they were about to do.
Kimber was still in awe at Dalton’s reaction to the situation. Two hours ago, he hadn’t known Emma existed. Now, based on nothing more than a photo and Kimber’s story, he was ready to risk prison or worse to save a little girl he’d never met. At some level, she’d always known he was that kind of man. It was probably why he’d been the first person she’d turned to for help when it was obvious she’d never be able to do any of this on her own.
If you always knew he was an incredible man, why did you walk away from him?
It was a question she’d asked herself a million times over the past five years.
Kimber resolutely steered her mind in a different direction. She couldn’t change the past. She’d made her decision and now she had to live with it.
She glanced at Dalton again still lost in thought in the passenger seat. Even in a moment like this, she was struck at how absolutely perfect he was with his short, dark blond hair, deep chocolate brown eyes, and strong jaw covered in scruff. It was difficult to believe, but in some ways, he was even more attractive than when they’d been together. He was bigger and more muscular, too, his biceps and pecs filling out his shirt in a way they hadn’t before. Then there was that sexy Southern accent of his. It had always made her melt.
“You doing okay?” he asked suddenly, glancing at her.
She nodded. “I’m better than before. At least I feel like I’m doing something and not just staring at the wall wondering how I let this happen to our daughter.”
Dalton started to say something when a ding from his phone interrupted him. He pulled it out, scanning it for a moment before tapping a few keys. “That was Chasen—my boss—letting me know he put the other guys and me on leave.”
She chewed on her lip. “Is it going to be bad if he finds out that you actually came up here to help find your daughter?”
Dalton snorted. “Oh, he’s going to find out one way or the other. But he’s not going to care about me trying to help my daughter. The thing that will piss him off is the fact that I lied to him about it and that I dragged Wes and Holden into this with me. So, yeah. I’m going to catch hell about it.”
She winced. “I’m sorry.”
Kimber stomped on the brake again as the car ahead of them came to a complete stop. Why the hell did there have to be traffic today of all days?
“Don’t be,” he said. “When I said I’d help you, I did it knowing it might come at a price. I have no problem paying that price, because nothing matters but Emma.”
She nodded, unable to do more as tears threatened to slip out. Dalton was being so amazing about all this. Why couldn’t things have been different between them?
Silence filled the car, leaving Kimber wrapped up in her own thoughts. It wasn’t a good place to be since it was full of fears, doubts, and recriminations. Things could have been so different right now if she’d only done things differently. Something as simple as deciding to push Emma on the swing instead of letting her play alone. Or maybe taken her to a movie instead of the park.
The weight of all her poor decisions began to crush her, making her heart beat out of control and her breathing shallow. She was on the verge of another panic attack. She could feel it.
“Why did you leave when you realized you were pregnant?”
Dalton’s question jerked her out of the black hole she was spiraling toward, and while she was afraid to answer, she was grateful for the lifeline he’d given her.
“You were gone on a mission when I realized I’d missed my period,” she said softly, remembering that day in exquisite detail. She should. She’d relived it frequently. “You’d been gone for weeks by that point and I had no idea when you might get back.”
“It’s not my fault I couldn’t tell you where I was going,” he said sharply.
She took her eyes off the road, glancing his way. “I know that. I never blamed you for what you could or couldn’t tell me. But when I found out I was pregnant, I was alone and had to make decisions based on the fact that I didn’t know when—or even if—you’d get back.”
Dalton opened his mouth, then closed it again as he considered that. “Okay, I can’t fault you for that, especially since that particular deployment lasted four months. I’m only sorry you had to handle something like that on your own.”
She sighed. “I’m not sure if things would have been different even if you’d been there.”
“What do you mean?”
“We were both twenty-years-old. I was starting my sophomore year at the University of San Diego and you were a brand-new SEAL still trying to learn the ropes and make a good impression. Neither one of us was ready to start a family, but from the moment I realized I was pregnant, I knew I was keeping the baby.”
Kimber still remembered sitting on the bed in her dorm, staring at the plus sign on the pregnancy test strip, and trying to visualize all the different ways her life was about to change. But the idea of not keeping the child hadn’t ever been something she’d considered.
“The last thing I wanted was for you to think I was using a baby to trap you in a marriage you didn’t want to be in,” she added, trying to put things into the right words. Because this next part had been the hardest. “I’d seen those kinds of arrangements fall apart too many times. It didn’t work for the adults involved, and it was even worse for the kids.”
Dalton didn’t say anything for a long time. When he finally did speak, his voice was calmer than she expected.
“I guess if I’d been in your situation, I probably would have done the same thing you did. Truthfully, I’m not sure how I would have handled it if I’d come back from that mission and found you four months pregnant. Most likely, I would have wanted to do the right thing—quote, unquote—and ask you to marry me. And maybe you’re right. Maybe that would have ended in disaster. But still, there’s a part of me that’s pissed you took the option away from me. Yo
u didn’t even give me a chance.”
Dalton wasn’t saying anything Kimber hadn’t agonized over five years ago. “You have every right to be pissed, but you have to believe me when I tell you that I spent weeks playing the what-if game. Ultimately, I wasn’t in a position to wait around and see what might or might not work out. I had to make a decision based on what was best for me and our unborn child. I’m sorry I cut you out like that, but at the time, I simply couldn’t see another way.”
Kimber hadn’t wanted to be so blunt, but at the end of the day, that was what it had all come down to. She’d had to find a way to care for herself and a baby when she had no idea what Dalton might have wanted.
“So, you moved back home?” he asked, the heat that had been in his voice earlier gone now, as if he’d realized the past was too far behind them to argue about.
She nodded and eased her Mini Cooper into the right-hand lane so she could take the Veterans Boulevard exit in a few miles. They’d be at JASCO soon.
“I didn’t have a choice,” she said. “I knew there was no way I could take care of a baby on my own, not if I wanted to keep going to school. So, I moved back in with my parents and three months after giving birth to Emma, I enrolled in a data science program at the University of San Francisco. My mom took care of Emma while I loaded up on classes and finished my degree. After I graduated, I moved out and got my own place, but my parents still help out a lot.”
“Do they know Emma has been kidnapped?”
“No.” Kimber slowed down to turn into the JASCO entrance with its small guard shack and drop-down gate. “They’d never go along with any plan that didn’t involve the police.”
“I wouldn’t hold that against them,” he said. “It’s what a large portion of the population would do.”
When Kimber pulled to a stop at the gate, a tall curly-haired man in the blue uniform of a security guard smiled at her pleasantly. She knew the guy well since she’d chatted with him nearly every day since she started working there, but that didn’t stop her from tensing anyway.
