Navy SEAL Noel

by Liz Johnson

Will closed his eyes, focusing on the sounds outside the closet instead of the twinge in his shoulders as his muscles tensed.

  Their pursuer hadn’t found Jess, and he was focused in on Will’s hiding place.

  Taking a deep but silent breath, Will shifted his foot against the wall, adjusting his leverage and easing the strain on his hamstrings.

  He could sense rather than see the turn of the knob.

  God, I’m ready, but if I don’t have to fight, I don’t want to.

  Hinges squeaked. Feet shuffled. Light flashed directly below him.

  Will didn’t move, keeping his hands pressed against the front wall, his feet against the back. High above the door frame, he hovered, absolutely still.

  The beam swept from side to side three times, and a mop of shaggy brown hair leaned into the narrow space, its owner surveying the shelves and empty floor.

  “Where’d he go?” the man mumbled, backing away slowly. Then, with a loud curse, he raced out of the room and stomped down the hall, his footfalls growing quieter, his swearing louder.

  For three aching minutes, Will didn’t move, and he prayed that Jess wouldn’t, either. She hadn’t argued when he’d directed her toward the desk. Maybe she’d really follow orders this time.

  Wood scraped against the floor, and the pitter-patter of tiptoeing feet drew near.

  Then again, she’d never been cut out for the navy. Taking orders wasn’t exactly her thing.

  Walking his hands and feet down the walls, he met Jess at eye level just before dropping back to the floor.

  “Where did you— I thought he was going to— How did you…?” Her questions ran together in a frantic rush as her hands reached for him. She didn’t seem to care what she touched, one palm running over his shoulder and down his arm, the other pressing firmly against the cotton T-shirt covering his stomach.

  He stopped her hands only by enveloping them in his own and pressing them over his thundering heart. He couldn’t account for the accelerated speed. His pulse had been even and steady until she’d sneaked across the room.

  Her tiny hands trembled in his grip, and he wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her closer. Quivering breaths shook her lips, slowing with every rise and fall of her shoulders.

  “I thought I was going to lose you,” she confessed.

  He brushed a silver track from her cheek and was surprised to find it damp. The Jess he remembered never let anyone see her cry. She wasn’t cut out for this, and he had to get her back to her dad.

  “It’s okay. I climbed up there.” Her eyes followed his gaze to the ceiling, then immediately returned to his face. “We’re safe for now,” he said. “But they know someone was here. They’ll be looking for people out of place. We need to get back to our quarters.”

  “Right. Just… I need a second.”

  He nodded against the top of her head and tried to think of anything other than how natural it felt to hold her like this. His mind flashed back ten years to the night when she’d come to him, terrified of Sal’s proposal. She’d been scared then, too. Maybe they’d both been too young to realize it at the time, but he could recognize it now. At eighteen she hadn’t been ready to consider marriage. Especially not after her parents’ union had crashed and burned so spectacularly.

  Will should have just held her. Like this.

  He shouldn’t have run.

  But even then he’d known that simply holding her might not be enough for him. And he’d had no right to anything more—not with the girl his brother loved.

  In this moment, as her breathing returned to normal and the tension slowly ebbed from her, Will ran his fingers through her hair, which was softer than anything he’d ever touched before. But the face he saw was Sal’s.

  Sal, who had saved Will from his own stupid arrogance. Sal, who deserved a better brother. Sal, who was still in love with Jess.

  After holding her like this, Will completely understood why ten years hadn’t done much to change his brother’s feelings. Jess had a magnetism that drew men without words. It was enough to pull Will almost four thousand miles.

  She looked into his face, her cheek resting against his chest, and a little smile played on her lips. “Thank you.”

  He tried to swallow against his suddenly dry throat, but instead of croaking a response, he only nodded. Then he squeezed his arm a little tighter around her waist.

  Even in the dim light he could see her chin quivering, and he heard her little gasp. Did she, too, realize that this new nearness had gone from comfort to something entirely different?

  Without thought or plan, he leaned forward. Just an inch. Just a tiny bit closer to her very essence.

  Her mouth opened with a small but silent “oh”—an invitation if ever there was one. Her hands had been pinned between them, and she pulled one free to slip it to the back of his neck, where her cool fingers splayed into his hair. Her touch was a lightning bolt, setting every one of his nerves on fire.

  He couldn’t pinpoint how long he’d wanted this, but it didn’t matter. He felt as if he were an inch away from water after trekking through the Sahara.

  And she was still Sal’s.

  He tilted his head at the last second, resting his lips against her forehead. Then with stilted, vigilant movements, he put an arm’s length between them, one hand still cupping her elbow.

  “We should go.” He nodded toward the window, ignoring the confusion clearly written across her face. “I’ll go first. Just follow right behind me. I’ll catch you.”

  He’d catch her, all right. But who was going to catch his wayward thoughts, which demanded to know what that kiss would have felt like?

  *

  “That’s my window.”

  Jess tried to narrow her focus to the glass pane that Will indicated, although he never slowed their pace, weaving between buildings, always alert to their pursuers. Or maybe he was just avoiding looking at her? She certainly didn’t hear or see any signs of a pursuer that would require Will to be quite so vigilant. She was almost certain they’d lost anyone who might be following them. She hadn’t seen anyone since the man with the flashlight ran off. In fact, by the time Will had gone insane and nearly kissed her, she was pretty sure the man after them had left the building.

  “How do you get through that thing? It doesn’t look big enough for a rat.”

  He chuckled under his breath and picked up speed. “When it’s the only way out, you figure out how to make it happen.”

  But the window was at least six feet off the ground. She tried to picture how he hefted himself up and through without landing on his head, but every scenario ended up with him lying in a heap on the ground.

  As though he could hear her questions, he continued, “I use the bed for a boost and go through feetfirst. Just a little twist of my shoulders, and I can get through without any major injury.”

  That made sense. But he had the bed only on the inside. “And getting back into your cell?”

  He shrugged a shoulder as he stopped to peer down an intersecting alley. “Slightly more dangerous.” His grin said everything she needed to know. He could handle it.

  Like he’d handled her a few minutes before?

  Rats! Was she going to dwell on his almost-kiss all night long?

  Probably.

  But that didn’t mean she couldn’t fight it. Sure, in the moment it had seemed like a great idea. With his arms about her, she’d never felt safer. The thudding of his heart had made her own amp up to match it. And those stupid butterflies she’d felt after he touched his finger to her lips had returned in spectacular fashion.

  But she didn’t have to think about it.

  Especially since nothing really happened. He’d obviously changed his mind—or decided he’d never been interested in the first place—and she’d settled for the forehead kiss.

  Pausing at another intersection, only about ten yards from her door, Will ran his fingers through his hair as he glanced over his shoulder. “You okay?”

&nb
sp; “Sure.” But not if the sight of his fingers combing his velvet-soft hair insisted on reminding her of the time she’d had her own fingers tangled in those strands.

  “You’re kind of quiet.”

  With a deliberate drop in her voice, she said, “I thought we were being covert.”

  That earned her another low chuckle and a little tug to make it the last few feet. “You’re so smart.”

  “Top of my class at UCLA.”

  The lines under his eyes crinkled. “I guess you did better when you didn’t have someone begging you to skip class every day.”

  “Something like that.”

  Except it really was nothing like that. It was more like after her dad deployed again, Will left and she broke up with Sal, she’d needed something to focus on. And school had seemed like the best option. Science required her undivided attention, so it had been a natural major.

  By the time she’d realized how much she actually enjoyed it, she’d been halfway to her bachelor’s degree. From there the postgraduate work had been an easy decision. It kept her memories of Sal’s broken heart, Will’s disappearance and her mom at bay.

  Her studies couldn’t quite make her forget her mom’s disappearance, but in the thick of an experiment, Jess thought less about the letter she’d found lying on the kitchen table when she was twelve. It had been in a nondescript, white envelope, just a single page in her mother’s sweeping cursive.

  Jess’s hands had shaken as she’d read the words through watery eyes. Lynn McCoy was tired. Tired of being a single mom when her husband deployed for months at a time. Tired of being a commander’s wife—required to go where the navy sent them. Tired of always being the responsible one, while her husband went gallivanting around the globe.

  The letter said she’d found a job back East, near her childhood home and that Sean and Jess should keep going without her.

  In the following weeks Jess’s dad had called everyone he knew trying to track Lynn down, and in the end Lynn had called the house, just once, to tell Sean to stop calling. She was fine, but she’d had it with her old life.

  Jess heard the truth, plain and simple. Lynn didn’t love her daughter any longer.

  Ignoring all that pain and those terrible memories had made them bearable.

  But there was no ignoring the man checking out her room to make sure it was safe for her to be locked in again. The man who had almost kissed her.

  Stop thinking about that, Jess!

  Will made a sweeping gesture, inviting her in. “Safe. Ish.”

  Jess managed a half grin, never making eye contact. “Thanks for checking.”

  “Try to get some sleep.” She must have looked doubtful because he hurried to assure her. “I’ll be right outside for the rest of the night.”

  “No.” Her tone hit a high note that was much louder than she’d intended. “You have to go back to your room. If they go to check and find you gone, they’ll know it was you in the office.”

  “There was no one near my building when we went past, and no one has sounded any alarm. I’m okay. I’ll be careful, but I won’t leave you and your wrench to fend for yourselves.” He gave her shoulder an awkward pat—one that screamed so many words left unspoken.

  Ready to argue again, she was cut short by a flicker in his eye.

  “Listen to me, Jess. I know I haven’t always come through for you, but right now, right here, I’m not going to let you down.” You can trust me.

  The silent words rang so loudly she was surprised that guards didn’t descend on them right then.

  Could she really trust him? To evade detection? To keep her safe? To get them both home by the holidays?

  She couldn’t answer all those questions right that minute, but the angle of his head seemed to request a response. Rubbing her hands together, she squared her shoulders.

  “All right. But be careful.”

  “Always am.” With a shrug and a wave, he closed the door, his footsteps immediately fading into the otherwise silent morning.

  The wall snagged her black T-shirt as she leaned into it, covering her face with both hands. Her breath was warm against her dirty palms, her skin already sticky from sweat and humidity.

  Between hiding under that desk and returning to this room, Jess felt as if her life had been upended. And she couldn’t even pinpoint what had caused it.

  It wasn’t the kiss—almost kiss—or the terror of thinking Will had been caught. It wasn’t the trembling in her stomach or the rush his gaze sent sweeping down her spine.

  A man other than her father had asked her to trust him.

  And for the first time in ten years, she actually wanted to. She just didn’t know if she could.

  Especially since that man was Will Gumble.

  *

  Will waited until the last possible minute to signal Jess that he was sneaking back to his room. When light flickered through the windows over his head, it was time to move on. Pushing his tired legs from their crouched position, he knocked on her window and took off running, winding past all-too-familiar cinder block walls.

  When he reached his window, he grabbed the bottom ledge and pulled himself up, twisting his neck and shoulders to get first his head, then his shoulders inside. Bending at the waist, he reached for the floor. In one practiced motion, he lifted his legs and slid in.

  He caught himself in a handstand that wouldn’t win him any gymnastics gold medals, but certainly did the job. Injury free, he fell into bed, the squeaking springs a welcome sound to his weary body and mind.

  Just thirty minutes. That’s all he needed to recuperate, to recharge his batteries, to face another day in which he knew not much more than he had the morning before.

  They were east of the canal. The other compound—probably another cartel—was just a few miles away. And booby traps outside the perimeter wall meant trouble. It wasn’t much, but it sure spelled disaster if they did make it beyond the fence.

  And disaster for anyone trying to get in.

  Any drug lord in this area wasn’t typically worried about keeping people inside the walls. Will and Jess were exceptions. Typically, those inside were loyal to the leader.

  So all those red marks around the complex most likely weren’t for keeping people in. They were for keeping people out.

  This compound had been under attack.

  And it didn’t take a bioengineer to figure out that Jess had been brought here to retaliate.

  It would be much too easy to spend the entire morning playing out what the rest of the information might mean, but Will needed sleep more than he needed to put puzzle pieces together. He couldn’t afford to let his senses get sloppy.

  Rolling onto his side, he used his hands as a pillow and closed his eyes. He’d been asleep for about twelve minutes when the metal door of his room scraped against the cement floor.

  Instantly alert, Will didn’t move more than his eyelids to take in the sight of the two men standing in shadow in the doorway. He could make out only their shapes against the shockingly bright light of the internal hallway at their back.

  The stockier man swore in Spanish, his voice vaguely familiar.

  The other one held out his hand. “Pay up.”

  “I’m telling you, he wasn’t here.” The first guy shook his head violently as he slammed the metal door back into place.

  As soon as it was closed, Will leaped from the mattress, flying across the narrow room. Pressing an ear to the wall next to the door hinges, he stayed absolutely silent.

  “You’ve just been drinking too much. Give me my money.”

  “He wasn’t there. I saw that bed empty!” The stout man’s growl surely woke up anyone else sleeping in the three other rooms off the hallway. “It wasn’t a fair bet.”

  “Why not? Because you lost?” Something heavy bumped into the other side of the wall at Will’s shoulder. “You owe me twenty dollars, Raul. Today.”

  Will’s ears twitched. Raul had been after them before. He had an eye, if not
the speed, for chasing them down.

  “I don’t have it.”

  “What do you mean? It was your bet. Your idea.” Will could hear the anger filling the slighted man’s voice.

  “Well, he wasn’t there.”

  “You keep saying that, but he’s there now, so I want my money.”

  “But then where’d he go?”

  “Maybe he fell off his bed.”

  Will glanced around the empty room. Other than the rusted, metal frame holding up a sagging mattress, and a chipped, yellowish sink in the far corner, there was no cover.

  The second man’s voice dropped to a lethal whisper. “If he wasn’t in there, then where was he?”

  Silence. Far too much silence.

  Pinching his fingers at the bridge of his nose, Will prayed that they’d forget about it and just let it go. That they’d chalk it up to one man’s drunken hallucinations.

  “I d-don’t know.” Raul’s voice was weak and carried a little stutter.

  The man who wanted his money cackled. “Then maybe we should find out.”

  “Shouldn’t we tell Juan Carlos or El Jefe?”

  “Tell them what? That you were drunk on guard duty? That you had to come get me to sound the alarm because you didn’t want anyone to find you this wasted? Maybe we should watch the Americans first. Maybe they’re up to something. It could be worth much more than your twenty dollars.”

  Will’s stomach twisted into a painful knot, his palms suddenly slick as he wiped them down his dirty gray pants.

  He was going to have to find a way out of this compound while being watched like a hawk by someone he couldn’t identify.

  EIGHT

  Jess held out her plate, careful not to let a speck of food fall to the mess hall floor. After a night of restless sleep, she needed any energy the spicy calories could provide.

  The cook glared at her, clearly recalling her spilled breakfast the day before yesterday. Ducking her head, she pulled her plate close and spun to sit down at the end of a long bench. Its sharp edges cut into the back of her legs, helping to keep her groggy mind alert.

  She shoveled in two bites of the slop on her plate, swallowing before the texture could compel her to stop eating. Just as she lifted the third forkful to her mouth, Will plopped down across the table.