Bullseye_SEAL

by Carol Ericson

  A navy SEAL’s mission is to protect a vulnerable target, not give in to temptation...

  Saving Gina De Santos from attempted kidnappings is one thing. But navy SEAL sniper Josh Elliott’s assignment requires getting close to the ravishing widow to ascertain what she knows. And that feels more dangerous than combat. In her presence, Josh has to remind himself she’s not to be trusted.

  Gina’s drug-kingpin father had been negotiating with terrorists when a CIA raid killed him and Gina’s husband. Now someone is after the vulnerable single mom and her little boy. While traveling to the Caribbean in search of clues, Josh and Gina find their sizzling desire overpowering. But when they’re attacked again, they must overcome their mutual mistrust to survive at the hands of an unknown enemy.

  “I’m going with you, Josh.”

  “You’re going to stay in the room with the door locked. I don’t want you anywhere near this situation.”

  “You just said it wasn’t going to be dangerous,” Gina insisted.

  “I didn’t say that.” He cupped her face with one hand. “Let me face the danger. You’ve faced enough—all your life.”

  She blinked her eyes to dispel the tears gathering there. Nobody, not her mother, not Ricky, not the DEA, CIA or the FBI, had ever once acknowledged the fear and danger she’d lived with her whole life.

  She thought it had come to an end that day at her father’s compound, but she couldn’t have been more wrong. Only now she had Josh Elliott to protect her, and if he thought she needed to stay in the room for this encounter, she’d do it.

  She nodded and sniffed. “All right. I’ll wait in the room, but you’d better be careful.”

  “This is what I do.”

  Was it? Then what had he been doing at her father’s compound the day the men in her life had been killed?

  BULLSEYE: SEAL

  Carol Ericson

  Carol Ericson is a bestselling, award-winning author of more than forty books. She has an eerie fascination for true-crime stories, a love of film noir and a weakness for reality TV, all of which fuel her imagination to create her own tales of murder, mayhem and mystery. To find out more about Carol and her current projects, please visit her website at www.carolericson.com, “where romance flirts with danger.”

  Books by Carol Ericson

  Harlequin Intrigue

  Red, White and Built

  Locked, Loaded and SEALed

  Alpha Bravo SEAL

  Bullseye: SEAL

  Target: Timberline

  Single Father Sheriff

  Sudden Second Chance

  Army Ranger Redemption

  In the Arms of the Enemy

  Brothers in Arms: Retribution

  Under Fire

  The Pregnancy Plot

  Navy SEAL Spy

  Secret Agent Santa

  Harlequin Intrigue Noir

  Toxic

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com.

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  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Gina De Santos—Her life in a shambles after her drug-dealer father and husband are killed, Gina is trying to get back on track with her son in Miami, but her past threatens their safety until a mysterious navy SEAL appears to protect her.

  Josh Elliott—This navy SEAL sniper is responsible for the death of Gina’s husband. Since he protected her once, he vows to protect her again—if she’ll let him.

  Hector De Santos—Gina’s father, a drug kingpin, made a fatal mistake getting into bed with a terrorist cell, and that mistake continues to haunt his daughter and grandson.

  Ricky Rojas—Gina’s dead husband kept secrets and courted her for all the wrong reasons, which may have destroyed her trust in every other man she meets.

  RJ De Santos—Gina’s son is too young to know his father’s and grandfather’s business, but not too young to be used as a pawn.

  Roger and Tara—These newlyweds on their honeymoon seem to be more interested in Gina and Josh than each other.

  Joanna De Santos—Gina’s mother has no trouble spending drug money to maintain her lifestyle, until it threatens the family she loves.

  Rita Perez—The mother of one of RJ’s friends, she’s more than happy to have RJ at her home, but can she be trusted?

  Vlad—A sniper for the insurgents in the Middle East caused trouble for Josh’s sniper team, but this wartime clash has turned into a personal vendetta.

  Ariel—The mysterious person on the other end of an email address giving orders to Josh on his mission cares more about bringing down Vlad than protecting Gina.

  To Jeff B., my favorite marine and consultant

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Texas Witness by Barb Han

  Prologue

  The boy tottered close to the edge of the shimmering pool, and Josh Elliott held his breath. A woman, her long, dark hair falling over one shoulder, swooped in and plucked up the toddler, lifting him over her head. The boy’s face broke into a smile, his little body wriggling with joy in his mother’s grasp.

  Safe in his mother’s arms—or he would be once she got the hell out of there.

  Josh puffed out of the side of his mouth to dislodge a bug crawling on his face. He’d become part of the dense foliage on the hillside in this southeast corner of Colombia, not far from the Amazon. If this mission took any longer, the plants would grow right over and through him.

  The woman dipped next to a chaise longue to grab a towel and tucked it around her child’s body. She gave a curt nod to the men gathered at the other end of the pool, and then headed for the house via the sliding glass doors. Josh released a long breath.

  A voice crackled in his ear seconds later. “Go time, boys.”

  Josh swept his M91 away from the retreating figure of the mother and her child and zeroed in on his intended target—her husband.

  Ricky Rojas folded his arms, his expensive jacket tightening across his shoulders, as he cocked his head in the direction of the three men seated at the table. What Josh wouldn’t give to hear their conversation right now—their plots, their plans—but his SEAL team’s assignment didn’t include capture and interrogation.

  It only included death.

  These men had already killed and would kill again. In the crack of two seconds, his team would be responsible for bringing down a high-ranking member of a vicious terrorist cell and the mastermind of a brutal drug cartel...and a few of his associates.

  And the father of that child.

  Josh swallowed. The kid would get over it, especially after he learned what a scumbag his old man had been. The wife? That might be another story.

  A muscle ticked in Josh’s jaw. They’d been told to keep the woman out of the range of fire
. More senior people than he had made the determination that Gina Rojas had nothing to do with the Los Santos drug cartel.

  If they believed the daughter of Hector De Santos, the kingpin of Los Santos, and the wife of Ricky Rojas was an innocent bystander while her father and husband traded arms and passage to the United States for terrorists in exchange for drugs, who was he to question their common sense?

  A pretty face could still buy wiggle room out of anything—and Gina Rojas had a pretty face and a body that could bring a grown man to his knees.

  Once the kills were accomplished, the CIA would be descending on the De Santos compound to search for leads and evidence, but he and his teammates would be long gone, swallowed up into the Amazon.

  A maid scurried from the palatial house to deliver a tray of drinks to the men on the patio. When she disappeared inside, the crackling in his ear resumed.

  “All clear. And five, four, three, two...”

  At the conclusion of the countdown, Josh dropped his target, and all the other men fell with him courtesy of the other navy SEAL snipers positioned in trees and dug into the hillsides ringing the compound.

  The maid rushed from the house and threw her hands in the air. She must’ve been screaming because several other servants joined her on the patio.

  Josh shifted his scope to encompass Gina Rojas emerging from the house, without her son, thank God. While the domestic staff flailed and scurried about or dashed off for parts unknown, Gina stood still like a statue amid a battering sea. She put her arm around the hysterical maid and surveyed the carnage, her head held high, her gaze sweeping the hillside.

  “Josh. Josh, you on the move?”

  “Copy that.”

  He lowered his sniper rifle from the intriguing sight of Gina Rojas’s unflinching demeanor and began to break down his weapon.

  Either this hit was no surprise to Gina...or she didn’t give a damn.

  Chapter One

  Thirteen months later.

  RJ raised a chubby hand before spinning around and grabbing his new friend by the arm to drag him to the slide.

  Gina sniffed as she waved to her son’s back.

  “It’s better than having him cling to your leg, isn’t it?” Denise Reynolds, the owner of Sunny Days Daycare, winked.

  Gina rubbed the back of her hand across her nose. “Much better, but did he have to get over that stage so quickly?”

  “RJ’s an outgoing boy. He makes friends quickly, very adaptable.”

  “He’s had to be.” Gina hoisted her purse onto her shoulder and shrugged. “There’s been a lot of upheaval in his young life.”

  “I saw from your application that you’re relatively new to Miami.” Denise bit her lip. “And I’m sorry about his father, your husband. That he’s deceased, I mean.”

  “Yes, just over a year ago.” Gina sniffed again for good measure. “We’re still...adjusting.”

  “Well, I think Sunny Days is just the place for him to adjust. One month and he already has a best friend, who started just a few days after he did.”

  “He already talks about Diego nonstop. His mother introduced herself to me right away. The boys already had one playdate and we’ll be arranging another for them in the next few days.” Gina’s cell phone buzzed in her pocket, and her heart skipped a beat.

  “Everything okay?” Denise tilted her head to one side, her perky blond ponytail swinging behind her.

  “Just a pesky client.” Gina patted the pocket of her light jacket. “Thanks for everything, Denise.”

  Gina whipped out her phone as she walked back to her car. She couldn’t go into cardiac arrest every time someone sent her a text. Wedging her hip against the cinder block barrier between the daycare’s parking lot and the walkway to the center, she swiped her fingertip across her phone’s display.

  Then her heart skipped two beats as she read the familiar words. Where are the drugs? Where are the weapons, paloma?

  The same two questions, along with the endearment, texted to her every day for almost a week now, from the same unknown number. She’d responded to the text in several different ways already.

  Wrong number.

  Wrong person.

  I’m calling the police.

  It didn’t seem to matter what she texted back. The same two questions came back at her each day as if on autopilot—with the same endearment. Only Ricky had called her paloma...when things were good, but that was impossible. Wasn’t it?

  She could call the police. She snorted and dropped her cell phone in her pocket as she opened her car door. Then she’d have to go through the whole process of explaining who she was and watch the officers’ faces change from expressions of concern to scowls of suspicion. They might even call in her old pals at the Drug Enforcement Administration, and they could start grilling her again.

  She’d take a pass. In the meantime, she’d continue to ignore the texts. The person texting her wouldn’t try to make contact...would he? And that person couldn’t be Ricky. Ricky was dead...wasn’t he?

  Glancing over her shoulder, she pulled out of the daycare’s parking lot and checked her rearview mirror as she joined the stream of traffic. She had nothing to tell anyone who made contact with her, at least not about any drugs or weapons.

  On her way to the realty office, she turned up the music to drown out her own thoughts and the memories of that day at her father’s compound in Colombia. The CIA agents who’d swarmed the place after the carnage had interrogated everyone on the property, including her, for several hours.

  They’d tossed the place, looking for money, drugs, arms—and they didn’t find one single thing. As far as she knew, not even her father’s computers had revealed any information about his thriving drug business.

  The US and Colombian governments had seized all her father’s assets—but they hadn’t found everything. Then the CIA turned her over to the DEA and the fun started all over again. She had no desire to repeat that experience.

  She wheeled into the parking lot of the realty office and dragged her bag from the passenger seat as she exited the car. She’d just passed her licensing exam but didn’t have any listings of her own yet. She had to start from the bottom and work her way up, but she’d never been afraid of hard work.

  The real estate business may not be her calling, but she’d had to find some gainful employment after she’d lost her business—the restaurant-bar she’d developed and run with Ricky before...before.

  She slammed the car door. She’d tried bartending since that’s what she knew, but that hadn’t been her calling either, not if she couldn’t run the place, and she didn’t like leaving RJ with her mother so many nights of the week.

  Gina yanked open the door of the office and waved to Lori, who was on the phone. Lori wiggled her fingers in the air in response.

  A stack of binders piled on her desk greeted Gina and she plopped down in front of them with a sigh. Faith, the Realtor she was shadowing, had left a yellow sticky note on the binder at the top of the pile asking her to remove the old listings.

  Gina flipped open the binder and perused each page, checking the house against a roster for those listings no longer on the market. For each lucky house that had sold, she slid the flyer from beneath the plastic sheath, making a neat pile on the corner of the desk.

  Lori ended her call and slumped in her chair. “Clients from hell right there, but they’re looking high-end, art deco in South Beach, and I’m going to do my best to find the perfect place for them. Can you do me a favor?”

  “If it involves white binders, I’ll pass.” Gina heaved the first completed binder off the desk and dropped it to the floor.

  “It involves meeting a client at a town house. It’s empty. Owners already moved out, and it’s an easy show. I’ll cut you in on a portion of the commission if this p
erson buys it.”

  “Is this buyer one of your clients?”

  “No. The sellers are my clients. This person is a walk-in. Just called this morning.” Lori jiggled a set of keys over her desk. “Easy show.”

  Gina wrinkled her nose at the rest of the binders. “Sure. Give me the details.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Gina was sitting behind the wheel of her car with a file folder on the seat beside her, cruising to South Beach. She enjoyed this aspect of the job more than sitting at a desk reviewing Florida property laws and regulations.

  As she flew past the strip malls and heavily residential areas, she could understand why Lori wanted to spend her time selling in South Beach instead of this area, but Gina found the relative serenity of the southern end of Dade County preferable to the hubbub in South Beach where she and RJ had landed with Mom after the debacle in Colombia.

  Debacle—was that what you called the deaths of your father and husband at the hands of some unknown snipers?

  The Spanish-style building came into view on her right, the beige stucco, arched entrances and red-tiled roof a copy of several other residences on the street. This was a town house, not a condo, so it had a door open to the outside and two palm trees graced either side of the entrance.

  Her heels clicked on the tiled walkway to the front door, and a palm frond tickled her cheek as she inserted the key into the lockbox. Pushing the door open, she left it wide, surveying the small foyer before taking a small step down to the living room.

  She glanced at the flyers in her hand and left a stack on the kitchen counter. She should probably familiarize herself with the place before the potential buyer showed up, starting with the kitchen.

  All the appliances cooperated as she flipped switches and turned handles. The kitchen didn’t boast the most high-tech gadgetry she’d ever seen, but everything worked and had a neat functionality. She could get used to a place like this.

  She had to get out of Mom’s condo—and all it represented.

  She poked her head into the laundry room off the kitchen, noting the side door to a small patio, and then backtracked to the living room. The gas fireplace checked out, as did the blinds shuttering the arched front window. The sun filtered into the room, as she pulled them back. A set of sliding glass doors to the right led to a small patio, a stucco wall enclosing it.