by Sabrina York
“Did everyone get out?” she asked with no preamble. “Are they all safe?” She nearly collapsed in relief when he nodded. “And Lily?”
For some reason, his cheeks went a little pink. “Ah…Lily Wilson?”
“Yes. Is she okay?”
He glanced away. “She’s fine.”
“Fine?” Just fine?
“She’s…with her dad right now. But I know she’ll want to see you when she hears you’re here.”
“Good. I’d like to see her.”
“Of course.” He nodded, and silence fell again as she stared at the bland bulkhead and he stared at his folded fingers, but really, there was very little to talk about. Besides, she was still annoyed with him.
It also annoyed her that he turned to study her. Like a raptor observing a titmouse. Steady. Unblinking. Incessant. She felt the weight of his attention but pretended she didn’t. When, at length, he didn’t look away, she met his gaze. There was an odd look in his eye. His lips worked a bit, and then he finally forced out, “Does Drake really think I don’t approve of him?”
She liked the thread of chagrin in his voice. That was probably the only reason she responded. “Apparently. And for some reason, all he wants is to make you proud of him.”
He raked his bristly hair. “I am proud. Damn proud. Jesus.”
“Maybe you should tell him that,” she said softly.
“I will. If your dad doesn’t kill him first.”
She frowned. “My dad? Why would he kill the SEAL who rescued me?”
He tipped his head to the side. “You do remember the face-sucking, right?”
Heat crawled up her cheeks. “So? I kissed him. Why is that such a big deal?”
A grin quirked his lips. “Your dad is the team commander.”
She remembered the look in Drake’s eyes when he found out who her dad was. He’d almost seemed…scared. Which was weird. Nothing scared him. Nothing. She didn’t like to think that her dad might.
But what scared her? That her father’s identity might be a deal breaker for him. Yeah. That scared her to death. Funny. It had always been the other way around. Guys wanting her because of her dad’s power. How ironic that now, when it really mattered, she wished that were the case.
“I still don’t see why it’s such a big deal.” She should be able to kiss whomever the hell she wanted. It wasn’t as though her father actually cared. It wasn’t as though he were part of her life. It wasn’t as though he wanted to be.
Ryder sighed. “There’s just a code. Guys don’t…kiss their buddy’s sisters. Or, for God’s sake, their mothers.” He glanced at her. “Or their commander’s daughter.”
She gaped at him. “That’s stupid.”
“It’s not. It’s a code.”
Brandy rolled her eyes. Men and their stupid codes.
Ryder cleared his throat. “Your dad’s going to want to see you.”
“He’s here?” She didn’t mean to squeak like that.
“Of course he’s here. He’s your dad.”
“There’s no ‘of course’ about it. He was never there for me when I was growing up—”
“Because your mother wanted me to stay away.”
Brandy whipped around. Her heart lurched.
Her father stood in the hatch.
God, he looked old, but then, she hadn’t seen him since she was twelve. His hair was gray at the temples and there were wrinkles around his eyes. He looked tired.
And it hit her, all of a sudden.
Reaction to the stress of her adventure, most likely, but more than that. At the sight of him she realized, remembered, relived how much she’d missed him. Sadness for the time they’d lost welled up in her. Sadness and reaction and relief that she was safe and he was here with her now. It came out in tears.
She hated tears on general principle, but these she could ignore. When he opened his arms to her, she stood and stepped into his embrace. It closed around her slowly, but securely. He was the one who clung.
“I’m so glad you’re safe, Susan,” he whispered into her hair. “So glad.”
“I’m fine.”
He held her back and studied her. Then frowned. “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose.” She didn’t intend the defiance in her response and she regretted it immediately; it always started a fight between them. They were both far too stubborn to back down…but this time, he did.
“I know. I know.” He pulled her back into his arms. “We need to go. I want to get you home. Your mother’s worried sick.”
“I can’t go.” She wrestled out of his embrace.
“Why not?”
“I need to know that Drake is okay.”
His brows furrowed. Also a bad sign. “Drake?”
Ryder stood. “Drake Ronan, sir.” He nodded to the infirmary doors. “He’s the SEAL who brought her out.”
“He was shot.” Brandy tangled her fingers. “They won’t let me see him.”
Her father snorted. “The hell they won’t.” He took her arm and marched her through the doors.
Unfortunate, it was, that Drake was splayed out on a gurney with his bare ass mooning everyone as a medic examined his wounds. When the medic saw her father he leaped to attention and saluted.
Drake glanced over his shoulder and cringed. “Jesus.” He rolled over to hide his backside…until he realized that exposed his front. “Shit.” He fumbled for a blanket to cover himself.
“At ease, Ronan,” her father barked. Through his laughter.
“He’s had some morphine, sir,” the medic said. “So please keep that in mind as you debrief him.”
Drake chuckled. “I’m already debriefed.” He raised the blanket to show them. And yes, he was. He bunched his ass cheeks to give them a show.
Oh yeah. The boy was feeling no pain.
Ryder leaned in and studied the two wounds. Or one of them. “Wait. You got shot in the ass?” he asked.
Drake made a face. It was a weird-looking face, as though all his muscles were putty. Brandy bit back a smile. Morphine could be funny. “I got shot in the leg. In the leg. Twice.” He glanced at her for confirmation, but there was no confirming something that was clearly visible.
“I didn’t get shot once,” she said, just to be helpful.
He narrowed his eyes and growled.
“Because of you, baby. You kept me safe.” She waltzed over and kissed him, right there in front of everyone. Even though his eyes remained wide and trained on her father, he kissed her back. At least a little. “Daddy, this is Drake. Drake, this is Daddy.”
Drake thrust out a hand but her father ignored it, though his lip curled. “We’ve met.”
They had? She shot a questioning look at Drake; he grimaced. “I didn’t know she was your daughter, sir. Honestly—”
A nasty ripple crawled up her spine. Holy God, she hated his tone. His words. His meaning. Most of all, she hated the retreat she sensed. Something in her chest went cold and hard—it might have been her heart—but then fury whipped through her, thawing the chill.
She firmed her jaw and forced a smile onto her face. “Drake and I are dating,” she said baldly.
They flinched. All the men. Each and every one of them. Even the medic. She didn’t care. She knew if she didn’t take control of the situation here and now, Drake might use her father’s rank as an escape hatch and she was not—not—going to allow that. If he wanted to break it off with her, it wouldn’t be for the lame excuse that her dad was his boss. By. God.
She shot a look at her father. It might have been something of a challenging stare.
“Susan—”
“Ryder explained your stupid tradition about daughters and—”
“It’s not stupid.” This from Ryder.
And from her father, “It’s a code.”
“But I like Drake and he likes me.” She stilled and glanced at him. “Do you still like me?”
He gazed at her like a moonc
alf. A loopy mooncalf. He took her hand and gave it a noisy smooch. “Oh. Very much.”
Her father made a feral noise.
“Point being, I am an adult woman and he is an adult man and, well, if we continue to see each other, I don’t want you to be mean to him because of it.”
“Oh, fuck.” Drake covered his head with the blanket. Pity that, because the move uncovered other parts of his anatomy that he might not have wanted to share.
A red tide rose on her father’s cheeks. “Susan Eloise Brandywine—”
“No. Don’t ‘Susan Eloise’ me. I’m not twelve anymore.” She glowered at her father. He’d always been very domineering, especially when they butted heads. But she’d learned the art of stubbornness from the very best. “He is a wonderful man. And I really want to get to know him better. And if you give him any shit about it, I’ll never speak to you again. Do you understand?”
Her father’s lips worked. “Susan…”
“No one calls me Susan.” No one did. Except him.
“I, ah…”
“Brandy.”
His brow quirked. “Brandy?”
She nodded.
It was funny the way a pout formed on his face—that big bad naval commander—and he said, in a petulant voice, “But they call me Brandy.”
Who called whom what was hardly the point. She folded her arms. “Well. What do you say? About me dating Drake?”
Her father looked down at his boots. He grimaced, but she saw it, there on his face. Acceptance. Grudging acceptance, but acceptance. His smile was pained. “Fine. But did you have to pick the squid who threw up on me?”
Brandy gasped. She whirled on Drake. He woefully peeped out from beneath the blanket. “He’s the commander you barfed on?”
“Kinda.”
The look on his face, on her father’s… The visual of Drake christening her father’s beloved boots… The sheer joy of being alive… It was way too much. She threw back her head and laughed.
Everything was, all of a sudden, quite wonderful.
And then, because she was so freaking happy, she gave her father another hug.
She just wouldn’t tell Mom about that.
* * *
It was tough watching Brandy leave when Ryder insisted she needed to go to the chow hall and eat something; that she lingered by his side and held his hand and kissed him eased the sting. That and the fact she leaned closer and whispered, “I’ll be back in a bit.”
Thank God. She wasn’t going anywhere.
They would be together again soon. Maybe forever, if the glint in her eye was any indication. Which was awesome, because he wanted her, needed her, loved her. Would do anything, face any adversary to have her. And she felt the same.
The realization made his soul soar.
His bubble of elation popped and dribbled out onto the floor when Commander Brandywine remained behind.
Oh. Crap.
He waited until his daughter had disappeared from sight and then turned to Drake and narrowed his eyes. “So,” he said, as though that said it all. Then again, in that timbre, it might.
Drake swallowed. His mouth was suddenly dry. He had no idea why he found this situation amusing. It was not. Must be that he was drugged out of his mind. “So,” he parroted. He shouldn’t have.
The commander was not amused. His brows rippled and a muscle in his cheek bunched. “You’re dating my daughter.”
“I…ah…” Holy God. How to respond to that? He was…more than dating her. No doubt, Brandywine wouldn’t care to know the details of their “dates” up until now. In fact, if he got a whiff he might have Drake keelhauled. If they did that anymore. And if they didn’t, the commander would most likely make an exception.
“Well? Are you? Dating her?”
“I would like to…sir.”
“I’ll just bet you would.” This, of course, was muttered beneath his breath.
“Sir, she’s very important to me.” Granted, he never would have admitted that if he hadn’t been hopped up on painkillers—not this early in their relationship—but it was the truth. It really was. She was important. She was everything.
Brandywine wasn’t impressed by his declaration. He leaned in and hissed, “What my baby wants, my baby gets.” He smiled like a reptile. “But if you break my daughter’s heart, Ronan, I’ll fucking snap you in half. Understood?”
Drake grinned; he didn’t mean to and he tried not to—he should be scared shitless and appropriately intimidated—but it just happened. “Yes, sir!”
The commander pinned him with a look—that look officers gave grunts when they were about to make their lives very miserable.
Against his will, his grin widened, and then a chuckle bubbled up. It had to be the morphine, or maybe the delight that he had survived this ordeal, or his elation that Brandy was not leaving him any time soon. Or simply that he’d met her and loved her and had her. The emotions danced through his head and his heart and his soul.
Something else, however, danced in his belly. No doubt it was the effect of all those drugs on an empty stomach…but bile roiled in his gut and rose to his throat. He tried to hold it back, but he couldn’t. It was an unrelenting tide of surging lava.
Brandywine’s gaze locked on his face. “Ronan…”
Drake sucked in a deep breath and leaned over the side of the bed.
“Ronan…?”
He opened his mouth…
“Ronan!”
And barfed all over Brandywine’s boots.
The old man leaped back with a squawk, but Drake still nailed him and nailed him good.
And for some reason, this time, it was hilarious.
Epilogue
“What do you think?” Lily waved to the food mounded on the dining room table—an enormous roast, several hundred chicken wings, potatoes, salads, a steaming platter of veggies, pies, cakes, and cheeses… It seemed like a lot. It seemed like way too much, but considering the crowd it needed to feed, it wasn’t near enough.
Ryder’s squad could put away food like nobody’s business. Whenever the guys rotated off duty, they ate like the navy had starved them for three months straight.
Brandy caught her friend’s eye and grinned. “We can always order pizza if we need more.”
Lily laughed, a delightful trill. She’d been laughing a lot since the wedding. And, come to think of it, Ryder hadn’t been such a gruff ass since he’d made Lily an honest woman. It was obvious the two were meant to be together. Brandy’s gaze flicked from Lily’s glowing face, to her soft blonde curls, to the baby bump pushing out her jumper, and something warmed in her heart. Though that nightmare on an island off Somalia had been horrific for both of them, there was no denying that week—had it only been a year ago?—had changed all their lives. For the better.
Lily had found Ryder and Brandy had found—
A roar rose in the living room and Brandy peeked through the door to where the guys were watching the game. It was an intimidating collection of testosterone. Ryder and Tate were quibbling about a call the ref had made, while Garrett and Luke egged them on. Mason sat in the corner easy chair looking on with a smile on his lips and a beer in his hand. They were all drop-dead gorgeous, but it was Drake who captured her attention.
Drake, with his laughing eyes and his beautiful smile. His evil dimples and that tantalizing scruff… God, he was beautiful. It was so wonderful to have him home. Safe.
She couldn’t wait to tell him—
He looked up just then and their gazes clashed. A sear of excitement whipped through her. When he stood and prowled toward her, her pulse shot into high gear. Even now, after all this time, he had this effect on her.
He sidled up to her and wrapped her in his arms. She let him. “Hey, baby.” His kiss was delicious.
“Hey, you. How’s the game?”
He shrugged. “Who cares? When you’re in my line of vision I can’t—”
Another roar rose and he instinctively glanced at the TV…then he f
orced his gaze back to her. She smiled and tugged him into the kitchen while Lily nibbled her grin and headed to Ryder’s side with another beer. Lily always knew when to give them their privacy. Such a friend.
The door swung shut on them and the sounds of the game—and the ribaldry—receded. Drake yanked her close again, kissed her again. Something hard nudged her hip. “Mmm. I missed you.” She rubbed against him and he winced and shifted to the right.
“I missed you too.” The kisses deepened, lingered, and then to her annoyance, he eased away, his features fixed in a somber arrangement, one that made something ripple in her gut. “You know, Brandy…” He stalled. His lips worked. His Adam’s apple bobbed. Then he started again. “You know, Brandy, we’ve been dating for over a year.”
“Mmm hmm.” More than just dating—all his shit was at her house—but, whatever.
“And we spend all our time together when I’m not in the field.”
“Mmm hmm.”
“And your dad kind of likes me now.” Kind of.
She nestled closer and kissed his neck. He sighed and gently eased her away again. She frowned at him because she wanted to be close. Ached to be close. But when she leaned toward him, he stepped back and shoved his hand into his pocket.
When he pulled out a velvet-covered box, her heart skipped.
Was that…?
She gaped at him. A red flush rose on his cheeks. “I… Brandy… Will you…” He snapped open the lid and her breath snagged. The flash of a gorgeous diamond ring completely distracted her attention. “Will you marry me?” When she continued to stare, speechless, he lifted a shoulder. “Might as well.”
She narrowed her eyes and gored him with a ferocious glare. It was difficult, because she wanted to dance and sing and fart rainbows.
“Might. As. Well?”
“Aw shit, baby.” He raked his fingers through his hair, or what there was of it. “I’m sorry I’m not some romantic, studly guy…” Oh, he was studly. “But I love you and you love me, and I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather spend my life with. Besides…” He put out a lip. “I need you.”
