Seth (In the Company of Snipers Book 17)

by Irish Winters

  Standing here in front of her was the reason Dev did what she did. Because of her brother. Yes, she truly cared about every last woman and child he’d saved, but they never would’ve made it to her house without Cord’s and his men’s dogged persistence and their bone-headed courage. She herself wouldn’t be standing there arguing with him if he’d been anyone else. It all came down to the brother she loved and that crazy, hard-as-nails USMC heart beating in his chest.

  “What do you need me to do?” she asked on a breath of resignation.

  Chapter Seventeen

  An iguana’s an interesting creature. At nearly five feet long from snout to the tip of his whip-like tail, Gru had to weigh near twenty, maybe twenty-five pounds. And he could run. The old boy proved it last night. Yet the rasp of his scaly belly across Seth’s wooden floor lent a comfortable feeling of—something—to Uncle George’s sparse, utilitarian shack on the beach. It had been nice to not wake up alone for a change. Gru’s nails needed to be clipped though, which was why Seth rummaged through his shaving kit. He’d had a nail clipper in there somewhere.

  For now, Gru held stock still with his head up and his eyes closed, on a stretch of the sunlight dappled floor just inside the shack. Seth wasn’t brave enough to let the big guy roam the beach for fear he’d sprint for open water like he had last night.

  Seth had been Googling proper diet and iguana care since he’d showered and eaten his own meager breakfast of a banana, toast, along with a glass of orange juice with four aspirin. Dressed in a clean pair of dark tan boat shorts and a plain white undershirt for the day, he’d put Jack back in the cupboard, where the troublemaker belonged. Seth’s queasy stomach couldn’t yet handle the thought of bacon and eggs for breakfast.

  “Found it,” Seth told Gru, palming the clipper.

  No comment. Not even a blink. The lizard wasn’t coy so much as he probably knew Seth was leery of the mighty whip Gru dragged behind him. His tail was a monumental weapon, but Seth was just thankful he hadn’t grabbed onto it last night when Gru made his mad dash for the ocean. He hadn’t known it then, but iguana’s tails broke—as in right off their bodies—if someone grabbed them just right. While Gru would’ve eventually regenerated his tail, surprising Devereaux with her living, but tailless iguana, wasn’t what Seth had planned.

  Opting to take his chances, Seth folded his long legs and sat alongside his reptilian friend. Pocketing the clipper for now, he opted for discretion and reached for Gru’s breakfast on the counter. Because of all he’d read, Seth now knew iguanas were vegetarians. He’d mixed a generous portion of fresh greens in a plastic container, mostly parsley and the bok choy he’d intended for a stir-fry, then added a couple slices of green pepper, an eighth of the banana from his breakfast, and a sliver of watermelon. To make sure the wound that Devereaux was so certain Gru had suffered—enough to bury him certain—wasn’t infected, Seth needed to examine this pretty fellow. But to do that, Gru needed a diversion.

  Extending the slice of apple, a nice crisp Jonathan, Seth tapped his free hand to the floor to get Gru’s attention. One lizard eye flicked open. Rotated in its socket. Then closed.

  That is so cool.

  Gru turned his head, then quick as a blink, the apple was on the floor under his dewlap, and breakfast was served.

  Seth eased the rest of his peace offering alongside the apple. While Gru crunched and indulged, Seth meant to test the limits of their fledgling friendship and hopefully, not get tail-whipped for being too up close and personal. After Seth treated whatever wounds he found, he’d clip those clattering nails, too.

  Very gingerly, Seth tipped Gru’s front leg up and peered at the lizard’s belly. Gru was a handsome boy, a lovely shade of green from the tip of his tail to his shoulders, where the green gave way to silvery freckles, which Seth now knew were called tuberculate scales. The larger silver discs at the sides of his puffy neck, just below the holes in his head, which passed for ears, were subtympanic shields. Although their iridescent sheen enhanced Gru’s already spectacular hue, they could swell if he needed to look any more intimidating than he already did. But that spiky row of spines running along Gru’s back and under his very fine dewlap? Damned impressive.

  Thin brownish-gold stripes circled his belly but faded halfway up his sides. Wider, darker stripes circled his tail, which was fairly thick until the last six or eight inches of its lethal charm. The flap of lizard skin dangling under his chin, his dewlap, faded from emerald green to silver, then back again to green. This fellow was nothing short of a mini-dinosaur, and Seth understood why Devereaux loved Gru. He might not say a lot, but he was still good company.

  Five long toes on each rear foot, along with a rake of mighty fine claws, gave him running power and speed. His skin, er, umm, his scales, were tough, and Seth suspected, waterproof, as fast as he’d headed for the ocean. Jowls hugged his shoulders like fluffy pillows. When he blinked, his irises fluctuated between gold-ish orange to orange-ish brown. Gru also had what was called a parietal eye in the middle of his forehead. A third eye! How cool is that?

  So, yeah. Seth was very careful in how he handled his all-seeing, albeit hungry, friend. While Gru munched, Seth slipped both hands over the gentle beast’s shoulders. So far, so good. Running his palms along Gru’s sides, Seth located no bloody patches. No missing spines. Just lots of smooth, chilly scales, and the fine sand from his grave.

  On his knees now, Seth bent over the reptile, needing to understand how Devereaux could’ve misinterpreted what she’d seen. She’d specifically said Gru had screamed and her clothes had been streaked in blood, but… was that blood his?

  “So, Lazarus, how’d you survive a knife attack?” Seth asked, but then he saw it. Ouch. A two-inch wound lay hidden within the recesses of all those leathery folds, just under Gru’s left armpit. Yeah. That had to hurt. Damn that son-of-a-bitch, Sly.

  Easing away from his prehistoric buddy and making no sudden moves, Seth rolled to his feet to retrieve a tube of Neosporin, a bucket of warm water, and his own personal supply of Betadine. Then patiently, he cleansed and doctored his first injured iguana.

  While he worked, Gru kept crunching and eating. Interestingly, he made no sounds other than the occasional swish of his tail on the wooden floor. Not once had he screamed, and he didn’t growl. Hadn’t made so much as a peep or a squeak despite Seth’s handling of a wound that would’ve made a grown man beg for a local. Gru would need to see a lizard doctor within the next day if Seth’s home doctoring didn’t work, and if that wound showed signs of infection. But for now, the prehistoric baby dragon was just hungry.

  “There,” Seth sighed, the deed done and his buddy oblivious to the fact that he’d returned from the dead, well, the grave anyway. “Feel better?”

  Never had he suspected he’d be sitting on the floor in Uncle George’s shack talking to a lizard, but he was. Gru was a handsome boy. Strong, Resilient. Clever in his own way, too.

  When a sharp crack of thunder shattered the morning calm, Seth jumped as the ground vibrated from a nearby lightning strike. “Damn, where’d that come from?”

  Pushing to his feet, he glanced out the window. The daily storm that usually graced Florida with intermittent showers had come up quickly. The ocean had traded its blue for molten gray. Dark clouds now scudded northward, obscuring the sun, while traces of white lightning flitted from black cloud to black cloud. Whitecaps studded the rolling breakers as the wind kicked up, sending dried palm leaves shuffling across the beach. Even the gulls and brown pelicans offshore seemed suspended in mid-air like two-winged kites.

  “You stay here and finish your breakfast,” Seth told the reptile. “I’m going to duck outside and grab a bucket of sand for, umm, a lizard box for you to, you know, pee in. I won’t be long.”

  Lightning flashed and thunder rolled as if warning Seth to make it quick. Just as he opened the door, the first of the rain hit. He ducked into the weather and ran to the small utility shed east of the Uncle Ge
orge’s shack. Quick, he could do.

  Then he was going back to bed.

  The more Dev learned about the situation brewing in the Mideast, the more she knew she had to reach out to Seth McCray. Cord wouldn’t like it, but by the time she returned with Seth, her brother might very well be headed for Cuba to find his buddies and save that missing Julio guy. She couldn’t let Cord make that journey alone. Seth would help; she knew he would. That was all he’d done since she’d met him, plus, he had the boat and the equipment to make the hundred-mile round trip safely. She had only to ask. He might be angry at first, but she could work with that. He’d come around and he’d come back with her. She knew he would.

  Covertly, she called Trish, who came right over to watch Scottie. “What’s he supposed to eat?” she asked at Dev’s open refrigerator. “There’s not much in here, but… how old is this cheese? Is there a zombie apocalypse coming that I don’t know about or are you culturing penicillin for the black market?”

  Dev cringed all the way to her toes. “I know it’s pretty empty. Can I borrow a cup of milk, two-percent if you’ve got it? I’ll pay you back once I can get to the store.”

  Trish’s sharp eyes met Dev’s over the second-hand Kelvinator’s half door. “I’ll do you one better. I need a few things at the drugstore. Scottie and I’ll stop for a burger on the way, then I’ll keep him at my place until you return. I’ve got plenty of his toys and a couple blankets over there. I know what he likes to eat. He’ll be okay.”

  “Thanks, Trish. You’re a lifesaver,” Dev murmured as she kept an ear out for Cord. He’d been with Lianna for a while, and Dev needed to be gone before he nixed her plan to bring Seth to the rescue.

  Trish eyed the lanyard Dev had just slipped over her head. “Where are you going?”

  “To get Seth,” was all Dev offered. The less Trish knew about who Lianna was, the better.

  Trish huffed as if she’d scented a lie in the air. “What are you not telling me?”

  “You don’t want to know,” Dev said hurriedly. She had to get out of there before Cord caught her and before Scottie woke. “Tell Cord I had an errand to run, will you? That’s all. Don’t say a word about where I’ve gone. He won’t like it, but I… never mind. This is something I have to do.”

  “Go. Get your man,” Trish said as Dev headed into yet another rainy Florida day.

  Dev scowled. “He’s not my man.” I just hope Seth’s still there by the time I get to him.

  Worried, she set a steady pace to the dock. Her boat would be wet with rain, but you either learned to love the quick thundershowers that rattled through Florida on a daily basis, or you stayed indoors like an old woman afraid to melt, until they passed. Dev had never been one for backing down, not even from Mother Nature. That might not be her wisest attribute, but it had served her well over the years. Besides, the slicker she kept onboard would keep her warm once she hit open sea.

  Jogging the rest of the way, she dodged puddles, branches and fallen palm fronds while lightning crackled overhead. The air was full of electricity. The last hurricane had devastated the Keys, Key West in particular, but this was no hurricane. Just a good, noisy thunderstorm. Just Mother Nature doing her thing and reminding the world who was boss.

  Once away from the bay and finally on open water, Dev donned her bright yellow rain slicker. She ignored the small craft warnings on her radio while she aimed for Drunken Sailor Island and the man who could help. Her small boat crested whitecap after whitecap, making the usually short trip worrisome and long. But it gave her time to think. It was interesting that, for all Sly Valentine’s bluff and bluster, he hadn’t accosted her on her way to Molly’s today. Guess he was one of those namby-pamby crybabies who didn’t like to get his feet wet.

  It took a bit of wrangling alongside Uncle George’s dock before her boat was steady enough to tie off a bowline. But where was the famous McCray pontoon boat she’d heard so much about from the women? Uncle George’s island had but one dock. Where could Seth be if he wasn’t here? Had he already left?

  I’m too late. Scared for the damage she’d done dried up every speck of saliva in Dev’s throat. There was no light in Uncle George’s shack. No sign Seth had returned.

  Climbing onto the dock, she sheltered her eyes against the driving rain coming down in sheets. Casting her gaze out across the wild gray ocean to the south, she struggled against the wind and weather for a glimpse of any watercraft out there riding the waves. Hard knots climbed up her throat, choking her even as the wind whipped her hair and the blowing sand stung her eyes. She’d come all this way for nothing. Worse, she’d hurt the man she’d begun to care about, the first decent guy to come along in years. She’d sent Seth packing as if he’d been the loser, when the real loser was her. Again.

  A pinch started inside her heart and quickly expanded, making it hard to breathe. The corners of her rain slicker slapped against her thighs as if punishing her for throwing herself at Seth, then driving him away. Toying with him. Hurting him.

  “Where are you, Seth?” she cried. “Come back. Please. I’m so sorry.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Whistling into the wind and rain, Seth rounded the corner of his shack with a bucket full of clean sand and the tattered piece of an old rug he’d found in his uncle’s shed. The sand was for Gru’s indoor lizard outhouse. The rug was for his bed, if he slept on a bed. Come to think of it, Seth wasn’t quite sure lizards did that, but Gru had to sleep somewhere, and since there were no trees inside the shack… You get the drift.

  But it was interesting what else he found in that locked shed. One side of the cramped twelve-by-twelve wooden building was stacked to the ceiling with wooden crates of ammunition, all makes and calibers, as well as a couple open crates of military-grade weapons, all sealed with a layer of good old cosmoline. M-16 assault rifles, Rugers, various other pistols, and—Damn, Heckler and Koch VP Tacticals, sweet! Uncle George stored an equally impressive array of noisemakers, aka flashbangs, as well as rocket-propelled grenades. Seth had no doubt there were a couple grenade launchers stashed in there, he just hadn’t found them yet.

  And, oh yeah, an inflatable Zodiac—a Combat Rubber Reconnaissance Craft, equipped with a bilge pump and all. This one-of-a-kind specialty wasn’t as large as the one Cord used, but what the hell? Seth hadn’t known Uncle George had even been in the Corps, much less brave enough, downright gutsy enough, to take on human traffickers inside their own country. Uncle George wasn’t just a crotchety old man. He was a damned genius!

  Despite the pouring rain, this was a good, good day. Make that—great! The same blood that pumped through Uncle George’s heart pumped a wellspring of positivity into Seth’s. He had a plan that included two of his very favorite people, Devereaux and Scottie. Until then, all he had to do was keep Gru happy, healthy and—

  A flash of yellow waterside caught Seth’s eye. A woman stood there on the dock, facing the ocean, her hands stuck deep into the pockets of her bright yellow rain slicker. A diminutive, barelegged, barefooted woman with attitude.

  “Devereaux!” Seth called out, but the wind tossed his voice back at him.

  Gru’s lizard box could wait. Setting the supplies on the step, Seth jogged the distance. He didn’t slow until she stamped one delicate foot to the weathered dock and screamed into the wind, “I can’t do this anymore! It’s… it’s too hard!”

  What now?

  “I made a mistake already! I was wrong! Why can’t you ever, ever cut me some slack? I work hard every day and sometimes all night! But all I get from you is more work and more grief! You’re picking on me! Scottie doesn’t deserve what you’re doing to him. Neither do I. Stop it, God! Just stop it!”

  That gave Seth pause. What mistake? Me? Should I turn away and mind my own business? But she sounded so sad. Swallowing hard, he cupped a palm to her heaving shoulder and asked, “Devereaux, what’s—?”

  SMACK! One second, he was standing, the next he was flat on his
butt. Seth stayed where he’d fallen, astounded out of his wits and blinking to clear the ringing in his head.

  “Seth? Oh, Seth!” she cried as she knelt between his knees. “It’s you! I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

  “Umm, yeah,” he said, gingerly rotating his jaw to make sure he hadn’t lost a tooth. Her fingertips fluttered over his cheeks while he sat there seeing a couple stars, but damn. She’d just nailed him a good one and it hurt. “You hit me.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry, but I thought you were Sly, and…” Her rapid-fire apology dissolved into a whimper even as she climbed over his hips. “I’m sorry for the way I treated you yesterday, and I’m sorry I sent you away, and… and…”

  And man, she was adorable. Seth forgot the punch. It didn’t really hurt anyway. With her nearly straddling him, yesterday became ancient history in a hurry. Cupping her rain-drenched jaw between his hands, he tugged her forward until she had no choice but to wrap her long legs around him. “It’s good to see you, Devereaux. I missed you.”

  She blinked big blue eyes at him, the rain coming harder now, drilling into his forehead and cheeks. “R-r-really?”

  “Yes,” he murmured before he tugged her in close and personal, and kissed the lips she kept biting. The wind blew over them. Lightning sizzled around them, and any second now—

  CRACK! Right on cue, a deafening boom answered the sizzle. Yet Seth couldn’t tear his mouth from the woman French-kissing the life out of his tonsils, nor could he move his palms from where they’d settled on the rounded globes of the tempting ass beneath her yellow slicker. He could only lay there and soak in every last kiss and murmur, while Mother Nature—and a few tears—trickled over his face. Aw, damn. Devereaux was crying.