Her SEAL Protector

by Jillian Burns

  Gabby drew in a deep breath. She needed to do something to empower herself. To combat the feelings of helplessness and fear. “A round-trip to Virginia Beach, please.”

  7

  “OFFICER BELLAMY?”

  At the sound of his name, Clay looked up from his food midchew and frowned. “Here.”

  The sailor walked to his table and saluted. “Someone’s asking for you at the gate, sir.”

  Asking for him? Here at the base? This couldn’t be good. His sister or mom would’ve texted. Or called, if it was an emergency. He’d talked to Barrow only a few days ago. And anyone else who might want to talk to him was already sitting at this table. His team met at the commissary every Saturday for lunch if they weren’t training or deployed.

  “Who is it?”

  “Female identified herself as...” The sailor looked down at the pink slip of paper. “Ms. Gabriella Diaz, sir.”

  Gabby. His stomach twitched. Her last Tweet had said something about another nightmare.

  “Thank you, Ensign.” Clay saluted the messenger, and the kid returned the salute and marched out.

  Shorty whistled. “Gabriella! Ooh-la-la.”

  “You got women meeting you at the base now, Hounddog?” Doughboy smirked and wiggled his brows suggestively.

  “What’s the matter, you already have a different lady waiting at your place?” Shorty mocked.

  Clay got to his feet, nodding and smiling at the razzing. “Yeah, your ex likes meeting at my apartment better than hers.”

  Chipper snorted as Shorty’s grin disappeared.

  “Catch y’all later.” Keeping his smile in place, Clay grabbed his jacket and lunch tray and sauntered toward the exit.

  Gabriella Diaz. Why would Gabby be here asking for him?

  As he jumped in his SUV and headed for the front gate, his mind raced trying to come up with a reason she might want to talk to him.

  There was that kiss.

  Had she become a frog hog? But she hadn’t seemed like the groupie type. Besides, it’d been almost a month—three and a half weeks, but who was counting?—since he’d returned her to the American embassy in Paraguay. If she’d developed a thing for SEALs, wouldn’t she have shown up before now? No, he knew in his gut Gabby wasn’t like that.

  Unless she wanted to accuse him of taking advantage.

  And maybe he had. He hated thinking he may have caused her any more trauma.

  He pulled up to the guardhouse and caught sight of her standing on the other side of the gate staring out at the vast complex that made up Little Creek. She seemed to be on foot.

  She turned and caught sight of him, so he lowered the window and waved as he nodded at the guard to lift the barrier. Driving through, he pulled over to the yellow-striped median just past the guardhouse and got out. “Hey, how you doing?” He slammed the SUV’s door behind him and strode over to her.

  “Clay?” She was squinting, shielding her eyes from the afternoon sun as he approached.

  “Yeah.” He lifted his ball cap and ran a hand through his hair, remembering the last time she’d seen him it’d been sheared off to a stubble. He usually grew it longer and let his beard come in just in case he got a covert mission where he needed to blend in.

  She, on the other hand, didn’t look much different than the last time he’d seen her, other than missing a whole lot of mud. Huddled into a rumpled, threadbare coat, she wore sensible flats, no makeup and no jewelry. Her long dark hair was tied back in a disheveled ponytail. As he watched, she smoothed a stray strand behind her ear and pulled the coat tighter around her.

  She sure wasn’t dressed to entice. In fact, she seemed as if she’d lost some of her spit and fire. There were dark circles under her eyes and a gauntness to her cheeks. Nightmares would do that to a person.

  But there was still a sensual quality about her. It wasn’t just the curvy bod he knew was beneath the bulky coat. Or the full lips and big chocolate-brown eyes. It was...nothing he could explain.

  “How did you get here?”

  “I took a train and then a bus.” She gestured vaguely at the bus depot a couple of blocks from the gate.

  “Ah.” He nodded, scanning the area out of habit. Finally, he looked into her eyes. And the awkwardness fell away. She was just Gabby. And something was wrong. “What’s happened?” he asked without thinking.

  “I, uh...” Her face crumpled and she covered her mouth with her palm.

  “Hey, it’s okay.” He stepped closer and put an arm around her shoulders, and she buried her face against his chest and started sobbing.

  “What the—?” Clay glanced back at the guard, then down at the woman crying uncontrollably. His only interaction with females usually involved flirting and spending a few hours in mutually satisfying sex.

  Aw, hell. He wrapped his other arm around her and rubbed her back, making shushing noises. “Hey, now. It’s okay.” He bent a knuckle under her chin and lifted her face to look at him. “Kidnapped, shot at, almost bit by a snake and not one tear. But go a month without me and it’s waterworks city, huh?”

  She snorted a watery laugh and he felt like the king of the world.

  “Let’s go somewhere we can talk, okay?”

  At her nod, he guided her to his SUV. One thing different about her, she smelled good. A sweet, flowery fragrance that reminded him of something from his past. He couldn’t quite put a name to it, but it lingered in the back of his mind as he closed the door and went around to the driver’s side.

  The burger joint on the corner was too public, but Barney’s would be fairly deserted at this time of day. While she dug some tissues out of her purse and cleaned up, he drove down the street to the mostly empty pool hall on the wharf, escorted her to a booth in the back and ordered two coffees from the waitress.

  After Gabby shrugged out of her coat and blotted her cheeks with a napkin, she sniffled and let out a long sigh. “I’m sorry. You must think I’m a lunatic to show up here like this.” She rolled her eyes and shook her head.

  “Uh, well.” What could he say? Except the woman he’d gotten to know in that jungle wasn’t the kind to wimp out over nothing. Something was going on. “It can be tough coming through something like you did. Takes time.”

  “True, but—I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

  She looked so vulnerable. So worried. He gestured to the mug in front of her. “Drink your coffee.”

  After biting her bottom lip—a luscious bottom lip—she started tearing open sugar packets and dumping them into her coffee. “Do they have, like, food here, because I’m starving?” She finally met his gaze. “Can I buy you lunch?”

  There was that fighting spirit. The strength that had gotten her to rally after every setback in the jungle. “I already ate. But they have nachos and stuff.” He waved the waitress over to take Gabby’s order. Gabby smiled shyly at the waitress and avoided eye contact with him.

  Deciding she’d talk when she was ready, he settled in, draped his arm across the back of the booth and watched her sip her coffee. His attention fixed on her lips. In a rush of unwanted emotion he recalled that night in the jungle. The intimacy of total darkness. How she’d trusted him so completely. How she’d kissed him as if she couldn’t live one more minute without her mouth on his.

  How badly he’d wanted to forget all his training and give in.

  With a wince she set her mug down. “It sounds silly now, but, I came down here to ask you to teach me those self-defense moves like you promised.”

  Clay blinked. She’d traveled twelve hours from New York to Virginia for self-defense lessons? He cleared his throat. “They don’t have any martial arts studios back in Manhattan?”

  She studied the paper napkin as she shredded it. “See? I told you I was a lunatic to come here.” Splotches of pink appeared
on her cheeks to match the redness on the tip of her cute little nose.

  “No, it’s just that—”

  The waitress set the plate of nachos on the table. “Need anything else, hon?”

  Gabby smiled up at the woman. “No, this looks great, thanks.” Her smile faded after the waitress shuffled off.

  “What’s really going on? There’s something you’re not telling me.”

  She looked up from her balled-up napkin, her eyes troubled, hesitant.

  “Don’t worry if it sounds crazy. Let me be the judge of that.” He stole a nacho.

  Her lungs seemed to deflate. “It’s probably a coincidence. Or bad luck. I mean, I wasn’t even going to get into that cab until Mr. V asked me to join him. And people get mugged in New York every day. Probably. And apartments get robbed all the time. Right?” Her eyes pleaded for reassurance.

  Clay pieced together what she was saying. She’d been mugged? Robbed? She hadn’t mentioned that in any of her Tweets. “You think you’re the target of some...plot? That you, specifically, were supposed to be kidnapped? Do you have some fortune or powerful relative? And wouldn’t the kidnappers have contacted them instead of the bank for the ransom?”

  Gabby shook her head. “No, you’re right. It doesn’t make any sense, does it? It must be horribly bad luck.”

  Clay narrowed his eyes, thinking. Gabby didn’t strike him as the type to imagine or invent crises. She wasn’t even close to being mentally unstable. But he had some experience with post-traumatic stress. “Tell me about these other two incidents. You were mugged and your apartment was broken into?”

  “Yes, but, like you said, why me? I’m nobody.”

  “You’re not nobody.” The words slipped out before he thought them through. There was an awkward silence while she stared at him.

  “The worst thing was losing my medal.” Her fingers touched her bare collarbone.

  “It was stolen?”

  “I don’t think so. It probably just broke off when he grabbed my purse.”

  Grabbed her purse. He pictured Gabby, alone, vulnerable, attacked. Clay wished he’d been there to protect her, pictured himself beating the daylights out of the creep who dared threaten her.

  Whoa. He unclenched his fists and leaned forward, elbows on the table between them. “Are you okay? Were you hurt?”

  “No, only frightened. He—he had a knife. But he didn’t hurt me.”

  Clay’s heart thumped at the word knife.

  She gave a halfhearted smile and reached for a nacho, but didn’t eat it. “I panicked yesterday. Walked into my apartment after work and found it ransacked. Maybe I wouldn’t have felt quite so violated if the kidnapping hadn’t happened. I should’ve called the therapist I’ve been talking to. And I do need to take some self-defense lessons when I get back. They sure helped James.”

  A thought struck and he swallowed a bad taste. “Is that your...boyfriend? Fiancé?”

  “No!” She stared at the nacho between her fingers. “He’s a colleague. You met him. The guy who was kidnapped with me.”

  That sniveling coward? But Clay sipped his coffee and kept his opinion to himself. Sounded like she had every right to be a little panicked. Two attacks in less than a month. And both right on the heels of the kidnapping. That was some run of bad luck. He rubbed the whiskers on his chin. Something felt hinky about that. Maybe he’d get Neil to look into it for him.

  Wrong.

  He should stay out of it. Send her back to New York now. There were a couple of places there he could recommend that taught self-defense. Reputable dojos where she could learn to fend off most attacks. He didn’t need to get involved with this. Why had she come to him, anyway? She barely knew him.

  But the creep had pulled a knife on her. Someone had broken into her apartment. What must it have taken for her to get on a train alone last night and travel over three hundred miles to ask him for help? He wasn’t going to let that be for nothing. “Since you’re already here, I could show you a couple of moves to protect yourself.”

  “You could?” The appreciation in her eyes landed a blow to his gut. He didn’t want it. Didn’t sit well.

  It was Saturday afternoon. A check of his watch told him it was a little before fourteen-hundred hours. His team would’ve gone their separate ways by now. He shrugged. “You caught me at a good time. I’m on standby. Waiting around to be deployed.” He could play pool and drink beer with the guys anytime.

  “You don’t need to be on the base to do that?”

  “As long as I stay close, we’re good.”

  And there was that smile. Her expression lit her whole face. The look that said he was amazing.

  And damned if he didn’t want to believe it.

  “Let’s get out of here.” Tossing some bills on the table, Clay held Gabby’s coat while she stuck her arms in the sleeves, and then escorted her out to his SUV. The biting wind off the Atlantic blew a few more strands loose from her ponytail and he had a moment’s wish to see it loose and falling over her shoulders.

  She climbed in, shivering, so Clay turned the seat warmers on and the heater up full blast. With a sigh, she leaned her head back on the headrest and closed her eyes. Her whole body relaxed.

  “You been sleeping okay?”

  She lifted her head and opened her eyes. “The train ride was bumpy.”

  He raised a skeptical brow. But he didn’t want to admit he read her Tweets. He gave his attention back to the road and tugged the bill of his ball cap lower over his eyes. He should probably take her to her hotel first to change and drop off her— “Where’s your bag? Where are you staying?”

  “Oh. I didn’t—didn’t pack anything. I wasn’t thinking very clearly when I left. All my clothes were scattered on the floor, and there was broken glass, and—and dumped food. I just...couldn’t.”

  She needed better security in that apartment. He made a mental note to talk to Neil about it. Apparently, she hadn’t made a hotel reservation either. He swallowed. Maybe she was planning on returning to New York tonight.

  He made a quick right turn into a strip mall and parked in front of a sporting goods store. He pulled out the key and set the brake. “As with any plan of attack, the first thing you need is the right gear.”

  Her brows crinkled, but, like the trooper she was, she followed him inside, no questions asked.

  With only a general order to choose some comfortable workout clothes, he left her in Ladies’ clothing and headed for the camping and fishing section. When he caught up with her at the checkout, she’d purchased a pair of soft gray sweatpants and a matching cotton T-shirt. “Here.” He handed her the pepper spray on a quick-release key ring he’d bought her.

  “Oh, thank you.” Her face lit up as she smiled at him. “I feel safer already.” Seeing her with her dark brown eyes twinkling and her honey-brown skin flushed from the store’s heat, his body reacted in ways that would make close contact with her probably not a good idea.

  Why was he doing this to himself?

  But he couldn’t back out now.

  A short ride later he pulled into his apartment complex. At her questioning look, he tried to reassure her. “My apartment was the only place I could think of for these lessons besides the gym at the base, and we don’t have time to get you clearance.”

  “Oh, right.” She nodded.

  As they walked up to his second-floor efficiency, he tried to remember exactly how messy he’d left it this morning. But the sofa and recliner were free of clothes and the coffee table only had last night’s pizza box and beer can. Not too bad.

  With a muttered apology, he rushed to dump it all in the trash, but she waved it off as no big deal, complimented his sparse, builder-grade decor as a “nice place” and asked directions to the bathroom.

  Looking around, he took off his
jacket and boots, then shoved the coffee table over to a wall and dragged in his punching bag from the bedroom.

  “Ready?” he asked as she came into the living room.

  Though she spread her feet and nodded confidently, he noticed she ran her palms nervously down the front of her sweatpants. Back atcha, Gabriella Diaz.

  Why should he be nervous? All he had to do was show her a few defensive moves and then take her back to the train station. Or a hotel. Either one. Made no difference to him. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay, so show me how the mugger came at you with the knife.”

  Gabby’s breathing hitched and her face looked stricken.

  Oh, wow. He moved close, took her shoulders. “You can do this. Look at me.” He softly stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers.

  She looked up into his eyes and he realized he was rubbing her arm, as well.

  He dropped his hands and stepped back. “You’re the one in control now, right?”

  With a slight nod she seemed to rally. “Right.” She took a deep breath. “He—he just appeared from an alleyway and held it against my side.” She pointed to her right side, about the middle of her rib cage.

  He grimaced. “Close quarters, then. Without a lot of training, the best thing you can do is run. Put as much distance between you and the weapon as possible. Now, if he lunges at you, you could try to shove his arm away.” He took her wrist and lifted her arm to mimic her jabbing a knife at him, and, in one swift move, demonstrated slamming it away with the heel of his hand, which brought her chest to chest with him.

  Her soft, rounded chest.

  And she was looking at him with her mouth open, her lips a circle of luscious pink flesh.

  His mind blanked. All he could think about was how good she smelled. How near she was. How her breasts felt pressed against him.

  He let her wrist go and backed away. “Uh, the best thing is to have your pepper spray out and ready. Spray him and then run.”

  She nodded. “Run, check.”

  What could he show her, then? Hand-to-hand, blocking... “Okay, how to get out of a hold.” He extended his arm toward her. “Grab my wrist.”