Before she could answer, Damon appeared. “She’s not.”
Her gaze swerved toward him, as did the Admiral’s.
“She’s not involved with anyone, at least not yet,” A teasing glint filled Damon’s eyes. “Apparently, she has an aversion to men of our profession,” he said, and stuck his tongue in his cheek.
The Admiral scanned Damon, and for once her father didn’t appear as distrustful as usual, but when he returned his attention to her, he poked his finger at her nose. “I know you’re an adult now, but you’re still my little girl, and if that fucking guy comes near you, I’ll bury him in the backyard, understood?”
When she didn’t say anything except putting a resolute purse on her lips, he growled. “Sloane.”
“Dad.” She shot back.
A severe scowl most people shrank away from brought out her stubborn streak.
“Sloane, I’m serious. I don’t want your cheek about this.”
“Dad, I know you don’t want to hear this, but you have to stop seeing me as a twelve-year-old and a virgin.”
The hard-nosed admiral twitched as if she’d gutted him with a knife.
“Get moving,” he snarled. Turning to Damon he said, “She’s the bane of my existence, next to her mother.”
When she turned to head down the corridor toward the bar, a sharp swat of her father’s hand landed on her ass, and it stung like hell. It didn’t help, hearing Damon’s chuckle.
Back at the table, her father and Damon dropped into a deep conversation. Randy leaned over and the second he did, her father cranked his head and glared at him. Randy jerked to a halt and didn’t swoop in for the kiss like she knew he wanted.
“My father’s a little overprotective,” she said.
Randy nodded, looking self-conscious. “I can understand why. Guess he knows about my business.”
She nodded. “Yup. Somehow, Dad keeps tabs on a lot of stuff.”
“Doesn’t take much to see he wishes I’d disappear.” He shook his head and looked into his lap. “I went a little nuts after Lani, my fiancé, left me. Got a little lost and hid my pain in the business. It’s not really who I am, Sloane.”
He slipped his hand over hers under the table so her father couldn’t see. What he didn’t know was her father saw everything.
Within a heartbeat her dad leaned between them. “We’re going to have a talk. Now,” her father commanded, and Randy rose instantly. “That way.” He directed, pointing out toward the back parking lot.
She moved to chase them.
“Sloane.” Her mother halted her by grasping her hand. Sloane knelt, gripping the table for balance. “Sweetheart, I know your father appears overbearing, and maybe he is, but he knows how to read people. He gets a little crazy when it comes to you, but trust him.”
“I do trust him, Mom.”
“Who’s that Lieutenant Stone? He can’t keep his eyes off you.”
“A no-good SEAL.”
Her mother broke into a beautiful smile. “I married a no-good SEAL, young lady.”
“I know, but you married the only good one.”
“Sweetheart, your father was one of the worst players of his time when I started working at Base Command.”
“I know—that’s why I think he’s a hypocrite.”
Her mother chuckled. “Maybe. Men are funny that way. They’re all asshats until they find the right woman who stops them in their tracks. You’re so young yet. There’s no rush, but I think you should give that lieutenant a chance. I like him.” She leaned and whispered in her ear, “And he’s extremely hot.”
She suppressed a groan, but not the rolling of her eyes.
Her mother shrugged good-naturedly. “Truth.”
Damon watched her and her mother. She half-wondered whether he could read lips because he burned a grin and winked, looking too damn pleased with himself.
Five minutes passed and her father returned, but Randy didn’t. What the hell?
She stood up straight, but didn’t come anywhere near looking her dad in the eyes with only five feet five inches of Austen DNA on her side. “Dad,” Sloane whispered harshly. “Where’s Randy?”
“Said he had something to do.”
“Bullshit.” She glared at him, probably looking a lot like her mom when she got angry since she was the Mini-Me version of her mom, Kayla. “What did you say?”
Her father tipped her chin up with his finger. “He needs to get his shit in order. He’s not a bad guy, Sloane. I realize that, but it doesn’t make him right for you.”
She swatted his hand away. “Unbelievable.” She snatched her purse from the ground.
“Where are you going?” her father growled.
“Going to apologize.”
* * * *
Standing in the parking lot next to her car, she texted Randy.
Stop, please.
She waited impatiently and a minute later, a text popped up.
He’s right, Sloane. I’m no good for you.
Where are you?
Let it be.
No, give me your ads.
When her phone sat idle without a text, she checked her service bar to make sure she had a signal.
Tell me.
Nothing.
Fine. I want to hire you for tonight.
Sloane, ur beautiful and sweet. GN.
She turned with a growl of anger to find Damon standing four feet away, watching her. “What do you want?”
“Just wanted to make sure you were all right,” he said, taking another step toward her.
“Go back inside. I don’t need to hear a lecture from you.”
“No lecture.” He thrust his palms in the air. “But the Admiral’s right. Randy never got over his fiancée. He still loves her, and he’s not dealing with it. He was a good SEAL, an honorable man, but he lost his heart and head when she left him. He’d only end up hurting you, Sloane.”
Emotion coursed through her and she took an angry step forward. “You friggin’ SEALs all think you can read people so well. You don’t know shit.” Her father rounded the corner. “I don’t want to talk to you, either.”
But that never worked with her dad because he strode toward her with purpose and pulled her into his arms.
“I’m sorry, Sloane. Call me overbearing, but I’m not the kind of father to stand by and watch you jump off a bridge and do nothing.”
She rested her head against her father’s large chest. Even when she was mad at him she still felt safe in his hugs. “You have to let me make my own mistakes, Dad.”
Her father’s lips quirked with a sad smile. “I know, but it doesn’t mean I will stop protecting you. I’m always going to be your dad. I’m the man who loved you first and always.”
“I know you do.”
“Come on, save me from your mother. She wants to dance and you know how lousy I am at that.”
Sloane smiled. “You’re not lousy at anything.”
Her father palmed her cheeks then planted a kiss on her forehead. “Yeah, I am. And I have you and your mom to remind me when I get too big for my britches.” He hugged her tightly and whispered in her ear, “I wish you didn’t have to grow up.”
She knew she was a daddy’s girl. When she was little, her father disappeared for weeks sometimes, but when he was home, she and her brother, Adam, always came first. When she hurt herself, he was always there to comfort her in his massive arms and hug away the pain. Her father scared the hell out of most men, but he would always be her hero.
She stared up into her father’s eyes. “Too late, Dad, but I’ll always be your favorite daughter.”
He brushed a curl from her cheek. “You are, and I love you too much. If sending Randy running for the hills means you’re going to be mad at me for a week, I’ll deal with it.”
They both looked over to see Damon watching them. Her father’s eyes narrowed.
“He keeps hanging around,” he said out of the side of his mouth. “Your mom thinks he’s kinda hot.”<
br />
“How do you know that?” she asked surprised.
“Sweetheart, your mother was the queen of thinking three steps ahead. If she likes him, then so do I—maybe.”
Chapter Four
Four o’clock arrived, crawling on all fours. Damon waited in N.A.B’s west parking lot and considered whether he fell into the stalker category wanting to catch a glimpse of Sloane. A bouquet of flowers lay on the black leather passenger seat next to him.
The door to Base Admin Building 678 opened and the unmistakable gait of his HVT, High Value Target, better known as Seaman Austen, strolled toward the parking lot. She reached the driver’s door of a hot, little red convertible. What else would Sloane drive, he thought with a smile?
Seven days passed since her famous father chased Randy off, and Sloane still looked upset. He’d caught a glimpse of her in the Galley today. Although she acted like the boyfriend-for-hire wasn’t a big deal to her, the screen of indifference was a little transparent.
He waited until Sloane hung a left onto Guadalcanal Road and headed for the exit. Starting his car, Damon threw an arm over the seat and pulled out of his space. When she reached the exit, the security bar rose and she turned left onto the causeway that skirted miles of open sandy beaches which eventually joined the Mexican border. When he hit the security hut at the entrance of NAB Coronado, he waved at the guard and followed Sloane.
Four miles down The Strand, he spotted her car in a nearly deserted parking lot. Pulling into the space beside hers and turning off the engine, he searched the beach. Sloane sat on the white sand with one leg tucked to her chest, staring out at the sea.
He’d done that numerous times before he’d decided to leave the theatre and accept the BUD/s instructor position at the base. Mainly, he withdrew from active duty to be closer to his mom after the doctors determined her cancer would be terminal.
The wind played with Sloane’s long hair in a bundled mop on her head. Silently, he approached her. Lost in thought, she jumped when he knelt down in front of her on one knee.
She quickly rubbed a few tears from her cheeks. “What do you want, Lieutenant?”
“I don’t want you to cry over someone like Randy, for one.”
“I’m not,” she quipped. But tears welled, and he caught the next one sliding down her cheek on the tip of his finger.
From behind his back he plucked a rose from the bouquet and presented it to her. She blinked and their gazes locked. When she reached for the long stem, he drew the flower away from her grasp.
“An answer first.” He smiled, seeing her confusion.
“What answer?”
“To the question I have.”
She leaned back, settling her palms in the sand and waited.
“Are you mad at me or your father?”
She glanced away. “My father. He’s so damn protective. My life is his business, but not all of it.”
Damon offered her the rose and her cute nose twitched, sniffing the perfumed scent. When he displayed a second rose from behind his back, a small grin lifted the corners of her lips as she reached for it, but he pulled away.
“Have you spoken with Randy since?”
She shook her head. “He won’t answer my texts or my calls.”
Great! So she was pursuing him, and it made Damon angrier than he expected, but he gave her the rose. A third rose appeared from behind him, and she laughed. A sweet ring to his ears.
“Do you have twelve questions?” she asked, swiping the strands of hair from her face, and cocking her head so the wind would hold them back.
“You’ll find out, won’t you?”
“Why?”
“One goal was to stop you from crying.” And he’d done that already. “So, tell me the truth. Why won’t you date a no-good SEAL?”
Sloane crossed her legs and wiggled her butt in the sand. “Because I have before.”
When she didn’t offer more, he joined the rose to her bunch and produced another. “And he hurt you, so now you’re gun shy.”
A familiar heat simmered in his lower extremity. The one telling him being this close to Sloane did something to him. That peculiar ache in his chest had returned, but so did half an erection just looking into her beautiful eyes.
“He works with my brother. They trained together, and we dated for a while. My brother, Adam, warned me and him. I was a lot younger and he, of course, was older and really only wanted one thing. He got it, and then I found out he was cheating on me the whole time.”
Damon didn’t have to guess. She’d given the guy her virginity and trust. From that day onward, she’d promised herself she wouldn’t date a SEAL. He gave her another rose, and she pulled the growing bouquet to her cheek.
His heart galloped seeing the velvety, red petals against her olive skin. She had her mother’s eyes, skin color and dark locks, but also her father’s unflappable inner strength seeded in her DNA. Since meeting her, he’d learned she had the Admiral’s determination. She wanted to keep the promises she made to herself.
Slowly, he ran the next rose down her nose with a gentle sweep, then held it in front of her. “Not all Spec Operators are the same. You know that, don’t you?”
She gazed at him for a long while, and the urge to kiss her became hard to resist. When she nodded, he gave her the fifth rose. He was seven roses away from convincing her to at least go out to dinner with him.
He could do this. Instinct told him the tenacious Sloane Austen was worth every rose, and every hurdle a man would have to clamber over.
Still kneeling in front of her, he revealed another flower. “I’m guessing your parents think I’m a pretty decent guy. What about you?” Her full lips pressed together. “Sloane?” he urged, and rolled the rose between his fingers when she didn’t answer.
“I didn’t say, I didn’t like you,” she offered quietly and looked into her lap.
Lifting her fingers curled around the long stems, he tucked another beside the bunch. “So maybe there’s a chance you like me as much as I do you?”
This was the longest pause she’d taken. Come on, Sloane, don’t stop now.
Her gaze popped up to meet his. “Just because you’re all ripped and gorgeous doesn’t mean I need to like you.”
He wasn’t sure if that was the answer he was looking for. Herding her toward accepting his invitation to dinner, she suddenly broke from the pack and her stubbornness went running off in another direction. Time to lasso her back in as she accepted another rose.
This time he ran the rose across her cheek and kissed her lips with the deep hued petals. “You’re not the kind of woman to run away from a challenge, and I’m not the kind of guy that runs either. That tells me if something is meant to be, then we should give it a chance. Don’t you agree?”
Sloane’s eyes heated a little, which only worsened his blooming erection. SEAL training taught restraint, but right now he was having a helluva time reining in his desire.
She blinked slowly. “Maybe.”
He liked her answer, and she plucked the flower from him with a grin. God, she was sassy, and he friggin’ loved it.
“So now that we’ve agreed maybe all SEALs aren’t the same and that I’m not a bad guy, with the added benefit that you think I’m gorgeous and I think you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen…” Her gaze softened and her skin flushed. Holy shit, he wanted to kiss her. A strong shudder of desire threw him off balance. Quickly, he fronted another rose. “Give me a chance to prove we’d enjoy each other’s company.”
“And how would you do that?”
She seemed to be holding her breath, and he wondered if maybe she wanted him to kiss her.
Fitting another rose into the bouquet, he asked, “What’s your favorite restaurant in town?”
“Marco’s,” she answered without pause.
He grinned and handed her another flower. “You like Italian.” And he gave her the second to last rose. “My favorite, too.”
He bit down on his
internal doubts. When they’d first met, he’d come across like an asshole. He had faults like everyone else, and been accused many times of being overbearing. She’d be used to a man like him, but did she want to date someone like that?
He couldn’t change who he was, no matter how many women had wanted to lasso him into matrimony. He wasn’t the marrying type. Damon liked his women independent. Kids dangling off every appendage, like his parents had endured with a family of seven, didn’t appeal to him, but that didn’t mean he was opposed to having someone special in his life.
Last chance, but he was pretty sure Sloane would say yes to one date. And also pretty sure with the last rose he was going to seal the deal by kissing her. If he was as damn lucky as he hoped, they’d be entwined on this sand for the next hour, not able to take their hands off each other. He’d take slow, sure steps with Sloane, because if he blew it, he wasn’t getting another chance.
“It seems there’s only one answer to solving this dilemma. Will you join me for dinner tomorrow night? He leaned in closer and so did she, and his heart began to swell. “Six,” he whispered just barely a breath away from her.
She opened her mouth to answer and a cry shot out from behind them, making them both jump.
“Damon! What are you doing giving another woman roses?”
Aw shit, you have got to be kidding me!
“Sloane wait,” he said as she scrambled to her feet.
The crazy bitch who’d been stalking him for weeks approached with her hands on her hips. “I can’t believe you’d do this to me. Does she even know about us?”
Sloane’s grimace was about as resolute as one could be. The loss of trust in her eyes nearly killed him.
“Sloane, let me explain.”
She shook her head and darted a look at the bleach-bottle blonde who hadn’t eaten a hamburger in thirty years, standing five feet away with tears pouring down her cheeks.
“You’re an asshole, just like all of them,” Sloane hissed, and she trudged through the sand, then ran for her car.
Sloane stomped on the accelerator and her tires screeched, leaving rubber in the parking lot.
Code Name_War 0f Stones Page 4
