by Tawny Weber
* * *
IT WAS LIKE WATCHING a bunch of virgins tour a whorehouse. Lieutenant Commander Cade Sullivan shook his head at the current crew of Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL trainees slogging through the wet sand, each carrying a dripping log over his shoulder.
“Were we ever that green?” he wondered aloud.
“You weren’t,” Captain Seth Borden said with a laugh, clapping Cade on the back. “You were one of the most focused BUDS we’ve seen come through here. I’ve been a MTS a long time, but even I can’t always tell which guys will make it through Hell Week. Sometimes none do. But when you came through, every instructor knew you’d graduate.”
Borden was a Master Training Specialist. One of the top at Coronado’s Naval Special Warfare Center, as a matter of fact. He was a machine. A guy who’d dedicated thirty years to the navy and scared the hell out of most people.
Cade considered him a crusty old bastard who drank like the sailor he was, cussed with flare and played a wicked hand of poker. And when they weren’t in uniform or on base, he was Cade’s favorite uncle.
“Why’d you haul me down here?” Cade asked, grimacing when one guy tripped over his own feet, taking three others down with him and sending his log flying ahead into the back of two more. “Wanted to make sure I appreciate how good my team is?”
He grinned when three wannabe SEALs sidestepped the downfall and just kept on going. Those guys, they had what it took.
“You need a reminder?”
“Nope.” Cade’s smile faded. He knew damned well that he served with some of the best SEALs in existence. Guys who gave their all, like his buddy Phil Hawkins, who’d given it right to the end. A familiar band of grief tightened in Cade’s chest, as it did whenever he thought of the loss. The Three Amigos, Phil, Cade and Blake Landon had gone through BUDS together, had served in the same platoon, on countless missions together. They embraced everything that being a SEAL stood for. Brotherhood. Dedication. Excellence.
And now the Three Amigos were two.
“C’mon in. We’ll have a cup of coffee.”
Grateful for any distraction from the gnawing emptiness that had started to overshadow his SEAL career, Cade followed the captain to his office. He shook his head when Borden held up the coffeepot. While on tour, he might have to stick with field rations, but the rest of the time, he opted for quality. From the looks of that pot, the sludge in the carafe was barely digestible.
“So?” Cade prodded, knowing he didn’t need to repeat the question.
“You’re coming up on your PRD.”
Cade wasn’t surprised at the captain’s statement. Borden figured he’d recruited Cade to the SEALs. Since being a SEAL had been Cade’s goal from the time he was twelve, he didn’t think recruiting was the right term, but he let the old man have his illusions.
“Not for six months,” Cade said, referring to his Projected Rotation Date, the time when he’d be up for reassignment. He’d been based here in California for eight years. Chances of being sent to Virginia or Hawaii were slim, but possible. Maybe a transfer was a good thing, though. He could start fresh, get away from the constant reminders of his lost friend. “Why?”
“I want you to consider taking your MTS cert.”
Cade laughed and shook his head. “Why the hell would I want to be certified as a trainer?”
“You’re a freefall jumpmaster, took gold in the Excellence in Pistol Shot, and were awarded the Silver Star. You aced out of Sniper School. And then there’s the advanced counterterrorism technology training. You’re one of the elite. You got the goods, boy.”
Cade rocked back on the heels of his jump boots and grinned. Yeah. That was a pretty sweet list of qualifications. He’d worked damned hard, and loved every second of getting all of them. But all he said was, “So?”
“So we could use you here. The certification, a year as a trainer—it’d bump your pay grade and move you a lot closer to those captain’s bars.”
Cade frowned. He didn’t care about the pay or rank. But he did care about losing his edge, about this depthless funk he’d sunk into, dragging his team down, too. He glanced out the window at the grown men falling all over themselves in the surf, struggling like toddlers to reach their boats. Those guys wanted to excel. To be the best. And he could be damned good at helping them get there. But to do that, he’d have to quit being a SEAL. And he didn’t quit. Not one damned thing.
So he shook his head. “Nah. I’m good.”
“Don’t you think it’d be mighty impressive?” the captain asked as he and his steaming cup of coffee settled behind the desk.
“Borden, I’m already a SEAL. There’s not a damned thing more impressive than that.”
“Sure, maybe to the ladies.”
“Who else matters?” Cade laughed.
Hell, it was rare that he ever even had to pull out the SEAL card to impress a woman. He looked good enough that the women tended to fall all over him anyway. They always had. And it wasn’t ego talking. He credited genetics for his sandy blond hair, sharp green eyes and chiseled features and the navy for his ripped body.
He had nothing to prove to anyone else.
“You want to climb higher than Lieutenant Commander?”
Cade shrugged again. Rank and money didn’t mean anything to him. Neither one had the thrill, the excitement, or the rock-solid satisfaction of being a part of Special Ops. At least, up until last fall, when Hawkins had taken a piece of shrapnel to the head while under Cade’s command.
“I’ll bet there are some people who’d like to see you move up the ranks,” Seth said, staring into his cup like it held some fascinating secret. Or, more likely, because he didn’t want his expression to give away his trump card.
“I don’t live my life for other people,” Cade countered with a grin, dropping to a chair and getting ready to play. Mind games were almost as much fun to win as war games.
“What about Robert?”
Cade’s smile fell away.
“I definitely don’t live my life for my old man.”
“Not saying you should. But I’ll bet it’d go a long way toward keeping him off your back for a while.”
“You mean it’ll keep him off your back?”
Robert Sullivan had married Seth’s little sister Laura thirty-five years ago and had probably muttered an average of a few dozen words a year to his brother-in-law since the reception. Less after they’d lost her to cancer five summers ago. But Robert somehow managed to find a few here and there to touch base with Seth for a little secondhand haranguing for his one and only child.
“Robert doesn’t bother me,” Cade’s uncle said, dismissing him with a jerk of one shoulder. As if his ex-in-law was that easy to flick off.
Cade wished that were so. But he knew better. Robert Sullivan, of Sullivan Enterprises, specialized in tenacity, had the personality of a bulldog and the charm of a cactus. He’d been furious when Cade had joined the navy instead of taking his rightful place at the helm of the family’s financial consulting firm.
“If he doesn’t bother you, then why are you using him as bait?” Cade challenged.
“Because you’re a damned good soldier. A fine SEAL and a strong leader. I don’t want to see you derailed. You’re on edge lately. That’s the kind of thing that some people look for, try to take advantage of in order to make things go their way,” he said, referring to Cade’s father. “A break would let you figure it all out, before you’re played.”
His pleasant expression didn’t change, nor did his body shift even an inch as a painful sort of tension spiked through Cade’s system.
“No offense, Captain,” Cade said with a grin as he got to his feet. “But I don’t give a good damn what my father does. And nobody plays me. Not even the old man.”
To Robert Sullivan, Cade was a pawn. A useful tool. He’d expected his only child to follow in his footsteps, to learn the ins and outs of finance and take over the vast Sullivan holdings if and when Robert deemed it time.
/>
Cade had never been interested in any of that. Not even as a kid. So he’d never let the old man in on his plans. He’d enlisted the day he’d turned eighteen, three months before he’d finished high school. Already knowing the value of good strategy, he’d waited to tell his father until the morning after graduation. And he’d left for basic training right after the ensuing big ugly fight.
It wasn’t just that he didn’t want to take some bullshit business major if his father covered tuition that made him decide not to go to college.
He simply hadn’t wanted to wait to get started in the navy.
And then, like now, he hadn’t given a damn about rank.
He just wanted to be a SEAL.
He was born for the military.
He just had to remember that and get through this damned... What did his squadmate and amigo, Blake’s fiancée, Alexia, call it? Journey of grief. Stupid thing to call being pissed off over losing his buddy. And definitely not something he wanted to talk about. Not to Blake, not to Alexia. And definitely not to his uncle.
Before he could make excuses to leave, Cade’s cellphone rang.
“Speak of the devil,” he muttered, noting the number on the screen.
“The old man?”
“Close enough—it’s my grandmother.”
The only thing that kept Cade from turning his back on his family, and all the drama and crap that went along with it, was his grandmother. He would do anything, even play nice at holidays, to make Catherine Sullivan happy.
With that in mind, he gestured his apology to Borden and took the call. Five minutes later, he wished he hadn’t.
“Robert had a heart attack,” Cade murmured as he slid the phone into his pocket.
“Is he okay?” Seth asked, looking up from the paperwork he’d been pretending to do to give his nephew some semblance of privacy.
“He’s in intensive care. They don’t know if he’s going to make it.”
Seth frowned, coming around the desk. “Are you okay?”
Cade shrugged. He didn’t know what he was. Numb. Despite a lousy, contentious relationship, shouldn’t he care that his father might die? That he was hanging by a thread?
Cade’s mind couldn’t quite take it in.
He was a SEAL, specially trained in multiple ways to cause death. He’d served during wartime. He’d watched men die. He’d held one of his best friends as life drained away. It wasn’t that he wasn’t familiar with the concept.
But his father? He’d always figured the old man was too stubborn, too obnoxious, too uncompromising to allow it to happen on anything but his own approved timetable.
“You need anything?”
Cade gave Seth a blank look, then shook his head. “Gotta see my CO, get leave. Grandma wants me home.”
Seth’s wince pretty much summed up Cade’s lifelong feelings about returning to the Sullivan Estate.
Cade grimaced in return. “Looks like I’m getting that break after all.”
2
“DID YOU HEAR? Cade Sullivan is back.”
Eden shook her head as twitters and giggles filled the room, women from the ages of eighteen to sixty-eight offering up a communal sigh. From what she’d seen, the members of the Garden Club rarely agreed on anything. Leave it to Cade Sullivan to bring women together.
But as hot and sexy as Cade was, he wasn’t the kind of stud she wanted to talk about right now.
It wasn’t like she wasn’t a fan of Cade herself. She adored the guy. Heck, she’d love to do the guy. But she was here to talk up her business. To try and garner a few new clients. Instead, the entire conversation had been derailed by the homecoming of the town hero.
Cade was good at that kind of thing. Making women sigh, fantasize, and if rumors were true, have some mighty fine orgasms. At least, that’s what the Cade-ettes, as those lucky few who were in the know liked to call themselves, claimed.
“I heard he’s here for a month. He doesn’t come back often, does he?” Bev mused, her eyes dreamy. No doubt visualizing Cade in some form of undress. “It’s been, what? Ten years since he left?”
“Twelve,” Eden corrected absently, leaning over to scoop up a bite of her friend’s lemon chiffon cake. The fork halfway to her mouth, she noticed all the stares aimed her way and shrugged. “It’s not like I’m marking off the years in my diary. He left for the navy the same week I broke my foot the first time. He’s the one who carried me home from the lake.”
“Did you know him well?” asked a pretty blonde whose name Eden didn’t remember. The girl had married her way into the Ocean Point high society, so she didn’t have firsthand knowledge of the almost mythical wonderfulness that was Cade Sullivan.
“Oh, please,” Janie Truman scoffed, sliding into an empty seat at the table and taking a single grape from the bowl in the center. “You barely knew Cade Sullivan. Sure, he rescued you a few dozen times. But that’s sort of what he does for a living, isn’t it? You were like basic training.”
Her laugh was too bubbly for Eden to take offense. At least, not unless she wanted to look like a bitch. That was the problem with Janie. She always came across as all smiles and charm, even while she slid her pretty jeweled knife between your ribs.
Eden sighed, wondering why belonging to this group was her holy grail. The ugly was always as subtle, but as real, as the expensive perfume. But only to outsiders, she figured. The only way to avoid being the butt of their jokes and pitying looks was to belong.
“I’d say growing up next door to the Sullivans means she probably knows Cade well enough,” Bev defended, her irritation on Eden’s behalf shining bright.
“Sort of,” Eden demurred, not sure she wanted to share just how much about Cade she did know. Instead she settled on the simple facts. “Cade’s five years older than I am, so we weren’t in school together, didn’t run in the same crowds. Cade was busy with football and the swim team and I was playing with animals and volunteering at the shelter.”
How was that for an opening to talk about veterinary care, Eden thought, giving herself a mental back-pat.
“Captain of the football team. Class president, homecoming king,” Janie rhapsodized, her sharp chin on her hand as she gave a dreamy sigh, ignoring any references that included Eden. “Oh, to be a Cade-ette...”
“Cade-ette?” Bev asked with a laugh. She gave Eden an are you kidding look.
Eden grinned. It was a little shameless, as far as titles went. Still, it carried as much cachet as an Oscar did for an actor. “It’s silly. When Cade was in high school—”
“Junior high, even,” Janie interrupted.
“Maybe,” Eden acknowledged, wrinkling her nose. “That’s awfully young, though. Not for Cade, of course, but for the girls? But nobody knows for sure, do they?”
“Knows what?” Bev prompted before Janie could launch into one of her typical attempts to prove that she did, indeed, know everything.
“Knows when it all started, what the rules are or even who’s in the club,” Eden said. “The story goes that Cade, while being quite the ladies’ man even in his teens, knew he wanted out of Mendocino County and wasn’t about to let anything—not even a girlfriend—keep him here. So while he played the field, he kept things simple, uncomplicated.”
“In other words, he was really careful about sleeping around because he didn’t want to be trapped. Not just because he’s super cute, but because the Sullivans are filthy rich,” Janie explained, eyeing the cake with an envious look before nibbling on another grape.
“But after a while, girls started bragging. I think the allure of having done Cade Sullivan was better than a pair of diamond studs, and they just couldn’t keep from showing off.” Eden remembered the almost mythical shot to fame the girls would get, being fawned over, buddied up to, romanced by other guys. “Pretty soon, the Cade-ettes had an even more exclusive membership than the country club.”
“Exclusive, and elusive,” Janie interrupted. “There weren’t many who could make that claim
to fame. Maybe a dozen at the most.”
“How do you know they were telling the truth?” Bev wondered. “I mean, if he was determined not to get trapped, would he really sleep around, even with a dozen girls in four years?”
“Sixteen years,” Janie corrected. “That dozen counts the girls he was with before—and after—he left for the navy.”
“You mean the club still has openings?” Bev joked.
I wish, Eden almost said aloud. Horrified, she focused on shoveling cake into her mouth to keep it busy. She had a bad habit of looking before she leapt, and speaking before she thought. Usually, she didn’t worry about the results. But this was Cade they were talking about. And she cared about everything that had to do with Cade Sullivan.
Which was why she’d never shared, not even with her best friend, how often she’d seen Cade at the lake behind their properties. Skinny dipping sometimes, practicing martial arts others. But usually with a girl. Eden had rarely seen the girl’s face, but could see through the bushes clearly enough to know they both usually ended up naked.
He’d been gorgeous, even as a teen, with the body of one of the Greek Gods Eden had been fascinated with. Tan, sculpted and, well, huge, he’d been worth the many bouts of poison oak she’d gotten spying through the trees.
She dropped her fork onto the empty plate and reached for her iced tea, needing to cool off.
“So this rumor, you believe it?” Bev prompted.
“Sure.” Eden shrugged. “I mean, the few who did try to claim they’d done Cade Sullivan were outed as liars pretty fast. Nobody but the Cade-ettes themselves know what the secret is that proves the truth. I guess they think it’s a pretty good secret, too. Like I said, it’s been twelve years since he left and they still aren’t talking.”
And while she’d only watched him a couple of times before embarrassment and a heart-crushing envy had made her avoid the lake altogether just in case he was there, she’d never seen any distinguishing marks or heard him use any special phrases that might stand out as tells.
“Everyone wanted to be a Cade-ette,” Janie said with a sigh, either forgetting her constant diet as she scooped up a fingerful of chocolate from the cake in front of her, or envy making her so morose that she didn’t care.
