Ready to Roll

by Suzanne Brockmann

  But he dished it out, all the time.

  So yes, even though they’d just met, he already liked her—and that was saying something, since it usually took him years of acquaintanceship before he even considering calling someone a friend.

  But right now, she was imagining he was recently widowed, and that was far from the case.

  “It’s really Maddie’s loss,” Pete told her as the car they were following finally signaled its intention to park.

  He scrunched down in his seat, again using his hands to shield his face, because the driver was clearly intending to back into the narrow spot. “I came to terms with mine a long time ago,” he said. “Lisa—Maddie’s mom—and I split up for good when Maddie was about a year old. Thirteen months and four days and…” He’d been at sea for most of those months, and home on leave for less than a week when Lisa had packed the car and left before breakfast, but Shayla really didn’t need to know that much detail. “Anyway, it’s not like my wife just died. I mean, she’s not even my ex-wife, because I could never get her to marry me.”

  And that was TMI.

  He peeked out at her from behind his hand-shield, but instead of looking like she wanted to jump out of the car, Shayla was nodding as if she appreciated what he’d shared. “You both must’ve been young when you had Maddie.”

  “Yeah,” Pete said. “Very.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, they moved out of state and lived, well, pretty much anywhere that wasn’t San Diego because Lisa grew up here and hated it. That plus my deployments made it hard for Maddie and me to have any kind of real relationship, so here we are. Suddenly Lisa’s gone, and I have full custody of my kid, but we’re strangers. I’m clueless and Maddie’s miserable—apparently enough to run away.”

  “She’s still grieving,” Shayla said as the enormous car continued its ponderous twenty-thousand point turn. “And of course, you are, too. I mean, it’s only natural, regardless of how long it’s been since you and Lisa broke up. Is Maddie going to counseling?”

  “We both are,” he said. “Separately and together.”

  “Wow,” she said. She was genuinely impressed. “That’s great.”

  “It’d be a lot more great if it was actually helping,” Pete told her.

  “It takes time,” she said. “Okay, there are two boys in the front seat of the car, and they’ve definitely noticed that we’re just sitting here, not parking. I’m pulling in front of them so they can’t leave. What’s your Plan B if Maddie runs?”

  Jesus, he hadn’t thought about that. He hadn’t imagined Maddie would literally run away from him, but now that Shayla had brought it up… “Um…” he said.

  “Okay. Maybe she won’t try to run,” the woman pointed out, “if you start the conversation with something like Look, I’m not mad at you; you’re not in trouble. I just want to go someplace where we can sit down and talk.”

  Pete made a noise that was almost a laugh. “Except I am mad at her and she is in trouble.”

  “Then you better come up with something more productive than um,” Shayla said tartly. “FYI, grabbing her and throwing her into my trunk is not an option.”

  “I would never do that,” he said, and this time his laughter was more real.

  “Just making sure. The Navy SEAL seems strong in you,” she said as the maroon sedan came to a final stop. “Rumor has it SEALs act rashly and cry a lot.”

  “What?” Pete laughed as he opened the door to climb out. “Where did you hear that?”

  “I have my sources,” she said with a smile. She leaned forward to look up at him through the open car door, her brown eyes encouraging in her pretty face. “You can do this. Just don’t forget to breathe.”

  * * *

  Petty Officer First Class Izzy Zanella looked around the tidy little living room of the bungalow that he’d helped his buddy Grunge—AKA Lieutenant Peter Greene—move into just a few short months ago.

  It was surreal. Not just the fact that Grunge finally lived off-base in a real house with a yard and everything, but that he lived there with his teenaged daughter.

  That had been the shocker—the fact that the SEAL officer had a fifteen-year-old daughter that he’d never so much as mentioned to Izzy. Or to anyone else, apparently.

  At least not until that day, two months ago, when Grunge had asked Izzy out for lunch, which was as eyebrow-raisingly unusual as if Grunge had told Izzy he’d pick him up in a limo and give him a wrist-corsage, too.

  Still, Izzy’d gone and they’d sat outside at everyone’s favorite little Greek restaurant in downtown Coronado where Grunge had exploded his informational mortar round. “Lisa, my ex—well, we were never married, but… Anyway, she was killed in a car accident and now I’m getting custody of our daughter, Maddie.”

  Whaaaa…?!

  The first Izzy had heard of Grunge’s ex, Lisa Nakamura, had been a few months earlier, in a passing conversation. The SEAL officer had referred to her only as a former high school girlfriend who’d been into musical theater. He’d definitely skipped the whole got-busy-and-had-a-baby-with-her part.

  But Izzy managed to push away his indignant hurt—how do you not tell a close friend about something as enormous as the fact that you’ve got a daughter? You don’t, ergo he and Grunge were not close, and probably far lesser friends than Izzy had thought, as well. But boo-hoo, he’d been mistaken. His poor, widdle hurt feelings were nothing compared Grunge’s—someone the lieutenant had once cared about, deeply enough to make a baby with, had been killed in a car accident.

  So Izzy’d said, “Oh, man, Pete, I’m so sorry. How can I help?”

  Turns out Grunge had wanted to borrow Ben, Izzy’s wife Eden’s teenaged brother—who was living with them full-time these days. Grunge wanted help in picking out a teenager-appropriate rental house.

  He’d also hoped that Ben could become Maddie’s insta-friend, but as Ben had pointed out over the past months of trying, these things just couldn’t be forced. Apparently Maddie hadn’t warmed to Ben—or vice versa. And although Ben had gone above and beyond with his attempts to befriend the girl, she continued to shut him out.

  Which brought them to here-and-now, with Maddie AWOL, and Grunge getting more silent and tight-lipped as each hour passed, until he’d announced that he was hiking over to the high school because he couldn’t just sit still any longer.

  Izzy had volunteered to go with, but Grunge had asked him to stay and try to break the password on the shiny new laptop computer he’d bought for Maddie, to see if she’d left any clues behind. Clues like what, Izzy didn’t know, but he was pretty certain she hadn’t left behind a Word doc called Itinerary of Where I’ll Stay When I Run Away. Still, he’d done as Grunge asked by calling all of the various gearheads and hackers that he knew, both in the SEAL Teams and out.

  No one was picking up, and he was about to go hands-on himself when his wife Eden showed up with two of her besties, Adam Wyndham and Lindsey Jenkins, in tow.

  Izzy was pretty sure Eden’s intention had been to make a hostage trade—Adam and Lindsey for him—since she was on the verge of leaving town on a long-planned family trip and this was their last night together for a full week. She’d wanted him to come home with her. But once here, she got caught up in helping.

  “Eden figured out the laptop’s password,” Adam now announced with his usual dramatic flamboyance—dude was an actor—as he danced into the living room from the little hallway that led to the bedrooms in the back of the house. “It was FuckYou123, in something she calls camel-case. I don’t know how she knew that.” He spun to look at Eden. “How did you know to even guess that?”

  She was right behind him, moving more staidly as she carried Maddie’s still-new laptop. Grunge had taken his daughter shopping because the desktop computer she’d shared with her mom back in Palm Springs had been packed up and put into storage with the rest of Lisa’s things, and they still hadn’t found the right box.

  “Because she’s brilliant,” Izzy said, grinning at his wife.


  “It wasn’t that hard,” Eden shrugged it off even as she smiled back at him. “It’s one of the most used passwords, right behind Password123. But the best part is that Maddie left Facebook open, so now we’ve got access to her account.”

  “Way to go, Eed!” Lindsey Jenkins spoke up from her place on the sofa, which she’d reclined so she could sit with her feet up. She looked like a beach ball with a head.

  An adorable beach ball. She’d recently gotten her thick, dark hair cut in a shorter style that she called “baby ready,” which added to the whole cute-little-pregnant-girl illusion.

  Married to Izzy’s SEAL buddy, Jenk, Lindsey was, in fact, a strong, kickass woman. She was a former police detective and a current top operative at Troubleshooters Incorporated, Southern California’s most elite personal security firm.

  Eden worked there, too, but since she didn’t come from a law enforcement or military background, her role was less about ass-kicking and more about administrative support. She assisted the office manager, and ran the group’s in-house daycare.

  “This is great. Now we can use Facebook to make a list of Maddie’s local friends, and start calling their parents.” Lindsey said. “If we strike out there, we’ll make a list of her friends’ friends, and start calling their—”

  “I don’t think that’s going to work,” Eden interrupted her. “Maddie doesn’t have any local friends, at least not on Facebook. There’re only forty-something people on her friends list, and most are from her school back in Palm Springs. There’re a few other Nakamuras—probably family members, but only one’s here in San Diego. Hiroko. She’s in her late eighties and seems pretty zen.”

  “Literally zen,” Adam interjected. “Her profile’s all about meditation and painting and her garden. I seriously doubt she’s helping Maddie hide from her father.”

  “Maybe not knowingly,” Lindsey pointed out as she made gimme-hands at the computer. “But someone should call her tomorrow.”

  * * *

  From Some Kind of Hero

  © 2016 Suzanne Brockmann

  Coming July 2017

  eBook and hardcover from Ballantine Books

  Audio from Blackstone Audio

  Pre-order

  Other Books and Projects from Suzanne Brockmann:

  Troubleshooters Series

  1. The Unsung Hero

  2. The Defiant Hero

  3. Over the Edge

  4. Out of Control

  5. Into the Night

  6. Gone Too Far

  7. Flashpoint

  8. Hot Target

  9. Breaking Point

  10. Into the Storm

  11. Force of Nature

  12. All Through the Night

  13. Into the Fire

  14. Dark of Night

  15. Hot Pursuit

  16. Breaking the Rules

  17. Headed for Trouble (Short story anthology)

  18. Do or Die

  19. Some Kind of Hero (July 2017)

  Troubleshooters Short Stories and Novellas

  Headed for Trouble (Short story anthology, includes a timeline of the TS series)

  When Tony Met Adam

  Beginnings and Ends (A Jules & Robin Short Story)

  Free Fall

  Home Fire Inferno

  Ready to Roll

  Tall, Dark & Dangerous Series

  1. Prince Joe

  2. Forever Blue

  3. Frisco’s Kid

  4. Everyday, Average Jones

  5. Harvard’s Education

  6. Hawken’s Heart (It Came Upon a Midnight Clear)

  7. The Admiral’s Bride

  8. Identity: Unknown

  9. Get Lucky

  10. Taylor’s Temptation

  11. Night Watch (Wild, Wild Wes)

  Sunrise Key Series

  1. Kiss and Tell

  2. The Kissing Game

  3. Otherwise Engaged

  Bartlett Brothers Series

  1. Forbidden

  2. Freedom’s Price

  St. Simone Series

  1. Not Without Risk

  2. A Man to Die For

  Fighting Destiny Paranormal Series

  0.5 Shane’s Last Stand (e-short prequel)

  1. Born to Darkness

  Night Sky YA Series (with Melanie Brockmann)

  0.5 Dangerous Destiny (e-short prequel)

  1. Night Sky

  2. Wild Sky

  Stand-Alone Romantic Suspense

  Body Guard (Rita Award winner)

  Infamous

  Time Enough For Love

  Hero Under Cover

  Love With the Proper Stranger

  No Ordinary Man

  Stand-Alone Romance

  Heart Throb

  Body Language

  Embraced by Love

  Future Perfect

  Ladies’ Man

  Stand-in Groom

  Letters to Kelly

  Scenes of Passion

  Undercover Princess (Rita Award Winner)

  Watch for the annotated reissue of Give Me Liberty coming soon, available in e-book and print-on-demand from Suzanne Brockmann Books.

  Movies:

  The Perfect Wedding

  Written and produced by Suzanne Brockmann, Ed Gaffney, and Jason T. Gaffney

  A sweet little boy-meets-boy romcom, available on DVD and via streaming on Netflix and Hulu, distributed by Wolfe Releasing

  Starring Eric Aragon, Jason T. Gaffney, Kristine Sutherland, and James Rebhorn

  Russian Doll

  Written and directed by Ed Gaffney, produced by Suzanne Brockmann, Ed Gaffney, and Jason T. Gaffney

  An LGBTQ thriller, coming soon!

  Suzanne Brockmann Presents: The California Comedy Series

  Suzanne Brockmann Presents a new series of m/m category romance novellas set in Southern California, written by Jason T. Gaffney with Ed Gaffney. Short, spicy, and laugh-out-loud funny, the California Comedy series puts the comedy in rom-com. Available in eBook and print.

  1. Creating Clark (SB Presents: California Comedy #1) by Jason T. Gaffney with Ed Gaffney

  When a handsome actor gives a nerdy friend a Cinderella makeover to help him catch the attention of an attractive man, their lessons in love go a bit too far, putting their longtime friendship at risk.

  2. A Match for Mike (SB Presents: California Comedy #2) by Jason T. Gaffney with Ed Gaffney (coming soon!)

  Sparks fly when estranged childhood friends join forces to rehab a house, but old wounds are reopened, threatening their new romance.

  Excerpt from Suzanne Brockmann Presents:

  A Match for Mike

  by Jason T. Gaffney with Ed Gaffney

  When Mike Davis opened the bathroom door, all he expected to see was the welcome view of the spacious shower stall that was going to host the long, hot shower that he had been looking forward to for hours.

  What he got instead was the sight of an ass. A very naked ass.

  And this was not just any ass. This was a world class, gold-medal man-butt. Hard, smooth, round, and high. Attached to a perfectly shaped and well-developed back.

  But that was when the non-ass-admiring part of Mike’s brain kicked in, and he dropped the phone he was holding, and shouted, “What the fuck?” Because Mike was all alone in his family’s remote mountain cabin. At least he was supposed to be alone. And when you are all alone in a remote mountain cabin, and you walk into a bathroom and come face to face—well, face to ass—with a trespasser, that calls for a serious reaction.

  The problem was that Mike’s exclamation and phone drop didn’t have any effect on the intruder. It was as if Mike didn’t exist. The man’s outstanding bubble butt stayed right where it was. Atop a pair of really nice athletic legs, planted directly in front of the sink. The man just stood there and brushed his wavy dirty blonde hair like it was the most natural thing in the world to be standing, nude, in a stranger’s house.

  Mike decided the safest thing to do was to call 9-1
-1, and he bent down to pick up his phone. But naked hair-brushing man must have spotted the movement out of the corner of his eye, because he suddenly whipped around and screamed in terror.

  Mike immediately did two things himself.

  First, he screamed in terror right back.

  And second, he noticed that the man was quite nicely developed in the front, as well.

  The man’s response was to cover his crotch with his hands. At which point Mike looked up at his face.

  Sweet Jesus in a rowboat. It was Jeremy Hart, his childhood best friend.

  As Jeremy grabbed for a towel and quickly wrapped it around his waist, Mike flashed back to all those lazy summers spent here in Dancing Elk, tromping through the woods and swimming in the lake. Riding bikes into town, sharing ice cream, sharing laughter, and then, senior year of high school, sharing Will…

  Their friendship had never recovered from that.

  “What are you doing here?” they both asked at the same time.

  “What am I doing here?” Mike repeated. “This is my family’s cabin.” But really, he knew what Jeremy meant. It had been years since he’d been up here. Years, and years, and years… Last time he’d seen Jeremy, they’d both been skinny, awkward kids.

  Not anymore…

  * * *

  From A Match for Mike

  © 2016 Jason T. Gaffney with Ed Gaffney

  Available in ebook and Print-on-Demand from Suzanne Brockmann Presents

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  After childhood plans to become the captain of a starship didn’t pan out, Suzanne Brockmann took her fascination with military history, her respect for the men and women who serve, her reverence for diversity, and her love of storytelling, and explored brave new worlds as a New York Times bestselling romance author. Over the past twenty years she has written more than fifty novels, including her award-winning Troubleshooters series about Navy SEAL heroes and the women—and sometimes men—who win their hearts. In addition to writing books, Suzanne Brockmann has co-produced several feature-length movies: the award-winning romantic comedy The Perfect Wedding, which she co-wrote with her husband, Ed Gaffney, and their son, Jason; and the upcoming thriller Russian Doll. She has also co-written two YA novels with her daughter Melanie. Find Suz on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/SuzanneBrockmannBooks, follow her on Twitter @SuzBrockmann, and visit her website at www.SuzanneBrockmann.com to find out more about upcoming releases and appearances.