by Rachel Hanna
Hero
Navy SEALS Romance
Rachel Hanna
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Epilogue
Copyright
Chapter 1
Sun and shadow made lace patterns on the pale dirt of the trail. There hadn't been any rain in weeks, and everywhere around Hannah the canyon was dry, nearly withered in the late September heat. On the coast, San Diego stayed temperate. In the summer the sea breezes made even the month of July sweatshirt weather in the mornings and evenings. Inland, the temperature rose, even in the fall.
Hannah didn't care. Heat made her feel giddy with happiness. The trail she followed she'd chosen on purpose, high in the foothills that created the San Diego Canyonlands. Here the day was hot and sunny and wind-free. She could run here for hours and the most she had to worry about was the occasional rattlesnake, and those were more shy than most people thought. Leave them alone, most likely they'd leave her alone, a theory that made her friends worry rather than relax.
If she worried the way her friends did, she'd never make it out to the trails. No one else she knew did.
No one else she knew ran the way she did. For Hannah, running was as necessary as breathing. She was fast, seven minute miles when she pushed, eight when she didn't, which wasn't technically fast but was when the fact that she could sustain it easily for fifty miles was taken into account. It wasn't mind over matter, it wasn't that once she got going and did something with lactic acid or self hypnosis or the need to meet goals or anything else – Hannah was just built to run. Tall, rangy, with long light brown hair, big brown eyes, a nose she thought a little too long but balanced by a jaw she thought a little too square, she was bustier than the usual ultramarathon runner but otherwise looked the part – athletic, she supposed. The fact that she could outrun damn near every guy she met and in some cases, lift heavier weights than they could, seemed to be off-putting.
Good thing she liked hitting the trails by herself. Even if it did scare her friends. And her mother, her three overprotective-but-happily-still-in-Arizona brothers, her friends. She took training runs at least once a week, heading into the canyons or flat along the beach on the hard wet sand at the water's edge. She carried water and carb packets, her cell and her keys, and a credit card for times when she unintentionally ran too far to get back before nightfall or in the off chance she injured herself.
That hadn't happened yet.
"You need to carry mace. Or pepper spray. Or something," Jenna kept telling her. Jenna ran, but called it quits at five miles. She was fast and could pace Hannah on long races but they didn't train together.
Hannah didn't know where to find mace or pepper spray or what the California laws were about having them. She meant to look that shit up – she did, really, it wasn't just what she told Jenna – but somehow when she got online she got into things like Map My Run and various athletic wear sites that allowed her to log into competitive communities, and then she'd somehow find she'd just spent an hour mooning over new shoes or new wet weather gear or new routes and she hadn't done any of the research on protection.
She could always just outrun any problems. She wasn't looking for anything else to add to the growing number of things she carried. Things just weighed her down. Her apartment was free of clutter, lots of straight lines and right angles, everything put away where it belonged. Her life was like that too and she had no complaints. The occasional loneliness always passed and she worked for a no-kill animal shelter – if she needed companionship, she had plenty of coworkers, volunteers, visitors and furry people to commune with. Outside work she had a handful of very good friends. Mostly she was content. She wasn't running away from anything or running to anything. She just liked running.
The soft dirt on the trail puffed around her running shoes. Her breathing was a little more strenuous – she'd been heading on a very gradual upward incline for the last two or three miles and the strain was starting to show in her legs and lungs. Nowhere near enough to make her even want to stop but enough she was aware she was working harder, her heart beating faster, breathing rough. Hannah poured on a little more speed. Up ahead the path curved round a hill within the foothill she was climbing. She thought once she rounded it she'd find a flat road she could follow that would cross horizontally along the hill rather than heading up it. She estimated she was about seventeen miles into a twenty-five to thirty mile run, which meant she should have already turned back, but the road kept heading upward with all those enticing curves she couldn't see around. As long as there was an up she found it almost impossible to turn around and go back down. There could be anything ahead of her!
The few things Hannah did fill her apartment with often came from various runs. She collected things on the paths she followed, three kinds of things mostly: photos, when she'd stop and pull out her cell and capture some play of light and shadow, or an outcropping that looked like something else (like cloud formations, no one else would ever see what she had seen) or an animal that had stopped in its tracks and was simply staring at her. Then she collected tokens – eucalyptus pods, acorns, rocks that glistened with quartz crystals, feathers, interesting leaves. These she left in a basket on the sofa table just inside the door of her tiny efficiency apartment, reminders of adventures past. The other thing she collected was images – things seen and not recorded but remembered. A good run might have a startling ocean vista. A great run had a variety of animals glimpsed as they went about their lives, staring at the weird human panting along through their world. On this run so far there had been a variety of rabbits, some dashing off at the sight of her, others contemplatively chewing on something and not moving, several crows, one catbird making sounds like a meadow lark, a couple squirrels, a brace of blue jays in one tree, calling out raucous comments.
Great run.
The curve in the road, the one circling the hill inside a hill, was just ahead.
A covey of quail shot up out of the underbrush, their wings making a racket like newspaper being scrunched up.
Hannah put on another burst of speed, barreling around the corner because after this it was going to be flat or down, she'd make herself go back and deal with the stupid jobs, the bills, the need to find something to eat that was healthy and appealing and not pizza for a change, the mundanity of life.
She rounded the corner nearly going flat out.
And flattened herself into the man who stood in the middle of the trail, camera out, expression – glimpsed in the microsecond before she exploded into him – startled.
She had just enough time to notice he was gorgeous.
Then there was nothing but hard, sharp, bony, gravelly sensation.
Hannah grunted and sat down unexpectedly on the trail.
One minute John Knox - referred to as only Knox by most people - was standing on the trail in the foothills, sun hot on his shoulders, camera in his hands, about to take a photo of the path he'd just come up.
Next minute he was fielding an incoming female, catching her hard against the chest. There was enough girl there with enough forward momentum to make him grunt as he tried to fend her off.
Long-term training put him instantly alert. His hand briefly shot toward his firearm, concealed carry and strapped in a holster on the small of his back. The other hand was already out toward her, fingers splayed, half entreaty not to launch herself at him again in case she was the threat, and half promise he'd take care of whatever was threatening her.
His attention was split between the girl
on the ground and the short stretch of path he could see. She'd come barreling off of it, so theoretically whatever was scaring her was on that path.
"How many are there?" he asked automatically, sorting information.
The girl looked up at him, panting a little, and scuttled backward on her palms and heels, knees up, rather like a crab.
Knox frowned. She was moving away from him, back toward whatever she'd been running from. He might only have seconds to convince her he was going to protect her, not harm her. He reached down for her hand, meaning to pull her to her feet.
He wasn't ready for her to lash out at him hard enough he hesitated. In that instant she spun, one leg going over the other in a fluid, graceful maneuver that put her back on her feet, crouched almost like a runner in the starting blocks, her hands flat on the gravel-covered ground. She shoved herself upward, ungraceful now but fast, and was already in flight before he realized she was running from him.
It took Knox five steps to overtake her. If she fled down the hillside like this, she'd get hurt. There were too many loose rocks, too many crevices where runoff from storms had created channels several inches deep in the dirt, mini-streambeds.
I'm not going to hurt you was the worst thing he could say. His little sister had convinced him of that, saying simply, "If someone's not going to hurt you, why would that be the first thing they think of to say?'
"Wait!" he said. "Please! You're going to get hurt if you do that."
His fingers found purchase on the very edge of the t-shirt she wore.
She turned back to him, her eyes blazing with fury as much as fear, and began battering him, fists pummeling his chest, then moving to his face when she realized her blows were ineffective.
He grabbed her wrists, transferred the hold to one hand, used the other to spin her in his grip, then locked his arms around her biceps to her sides, pinning her.
For once he managed to move his mind faster than his mouth. "Are you all right? Is someone chasing you? I'm not going to hurt you!" Damn. "I'm a Navy SEAL." And that's important how? "I'm Search & Rescue. I can help."
He'd slipped with the I'm not going to hurt you. At least he hadn't said, I'm armed. She might not understand he meant he could defend her against whoever she was running from.
Knox stilled. Was she running from anyone? If so, they were tremendously slow, because they hadn't arrived yet.
Heat suffused his face. She was wearing running clothes. Carrying a phone strapped onto her arm.
"I thought you needed help. I'm going to let you go. Please let me explain." He paused, and added, "Please."
Maybe it was the repetition of please, but he felt her wiry tenseness fade. She didn't relax – she was still wary and that was good – and she was clearly still pissed. But she stood still and said, "If you're what you say you are and mean what you say you mean, let go of me."
She'd gone from panicked to calm and ordered. If she ran the instant he let go of her, that was her choice.
He let go all at once, stepped back more than the minimum for polite social discourse that didn't involve grabbing people unexpectedly on secluded hillsides.
She didn't bolt. She turned slowly and observed him, not smiling, still nervous. She was tall – five-ten, he estimated – slender and built for running, except for a chest he made himself look away from instantly but wow, slender, beautiful, she looked like the stunning female athlete who would incite an entire country-worth of girls to imitate.
And she was dressed for running.
Sometimes his training made him go into overdrive. Too late to do anything about that now. No harm, no foul, just a face full of embarrassed blushing.
He felt like a tool.
"Sorry," he said. "Really. I thought you were being chased."
He saw a bunch of responses go through her mind by the way she tilted her head, her lips parted slightly, before she said, wryly, "What was your first indication that I wasn't?"
"Aside from your attacking me rather than clinging to me in girlish fright?" He saw her lips move in amusement. "Slowest pursuers ever. That's what."
That made her grin, which transformed her face from beautiful to irresistible. She looked like she'd be fun to know, always on the go, always thinking up something to do no one else would think of.
"Running," she said.
"Knox," he said, holding out his hand, as if "Running" had been an introduction.
Apparently she got it. She laughed. "Hannah."
Conversation flagged then. They both looked around the path, the hillside higher on one side than the other, the blue sky overhead. There was a very long, very awkward pause.
Hannah recovered first. The oversized man's watch on her right wrist indicated the day was moving right along no matter what she was doing. Which wasn't moving. She still had enough time to get down and back to her car before it became even remotely dark out but why take chances? She'd been prepared to bolt back down the hillside only because running into this guy had scared her to death. She'd thought –
She'd thought Alexa and Molly and Jenna were right and she'd finally run smack into someone who was going to rape her or kill her in the middle of nowhere and she'd have no one to blame but herself.
Now she realized she'd run into some innocent guy who was, for all she knew, bird watching, so she was going to take it slow down the side of the hill and not break her neck.
She turned from observing – nothing, she was looking at nothing, just embarrassed – and instantly lost track of everything she meant to say. Damn! He was taller than her. Hannah was five-ten-and-a-half, which she often said in a rush, hoping people wouldn't automatically ask if she was a model. Tall guys got asked if they played basketball. Tall girls got asked if they modeled. She didn't.
But it wasn't just the height. He had piercing brown eyes, bright and very awake and aware. Straight sandy brows over the eyes, straight and somewhat sharp nose, square jaw like a superhero drawing, lightly covered in scruffy few-days-worth of beard.
The whole package got better from there. He was one of those super lean and muscled guys where the muscle followed all the natural contours of the body instead of overwhelming them. Far from looking musclebound, he looked capable and strong and maybe like a runner. He was wearing a very old, colorless t-shirt and a pair of baggy shorts with running shoes, and he had long, lean, nicely muscled legs. He looked like he could run, and run well.
She'd taken too long to say anything. Whatever she'd meant to lead with, it had gotten away. Do you come here often? Was the only thing on the tip of her tongue and it was utterly stupid.
So she said it. "Do you come here often?" She made her voice intentionally husky and batted her eyelashes.
It worked. He laughed outright, loud and sounding like he was surprised. "I could ask you the same thing."
She shrugged. "I run. I love to run." Glancing around them again, this time more comfortable, she said, "Lots of different foothills. I try to find a different trail every time. But I don't really care. Every trail changes regularly, with wind or rain or the number of animals on it or the time of day." She checked her watch again. Ordinarily not part of her ensemble, she wore a watch when running so she remembered to return to reality at some point. "But I have to get going if I'm going to get back."
He narrowed his eyes, mulling that one over. "The trailhead's only about forty-five minutes that way," he said, pointing back the way he'd come.
Hannah nodded. "Yep. But I came from over there," she said, gesturing wildly.
"There isn't a trailhead over there. Not for miles."
She nodded. Could happily have stayed with the guy. Had a conversation. Acted like she knew how to converse with not only people but amazing looking males. Only she didn't. She did well with small furry things and small furry conversations. She did well alone. She was going to put her foot in this at any minute. "There's a trailhead somewhere about seventeen miles back."
And watched as his eyes grew wide. Oops. She hadn'
t meant to do that. If she hadn't meant to tell him anything about her running prowess, was it still bragging?
"You ran seventeen miles already today?"
He didn't sound average Joe threatened. He sounded like she was –
Her first thought was "crazy." Only he didn't. More like he was paying attention to what she said.
She nodded.
He looked from the distance back at her. "And you're just nonchalantly talking about running back the same distance?"
That made her choke on a laugh. "I don't know about nonchalant. But to be honest, that's the only way to get back where I started. Or I could call someone." A note of wariness crept into her voice but though her heart kept pounding faster, it wasn't from exertion and it wasn't from fear of this guy.
Something altogether different was making her feel hot in ways that had nothing to do with physical exertion (at least, not yet) and not from the heat of the day.
Damn, he was hot.
Instantly she began tripping over her words again. "What about you? Bird watching?" She said it lightly to see if he'd bristle at being teased. Those really were long, lean runner's legs. Maybe bicyclist's. Either way, he was massively fit. Abruptly she said, "You said you're a SEAL?" And watched, amazed, as he blushed.
"Sorry! I was trying to find a way to make you understand I was harmless. Or, not harmless," he said, stumbling over his words now. "But not dangerous."
She felt a tiny warming smile at the "not harmless" clause but said, "And that's what you came up with?"
He gestured hopelessly, endangering the undergrowth nearby. "I just wanted to convince you I wouldn't hurt you."
She cocked her head. "So you're not really a SEAL?"
His eyebrows went up. His eyes themselves really were a deep rich brown. "Oh, I'm a Navy SEAL. Reserve, now. Work search and rescue civilian. I said SEAL because, you know, good guys. Besides, my little sister said saying I won't hurt you scares girls."
