Navy SEAL Security

by Carol Ericson

  And the look in her eyes twisted a knife in Riley’s gut.

  Chapter Eleven

  Amy drove her shoulder into the wall, seeking support. Did her past make her some kind of magnet for married men looking for an escape? Oh right, she didn’t know if Carlos really had a wife. He may have been a completely single drug dealer.

  She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop on Riley’s conversation with Ian, but when their voices crescendoed in anger she’d worried about the two men coming to blows. Now the big, strong men, full of fury, looked like guilty little boys.

  All the bluster had seeped out of Ian. He dropped his gaze from hers, running a hand across his short, dark hair.

  Her eyes flicked to Riley. He seemed to have forgotten Ian’s existence. A thousand different emotions charged across his handsome face until it settled into lines of concern.

  At least she didn’t discern any pity. She didn’t like pity—from anyone.

  She shoved off the wall and straightened her spine. “What were you saying about Riley’s wife, Ian?”

  Ian hunched his shoulders and rolled them back as if loosening the last grip of his anger. “I’m sorry, Riley.

  I never should’ve thrown April in your face like that. Amy, it’s not what it looks like. I’m sure Riley will explain everything.”

  Amy smirked because that seemed to stop the trembling of her lips. “Yeah, like how he gets it on with damsels in distress while his wifey is safely at home?”

  Ian spread his hands in front of him, a helpless gesture from an anything-but-helpless man. In fact, Amy had a hard time believing these two men, with their athletic bodies and take-charge attitudes, couldn’t bring down the terrorists and the Velasquez drug cartel by themselves. That Jack Coburn was one lucky SOB to have these two on his side.

  “Tell her, Riley.”

  Riley seemed to wake up from his trance. He shook his head and rubbed his chin with its golden stubble. Reaching over, he clapped Ian on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, man. I know Meg never blamed you for the end of the marriage.”

  Amy folded her hands behind her back. She didn’t want to hear about Ian’s marriage, but at least the former colleagues weren’t at each other’s throats any more. She cleared her own throat.

  “She didn’t, but I did. You had it dead right.” Ian shrugged off Riley’s hand and walked toward Amy. “I know you’re doing your best to help Jack, but you don’t have anything to prove. What happened to April wasn’t your fault, but you owe Amy the truth. Give her a chance to help you, Riley. She’s not April.”

  Amy’s mouth went dry, and she dropped her chin to her chest. What had happened to Riley’s wife?

  Ian took her hand. “You’re an amazing woman, Amy. Riley’s met his match.”

  Riley scooped in a big breath. “I will tell her as soon as you give us a little privacy. I’ve spilled my guts in front of you enough already. And you’d better savor that apology because it’ll be another millennium before you hear another one out of me.”

  “I know that.” Ian squeezed Amy’s hand. He whispered, “Give him a chance to explain, Amy. Give him a chance.”

  When Ian shut the front door behind him, Riley stood with his back to her. His shoulders heaved before he turned around.

  “I’m sorry.” He smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand. “That’s twice in one night.”

  Despite his easy words, Riley crossed his arms, digging his fingers into his bunched biceps.

  Amy clutched her hands in front of her just as hard. “What happened to April?”

  “I killed her.”

  Tilting her head, Amy raised one eyebrow. She didn’t realize Riley had the capacity for so much melodrama. He had a lethal side, but she knew he’d never hurt a woman. Her next words almost stalled in her throat. “She’s dead?”

  He nodded. “April was my wife and she’s dead.”

  Amy uprooted her feet from the carpet and almost tiptoed to Riley’s side. Now she felt like a fool, a monster really for being jealous of a dead woman.

  “How’d it happen?” She caressed his forearm—as hard as steel to match the blue steel of his eyes.

  He blinked, the knuckles on his hand turning white and the veins popping on his corded arm. “She came to me for protection and I failed her.”

  Grabbing his hand, she pulled him away from the door and led him to the couch. She leveled her palms on his chest and pressed firmly. “Sit.”

  He sank to the couch, his knees bumping the coffee table. “I didn’t want to tell you about April. I wanted to keep you safe, not scare you away.”

  “You have kept me safe. I would’ve been toast without you.” She rubbed a circle on his back, her hand skimming across hard slabs of muscle and tension. “Tell me what happened to April.”

  Riley dug the heels of his hands into his eyes and let out a shuddering breath. “April was from a wealthy family, the daughter of a politician. She’d had an easy life filled with easy opportunities and luxuries. She worked as a reporter and went along with her father to Iraq on a junket. That’s where we met.”

  “You saw her in that dangerous setting and you wanted to protect her forever.”

  “I’m that transparent, huh?” He turned his head, plowing fingers through his hair.

  Brushing the hair from his forehead, she whispered, “That honorable.”

  “I figured out quickly we’d made a mistake. She not only feared the atmosphere in Iraq but everywhere else—Italy, where we went on our honeymoon, and even San Francisco, where we’d settled between my assignments.”

  “She’d become accustomed to being well-guarded all her life?”

  “Something like that—secret service, boarding schools, the works. When I’d leave her for missions, she’d call constantly, distracting me, making me feel guilty and miserable. She saw me not so much as a husband, but her own personal bodyguard.”

  “I know the feeling.” She rubbed her hand along his thigh. “You do inspire that kind of confidence in a girl.”

  “It didn’t quite work out that way. April imagined carjackers on every corner and peeping toms at every window. She didn’t want to stay alone anymore and became convinced that she’d be safe only with me…even if that meant in Iraq.”

  Amy widened her eyes and covered her mouth with her hand. “She went back to Iraq?”

  “Yes. And it was even less safe than before. She wasn’t part of a large delegation of U.S. politicians this time.”

  “D-did you invite her to come out?”

  “No.” Riley smacked his palms on the coffee table. “She surprised me, used her connections to come out and faked an assignment. I was too busy at the time to send her right back home. I left her at what I thought was a safe hotel, but I should’ve known. Nothing is safe in Iraq.”

  “She felt safe with you, wherever that led her.” She covered one of his large, rough hands with her own. “I can understand that.”

  “It’s the opposite.” Riley raked a hand through his hair. “Terrorists drove a car bomb into that hotel and fifteen people died, including April.”

  Amy sucked in a breath. April had been irrational following Riley to Iraq. Did she really believe she’d be safer in some hotel in Iraq than her upper-middle-class neighborhood in San Francisco?

  She studied Riley’s hard profile. She could understand April’s compulsion to follow this man to the ends of the earth. April may have told Riley she felt safer with him, but maybe she just couldn’t let her husband out of her sight.

  Amy wouldn’t be able to, if he belonged to her.

  With a tight throat, she murmured, “It’s not your fault, Riley. You didn’t ask her to join you.”

  “But she did, and I didn’t act quickly enough to send her back. Her closeness to me killed her. I’m a walking, living, breathing disaster area. Look at you.”

  “What?” She jerked her head, and her hair swept across their clasped hands. “I am not in danger because of you.”

  He slipped his hand from he
rs and massaged his temple. “I can’t help thinking I’m bringing this all down on you. If I’d never landed on your beach, you’d be packing up for EMT school right now.”

  “That’s just dumb. You didn’t land on my beach. You followed a drug dealer to my beach, which had been chosen specifically because I worked there. My own crazy background catapulted me into this mess, and if you hadn’t come along when you did, I’d be dead.” She cupped his lean jaw with one hand. “So stop blaming yourself for my situation and maybe you’ll eventually stop blaming yourself for your wife’s death.”

  He closed his eyes. “April wasn’t the only one who died. She was pregnant.”

  Amy’s nose stung with tears as she trailed her thumb across Riley’s lips. “I’m sorry.”

  Riley continued in a low voice, his eyes still closed. “I accused Ian of putting his job before his wife, but I did the same. April and I had discussed having kids, but I told her I wasn’t ready. In fact, I’d started doubting the relationship would last much longer. She got pregnant anyway, but I never had to get used to the idea of becoming a father. I didn’t have the chance.”

  He carried the guilt of his wife’s death along with that of his unborn baby, as if his doubts about the marriage and his unwillingness to have children had contributed to the tragedy.

  “Riley.” She ran the pad of her thumb along his cheekbone. “Let go of the guilt.”

  His eyelids flew open and he grabbed her hands. “I’m not putting my job ahead of you, Amy. I’m not using you as some kind of bargaining chip with a bunch of thugs. Ian and his options can go to hell.”

  “We’ll find the money. Once we do, maybe we can make our own deal with the arms merchant, a deal that could lead to information about Jack. We’ll start fresh tomorrow.”

  Riley groaned. “God, what time is it? After everything you’ve endured today, I’m keeping you awake with my self-pitying story.”

  “There you go again.” She kissed his rough cheek. “You don’t need to look after me twenty-four hours a day. I can stand on my own two feet. I wouldn’t be here right now if I couldn’t.”

  He cupped the back of her head, entwining his fingers in her hair. “You’re nothing like April, Amy, and God help me, I feel guilty about that, too.”

  “April made her choices. We all do.” She tugged at his hand. “Let’s get some sleep so we can brainstorm tomorrow. I think if Carlos did leave the money with me, he left it at my rental house. That makes the most sense since he returned there after dropping the drugs at the beach. Otherwise, why come back to my place?”

  Riley followed her to the bedroom, resting a hand on her hip. “That occurred to me, but someone made a thorough search of your place and came up empty. They wouldn’t have tracked you down to the beach house if they’d found anything.”

  “Who knows if they searched the house completely? They don’t even know what they’re looking for.”

  “Neither do we.”

  Amy spun around and put two fingers to his lips. “Don’t be so sure about that.”

  Riley captured her hand and placed a kiss on the center of her palm, his eyes alight with desire. She didn’t know what Riley wanted, but she may have already found what she was looking for in the arms of this protective man.

  Could she hold on to him when the danger dissipated? Would she want to?

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Amy sat cross-legged on the floor of Riley’s small apartment, balancing a notebook on her knees and tapping the end of her nose with a pencil. “We searched the entire house for a big bag of money, right? If Carlos didn’t leave the money itself, he must’ve left a means to access it.”

  Riley hunched over his coffee, peering into the steaming, dark liquid. Coming clean about April had scattered the fog that had swirled around his relationship with Amy from the beginning, but he hadn’t minded the murkiness.

  He’d rather be tarred and feathered than peel back his armor to reveal his weaknesses and fears to anyone, especially a woman he’d vowed to protect. But Ian had forced him into it with his surprise visit. Riley didn’t know what he’d expected after his confession, but it hadn’t made Amy distrust him with her safety.

  Opening up hadn’t lessened his guilt any either. He’d carry that with him always.

  “Don’t you think?”

  “Huh?” Riley glanced up from his mug.

  Jabbing the air with her pencil, Amy said, “Access to the money. Where did Carlos leave the money and what did he leave in my house that would give him access to it? That’s where I’m going with all this.”

  Riley sipped the strong brew and nodded. “I think you’re right. Carlos wasn’t going to haul around bags of cash with him. He stashed it.”

  “Do you think my brother could’ve been in on it? Maybe he and Carlos decided to double-cross the clients together, and then Ethan double-double-crossed Carlos.” She swirled the pencil with a flourish.

  Riley raised one eyebrow. When Amy attacked something, she went all out. He’d have to remember that. “That could be a possibility, but Carlos came back to your place not your brother’s.”

  “You have a point, but I gather you didn’t question Ethan very closely.”

  “Uh, no. Once he told me the terrorist cell had its sights set on you, I left the party.”

  “I’m glad you did.” One corner of her mouth tilted up and Riley had a strong inclination to kiss it where it dimpled. She continued, oblivious to his desires. “But maybe we should pay another visit to Ethan to find out what he knows.”

  Riley choked and sprayed the countertop with coffee. “You want to see your half brother after all these years?”

  “I think the situation warrants an impromptu family reunion. I visited my father in the Federal pen. What’s one more disgraced family member?”

  “I don’t know, Amy.” Riley grabbed a paper towel and blotted the drops of coffee. “You go to your family looking for answers and they turn against you. Why should Ethan tell you anything?”

  “Couldn’t you threaten him with something? Tell him you’ll bring the FBI down on his head if he doesn’t cooperate with us.” She jabbed her chest with her thumb. “Ethan loves the FBI as much as I do.”

  Riley swept the soggy paper towel from the counter and tossed it into the trash. “I don’t have anything on Ethan. I didn’t have a recording device on me when he confessed to working with Carlos and the Velasquez Cartel. And, believe me, the FBI already has your brother on its radar, and he knows it.”

  Amy uncurled her long limbs and jumped to her feet. “Then I’ll just use the old blood-is-thicker-than-water plan. What does he have to lose by telling me what he knows?”

  “His life.”

  Amy’s big eyes got bigger. “Do you think so?”

  “If Velasquez’s client believed your brother knew the location of that money, he’d be a dead man. Ethan wants to keep as far away as possible from you in case someone is watching him. He warned me not to return and definitely not to return with you in tow.”

  “Then we need to find a way to get to Ethan. You don’t happen to have his cell phone number, do you?” Amy dug her teeth into her lower lip.

  “No, we didn’t make it to the let’s-be-friends-and-exchange-numbers stage. But if you’re serious, I can pay him a visit without anyone the wiser.”

  “You can pay him a visit? No, no, no.” She waved her hands, the line of her jaw hardening.

  Riley had hoped she hadn’t noticed his use of the singular pronoun, but Amy had her own agenda now. And she was hell-bent on putting it into action. “It’s safer if I go alone.”

  She cut him off, slicing her hand through the air. “I don’t believe I’m safer away from you than with you, Riley. You’re not some walking jinx. And I’m not April.”

  He flinched. The woman played hardball, but her stripping away of his private thoughts felt like a bracing blast of fresh, clean air. He filled his lungs.

  “So let’s pay Ethan that visit.” She tossed her head, her dark hair
whipping over her shoulder and her gold locket winking in the morning sun.

  Riley nodded and held out his arms. She came to him, wordlessly and without hesitation. They held on to each other like a drowning couple clutching their last lifeline.

  Then he kissed her temple and stared out the window over her head.

  Riley Hammond, you just met your match.

  AMY HUNCHED FORWARD, the black knit cap scratchy against her cheek. She tucked a finger inside the edge and ran it along the curve of her face. Riley hadn’t been kidding about paying a covert visit to her half brother.

  She twisted her head toward the dark street and swallowed. Did he really think some terrorist might be watching Ethan?

  The white columns of Ethan’s house gleamed in the moonlight, and a few windows from the upper story glowed with a faint yellow light. They’d been lucky Ethan hadn’t been in full-entertainment mode tonight. They still didn’t know whether or not he was home, but if not, they’d wait for him.

  She’d wait a long time to get answers from her half brother.

  Riley whispered, his words tickling her ear. “The street looks clear from here. When I ran a perimeter around the house, I spotted the box for the security system. Wait here while I disable it.”

  She twisted her hands together as Riley crouched and traveled swiftly across the lawn, barely disturbing a blade of grass.

  She didn’t want to stay ensconced in the bushes ringing Ethan’s palatial house, every rustling leaf, every chirp from a cricket making the hair on the back of her neck quiver with fear. But hadn’t she disassociated herself from April earlier?

  Clamping her chattering teeth, she felt a strong kinship with Riley’s fearful wife. Bravado caused you to do stupid things. She wasn’t even sure if her plan was an effort to confront Ethan or just a ruse to gain Riley’s admiration and undying respect.

  She’d focus on undying for now.

  A twig snapped beside her and she almost jumped out of her skin until Riley’s face hovered in front of her. The man moved as stealthily as a panther. She hadn’t even tracked his return to the foliage.

  “Shh.” He held up one hand. “It’s done. We’re going around to that back door I pointed out to you earlier.”