Still, in those first horrible minutes after the door closed she’d tried to convince herself it was for the best. He didn’t really love her. He couldn’t. Not if he could use her feelings for him to manipulate her into putting aside her story when he knew how important it was to her.
“I’m not asking you to put it aside forever.”
But he shouldn’t have asked her at all . . . right?
Understanding and patience—wasn’t that what she’d said?
Brittany sat down on the couch, suddenly feeling a little queasy.
She had to stop this. She’d done the right thing. Saved herself a lot of future pain. There were too many uncertainties, too many ways it could go wrong. Their respective jobs for one. His difficulty in dealing with his feelings for another. The fact that he was at the center of one of the biggest military disasters in US history, which could potentially turn into one of its biggest scandals—or a third world war.
What chance did they have? Was she really going to be okay being with someone who lived a life of secrets? Who couldn’t tell her anything? Who might be involved in the kind of secret operations that she was trying to shine lights on?
But maybe she wasn’t asking the right questions. Maybe she should ask herself whether she would be okay with a guy who went to work every day willing to put his life on the line for others, who served his country with distinction, and who was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for his country, his friends, and the people he loved.
Would she be okay with a guy who wanted to protect her, who would do anything to keep her safe, who didn’t want to hurt her? Who could make her laugh even in the darkest of times? Who listened and understood? Who was as strong and sexy as he was gentle and considerate? Who both respected her and disrespected her at exactly the right times—the latter when they were naked?
Yeah, she’d be okay with that guy. She’d be more than okay. She’d be lucky and proud.
Now it was too late to tell him that.
It’s for the best. But no matter how many times she said that, it didn’t feel like the best. It felt miserable. It felt lonely. It felt as if she’d just lost the only man she’d ever love.
And if a broken heart wasn’t enough, when Brittany’s life went to hell, it really went to hell. In the space of one wretched evening she had no John, no story, two coworkers who wanted to be rid of her—one so badly she’d hired a PI to investigate her—and probably no job.
Saving her job. That was what she had to think about. Brittany wiped the tears away. Not whether she’d done the right thing. Not whether she should have given him a chance.
Not whether she’d made a mistake.
It was too late for second thoughts. John was long gone, and she knew she would never find him again. Not unless he wanted to be found.
But it wasn’t too late to save the only thing she had left.
Five years ago, when she’d thought her career was over, John had shown her how to open her eyes a little wider. Reminded her not to give up too easily. He’d made her see that what felt like rock bottom might actually have a few feet of water above it.
Brittany walked into the paper the next morning prepared to do battle with a new story idea.
But that few feet of water evaporated quickly.
* * *
• • •
“So, let me get this straight?” Brittany looked directly at Nancy. “One of my coworkers hires a PI to break into my apartment and spy on me, and I’m the one defending myself?”
When Brittany had walked into Jameson’s office, both Paulie and Nancy were sitting there, waiting for her. They’d taken the two seats on the other side of the desk, leaving her to stand and feel as if she were on trial.
Apparently she was.
Realizing that the jig was up, Nancy had gone on the offensive, joining forces with Paulie to discredit Brittany before Jameson. Nancy had admitted to hiring the PI because she was worried that Brittany was manufacturing evidence . . . again.
Nancy turned to Jameson. “I admit it was extreme—”
“Extreme?” Brittany was outraged at the understatement. “He destroyed my apartment and threatened me!”
Nancy looked at her as if she were being dramatic. “He looked through a few drawers, which I believe the situation warranted—especially with her history of conspiracy theories. I was worried about the integrity of the team—about the integrity of the entire paper. I don’t need to explain what it would do if it became known that one of the paper’s investigative team reporters was manufacturing ‘proof’—it would destroy our credibility.”
“That’s a serious claim to make,” Jameson said calmly. “What proof do you have?”
“She doesn’t have any proof,” Brittany interrupted. “Because there isn’t any. I am not making this up.”
“Then where are your sources?” Nancy said smugly. “Weren’t you telling us all yesterday about a big meeting last night and some ‘explosive proof.’ Where is it? According to the guy I hired, no one showed up last night.”
Brittany opened her mouth, but quickly realized the problem. If she admitted it was a sting and that she’d lied about the meeting, she would have to explain why or she would sound like . . . a liar.
She would also have to explain the men who were with her. Nancy had obviously talked to her PI and realized that no one had called the police. By not doing so, Nancy realized that Brittany didn’t want the police involved. She must have guessed that Brittany wouldn’t be able to reveal who they were.
She was right.
“They must have been scared off by your PI,” Brittany said.
“Or there wasn’t any meeting,” Nancy replied. “And you were lying about it to support your next article.”
There was no next article. Not a Lost Platoon one anyway. But she couldn’t let that go.
“I’m not lying,” Brittany said to Jameson. She pulled out the file of documents she’d received from her mysterious source and handed them to him. “You’ll see the deployment order. Naval Warfare Special Deployment Group has to be Team Nine. In Norway, I found a man who was able to place my brother there at about the same time.”
Jameson flipped through the documents quickly and handed them back to her. “I guess you haven’t read the morning paper yet?”
Brittany shook her head. She’d skipped coffee at home and come straight to the office. “No. Why?”
He handed it to her. She looked at the headline: FOURTEEN SEALS LOSE THEIR LIVES IN A TRAINING EXERCISE.
Her stomach dropped. “What is this?”
“The navy has acknowledged your brother’s death,” Jameson said. She gazed down at the list of names, seeing Brandon’s staring back at her—and John’s—among a couple others she recognized from her time in San Diego. “They don’t say it,” he continued. “But it’s clearly a response to the public interest spawned by your articles and the ruckus in Iowa by the woman who claimed to be pregnant by one of the missing SEALs.”
Brittany was reading it for herself. There was no mention of secret teams or clandestine missions, only “the tragic loss of life” of “fourteen SEALs” in “one of the worst training disasters ever to befall the US military” off the coast of Alaska when a storm caused their helicopter to go down. There were no further details, only that the incident was under investigation.
“This is ridiculous,” Brittany said, handing the paper back to him. “It’s obviously CYA. They don’t even say when it happened.”
“Maybe so,” Jameson said. “But it’s the official statement, and you need something more than a redacted order that mentions Norway—not Russia—to disprove it. I went out on a limb for you, Brittany, but you are leaving me hanging out to dry here. If we don’t publish something more—something with proof—to refute this, we are going to look like idiots.”
It was clear he wanted t
o believe her, but she also needed to give him something concrete. Something she didn’t have.
“Why don’t you give it to him?” Nancy said.
“Give him what?”
“Your next article,” she said. “The one about the six survivors who were warned by an inside source of the trap waiting for them in Russia.”
It was hard to tell who was more shocked by Nancy’s bombshell: Jameson or Brittany. Even Paulie looked surprised. Obviously, Brittany’s e-mail drop trick wasn’t as fail-safe as she’d thought—or Nancy’s PI wasn’t as inept as he looked.
“You hacked my e-mail?”
Nancy shrugged. “I didn’t need to. I saw you type in your password once. Your name with one-two-three after it isn’t very original.”
“Nancy, that is out of line—way out of line,” Jameson said. “We will discuss what happens to you later.” He turned to Brittany. “Is she right? Did you write an article about survivors?”
“It was a draft article,” Brittany said. “It wasn’t meant for publication.”
“Not until you can make up some sources?” Paulie said snidely. “Or do you have more ‘proof’ that we don’t know about?”
“My PI said you were with a man. Was he one of them?” Nancy asked.
Brittany didn’t know whether Nancy’s comment was a shot in the dark or just an effort to make Brittany look silly, but it didn’t matter. The thought of John being unmasked or someone learning that he was alive made her blood run cold. If he was hurt or killed because of her . . . because of something she did . . .
She couldn’t even think about it.
Which made what would seem like a horrible choice of defending her work and breaking her promise to John or letting her boss believe what her coworkers were accusing her of easy.
There wasn’t a choice at all. John was right. In her quest for the truth, she sometimes lost sight of the human costs. The truth did have limits, and she’d just come up against hers. She wouldn’t do anything that would put him in more danger. Even if it meant lying. Even if it meant covering up a story. Even if it meant the job she loved.
He’d asked her to give him the trust she hadn’t given her brother. “You should have trusted him.” John was right. She should have. It was too late for Brandon—and she would regret that every day of her life—but it wasn’t too late for John.
She responded to Nancy first. “He wasn’t one of them because there were no survivors. He was that hockey player I told you I was dating who came to help me out.” Thank you, Mick. She took a deep breath and turned to Jameson. “There isn’t any proof.”
Brittany thought that would be it. But apparently Jameson had more faith in her than she realized. He seemed to suspect she was hiding something. “Let me read it. Maybe there is something we can use.”
Brittany shook her head numbly. She knew what she had to do. But it wasn’t easy to get the words out, knowing what they would cost her. “I’m sorry. I can’t do that.”
“Why?” he asked.
She wanted to cry. Her last chance to restore her reputation and have the career she loved was about to go up in smoke. “Paulie and Nancy were right. I made it up. I made it all up.”
The silence in the room was deafening. She’d surprised even Nancy.
Of course Jameson fired her. She’d left him with no other choice. Brittany was so ashamed, she couldn’t even look at him.
She returned to her cubicle—escorted—to pack up her things, realizing that no one would ever take a chance on her again.
She’d hit rock bottom enough times in the past to know what it felt like. But then she’d had her brother—and John. Her three feet of water.
Now she was touching rock and had no one to blame but herself.
Twenty-six
John woke feeling even shittier than he had the night before. And for once it wasn’t from drinking himself into oblivion. It was from not drinking himself into oblivion and having some of the worst dreams he’d had since fleeing Russia. Instead of seeing his SEAL brothers’ faces in his nightmares, he’d seen Brittany’s.
She was running in the darkness and smoke was everywhere. She was yelling for him to help her, and he couldn’t find her. Every time he closed his eyes he’d see her crying, telling him she loved him, and himself standing there paralyzed with fear. Wanting to do something but too damned scared to move. He’d been scared in his life before, but he’d never been a coward.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Dynomite? Are you listening to anything I’m saying?”
The LC’s voice penetrated the haze of his sleep-deprived brain. John hadn’t been listening. He needed to snap out of it.
When Scott Taylor had shown up at his hotel room this morning, John had been stunned. And so damned happy to see him, he could have cried.
For more than two months he’d been telling himself it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that he’d lost his best friend and half the family he had left. It didn’t matter that the survivors had been forced to scatter to different corners of the globe. It didn’t matter that he was sitting on his ass alone—in fucking Finland—doing none of the things he’d been trained to do.
It didn’t matter that he was alive when his best friend wasn’t.
But that was bullshit. Brittany had known that and had called him on it, but it wasn’t until he’d seen his commanding officer standing in front of him that he knew how much he’d been fooling himself.
You couldn’t just move on from something like that. Any more than you could just move on and forget losing a parent to cancer.
Those feelings were still there. Buried but ready to surface at any time. Like the overwhelming punch of emotion that had hit him on seeing the LC.
But if Taylor had been surprised by the exuberance of the bro-hug John had subjected him to, he didn’t show it. Actually, John suspected the always-serious, do-it-by-the-book officer was just as happy to see him. SEALs were pack animals—the lone-survivor stuff sucked.
John wasn’t sure why the LC had decided to risk meeting in person, but he wasn’t going to question it.
“Sorry,” John said. “I didn’t sleep much last night.” As in at all.
“Is this about Blake’s sister? I thought you said she’d agreed to keep quiet.”
John nodded. “She said she would bury the article.”
He’d won. He’d gotten what he wanted. But he didn’t feel as if he’d won at all. He felt as if he’d used the love of the only woman he’d ever cared about against her.
“If you loved me as I love you . . .”
He could still see her face when she’d told him that she loved him—and the hurt and disappointment when he hadn’t replied. He felt that gnawing in his gut again. That swell of unease that he just couldn’t shake.
Coward.
“I can keep a few guys on her if you are still worried about her being a target.”
He was still worried, but he didn’t have any reason to be. Of course, when it came to Brittany, he and reason seemed to part ways more often than not.
“Yeah, I’d appreciate it.” The break-in and attack in Norway might not be related, but he still couldn’t forget that guy. He’d been a professional—of that he was certain. But it seemed as if it was a coincidence.
Or maybe he was just inventing more excuses to go back to her.
“So, what’s this about, LC? Does Kate have something for us? Are we any closer to finding out what the hell happened out there?”
Taylor shook his head and filled John in on everything that had happened the past few days with the rear admiral and discovering that General Murray, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was Brittany’s source.
“You’re fucking kidding me.”
The LC shook his head. “Nope. He wants the Russians to pay for what happened to us and for his son’s death.”<
br />
“Even if it means war?”
The LC nodded.
“So, Kate and Colt are working together?” John asked, watching the LC’s expression.
He didn’t give away anything. “She’s keeping him from getting on a plane to Russia.”
“And you’re sure that’s a bad idea? Maybe he can find something.”
“That’s what I’m worried about. He could blow this thing wide open.”
John hesitated. “Maybe shaking it up to see whether something comes loose is what we need.”
John was aware that he was repeating Brittany’s argument, but he didn’t care. She hadn’t been all wrong.
The LC shook his head. “Forget it. I’m not risking any of your lives. We just need to be a little more patient. Kate will find something.” As if on cue, his phone buzzed. “That’s her now.”
John could only hear half the conversation, but from the “no” and occasional curse, he knew it wasn’t good.
As soon as the LC disconnected, John asked, “What happened?”
“The military has declared us dead. Apparently, it was on the news and in the papers this morning.”
They turned on CNN. It didn’t take long for the “training accident” story to appear. It was surreal to see his name and face on the screen.
“Guess we’re officially dead now,” John said. “What do you think it means?”
“That they are nervous. That your reporter was making it too hard for them to keep this under wraps.” He paused. “And that we probably both should get out of DC before someone recognizes us.”
John shook his head. “I can’t do that, sir. Not yet.” Not while he couldn’t shake this unease with Brittany.
The LC eyed him, clearly suspecting the reason. “Yeah, that makes two of us. So, what do you say we put our heads together and see what we can come up with?”
For the rest of the day they did just that. Going over every angle of the operation at least a half-dozen times. It was damned good to be back in the saddle again, but John was still distracted.
He went into the bathroom to take a shower to clear his head while the LC ordered more room service, but he came out a few minutes later when the LC called to him.
Off the Grid Page 30
