Honor Among SEALs

by Dixie Lee Brown

  MacGyver felt as though he’d been cut off at the knees when Kellie turned her head toward Blake and frowned. “You told him, didn’t you?”

  Blake nodded once and shrugged. “Somebody needed to.”

  Christian laughed until Kellie directed her raised brows at him. He choked, coughed and lifted his palms as though he could ward off her irritation. “Sorry, but hell, Kellie, a lot can be hashed out when you talk things over. Didn’t our conversation teach you anything?”

  She regarded the wheelchair-bound man for a moment with what could only be considered affection before she turned back to MacGyver. Moisture shone in her eyes. “You don’t have to explain.”

  “Yes, he does.” Blake went into action, striding toward MacGyver, and grabbed the coffee tray he’d forgotten he was carrying. “Chris and I are going to get some air. Right, Chris? You two kids feel free to use my office if you need some privacy.”

  Christian followed his brother, accepting one of the coffee cups, and they disappeared around the edge of the doorway.

  When MacGyver looked back to Kellie, a slight smile illuminated her features, and big teardrops welled behind lids that couldn’t blink them away fast enough. With superhuman effort, he stayed where he was. “It’s really good to see you, Kellie. I’ve been worried.” That was an understatement. He searched her face, but she wasn’t giving away anything.

  “Charlie wouldn’t tell me where you were. I thought I’d come apart at the seams, missing you.” God, he needed to hold her. “I want you to know I totally respect you for stepping up to help that Iraqi girl. I’m sorry if something I said to Blake made you think otherwise. You did the right thing, and anyone who doesn’t believe that is a douche bag.”

  Kellie looked toward the heavens as she shook her head. “It’s hard…now that I’ve met Christian and see what kind of a man he is. War is horrendous on a good day. Sometimes a person just needs a little help to forget for a while. Drug abuse and war go hand in hand. Drinking and shooting up made Christian forget who he was—what he believed in. One bad decision almost destroyed three people’s lives. But, you know what? If I’d known him then like I know him now, I’d have probably gone to bat for him too. Does that make me a bad person?” Tears rolled down her face and she swiped them away.

  “No, Champ. It makes you the most compassionate person I’ve ever known.” MacGyver fisted his hands and forced his feet to stay planted where they were.

  She laughed through a sob. “I’ve done a lot of forgiving in the past twenty-four hours.”

  “You didn’t happen to include me, did you?”

  Kellie tilted her head, the move giving her a look of confusion. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d be dead. What is it you think you need forgiveness for?”

  “I can be an ass sometimes. I told you I wasn’t interested in a long-term relationship. That used to be true but not anymore. Not since you flashed those gorgeous eyes at me and then threw up on my shoes.” Actually, she’d missed his shoes, but he was making a point. “Not since I fell in love with a stubborn, sexy Marine.”

  Her eyes widened and her hand flew to her throat as her mouth dropped open. “Really?”

  “Really, baby.” He started toward her, and she met him halfway.

  Leaping into his arms, she wrapped her legs around his waist and hugged his neck.

  MacGyver’s wince made her freeze and then scramble to break all contact. “Oh crap! I hurt you. I’m so sorry.”

  He clasped his arms around her, pulling her tightly against him, ignoring the ache in his side. It was worth it to have her back where she belonged—as close to him as a second skin. He buried his face in her hair, enjoying her scent of honeysuckle with a hint of orange spice. His lips moved against the silky smoothness of her throat. “I may never let you go again.”

  Her laugh was half sob as she drew back and looked in his eyes. “I didn’t mean to—I tried to respect your rules, but you had me at hands off my wife. What I’m trying to say is…I love you too, and I don’t know how to make it work, but I want you in my life.” She rained kisses on his face and neck, pressing her body to his in a way that gave him all kinds of ideas.

  Thank God. That was exactly what MacGyver wanted too…forever and ever. The feel of that word was new and a little strange, but he liked it, and he’d definitely add it to his vocabulary where she was concerned. MacGyver crushed her to him, his heart content for the first time in a very long while. Finding her lips with his, he devoured her, demanding entrance, and when she opened for him, he flicked his tongue to every corner of her mouth. Greedily, he took what she offered and gave all of himself in return.

  He came up for air with a groan. “Um…how private is Blake’s private office?”

  Kellie raked her fingers through the short hairs at the top of his head and smiled mischievously. “There’s a lock on the door.”

  “Good enough.” He set her on her feet and drew her in for another kiss. “How would you feel about moving to California with me—you and Charlie? You’d be closer to Anna too.”

  She tipped her head back and studied him. “I think Charlie would be all for it, but…I’m not sure.” A teasing sparkle danced in her eyes. “Would I get to be number one in your favorites?”

  MacGyver laughed. “You can be numbers one through ten if that’s what you want.” He sobered. “Anything you want.”

  “I’ll make a list.” She kissed his neck, sending a pulse of need straight to his groin.

  He slid his hands down her back until he cupped her luscious ass and pulled her against his hardness. She squirmed closer, and he sucked in a breath. Damn. She took him from zero to a hundred in about five seconds flat. The least he could do was return the favor.

  Turning her toward the back of the hanger, where he assumed Blake’s office was located, he leaned close to whisper in her ear. “Lead the way, Champ. I’ll be right behind you. I’m never losing you again.”

  If you enjoyed Honor Among SEALs, be sure not to miss the first book in Dixie Lee Brown’s Hearts of Valor series…

  They’re brothers in arms, Navy SEALs risking their lives for their country…and the women they love.

  This is Luke Harding’s story.

  Six months in a desert hellhole taught Navy SEAL Luke Harding things he never wanted to learn about life and death. Only tender memories of the beautiful brunette he met a few weeks before his deployment helped get him through the torturous days and nights. Back in the States after a perilous rescue, physically and emotionally damaged, Luke’s about to plunge into a new kind of war. In a seemingly bucolic Idaho town, Sally Duncan faces real—and unpredictable—danger.

  All Sally ever wanted was a safe place to raise her nine-year-old daughter. Her identity hidden behind a façade of secrets and lies, can she trust Luke—a man she barely knows—with the truth? Even as they give in to long-denied passion, a killer with a personal vendetta is setting an ambush that will leave them praying for a miracle and fighting for the future they may not live to see.

  Keep reading for a special excerpt.

  A Lyrical Liaison e-book on sale now!

  Chapter One

  Heart pounding, Luke bolted upright, wide awake, as though a dose of adrenaline had shot directly into his bloodstream. The sound—no, more a feeling than a sound—came again, pulling him back from the edge of his nightmare—the same damn one he’d had last night and the night before that. The pain in his shoulders and arms was bad, intensified by his sudden movement. Yesterday’s interrogation had been more brutal than usual. Don’t think about it. It’s only going to get worse. Focus. Something had jolted him from what passed for sleep these days. After nearly six months in this filthy, godforsaken POW camp, not much surprised him. Yet the strange vibrations that still pulsed in his nerve endings were somehow different.

  Hell. What did he know? It wasn’t exactly unusual to wake battling a gut-wren
ching, hard-to-get-enough-air sensation that sapped his strength and made him want to scream to the God he was slowly beginning to doubt existed. With the dream fresh in his mind, how the hell was he supposed to distinguish reality from the warped images taking up residence in his fucked-up brain?

  He lowered himself to his sleeping pallet and strained to catch the sound one more time. His gaze raked the shadows beyond the wire fence that segregated his two hundred square feet of Afghan sand and scrub brush from the rest of the compound. Within its confines, he was allowed to move around as much as he wanted. That was his one freedom, but his harsh captors provided little else. A frayed and rat-eaten tarp to keep out the rain and provide shade from the desert sun. Still, he could be grateful for the times he was allowed to stay inside his prison…away from this ruthless and unpredictable terrorist group. Militant jihadists who’d spun off al-Qaeda after Osama bin Laden was killed, they now claimed ties to ISIS and made his life a living hell on a daily basis.

  It was unnaturally quiet in the compound, yet something lingered on the stillness of the night air. A sound so familiar it was as though, without it, he hadn’t been complete. Shit. He was finally going crazy. Luckily, crazy was preferable to his other options.

  A lone spotlight perched atop the locked gate at the north end of his stockade, interrupting the darkness. The moon, a mere sliver, was barely visible behind a thin veil of mist that would leave the ground wet with its touch before morning. The nights were getting colder. Late September or better. Fall already, with winter on the way. The seasons were the same as they were back home, except more extreme. Would his captors give him a blanket to fend off the freezing temperatures of winter? Would he survive long enough to worry about the weather?

  Every nerve told him something waited in the dark just outside the fence. The skin on the back of his neck did that creepy-crawling thing he hated, assuring him he was being watched. Instinct screamed for him to stand and fight his unseen enemy, or at least defend himself. But fools perished quickly in this hellhole, and he wasn’t fool enough to start a war he couldn’t win. Attracting attention was never a good idea. For now, he would lie still on his worn sleeping mat, tucked beneath a shabby canvas lean-to in the darkest corner. His time would come soon enough.

  Luke waited on high alert while minutes ticked slowly by. Nothing. No unusual sounds. No indication the fighters were any more vigilant than normal. Damn. It was probably the dream that had him imagining things. He’d have laughed at his paranoia, but his sense of humor had been the latest casualty of his months in captivity.

  With an effort, he resisted looking toward the empty mat in the opposite corner of the lean-to. Before his buddy, Ian, had died, Luke at least had had hope. Since the chopper crash that killed three members of their team and stranded them deep within land held by the terrorists, they’d kept their spirits up by planning how they were going to escape. Admitting they’d probably die in the attempt, they’d agreed it would be worth it…as long as they took a shitload of terrorists to hell with them. Yeah, revenge was sweet.

  Now, every time he closed his damn eyes, he saw the sword fall again, heard Ian’s scream turn to a gurgle as his body jerked and twitched in agony. Each time the death scene played out in his mind, Luke struggled against unseen bonds, to free himself and help his friend and fellow SEAL…to no avail. It’d been nearly two weeks since Ian’s death. And Luke was on deck. He knew that…but he wasn’t going out without a fight.

  Slowly, moving only his arm, he reached beneath the edge of his sleeping mat and pulled a picture free. The meager light was barely enough to make out the image. Sally Duncan and her eight-year-old daughter, Jen. With his thumb, Luke gently stroked Sally’s cheek in the worn photograph.

  The smoking-hot brunette had captivated him, and the kid, Jen, had flat-out won his heart. They’d met three weeks before he deployed, and he’d instinctively known some bad shit had gone down in Sally’s life at some point. Whatever had happened had made her skittish, especially with men, and he didn’t have to be told he wouldn’t last ten minutes if he moved too fast. He’d played it cool. Didn’t rush her. Many a night he’d ended the evening alone in a cold shower because of the petite, sexy woman whose Mona Lisa smile always made him think she had a secret. And damned if he didn’t want to know what it was. The night before he flew out, he’d kissed her—really kissed her for the first time—and asked for a picture.

  Jesus! The guys in his unit would have laughed him out of the platoon if they’d ever found out what a wuss he’d been.

  But that kiss and this picture had kept him sane through countless days of pain, depravation and intense hatred. She wouldn’t let him give up. He had one purpose: to stay alive to see her again. To hold her and feel the warmth of her body against his, see the sparkle in her deep blue eyes as she laughed at one of his dumb jokes. Marvel at her appreciative smile when he did something nice for her. What he wouldn’t give to sit with them again in their living room, Sally on one side, Jen on the other, while he held a huge bowl of popcorn on his lap and pretended to groan through some chick flick they’d picked to watch.

  The faintest swish of something moving in his peripheral vision jerked his attention to the guard’s platform towering over the desert floor a hundred yards to the east. And then he heard it again—the sound that had woken him. The whop, whop, whop of a Blackhawk, coming in low and fast. He sprang to a crouch, his heart thumping fast and loud.

  The guards on the platform rushed to the far side, pointing and yelling. Then one of them hit the alarm, and its screech drowned out everything else. An instant later, a missile launched from the helo and streaked toward the camp barracks across the compound. The detonation knocked Luke on his ass and lit up the night sky. When the .50 caliber machine guns mounted in the bay of the Blackhawk opened fire on the guard tower and the few unfortunates who escaped the barracks, he decided it was best to stay down.

  What the hell were they doing? They had to be Americans, but this was no high-value target. They didn’t know he was here. They were just as likely to take him out, along with the dirty bastards who ran the place. It wasn’t like he could take cover inside his open-air accommodations. What was he waiting for? There’d never be a better time to make his escape.

  He scrambled to his feet, tucked Sally’s picture in his pocket and ran for the gate. The barracks were all on fire. A few enemy fighters still fled the burning buildings, screaming and slapping at the flames that hungrily devoured their clothing, while trying to outrun the merciless onslaught of bullets from the chopper. The smell of smoke, gunpowder and burning flesh turned Luke’s stomach and propelled him on. He had no sympathy for them, any more than they’d had a gnat’s compassion for Ian as he died. Let them all burn in hell.

  One of the hostiles ran by the outside of Luke’s enclosure with a rocket launcher on his shoulder, dropped to one knee twenty feet away and aimed the weapon at the Blackhawk that was still picking off ground forces.

  “Hell no!” Luke veered toward the corner of his yard, the closest point to the chopper, and waved his arms wildly over his head. “Get the hell out of here! Go!” A direct hit at such close range would drop the aircraft like a rock. It didn’t matter why they were here. He had to warn them.

  Not a chance they heard him—he could barely hear himself. It was even less likely that they saw him…but somehow, they knew. The chopper lifted up and away at a steep angle, just as the rocket fired. Even then it only missed the underbelly of the craft by a matter of inches. The Blackhawk continued to move away, circled the blaze they’d created and disappeared behind some hills to the west.

  Fucking A! They’re safe. Now it was his turn. He swung toward the gate…and halted abruptly. Abdul Omari, commander of this little resort, had apparently managed to hide his sorry ass and survive. He stood a few feet inside the wire, brandishing a pistol, flanked by two of his most depraved underlings with semiautomatic rifles. The only good new
s was the gate stood open behind them…but Luke would need a miracle to reach it alive.

  “Where do you think you are going?” Omari’s sneer made his heavy accent even more pronounced.

  Luke studied the three. He had no personal knowledge of the man on Omari’s right, but he knew the other man too damn well. Ahmed Kazi returned Luke’s stare. Blond-haired, blue-eyed, American born and raised, the turncoat was now an interrogator and assassin for the terrorist network. He obviously held a deep-seated hatred for his former countrymen and had brought that to bear with a vengeance on Ian and Luke.

  He’d been one cold son of a bitch when the sword he’d raised over his head had ended Ian’s life with a hollow thud. Luke would never forget Ian’s murderer. How could he? The man’s fucking face appeared in his dreams every night. Rage, as black as the pits of hell, burned just beneath the artificial composure he presented to them. His fingers itched to be around the bastard’s throat, squeezing the life from him.

  Omari spoke a few words in one of the regional dialects. As one, his men raised the barrels of their weapons and pointed them at Luke.

  Well, hell. Apparently, there wouldn’t be time to come up with Plan B. Out in the open with no cover, his only option was to fight. Seriously outgunned, his odds weren’t good. All he had in his arsenal was the training provided by the Navy SEALs—which was considerable—but he’d have to get much closer if it was going to help him against three armed men. Then, if the planets aligned just right, maybe he’d have a chance. Still, going down fighting was better than dying where he stood.

  Luke straightened to his full height and raised his arms, threading his fingers together on top of his head. He dropped his gaze in mock submission as he walked slowly toward his enemies. “Commander, you have many injured men outside. I’ve trained as a medic. Let me help them.”

  “You would have me believe you care about my men?”