A SEAL's Vow (SEALs of Chance Creek Book 2)

by Cora Seton

  She wasn’t sure what happened next. One minute they were grappling. The next she was down in the dirt at the side of the road. She couldn’t breathe. Andrew lifted her up again, and this time half-carried, half-dragged her back to the dirt track that ran to the school. She dug in her heels when she could, made herself as heavy as possible, but to no avail. Andrew, while not a large man, was strong—far stronger than she’d given him credit for.

  Finally getting her feet underneath her, she lashed out again, dug her nails into his skin, and when that didn’t slow him down she twisted around and bit him again.

  “Goddamn it!”

  Nora had just thanked her lucky stars that Andrew didn’t seem to have a weapon when he dropped her to the ground and kicked her in the head.

  He didn’t need a weapon.

  Nora’s head ached and her ears rang. When she tried to sit up, the world spun and the contents of her stomach emptied on the ground.

  “Jesus Christ. You bitch. Now look what you’ve done.”

  She’d thrown up on his shoe.

  Good.

  That was something, she thought, but as she fell back in the dirt, she felt the hot tracks of her tears and knew she was losing this fight.

  Andrew stood over her, his disgust plain in the twist of his lips.

  “Fuck. You,” she managed to spit out, the first thing she’d said since he’d opened the door.

  “Yeah. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You always wanted to fuck me, but you couldn’t handle it.” He moved forward, one foot on either side of her, looming over her like the Colossus of Rhodes. He thought he was as invincible as the stone that had once made up that ancient statue, didn’t he? No one was invincible, Nora wanted to tell him. Not even Andrew. “That’s why you said no. Well, guess what? You’re going to find out what it’s like to take me inside you. You’re going to beg me—”

  In one quick jerk, Nora brought her knees to her chest and kicked with both feet at Andrew’s crotch.

  He crumpled with a cry, and Nora tried to scramble up. But Andrew had fallen on top of her, and even when she freed her legs, her long skirt was trapped underneath him. He writhed in the dirt, but just as she pulled free, he caught a handful of fabric and yanked her back to the ground.

  No way. She wouldn’t let him win.

  Nora scrabbled and kicked until she was on her hands and knees again, and pulled until the fabric ripped and she came free. Not pausing to look back, she ran, gasping and heaving, toward the street.

  She was going to get away. This time she’d get away. There had to be a car—

  When the first shot rang out, Nora shrieked and ducked to the side, nearly tripping over the remains of her gown. The next one came to the left, and she raced back the other way. A quick look back told her Andrew was on his feet. He was pursuing her.

  Shooting at her.

  “Clay!” she screamed as she dashed forward again. “Clay! Please!” She didn’t know if she was praying or begging or both. She only knew what she wanted. Clay’s arms around her. This nightmare over. To be back at Westfield. At Base Camp.

  With Clay.

  Nothing else mattered. Not teaching, not writing, not Baltimore—

  Just the man she loved. The man who loved her. The one person who made her feel safe and whole.

  A third shot buzzed by so close, Nora dropped to the ground, then scrambled forward, half running, half crawling. She couldn’t do this anymore. She couldn’t—

  A crack and a thud and something cold and hot all at once slammed into her shoulder. Nora hit the ground hard enough to black out, but she came to all too soon.

  “Crazy bitch.” Andrew stood over her. “Playtime’s over. Let’s get to work.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  ‡

  Clay slammed the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. Damn it, the turnoff to the school couldn’t show up soon enough.

  There. There it was.

  He barely slowed down as he rounded the corner. Another glance in the mirror told him Dell was still with him. He pulled up in front of the schoolhouse, but Dell leaped from the truck and past him before he could even get the door open. Clay lurched out of the truck behind him, his service weapon heavy in its holster at his hip as he followed Dell to the door. He’d grabbed it from Base Camp’s gun safe after the fire the previous evening and was grateful now he had.

  Dell pointed to the ground, and Clay saw what he meant. Footsteps and tracks in the dirt. Someone had been here. Several someones.

  Dell pointed again.

  Clay’s heart lurched as he bent closer to look.

  Blood.

  Nora.

  He burst past his father, slammed against the battered door to the schoolhouse and launched himself inside. What he saw would stay with him for years to come. Nora’s lifeless body on the floor, a stranger bending over her, fumbling with her gown. Blood staining the shoulder of her pale dress, an enormous, deadly blossom that nearly stopped Clay’s heart, before rage started it pounding again triple time.

  That rage propelled him forward like a furious bull, his shoulder lowered so when he hit the man, he knocked him flying. He dropped to his knees beside Nora and took in her pale face, her closed eyes and slack muscles.

  “He’s got a gun!” Dell’s shouted warning let Clay duck and cover Nora with his body just in time as a shot rang out, deafening in the enclosed space. A muffled grunt made him turn around to see Dell crumple.

  “Dad!”

  Time slowed down. Without thought—without awareness—Clay drew his gun, aimed and took his shot, even as the stranger pivoted to put him in his sights.

  Clay didn’t miss.

  The man hit the floor, the neat bullet hole between his eyes already filling with blood.

  Clay spun around, looked for another source of danger, saw there was none and scanned the room to assess the damage.

  Three bodies. The stalker—at least Clay assumed that’s who the man with the gun was.

  Dell.

  And Nora.

  And for one moment—one long moment—something else. A shadow. A ripple. Something he’d seen before on the battlefield.

  Death.

  Fear ripped through Clay with a jagged knife.

  “No.” Clay struggled to clear his throat. He had to make noise. Do something to scare it away, because Death didn’t appear after someone was gone—it appeared when someone was going. And he’d be damned if he let either his dad or Nora slip away.

  “You got one body,” he shouted at the empty room as he sprang into action, still feeling that otherworldly presence. “You don’t get any more.” He tugged his shirt over his head, fell to his knees, pressed it to Nora’s wound, then moved awkwardly to get closer to Dell, still keeping pressure on Nora’s shoulder. There was so much blood on Dell’s clothing he couldn’t tell where his father had been hit.

  “Neither of them. Do you hear me?” he shouted again.

  But Death didn’t answer. It never did, though it hovered close.

  “Damn it.”

  Clay fumbled his phone out of his pants. Hit 911.

  “I’m at the old schoolhouse—the abandoned one. I’ve got two down. They’re bleeding out. I need an ambulance, now!”

  “Sir—”

  “This is Clay Pickett, from Westfield. I’m in the abandoned schoolhouse near the highway. I’ve got two people shot. I need an ambulance—”

  “They’re on their way.”

  He dragged Dell closer to Nora, hating to move him, but unwilling to let him lie where he couldn’t tend to him, either. His phone fell to the floor, but he kept one hand pressed on Nora’s shoulder and searched Dell for a wound, finally locating it on the side of his neck. He couldn’t tell how deep the bullet had gone, but he ripped the tail off the bloodied shirt he pressed to Nora’s wound and did the same for his father.

  “Nora. Nora, honey, you gotta stay with me.” Of the two, he thought she was hurt the worst. Dell’s breathing was even, but as he w
atched, Nora’s was getting shallower. “Nora! Do you hear me?”

  Her eyes fluttered open, and Clay’s breath caught. Thank God.

  “Nora? You’re safe, honey. You’re good. An ambulance is on its way.”

  “Andrew,” she breathed, fear sparking in her eyes.

  “Andrew? Is that the man who attacked you? He’s dead. He can’t hurt you anymore, baby.”

  She closed her eyes and a tear squeezed out from under her lid. Clay wanted to scoop her into his arms. Wanted to will the life back into her, but he couldn’t take his hand from Dell’s neck. “Nora. Come on, honey. Stay with me.”

  Her eyes opened again. “Cold.”

  Clay swallowed past a lump in his throat. He hadn’t frightened Death away, after all. “You’ll be warm soon. You’ll be safe and warm, I promise. Just another minute. You can do this.”

  “He keeps… coming. Keeps… coming.”

  He hated the pain and fear in her voice. When he spoke again, Clay’s throat was raw.

  “He’s gone now, sweetheart. I swear. It’s over.”

  “Over,” she repeated.

  “That’s right. He’s gone. Nora? Nora!”

  She’d faded away again. Afraid he was losing her, he shook her gently, wincing because he knew he must be hurting her even more.

  “Nora! Stay with me, baby. Come on.”

  Her eyes opened again. Another tear slid down her cheek.

  “I think…” Her voice rasped, and he could tell it was painful for her speak. She moistened her lips and tried again. “I think… I’m ready… to go.”

  “No!” Clay reared up, then remembered Dell and pressed his palm against his father’s neck again. “Nora, no. Please.” Clay read the defeat in her eyes and didn’t know what to do. She was giving up. That man had harried her out of a job, chased her halfway across the country and nearly killed her. Her ordeal was over, but she couldn’t take that in. He had to convince her, but if he took the pressure off Dell’s neck, Dell could bleed out in minutes.

  Still, Nora was slipping away. He’d seen this too many times to believe otherwise.

  “You’ve got to fight now, Nora. You’ve got to fight to stay. I need you here.”

  “I… can’t. I’m…sorry.” Another tear rolled down her cheek.

  Clay clamped his hand on Dell’s neck and bent over Nora, dragging Dell even closer. He kissed her, doing the only thing he knew he could do to convince her she hang on. “I love you.” He kissed her again. “Baby, I love you. Hang in there. For me. Please.”

  When he pulled back she searched his face, eyes wide.

  But he felt the moment her life left her body.

  Clay tilted his head back and howled in rage.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  ‡

  “You know what I can’t understand?” Nora’s mother said. “Why you fight so hard for everyone else and not for yourself.”

  “Mm-mm.” Nora couldn’t find her voice. Couldn’t find her hands for that matter. Or her eyes. She was caught in some kind of gray fog, her mother’s words coming from far away and close all at the same time.

  Where was she?

  “Always a scrapper. Always so fierce. Remember how you kicked Danny Kirkpatrick and made him give Penny Sanders back her sandwich in first grade? They sent you home, but I was so proud of you.”

  Her mouth tasted like cotton balls.

  Her mouth. Where…?

  Someone was poking her—hard—in the shoulder. She tried to shift away.

  Where was her body?

  “But when Vinnie Reins punched you in the stomach, you came home in tears and refused to go back to school until I bribed you with skating lessons. Why didn’t you kick him? I always asked myself that.”

  “Mm… Ow.” Nora tried to get away from the pain. Enough pain.

  Too much.

  Too much.

  Her mother kept talking. Nora wished she would stop, and dreaded it at the same time.

  Her mother—

  But—wasn’t she…?

  “Same thing when Phyllis Reynolds stole your prom date. Didn’t say a word. Didn’t even badmouth her behind her back. Where was that fighting spirit of yours then? Why don’t you fight for yourself, Nora?”

  “I… did.”

  She had fought for herself, hadn’t she? Just now? When…

  Nora didn’t remember when.

  “And that job of yours. Those kids. You were a wonderful teacher, Nora. Just wonderful. But then that man—”

  That man.

  That… Andrew.

  Pain stabbed through her again and Nora groaned. Who…? Why were they hurting her?

  “He took your career,” her mother said. “Just… took it! You let him. You let him chase you off.”

  “Mom.” It came out a moan. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t feel—

  When the pain sliced through her again it was too much. She didn’t want to—

  “You did. You let him take those kids away from you. Take your career. Now you’re letting him take Clay. And I don’t understand it. You never liked to fight for yourself, but you used to fight for those you loved.”

  Clay. She loved Clay.

  “—leaving him behind when you know exactly what that feels like. I thought I raised you better—”

  Clay.

  “—and if you aren’t willing to fight for him, maybe I didn’t teach you a thing. Lord knows I tried—”

  She’d fight for Clay. She’d—

  “If you aren’t going to fight for him, then you might as well come with me right now. Crying shame, that’s what I say, but if you’re ready to leave it all behind—even that nice young man—well then, let go. I’ve never been able to tell you a thing—”

  Nora felt her fingers tense. She wasn’t ready. She didn’t want to let go. Not of Clay. Not—

  “Make a choice, that’s all you have to do. It’s that simple, like most things in life. Hold on or let go. You know what’s right, darling.”

  For the first time, her mother’s voice softened.

  “You know what’s right,” she repeated.

  Hold on or let go.

  Hold on or—

  Nora gasped as air filled her lungs with the scrape of sandpaper. She breathed in, coughed, breathed in again. All around her people worked, paper masks covering their faces, nylon gloves over their hands. Metal instruments, bright lights, the smell of blood.

  “Clay,” she tried to say, but only her breath rasped out, hard as stone scraping over stone.

  “She’s back!” a man in a mask announced triumphantly. “We got her! She’s breathing on her own. Someone tell that crazy SEAL before he breaks down the door.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  ‡

  “This isn’t going to be an easy conversation,” Cab warned Clay when they took seats on opposite sides of a table in Linda’s Diner in town forty-eight hours after Clay had found Nora in the old schoolhouse. By the time the ambulance had arrived, the camera crews had, too, and he’d followed the gurneys out of the schoolhouse into a crowd of onlookers, cameras, lights and voices all going at once. He’d nearly gone ballistic, but Jericho and Boone had been there. They’d bundled him into the ambulance with Nora, while his father had been carried to the hospital in a second one, and they’d left the crowds behind—for a little while.

  The ride had been the stuff of nightmares, the ambulance crew working the defibrillator hard on the way to the hospital. They whisked Nora into one operating room, his father into another, and left him waiting on the other side. He’d tried to follow them, got a little physical when an orderly had restrained him, before finally realizing there was nothing more he could do. He had no idea how long it was before a nurse rushed out to tell him Nora was alive.

  Renata and the camera crews had come to the hospital, too, but they’d kept a respectful distance, much to Clay’s surprise, and although he knew Renata had interviewed the others about what had happened, she hadn’t approached him.

&n
bsp; Yet.

  It didn’t matter. He’d never be able to describe the moment when Nora had died. Or the moment when he’d learned she’d come back to life.

  He knew the second episode of the show had come out today, but he didn’t give a fuck. Jericho had reported that it was a lot like the first, but that they’d actually filmed quite a bit of the process of building Boone and Avery’s house.

  “You look like a stud as long as there’s a hammer in your hand,” Jericho had said. “There’s a lot of chatter on the website about the house. People want you to post your building plans.”

  At any other time, Clay knew that would have gratified him, but today all he could think about was Nora. She had been unconscious but in stable condition since they’d resuscitated her, and Riley, Savannah and Avery were sitting with her—the only reason he’d agreed to leave her side. Her doctor had assured Clay she was out of the woods, even if she hadn’t regained consciousness except for that first brief moment.

  “She’s been through a big shock,” the doctor had said. “Sleep is the body’s way of dealing with that kind of trauma. She’ll wake up when she’s ready.”

  After making the women promise to call him if her condition changed the slightest bit, Clay had visited his father, who had also regained consciousness as soon as the wound in his neck had been tended to. His father had been lucky. The bullet had only grazed his neck. It had pierced his flesh—hence all the blood—but had missed any major arteries. Reassured after checking on him again, Clay had let Cab drive him to the diner. Maybe he was in shock, too. Nothing felt real. He found it hard to breathe most of the time.

  “Are you up for hearing this?” Cab asked him as the waitress set down two cups of coffee in front of them. “That’s all for now,” he told the young woman, and she left, taking the menus with her.

  “Yeah.” Actually, he wasn’t sure at all. But he couldn’t go on guessing. He had to know what had happened to Nora. What he kept imagining was bad enough; the truth couldn’t be worse.