The Only Reason: A Novel (Trident Trilogy: Book Two)

by Donna Schwartze

  That’s not the advice I wanted. I was hoping she would have a magic solution—like a pill Mason could take to turn down the alpha a little bit.

  “And second,” she continues, “the reason he feels responsible for the kidnapping is precisely because he wasn’t there. He and his team worked the mission with you from day one. Then not to be there when the shit really went down—that’s a tough pill for these guys to swallow. Add in the way he feels about you, and I’m sure it’s enough to make his head feel like it’s going to explode. He thinks he failed you and failed at the mission. These guys don’t like to fail and they rarely do. It’s tough on them.”

  “So what you’re telling me is that I’m the problem. That I need to let him control me because of the way he’s programmed.”

  “I’m saying because of the way he’s programmed, he’s going to control things one way or another. Whether you can tolerate it is up to you. Do you think you can give him a little control here and there?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I do already. There are areas where I don’t mind it at all.”

  “Sexually.” She nods her head way too enthusiastically.

  “Oh my God! I didn’t say that.”

  “But the sex is great, right? You know what I’m saying. When they get all alpha and take control—”

  “Mar! You’re like my mom. Stop it.” I bury my face in my hands and then peer through my fingers at her. “But yeah. It’s out of this world. Like crazy good.”

  She makes a check mark in the air with her finger. “Knew it,” she says smugly. “And that’s part of what’s blinding you from reality. No judgment on that part though. Get yours, you know?”

  “Oh my God. No more wine for you. You’re out of control.”

  She stands up suddenly, swaying slightly. “I’m going to the bathroom. It will give you ample time to think about how right I am about everything.”

  I watch her until the click of her stilettos fades away into the restaurant. I know she’s right about the blissful bubble. Since Mason moved here, we’ve survived on a steady diet of sex and surfing—absolutely no real-world problems allowed. It’s been breathtaking. But in the last few weeks, a few ugly issues have been trying to creep into our utopia.

  Captain Culver—Mason’s old boss—called him last week and asked him to take control of his SEAL team again. The guy who replaced him was injured and won’t be back for months. Mason said no, but I can tell he wanted to say yes. He misses that life. It’s something I don’t understand—that absolute love for your job. My dad felt that way about the teams, too. He told me he thought about quitting every day after I was born. He never did, though. And sixteen years later, he died on the job. I can’t take another man I love dying that way. Mason knows that, but it doesn’t make him miss the job any less.

  My old boss, George, has been calling me, too. He wants me to come back to the CIA. I have absolutely no interest in going back. I chose that career path only to find out who my mom was and who killed her. I spent eight years focused on almost nothing else. I know the truth now. I have no need to be at the agency anymore. And, more importantly, I have no desire to be there. My biggest problem is that I have no idea what I want to do with my life now.

  Mason’s regretting his decision. I can’t make a decision. It’s all threatening the bubble. I hate when Mariel is right. But it looks like reality might be starting to set in. All I want to do right now is go home and cuddle up on the couch with Mason—maybe keep the bubble intact for at least one more night.

  Chapter Three

  Mason

  San Diego, California

  2020

  “Well look who decided to join us,” Jack says as I grab a beer from the cooler. “Did Millie give you permission to leave the house tonight?”

  I scoop a handful of ice out of the cooler and dump it down his shirt. He jumps up like someone set off a bottle rocket under his chair. I walk around the fire-pit and take the chair next to Chase.

  Since I moved to San Diego a couple months ago, I’ve been adopted into the weekly gathering of retired SEALs. Jack—the oldest of us all—hosts whomever shows up every Wednesday night on his back patio. When a bunch of old operators get together, there’s a lot of beer and stories about our time in service. Most of these guys have been out ten years or more. I’ve only been away from my team for two months. I’m not quite ready to talk about it like it’s in the past. That’s one of the reasons I rarely show up, but for probably the first time in his life, Jack is actually right about something. My main reason is that I want to be with Millie as much as possible. Being away from her when I’m at the base is torture. When I’m done with work, I go straight to her house. If she didn’t go out with her friends every once in a while, I don’t think I’d ever be away from her. Tonight, she’s out with Chase’s wife, Mariel.

  “You heard from the ladies yet?” Chase says, shaking his head. “The last time they went out together, they ended up in the ocean fully clothed.”

  “Yeah. I remember. Millie shook for an hour even after she dried off and buried herself in a mound of blankets.” I smile as I think about the five or six blankets that always clutter her bed. I still haven’t figured out how someone can be so cold all the time when it’s almost always seventy degrees here.

  “I told Mar to try to stick to two glasses of wine tonight, but no promises. She gets cranked up when she’s around Millie.”

  Jack has finally cleared the ice out of his shirt. He plops back down in his chair and clears his throat loudly to make sure everyone is paying attention to him again. He’s one of those guys who never knows when to quit.

  “I’m just saying the sex has to be out of this world to have the great Mason Davis all whipped up like this,” he says, peering at me over his glasses as he stokes the fire-pit with an old broom handle.

  “Worry more about your own sex life. Or lack of one,” I say as my empty beer can lands perfectly in the middle of his forehead.

  “He’s not wrong, Jack. When’s the last time you even touched a woman?” Chase drains the last of his beer and heads over to the cooler for another.

  “Damn. If I had someone who looked like Millie, I wouldn’t be able to walk straight.” Jack just can’t stop himself. His voice is getting a little shaky. He knows he’s about to step on a land mine, but he keeps going. “The last time I saw her—at Charlie’s—she was wearing that little sundress number that just barely covered—”

  “Watch your mouth,” I say sternly as Chase comes up behind him and almost knocks his head clear off his body with a swift backhand.

  “Don’t talk about her like that again,” Chase says in a friendly tone, but his body language—including the finger that’s inches from Jack’s face—is telling a different story.

  Jack tries to recover some of his swagger. “All right. All right. I know Princess Millie is off limits. I’ll back off. But only for her dad. Mack was the toughest fucker I ever met. I think he could probably still kick my ass from his grave.”

  Chase rolls his eyes as he makes his way back over to me. “Ignore him,” he says as he hands me another beer.

  “I always do.” I take a long swig. “Hey. Did Millie tell you about my replacement going down?”

  “No, man. Just injured, I hope.”

  “Yeah. Nothing serious. He tore his ACL. They want me to take the team back for a few months while he recovers.”

  Chase raises his eyebrows. “How does Millie feel about that?”

  “After the fight we had today, I’m guessing she’s all in favor of it.”

  “What was the fight about? Same thing?”

  “Yeah. You know how she is. She’s defiant about me trying to protect her. She’s so damn stubborn about it. I’m really trying to back off, but with everything that’s happened to her in the last year, it’s not easy to be laid-back about it, you know?”

 
“Yeah. You don’t need to tell me about Millie’s stubborn streak. That child almost gave me a heart attack during her college years. I’ve told you what she put us through. I felt like I was tracking a fugitive.”

  I shake my head. “Her old agency boss has been calling her, too. He wants her back in DC. I don’t think she really has much interest in it.”

  “From what she’s told me, she doesn’t have any interest in it. Do you want to go back to active duty? Or do you feel like you’re done with that life?”

  “You’ve been gone for, what, about ten years? Do you feel like you’re done?”

  Chase takes a long drink. “No, man. I would still do it today if my body would let me. It never really leaves you, does it?”

  “I miss it every day. Training the new guys out on Coronado is fine. It’s something to do with my day, but it’s nothing like being on a mission—leading your team. You know. You were a team leader a lot longer than I was.”

  “Yeah. Obviously at my age, I can’t go back, but you still have a few years if you want to do it. You think that might be part of the problem with you and Millie? Maybe you’re regretting leaving your team and moving out here.”

  “No, I don’t regret it. She’s the only reason I’m here, but it was the right decision. If Culver hadn’t called, I wouldn’t even be thinking about it. You think he did it on purpose? He’s never really been a fan of Millie and me being together.”

  Chase laughs loudly. “You think he’s assigning team leads to break up a relationship? Get it together, man. You’re losing it. Harry’s not like that. You know how buttoned up he is. Even when he was a grunt on my team, he was always the most serious one in the group. He asked you because that’s your team. You could slip back in without missing a beat.”

  “Yeah, I know. My mind’s mush right now. Maybe it’s this California air or something,” I say, sighing loudly. “And I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in a few days.”

  “Man, if it’s because y’all are having too much sex or something, please keep that to yourself.”

  “You are the last person I want to talk to about my sex life with Millie. The absolute last.”

  “Appreciate that, brother,” he says as he slugs me on the shoulder. “So why aren’t you sleeping? PTSD? Nightmares?”

  “Yeah. But not mine. Millie’s starting to have nightmares.”

  “Starting? You mean about Mack? She’s been having those since the day she found out he was dead,” Chase says quietly. “The first night she stayed with Mar and me, she woke up screaming bloody murder. Scared the hell out of us. She told me they’d started to get better after you moved here. Not true?”

  “Ah, man. I didn’t know she’d been having them for that long. She didn’t tell me. She’s had a handful since I moved here. Is that better?”

  “She used to have them every night so, yeah, that’s better.” Chase lets out a long sigh. “The ninth anniversary of his death is coming up in a few months. That’s probably why they’re back. I can tell she’s struggling right now.”

  “What do you mean struggling? She seems happy. She says she is.”

  “Look, I’m trying to stay out of your relationship, but there’s probably a lot you don’t know. I’m not sure how much she talks about her childhood.” Chase looks away and tips his chair back as far as he can without falling over backward. “The badass-super-agent you met six months ago has maybe been around for like three or four years. Before that—especially when Mack was still alive—she was a sweet little ray of sunshine without a care in the world. Mack protected her from harsh reality—any reality. Period.”

  “She seems like that most of the time now—like sunny and happy. Maybe she’s going back to how she was before he died. You know? Maybe finally finding out who her mom was and putting her Bosnian family behind her has freed her up.”

  “Yeah. I don’t know. You spend a lot more time with her now than I do. But when she first moved here—when you were still on deployment—it’s like there were a bunch of different Millies battling for control. I don’t think she knows who she is anymore, and I can tell that’s bothering her. But she’ll figure it out, and I’m sure your being here is helping her do that.”

  Before I can answer, Chase’s phone rings. He looks at me and shakes his head. “It’s Mariel. Any bets on what Lucy and Ethel are up to tonight?”

  “Hi, honey. Everything okay?” he says like he’s talking to a first grader. “Yeah. That’s a good decision. It sounds like you shouldn’t drive. Mason and I are wrapping up here. We’ll come and get you. Mm. George’s in La Jolla? Okay. It’s going to take us at least twenty minutes to get there. Promise me you won’t go in the ocean. Yeah, I know. That was just that one time. Okay. Don’t leave until we get there. And maybe don’t have any more to drink. Okay, babe. We’ll be there soon.”

  “Guess she had that third glass of wine, huh?” I laugh as I dump the rest of my beer in the fire and grab the car keys out of my pocket.

  Chapter Four

  Virginia Beach, Virginia

  July 23, 2011

  “You got your eyes on that one, or is she still in play?” Harry said as he sat down next to Mack at the bar. He slid his glass to the bartender for a refill.

  Mack’s eyes were locked on the brunette sitting at the opposite side of the bar. She was talking to her friend—nervously laughing and trying desperately to act like she wasn’t looking back at him. “You can try, but she’s already set her sights on the gold medal. Not sure she’s going to settle for the bronze at this point,” Mack said as he tried to smooth his beard out a bit.

  “God. I can’t wait for you to move to San Diego,” Harry said, shaking his head. “Maybe then there will be some left for the rest of us.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it, brother,” Mack said as he slid off his bar stool. “Now sit back and watch the master work.”

  The brunette watched anxiously as Mack sauntered over and sat down next to her. She giggled as she turned to him. “My friend wants to know if you’re a SEAL.”

  “Does she?” Mack said, putting his hand on her knee. “And what do you want to know?”

  She looked down at his hand slowly and then back up at his intense stare. “Umm. I mean, I guess the same thing,” she said, starting to breathe a little more heavily.

  “Is that really all you want to know about me? There are so many things that are more interesting.”

  “Like what?” she said as her eyes widened.

  “Like,” Mack said as he slid forward on his stool, so their knees were almost touching, “that I make the best pancakes in the world.”

  She tilted her head. “It’s a little late for pancakes. Don’t you think?”

  “Then I guess we’ll just have to eat them when we wake up in the morning.” Mack smiled at her as he stood up. He touched her shoulder lightly as he walked by her. “I’ll be in the black truck to your right as you walk out if you want to join me.”

  Mack knew the women in this bar weren’t much of a challenge. That amount of effort worked at least 90 percent of the time, but he had never seen this woman before. He was giving it about a seventy-thirty chance she’d show up. He was barely in the truck when he saw her walk out of the bar and look immediately to her right. He got out and walked around to the passenger’s side. He opened the door and leaned against it as he watched her walk over to him.

  “Hey,” she said, looking up at him.

  He reached out and took her hands. “Hey.”

  “My friend said I can’t leave with you.”

  “Okay. Thanks for coming out to tell me,” he said, squeezing her hands lightly before he dropped them.

  “Wait,” she said, pressing her hands against his chest. “She said I couldn’t leave with you, but I’m sure we can get creative.”

  “I’m very creative,” he said as he spun her around and press
ed her against the door. As he started kissing her, she wound her arms around his neck and buried her hands in his thick hair. He pulled up her skirt as he picked her up and sat her down on the truck seat—spreading her legs with his hips as his body pressed against her.

  “Is anyone going to see us?” she whispered as she started to pull off Mack’s T-shirt.

  “No, baby. We’re hidden over here in the corner,” he growled into her ear as his hand started moving between her legs. She let out a soft moan.

  He grabbed a condom out of the glove compartment and ripped it open with his teeth. He put it on with one hand as he plunged his fingers inside her with his other hand. She moaned more loudly.

  “You like that? You’re really going to like this,” he said as he slid himself inside her. She wrapped her legs around his waist to pull him in deeper. As he rocked her back and forth against the seat, she grabbed his face and started aggressively kissing him—stopping only to let out a few more moans. She rubbed her hands through his hair again as her body shuddered against him. Mack buried his face in her shoulder as he came. He kissed her gently a few more times before he pulled out.

  She stood up and pulled her skirt back down. “You are a SEAL, right?’

  “Yeah.” He smiled as he pulled his pants up. “I am.”

  She smiled broadly. “Okay. Well, I’m going to go back inside to my friends. I’ll see you in there, okay?”

  “Sounds good.” Mack nodded as she walked around the truck. He gave her a few minutes’ head start and then followed her inside.

  Mack grabbed a beer at the bar before he walked over to where Chase was sitting.

  “I don’t know how you’re going to keep whoring around like this when Millie moves in with you,” Chase said.