Danger Close (The Echo Platoon Series, Book 1) (4 page)

He straightened like she'd slapped him in the face. "No way." He pointed a long finger at her. "I told you exactly who we were, and you resisted us, remember?"

All she remembered was him grabbing her out of the window and throwing her atop her bed. "You mauled me on my mattress," she added, remembering how she'd fought back.

"No," he exclaimed, shaking his head vehemently.

But a touch to the knot swelling just above her eyebrows confirmed the accuracy of her statement. She sent him an accusing glare. "Yes, you did."

"No.
You
tried escaping out the window," he insisted, his expression growing sterner by the moment. "And then you went crazy. Look what you did to my nose!"

She eyed his swollen nose ridge with a smidgen of satisfaction. Without the flaw, the man was simply too handsome. "Serves you right for scaring me half to death," she said, dismayed by her behavior. But his was worse.

His chest expanded and his hands clenched. "What the hell were you thinking ignoring a mandatory evacuation?"

Maddy bristled. "I was thinking that I was protecting innocent lives. What was I supposed to do? Just abandon those girls? How dare you lecture me for doing what you do every day, you overbearing hypocrite!"

The epithet sent his eyebrows winging toward his hairline. A disbelieving laugh escaped him and he unclenched his hands. "You couldn't begin to do what I do, Miss Scott," he countered, propping them on his hips and sending her a confident smirk.

Maddy narrowed her eyes. Fury pounded through her. No man had ever put her back up in so short a time. "I never said I can do
exactly
what you do, Lieutenant. But I will risk my life for a cause that I believe in. In that sense, we're exactly alike."

His smile faded abruptly. "We are nothing alike," he insisted, his gaze sliding over her.

She sat up straighter, angling her chin at him. "Oh, I see. SEALs don't protect the weak and combat corruption?"

She thought she had him bested when he paused for the barest second. "No," he finally countered. "We kill the enemy, Miss Scott. That's the difference between us." He tapped his broad chest. "I'm not a potential victim." He pointed at her. "
You
are."

She had to admit, her situation had been getting tenuous what with all the teachers running off, even the local ones. She'd prayed night and day for help to come in some form or another. Perhaps her mother's spirit, her guardian angel, had guided Lt. Sasseville to Matamoros just in the nick of time.

Her rancor trickled away, leaving bottomless regret in its wake. "There's no one left to protect them," she reflected, her voice barely above a whisper. Empathy for the girls brought tears to her eyes. Feeling sick to her stomach, she blinked them back.

Sam Sasseville frowned and looked away.

Weariness swamped Maddy without warning. With a sigh of defeat, she fell back against the pillow and wallowed in grief. Why was it taking the female officer so long to find ice packs?

"I'm sorry," the SEAL startled her by apologizing. His gruff tone suggested that he did actually feel sorry for the hapless victims they had left behind. But then his next words ruined his apology. "You can't save the world, you know."

She turned her head in his direction. "Why not?" she demanded.

He rolled his eyes as if the question wasn't worth answering. "Well, for one thing, your father doesn't like it."

She frowned. How could he know that, or was he just assuming? "He's on his way here, isn't he?" she asked, remembering what she'd overheard earlier.

The lieutenant glanced at his watch. "He's about five minutes out. I expect you'll take a helo to Miami from here, and then he'll fly you home on his private jet." His tone dripped with disdain for such decadent jet-setting.

Maddy plucked at a thread sticking out of the blanket. The mansion in McLean wasn't her home. The world was.

Out the corner of her eye she watched Lt. Sasseville open a canister of gauze, wet a couple of squares with water and wipe off the dried blood under his nose.

"Did I break it?" she asked him.

"Probably."

"Sorry."

"Sure you are." He dropped the soiled gauze into a receptacle marked HAZARDOUS WASTE. "You know what I think?"

She heaved an inward sigh as he rounded on her again, his lecture clearly not over. "What?"

"I think you should work within the borders of the United States and leave third-world countries to men equipped to handle the danger."

What little goodwill Maddy harbored toward the SEAL evaporated.

"I read your file, Miss Scott," he volunteered, raking her huddled form with exasperation. "Your mother was Melinda Scott, the famous environmentalist whose plane crashed into the Amazon ten years ago. You're obviously trying to follow in her footsteps."

Maddy flinched. The tragedy, still so fresh in her mind, had shaped her into who she was today.

"You majored in Global and Environmental Studies, and you've participated in every disaster relief effort since the Great Tsunami. You've been to Bosnia, Thailand, Haiti, Afghanistan, the Philippines, and Mexico." He ticked the locales off his fingers. "Enough already," he declared. "It's obvious that you're an intelligent woman, but you don't belong in any of those places."

She sucked a breath into her tight chest. "Oh, really?"

"Really. No one wants to hear that you got killed in some shithole country where there's been infighting for four hundred years and where your death makes no difference. Just go back to the life you came from and enjoy the privileges you were born to."

The tears that had started to flow earlier threatened an immediate reappearance. He sounded exactly like her father, though Lyle Scott had never put it that bluntly. And like her father, he was obviously used to telling people what to do. Well, too damn bad. Maddy only ever answered to her conscience and the whispered pleas of her dead mother's spirit.

Angling her chin into the air, she checked the verbal arguments pressuring her tongue and asked, "Do you have a creed, Lieutenant?"

His face tightened with suspicion. He shrugged his massive shoulders. "Of course. I'm a SEAL. I live by my creed."

"Well, I have one, too," she explained, speaking over the lump in her throat. "And my work is every bit as meaningful to me as yours is to you. You don't have to be a trained killer to make the world a better place. Physical superiority isn't always the answer."

"Oh." He crossed his arms and nodded, pretending to consider her opinion. "What's the answer then?" His tone mocked her assertion.

"Respect for other cultures, communication, education, and empowerment. There are myriad solutions that don't entail using force."

For a moment, he appeared to give her words consideration. But then he said, "I see why your father has his hands full with you."

Her jaw dropped at his close-minded obstinacy. "Why, you insufferable ass!" she cried.

He briefly ducked his chin, closed his eyes, and fingered the swollen bridge of his nose. "That didn't come out right," he admitted. Looking up, he sent her a pleading look. "Just... promise me you'll go home and stay there."

"Is that what you're going to do?" she tossed back.

"Yes, actually. I was supposed to be in South-East Asia hunting down an arm's dealer, but instead I'm here with you. And right now we're talking about your safety."

The worry brewing in his dark eyes tempered Maddy's resentment. Maybe he wasn't an ass, just an overly protective, interfering, know-it-all.

She considered placating him then changed her mind. "Sorry, but that's not going to happen," she informed him steadily.

Frustration and fury stained the SEAL's cheekbones. She could understand his reaction, in part. He'd evidently given up a critical mission in order to pluck her out of Matamoros, and here she was, threatening to stray right back into danger. His gaze blazed a trail from her mouth to her breasts, now covered by the blanket, and she just knew he was remembering how she'd looked standing naked in front of him; the memory had clearly made an impact.

The
stomp, stomp, stomp
of approaching footsteps cut through the thickening tension. Maddy glanced toward the door expecting to see the female officer returning with the ice packs. Only she'd brought Maddy's father with her, as well, which explained what had taken her so long.

"Maddy!" Lyle Scott, a tall broad Texan, rushed to her bedside and engulfed her in a fierce embrace. His brown eyes widened as they took note of the lump on her forehead and the flushed, exasperated look on her face. His gaze swung promptly toward the source of her irritation, and he straightened to introduce himself. "You must be Lieutenant Sasseville."

"Yes, sir," the SEAL affirmed, still holding Maddy's baleful glare.

Her father divided a thoughtful look between them. "Well, thank you for bringing Maddy to safety," he said, extending a hand of gratitude.

For a split second, it looked like the SEAL might ignore the gesture. Then, gritting his teeth, he accepted the handshake and muttered, "You're welcome."

"My daughter means everything in the world to me, Lieutenant," Lyle Scott tacked on with a Texas drawl for which he was well known.

"Then you should keep her at home where she belongs," Lt. Sasseville had the gall to suggest. Maddy's blood boiled. Her father's silver eyebrows shot up.

The female officer broke the tension. "Lieutenant, you're expected in the Joint Information Center, stat. Here's an icepack." She thrust one into Sam's hand then handed the other to Maddy.

"What happened, sweetheart?" her father inquired as she laid it against her swollen forehead.

On his way to the hatch with the icepack plastered to his nose, Sam Sasseville drew up short. His head turned, and he visibly braced himself for what Maddy would allege.

"I broke the SEAL's nose," she stated, in lieu of placing the blame at the Sam's feet.

"Oh," said her father, looking nonplussed.

The SEAL in question had the grace to blush.

"Lieutenant, they're waiting," the female officer reminded him.

"Yes, ma'am." He pointed a finger at Maddy. "Stay out of the hot spots," he commanded.

"I'll see you around, Lieutenant," she retorted sweetly.

The glare he sent her made her want to stick her tongue out at him, only her father was watching their exchange with interest, and she didn't want to put on more of a show than they already were.

The SEAL threw himself through the hatch like he didn't trust himself another second in her presence, and Maddy's pulse thrummed with the satisfaction at having had the last word.

Obviously, seeing her around was the dead last thing he wanted to do.

Chapter 2

Sam straightened out of his Dodge Charger and stretched his 6'2" frame with a groan.

The three-hour drive from Virginia Beach to Northern Virginia had taken a god-awful six hours, no thanks to the late-summer thunderstorms that had broken over the I-95 corridor, triggering a number of fender-benders. The sun was setting by the time he'd finally arrived at Lyle Scott's home in McLean. Rumor had it the oil tycoon also had a home in Austin, Texas, from which he hailed. Sam was hungry, irritable, and more than a little wary as to why he'd been invited to an evening soiree here in the first place.

It had been weeks since he'd plucked the daughter of Scott Oil's CEO out of Matamoros, but that didn't mean Miss Scott hadn't altered her story about how she got that lump on her head. Maybe she'd decided to blame Sam, after all.

Surely an invitation from Lyle Scott meant the oil tycoon was simply grateful. But why had Sam been the only SEAL invited? He'd wanted to decline the invitation, but since that smacked of cowardice, he'd felt obliged to show up.

Not that he was at all motivated to see Madison Scott again, in the flesh—as opposed to in his dreams.

Taking stock of his environment, Sam took note of the Audis, BMWs, Mercedes, and Lexuses making his Dodge Charger look like a cheap piece of machinery parked amidst their presence. Rich people loved to flaunt their wealth. He doubted any one of the party's guests had started off life the way he had, with absolutely nothing.