Her One Best SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 6)

I
’m standing in the bathroom. This isn’t an unusual occurrence—I’m a guy, I stand when I pee, and peeing’s just about the most basic human function there is. We’ve all got to do it, and I’m no special snowflake. I’m alone too, which is also not unusual. The wild-eyed look, the stubble on my jaw because I rushed to get here, the inside-out T-shirt?
That’s
the fucking difference.

That and the white plastic stick on the bathroom counter.

I’m usually more put together. I’m a former SEAL—it comes with the territory. You don’t get to have nerves when you’re storming a beach in hostile territory. Break down mid-storm and someone plugs your ass with a bullet. You can do the math on that one. I always hold it together. Vann O’Reilly. Big, bad US Navy SEAL extraordinaire. Nowadays, I train military dogs who can and will rip your throat out on command. Not because they’re vicious killers, but because it’s their job and I’m the best trainer around. I have plenty of experience killing, and I’m one hell of a teacher and watchdog myself. I’m in control. I give the commands.

So that can’t be
my
hand shaking when I reach out and nudge the plastic stick perched on the corner of the bathroom counter. This isn’t my bathroom. It’s way too girly, for one thing. The shower stall is tiled with these blue Moroccan diamonds and the curtain is a bright teal with yellow tassels. There’s a pink ball hanging from the ceiling that’s supposed to be a light, and almost every surface is covered with little bottles full of colored crap. My shower has a bar of soap, my razor, and a bottle of shampoo. This place looks like a CVS truck exploded and dumped its contents. It smells like a fruit bowl, too—a really exotic combination of pineapple, peaches, and vanilla. If I weren’t so freaked out, I’d probably be hungry.

The little stick rests on the one clear section of the counter. It’s been washed and dried (thank God) with a square of toilet paper. All I have to do is turn it over and I’ll know. I’ve taken beaches in less time than this is taking, so why is my hand sort of hanging frozen in midair? I’m decisive. I’m take-charge.

I’m scared.

Fuck me, but I’m scared. This is Marlee’s bathroom, not mine. I don’t belong here amongst all this girly stuff, and until right now that didn’t bother me. I sort of shuffle closer to my Waterloo. I can’t bring myself to reach out and touch the stick, so I’ll bring the mountain to Mohammed. So to speak. Six inches. Five. Four.

Do I
really
want to know?

I bump into the counter before I can decide, and the stick goes airborne. It hits the floor, and I lean over. I’ve got a blue plus and a blue line. That’s clear as mud. The thing should just say
Baby?
And then give you a checkbox for yes or no. I have no idea what I’m looking at. Don’t these things come with instructions?

A big hand reaches down and snags the pregnancy test from the bathroom floor. I’m not alone anymore, and I’m pathetically grateful. Ro and Finn are my wingmen today, just like they’ve been since we served as SEALs together and then started Search and SEAL.

Ro turns the stick over and whistles. “Are you playing family?”

I grab it from him. This isn’t a game. A plus sign means… positive? More? Bull’s-eye? I’ve definitely shot targets that looked like that, and even though it’s not like this pregnancy was accidental, I still panic.

Finn parks his ass on the closed toilet seat and fishes in the trashcan. As always, he has no shame, but before I can decide if I mind, he’s retrieved a sheet of printed directions. Apparently, home pregnancy tests aren’t any more intelligible to the women peeing on the sticks than to guys. He scans the sheet, and then Ro turns the stick around until Finn can see the readout, presumably so he can do some kind of interpretive dance for the rest of us.

“Congratulations,” Finn announces, and I pretend that’s not a question I hear in his voice. “You’ve successfully procreated.”

Jesus. Someone slaps his hand on the bathroom counter as if his knees aren’t doing their God-given job and that someone’s about to go down on the bathroom floor.

Finn vacates his seat with alarming haste, and then Ro pushes me down onto it and slaps my head between my knees. I’m grateful as fuck. I’m gonna be a daddy. And even though I
meant
to do it, because Marlee wanted a baby and why not, now that it’s really happening? I don’t know what to do next.

I’m completely and utterly without a plan.

“Did you know about this?” Ro asks Finn over my head.

Finn grunts something that has to be a negative, because no, I didn’t tell my boys and my best friends that Marlee and I were having sex. Seeing each other. Attempting to knock her up.

“She wants a baby,” I say, counting the tiles on Marlee’s bathroom floor.

“Mission accomplished,” Ro announces, and I suck in more fruit-scented air.

He’s right. My part here is done. If I’m lucky, Marlee will let me hold her hand in the delivery room, and then I’ll make holiday appearances in the baby’s life—we’ve discussed this—but my job will be over. I’m the baby daddy, but I’m not Marlee’s man. We’re friends, and friends help each other out. In fact, that’s probably where she is right now—with her girlfriends—and that’s why I found her place empty when I rushed over after she texted me a picture of the unused pregnancy test followed by Wish me luck.

There was no us in that text.

There’s no
us
, and I suddenly realize that I want to donate more than super sperm. I sit up and meet Ro and Finn’s concerned gazes. They’re not stupid. If I’m here alone in Marlee’s bathroom with a positive pregnancy test, something’s gone horribly wrong, and it’s probably my fault.

“So this wasn’t an accident?” Ro releases his death grip on my neck. Apparently, he needs confirmation, and I can’t blame him. I’ve never been in a serious relationship in my life, and now I’m gonna be somebody’s daddy? I can practically hear the universe laughing.

“On purpose,” I grunt, and they nod in perfect synchronicity. I’d laugh my ass off at the two of them, if it didn’t feel like my heart was being pulled out of my chest through my nose. I think the ancient Egyptians did that shit, but at least they waited until a guy was dead.

“Are you—” Ro looks pained, but he’s always been the leader of our unit, so he’s first into the breach here, too. He waves a hand, trying to think of the right direct object for that particular sentence.

“Together? No.” I suck in a breath and look at the stick one more time. You know, just in case it’s not burned into my brain by now. “But I’d like to be.”

“We’ll help,” Finn announces, like he’s a professional fixer or some kind of miracle worker.

“I don’t think she wants me.” I sound pathetic.

Clearly, Ro agrees with my internal critic because he backs up a few paces. Ro’s like me. He always has a plan. The words
no
and
can’t
aren’t in his vocabulary. “We’ve got your back.”

Apparently, Ro’s plan-less, because that’s the kind of crap you trot out when absolutely nothing’s gone right, you’re staring down a shitstorm, and the only thing going for you is that you’re not abandoning the stupid fuck standing in the eye of the storm.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Finn pronounces and then looks hurt when Ro punches him in the arm hard enough to leave a bruise. “What? That’s what people say in situations like this.”

“How is it gonna be okay?” See? This? This is the moment I realize I’m desperate, because I’m asking two SEALs for relationship advice. Sure, Finn’s been dating one of Marlee’s friends for the better part of six months (which is a miracle and sign of the end times, if we’re being honest—monogamous Finn is unheard of), but he’s not a relationship expert, either. My best guess is that Valentina Fuentes lost a bet when she agreed to take Finn on. It’s the only possible explanation.

Finn puckers up and hits me with his best fake French accent. “You just gotta
kees
the girl.”

I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that line before—in a Disney movie. If kissing could fix everything that’s gone wrong with my life, I’d be liplocked.

They’ve got my back. If this were a firefight, I’d be golden. No one clears a room or blows shit up like Ro and Finn. They’re pros. US Navy training doesn’t cover pregnancy. Or fatherhood. The only thing we were taught to put a rubber on was the muzzle of our gun—because when you’re in the desert, sand gets fucking everywhere and a condom is your new best friend. Pop that sucker over the muzzle, and you’re good to go.

“She only wants me for my sperm.” My stomach sort of free falls as the words pop out. I sound pathetic and I know it.

There’s a pause that my friends spend clearly trying to
not
think about my sperm. Or my
delivery mechanism
, as it were. I can’t blame them. Instead, I offer another pitiable explanation. “It was just a favor for a friend.”

Finn squints at me. “Is this one of those new relationships?”

Honestly? I’m as out of answers as I am sperm, hope, and dignity. Any kind of relationship is new for me.

Five months earlier

I
t’s not like I ever planned on being someone’s daddy. I had Search and SEALs. I had my boys. And if it sometimes felt like part of me hadn’t come home yet from Iraq, that was my problem. There are things you don’t admit out loud, and mine is that I’m not sure what to do with myself now that I’m stateside. I work, I hang with my boys, and I watch for… something. Not sure what the fuck that
something
is, but I assume I’ll recognize the opportunity when I encounter it.

The lack of anything better to do is why I’m in my truck, driving two miles an hour along the shoulder of the road connecting Angel Cay with the rest of the Florida Keys like teeth on a gear. Angel Cay isn’t big—it’s more like an easily jogged circle of sand and palms… and that’s if your idea of a workout is trundling a mile of flat surface. Our own personal piece of the Florida Keys is one-hundred-percent shoreline and sand. Ro counted the palms (he would—the man would have made a stellar accountant or billionaire businessman if he hadn’t joined the SEAL team) and arrived at forty-two. I took his word for it—I can run the whole thing in under fifteen minutes.