Navy SEAL Noel (8 page)

The hum of the hood and the scraping of metal against metal as they cleaned out the detonation pieces carried on through the afternoon, until Will brushed her hair away from her ear and whispered directly into it.

“I'm going to find out what's in that building. Tonight.”

When she opened her mouth, she knew that the sound about to emerge would draw Manuel's attention, which they couldn't afford. So she clamped her teeth together, biting the tip of her tongue and wincing at the searing pain.

Will seemed to take her pain as concern, quickly adding, “I'll be fine, and I'll let you know what I find.”

She shook her head with so much force that her ponytail hit him in the side of the head. “Oh, you're not going in alone.”

SIX

W
ill pulled on Jess's arm just enough to angle her to face him. When he was sure he had her undivided attention, he shook his head very slowly and mouthed a single word.
No.

There was no way on God's green earth that he was going to risk taking her on a reconnaissance mission. Two people meant double the chance of being seen, double the chance of losing his cover and double the chance of injury or even death.

Escape would work only if he flew under the radar until then. If either of them drew additional suspicion, they would draw extra guards. Getting out of this place was going to be hard enough as it was.

He wasn't going to back down on this.

Jess held his eye contact, shrugged and nodded. Her pink lips pursed into a determined circle that he'd seen on more than one occasion when her dad had told her she couldn't do something. She'd squint her eyes, make that face and promptly talk her dad into whatever it was she wanted to do. Usually that scenario involved some ill-advised road trip or midnight body surfing with Will and Sal. And always her argument had started with those pursed lips.

With a quick check on Manuel, who was still resting against the cinder blocks, she knocked over a tub of what looked like salt. A flick of her hand smoothed it out across the black surface, and she quickly spelled out her argument with her index finger.

I'm going.

Will jerked his chin from side to side. After swiping his hand to clear away her message, he wrote his own.

Not safe.

Her eyebrows pulled together as she wiped out his words. Her gaze fell to the salt chalkboard, her finger making even, sharp grooves in the crystals.

I can help.

What if you get caught?

She crossed her arms for a moment, staring at his question, and he let a little smile escape. He had her now.

Her hand cleared the board again, and as she slowly spelled out the words, he glanced up to make sure that Manuel hadn't woken up from his siesta. The guard snorted, his shoulders jumping, before his snoring settled back into an easy rhythm.

When Will looked back down, he nearly let out a snort of his own.

I won't if you're with me.

Jess's eyes shone as if she'd solved a complex scientific equation or figured out the world's oldest riddle. She thought she had him beat.

But that wasn't his biggest concern.

More than anything, he wanted to know why she was fighting him so hard in the first place. Why couldn't she just go along with his plan? Rescues. Escapes. Midnight missions. These were his job. And he was a pro.

But she just couldn't back down and let him take care of her.

He shook his head hard and gave up the silence of the salt. Maybe if she could hear the conviction in his voice, she wouldn't fight him so hard. Putting his hands on her elbows, he bent his knees until they were eye level. “It's dangerous.”

Her head wagged back and forth and she opened her mouth, clearly ready to argue with him. After checking the volume of his voice, he cut her off. “Listen to me. If I'm caught where I shouldn't be, they'll try to kill me. But I can take care of myself.”

“I'm not scared—”

He interrupted her without a pause. “I won't risk your safety.”

She tapped the table with a frustrated staccato beat. It hadn't been particularly loud, but it must have caught Manuel's ears, as he popped up and swung his weapon around. Big brown eyes blinked fast in the fluorescent lights, and he rubbed a meaty hand down his cheek as his head lolled to the side.

Will dropped his hands and bit his tongue, his pulse in overdrive. Against his right arm, Jess's muscles tensed, too, her breathing shallow and her hazel eyes unblinking.

Manuel eyed them with distain. Apparently the cushy guard job wasn't any more fun for him than it was for them. He snorted again, making a sound in the back of his throat that would have gotten him kicked from Will's mother's dinner table. Swearing bitterly, he flung open the lab door and disappeared with a clang of metal.

Jess must have felt the same urgency to end their discussion that Will did. As soon as the handle clicked closed, she turned on him. “Do you actually think I'm safe here?”

“Of course not. That's why I'm here.” He scrubbed his hand over his face, scratching at the whiskers on his chin. He was never this shaggy when he was stateside, and the beginnings of his usual deployment beard somehow only served to remind him that this op was anything but typical.

“Who knows what kind of information could be in that building?” She waved a hand in the general direction of his target. “You might need my help. And what if there's something in there that would let us escape immediately? Wouldn't you want to have me right there, so we can get out of here?”

If he'd been rescuing someone else—anyone else—he wouldn't have put up with any arguments. His job was to rescue. Her job was to be rescued.

But all this history behind them made him pause.

He could be the rescuer only if she allowed herself to be rescued by him. And right now, she just wanted to rescue herself...because she didn't trust him.

He couldn't blame her.

“You're right.” A quick smile transformed her face, but he cut it off quickly. “We have no idea what's in that room. Or who's in that room. What are you going to do if there's a trap?”

Her grin melted into an expression of uncertainty, and he could see the wheels spinning behind her eyes.

“Listen, I can't let anything happen to you. I promised your dad.” And Will had promised himself. He owed her at least that.

Some of the tension in her shoulders began to relax, the lines in her forehead easing as she slipped her soft hand into his. “I know. And I appreciate it. But I'm safer
with
you than anywhere else in this compound
without
you.”

Tossing his head back, he glared at the buzzing lights and heaved a sigh.

She squeezed his hand just enough to get his attention. “You know I'm right.” There was a smile laced into her words, and he didn't like it. At all. “Whatever's in that building will be easier to face together.”

Swinging his gaze back to her face, he ignored the victorious gleam in her eyes. “If I let you come, you will do whatever I tell you. Without question.”

She shrugged. “We'll see.”

“No.” His growl must have surprised her as much as it did him, because she yanked her hand out of his, pressing it over her mouth. He cleared his throat twice to level out his tone. “You'll do whatever I say without question, for your safety and mine. Or I'll leave you in your room tonight.”

She didn't move for what felt like an eternity, but finally nodded. “All right.”

* * *

When the door to her cell opened, as smoothly and as silently as ever, Jess slipped into the early-morning air, still thick with the prior day's rains. Will's gaze traveled from the top of her head to her feet as though making sure that she hadn't been hurt in the previous six hours. She wondered what he saw when he looked at her.

Of course, she wasn't exactly at her best. She hadn't showered in three days and had been rotating two shirts for the past week. She was just glad she'd managed to wash her clothes once in her bathroom sink. Anything beyond that was gravy.

Whatever he saw, he didn't indicate. He just wrapped his hand around her wrist and nodded in the direction of their target.

They skirted the usual buildings, safe in the shadow of the perimeter wall as they drew close to the cartel's possible command center. Every window in the single-story building was black, and even the big house next door seemed especially quiet. Without the rumble and ruckus caused by the military trucks, the entire compound was eerily still. Raul and the guards from the night before were nowhere in sight.

Jess followed Will along the stucco wall. He paused at the corner, peering into the darkness, then turned and whispered over his shoulder. “Stay here while I find a way in.”

“I'll go—”

He pressed his finger to her lips, gentle yet insistent enough to stop the flow of her words. Heat burned her neck.

“Remember. No arguing tonight. I'll be right back.”

She nodded, and he vanished. Jess sank against the wall as her heart hammered beneath her rib cage. With a timid pat she pressed two fingers to her lips, which still tingled, setting off a flurry in her stomach.

That was odd.

Will's touch hadn't ever set her nerves on edge before. In fact, no one had ever before sparked butterflies like those swooping and soaring in her now.

When her college roommates had whispered behind fluttering hands about their boyfriends, Jess had just assumed they were more excitable. But had she really been missing out on this sweet torture—the one that made the air thicker and the moon brighter—all these years?

So focused on school, she hadn't dated much after breaking up with Sal. Just Colby, another biology major, during her sophomore year in college. But even his kisses hadn't sparked her like Will's touch just had.

Of course, she and Colby didn't have years of history together. He didn't know about her mom's absence or her dad's deployments or Great-aunt Eva's burned dinners.

He'd never asked about them.

Then again, she'd never offered any of the details, either. And she'd wanted it that way. It was easier to keep him at a distance, to keep him from knowing her too well. Because people who said they loved her, left her.

After one semester, Colby had left, too.

But she'd never given him the power to hurt her.

Not like Will had.

Jess frowned and tried to wipe the memory of Will's touch away. But it wasn't as easy as she hoped. His presence seemed to linger, and she jerked away from the wall, her hands flapping as though she could shake off so many uninvited thoughts about her former best friend.

But they weren't easy to forget, especially with those pesky butterflies.

Where on earth had they come from? She didn't want them. She barely knew this Will. What she did know, she wasn't entirely sure she liked. He was bossy and stubborn. And always right.

She definitely was not attracted to Will Gumble.

Except the nervous flutters in her tummy didn't agree. Why couldn't they just get the message that Will was off-limits?

She'd been doing fine keeping up the wall between them. It was easier that way. As long as she didn't let him close, she didn't have to acknowledge that niggling voice that told her he was risking his life for her and she ought to forgive him.

At least she hadn't had to until he'd told her about Abuelita, and Jess literally couldn't keep from holding him.

Great. Now she'd think about that. Those arms made of steel. The gentleness of his embrace. The fact that he'd come back.

Just when she thought she'd go crazy if she had to spend one more minute dwelling on Will, the object of her errant imagination popped around the corner.

“I found an open window. Let's go.”

Staring at the back of his slightly too long hair didn't do much to help her keep her focus on the task at hand, but a sudden squishing noise snapped her to attention. “What was that?”

He stopped and leaned his ear forward. “Let's just get inside.”

They moved quickly and silently, but Jess couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that told her they weren't alone.

When they reached a partly open window, she didn't have time to do much more than brace her hands against the frame before Will caught her around the waist and boosted her up. In a flash she was through the window, somersaulting across a tile floor and into a solid wood desk with a terrible thump.

Her side connected with a desk leg, and she wheezed to catch her breath as Will crawled through the window and landed easily on both feet. He reached out to help her up.

“Thanks,” she said, rubbing her side.

Will didn't respond to her mumble, but quickly made his way around the room. The darkness left her blind, but he seemed to have no trouble navigating the uncharted territory. He quietly called out what he found. “There's another desk over here, but it's clean.” Wood thumped against wood. “And the drawers are locked. There's a rolling chair here, too. It's definitely an office of some kind.”

When he found a door, he opened it, and his silhouette disappeared through the entrance. “It's a closet. Not too deep, but the shelves are stacked with boxes.”

“What kind of boxes?”

“Like the ones you'd see at a law office. Records and stuff.” Cardboard and paper shuffled, and she held her breath, hoping to hear more of what Will had found. “Just paper. Lots of paper in these boxes.” He closed the closet behind him as he wandered toward another door. “Let's find the main entry. There weren't any windows in the front room with the map, so we can turn a light on.”

She followed the sound of his voice, taking tentative steps across the room. When she reached him, he ran his hand down her arm until their fingers locked.

She reminded herself that it wasn't because he wanted to hold her hand, despite what her wildly firing nerves argued.

This was a safety thing. They couldn't stay together if they didn't hold on.

Will moved through the darkness as though he'd grown up in this building, while she ran her fingertips along the textured wallpaper just to ground herself in the space. Down the hall they reached a T, and without hesitation he hurried to the left. He passed one door, its wooden paneling darker than the wall, and then stopped at a matching one. Pressing his ear to the frame, he waited for a long second. With a click the door popped open, and they slipped inside, closing it behind them.

The room was impossibly dark, and Jess froze as Will dropped her hand.

Even the shape of his shoulders vanished into the blackness.