Second Chance SEAL: A Bad Boy Military Romance (46 page)

I
hated
that I had to twist Emory’s arm just to get back to my own house. He clearly didn’t want to go there, but he wasn’t my jailer.

Or at least I didn’t think he was. Maybe I was wrong and he really was willing to do whatever it took to keep me safe, including locking me up in a closet somewhere.

Though a nice hotel with room service included wasn’t exactly a closet.

Still, I knew he wanted me to be safe, and I couldn’t be angry about that. Plus, he was being great with Mason. Emory clearly wasn’t the type of man to be a father, but he was trying, and that was more than I could have asked from him at this point.

“Ready?” He stood by the door, his arms crossed, as I put Mason into his stroller.

“Ready.”

Emory was wearing a tan button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up over his elbows and dark jeans. I could see a slight bulge where his gun was tucked into his pants, though only because I knew to look for it.

I followed him out of the room and back down the hall. We got into the elevator, rode it down to the bottom, and went out to the parking lot.

I frowned at his ridiculous car. “Did you really have to get one of these?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he said very seriously, “I absolutely did.”

“Makes it hard to transport an infant.”

“I didn’t know I’d be driving around a baby.”

“Yes, you did,” I grumbled. “You just wanted a fast car.”

“Damn right I did.”

I got Mason situated in the back seat and climbed up front as Emory fired up the engine. He grinned at me as he pulled out of the parking lot, driving way too fast.

“Slow down!” I said, surprised.

“Relax, princess,” he said. “I have training for this.”

“Still, there’s a baby back there.”

“There is?” He revved the engine and passed a car on the shoulder. “I guess I forgot.”

I glanced back at Mason, and he seemed to be loving the speed.

“You two are awful,” I said, but I couldn’t help but smile.

He looked in the rearview mirror. “Your mom is just jealous,” he said to Mason. “She wishes she could handle this speed.”

“I can handle it. I just choose not to.”

“Sounds like denial to me.”

We sped through town, a grin on Emory’s face. I knew that if I hadn’t said anything, he probably would have driven much slower and carefully, but he clearly wanted to push my buttons, and I knew I was letting him.

I couldn’t help it. He was just so cocky, such an asshole. He seemed to think the world revolved around him. I was only in this mess at all because of that cocky confidence to begin with. The least he could do was drive normally.

We got to my parents’ house not long after. He pulled into the driveway and parked behind my dad’s car. I got out and started unhooking Mason’s car seat.

“I’ll be back,” Emory said, and walked off.

“Okay,” I said, but he didn’t hear me. He had already walked off, cutting across the lawn.

I shook my head. He wasn’t exactly good at telling me what he was planning. I watched him disappear behind some hedges and went back to getting Mason situated.

It took me a few minutes, but finally I lugged Mason in his car seat through the front door. Dad was sitting at the kitchen table, reading the paper, and Mom was nowhere in sight.

“Morning, honey,” Dad said. “How are you?”

“I’m fine.”

“Sleep okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. “His room is really nice.”

He gave me a look. “You two didn’t have sex, did you?”

“Dad!”

“What? I just want to know what to expect here.”

“No, Dad, we didn’t have sex. Oh my god, please don’t say that again.”

I shook my head and sat down across from him. He wasn’t normally so gross, but this whole situation clearly had him put off his normal game.

I couldn’t blame him. It had me all over the place too. But at least I wasn’t talking to him about sex.

Mercifully, Mom came downstairs a second later. “Morning, honey,” she said.

“Morning, Mom. How was it here last night?”

She shrugged. “Fine. Nothing new.”

“No terrorists here,” Dad said.

I gave him a look and then turned back to Mom. “Did you guys meet Cooper?”

“Who?”

“He was watching you last night. Or maybe it was Travis?”

Dad shook his head and looked annoyed. “Nobody came to the house. I didn’t even think anyone was really watching us.”

“Good,” I said. “Good. You shouldn’t be bothered by this.”

“Not bothered by terrorists. Of course not.”

Just then, the front door opened. I stood up as Emory came down the hall.

“Not knocking?” Dad muttered, but I ignored him.

“Morning all,” Emory said.

“Good morning, Emory. Would you like something to eat?”

“No, thank you, Mrs. Bright.”

“Please, call me Celine.”

“Okay then, Celine.”

“And call him Roger, even if he tells you not to.”

Dad just grunted and went back to reading the paper.

“Anything going on out there?” I asked Emory.

“Nothing. Cooper is running a sweep of the area right now. Did anyone bother you folks last night?”

“Nope. All quiet here,” Mom reported.

“Good,” Emory said. “You tell me if anyone bugs you. They report to me.”

“Of course they do,” Dad said. “You’re, what, their general?”

“Captain actually,” Emory said.

“Right. The captain of the team.”

“Dad,” I said.

He made a face and went back to the paper.

Emory grinned at me. “Glad you’re home?”

“Yeah,” I said, “I am. Despite my father being a major ass.”

“Major Ass. Is he in your squad too?” Dad asked.

“Roger, that’s enough,” Mom said harshly.

Emory smirked at my dad. “I know you’re not buying any of this, sir, and I don’t blame you. But I hope one day you’ll understand and know that this is all for your protection.”

Dad stared at Emory, clearly surprised by his sincerity. “Well, okay then,” he grumbled and went back to his paper.

Just then, I got a whiff of something from Mason. “Uh oh,” I said. “I think Mason needs to be changed.”

“Why don’t you take Emory and show him how to change a diaper?” Mom asked.

I glanced at him. “Want to learn?”

He made a face but nodded. “Yeah. I’ve always wanted to play with baby poop.”

Dad snorted as I headed up the steps, Emory on my tail. As we got to the top of the landing, I turned toward him. “Sorry about that,” I said.

“What, your father?”

“Yeah. He can be a real ass, but he’s a big teddy bear.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’d be shocked if he weren’t skeptical.”

“Still, he doesn’t need to be a dick about it.”

“He’s just threatened; that’s all. I’m a strange man saying strange things around his family. You’d be protective too if you were him.”

I nodded. I hadn’t really thought about that. Dad didn’t seem like a protective person, but he had always been there for me. He really didn’t know Emory beyond what I’d told him, and most of that wasn’t very flattering considering Emory had disappeared after getting me pregnant.

In Dad’s mind, Emory was the enemy, not the terrorists. The idea of terrorists was way too impossible and abstract for him to comprehend. Dad wanted to protect me and Mom, but in his mind it wasn’t from the terrorists. It was from the strange man named Emory.

“Come on,” I said, and led him into the nursery. “Ready for this?”

“I’m always ready,” he said.

I felt him standing so close to me as I put Mason down on the changing table.

“First, you remove the clothes, like this. See? Easy. Slides right off.”

“He’s squirming a lot.”

“Babies like to move around. We don’t exactly sit still either, you know. Next, the diaper comes off.”

“I’ve seen some gross things in my day, and this is definitely up there.”

“Yeah. It’s not pleasant. Okay, can you put it in that little thing over there?”

He nodded and put the diaper into the disposal unit.

“Okay, now we wipe. Easy. Cleans right up.”

“He doesn’t seem to mind.”

“He’d probably prefer a clean butt to a dirty one. Right, Mason?”

Emory stood behind me as I finished wiping Mason off and then took the dirty wipe and threw it out. I finally finished by putting a fresh diaper back on Mason.

“There we go. All changed. And now we wash our hands.” I put Mason into the crib and then we both went into the bathroom.

I was very, very surprised that Emory had actually stood there and seemed to be paying attention. I’d mainly expected him to make sexual jokes the whole time, but instead he looked like he wanted to actually learn how it was done.

I didn’t know what that meant. Maybe he planned on changing diapers, or maybe he just realized that if we were going to spend a lot of time together until this whole terrorist thing was resolved, then maybe he should learn.

“You know,” he said as I cleaned my hands, “there’s nothing sexier than a woman changing an infant.”

I couldn’t help but smile. It hadn’t taken him long to revert back to the jokes. “Oh really?”

“Really,” he said, standing close behind me. “Watching you work got me fucking hard.”

“I’m sure it’s not difficult to get you hard.”

“For you it’s not. All I need to do is think about that delicious, tight fucking pussy and I’m ready to go.”

I finished washing and dried my hands, and then Emory stepped in.

“Maybe we should talk about last night,” I said.

“Unless you want to tell me how dripping wet your cunt is thinking about it, I’d rather not.”

I frowned. “I don’t know, Emory.”

Suddenly he stood up straight, his eyes narrowed. “Did you hear that?”

“No?” I cocked my head, listening, but the only thing I heard was the sound of the faucet running.

“Get into the nursery,” he said, suddenly all business.

“Uh, what’s wrong?”

“Go, Tara. Now.”

I left the bathroom and went into the nursery. Mason was safe in his crib.

“What’s happening?” I asked him.

“Stay here.” He pulled his gun from his pants. “No matter what you hear, don’t leave this room.”

“Emory?”

He disappeared.

I stared at the door, fear and terror running through me. What the hell was happening? I hadn’t heard anything, but apparently he’d heard something that set him off. One second he was a cocky asshole making jokes and the next he was something completely different.

The transformation was amazing. His whole body had gone tense and ready, like an animal about to pounce.

I waited for a few minutes, but I couldn’t just sit in there. I set up Mason’s baby monitor and took the monitor with me as I crept out of my room.

Sure, Emory told me not to, but my parents were still downstairs, and I couldn’t just hide in a nursery while they were potentially in danger. If anything happened with Mason, I’d hear it on the monitor.

But I didn’t hear a thing. There wasn’t a single sound, not even coming from downstairs. Normally my parents were talking or listening to the radio or watching TV. It was basically unheard of that the house was this quiet with this many people in it.

I moved down the steps and looked over the bannister. My parents were both sitting at the kitchen table, looks of terror on their faces.

And then I saw him. He was a man I didn’t recognize, bearded, tall. He was wearing a black T-shirt and camouflage pants, and he was holding a large gun, like a rifle or something like that.

My heart skipped a beat. He was looking out the back window, and so he didn’t see me. I moved back slightly but kept my eyes on him.

Terrorist. There was a terrorist in our house. This wasn’t the Omar man, since this man was white, but he was definitely one of the terrorists Emory talked about.

Where was Emory? He’d snuck out of the room, but he wasn’t anywhere in sight. My parents were just sitting there, looks of abject terror on their faces, as the man looked out the window.

What happened next happened fast, almost too fast for me to follow. As the man straightened up to look at my mother, Emory appeared behind him.

And cut his throat open.

Blood spouted from the wound as Emory held his hand over the man’s mouth. He took the man slowly down to the floor, the blood coming out in gushes, so much blood. I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing.

My parents stared, their eyes wide. They didn’t make a move or a sound, and Emory simply put his finger to his lips to silence them. He kept the man down as he slowly stropped struggling, the blood pooling around the kitchen floor.

Emory moved again out of my sight. My heart was pounding in my chest, and I felt like I couldn’t move. The world was frozen. My parents both slowly moved off their chairs and got under the table, huddling against the wall as far from the dead man’s body as possible. His blood was covering the whole floor.

“Hey! The girl!”

My head shot up. Across the hall in the formal sitting room was another bearded man, this one shorter, his skin a bit darker. He was dressed in the same clothes as the other guy, and his gun was pointed right at me.

“Moe, it’s the girl, on the steps.” The man stepped toward me.

We made eye contact, and in that moment, I believed in evil. There was no emotion there, nothing to show that he felt anything for what was happening. He walked toward me slowly, his gun pointed right at me.

“Don’t move, bitch,” he said.

Then gunshots rang out. I shrank back against the wall, terror rolling through me. I looked down at myself, but I wasn’t shot. I looked back up as the man collapsed, red blooming along his chest.

Emory was standing there, his face grim, smoke curling from his weapon.

“Upstairs,” he ordered me.

“What’s happening?” another voice called from the other room. Emory moved fast, staying low. He moved toward the kitchen just as the man came around the corner and stumbled over the first body.

Emory knocked his gun away and cracked him in the skull. The man stumbled back and Emory went at him, punching him in the throat, the chest, and the stomach. The man toppled back and Emory was on him, disarming him with incredible speed.