Stranded with the SEAL (3 page)

C
owboy grabbed
a fistful of cheese puffs and belched, his eyes never leaving the television. “Brooke Barrons is fucking hot.”

Matteo shrugged one heavily muscled shoulder and opened another beer. “In a totally stereotypical American beauty kind of way, I suppose.”

“We ain’t in the military no more, Red, so I can ask. Are you gay?”

“No.”

We’ve got a terrific show for you guys tonight…

Cowboy gestured to the TV. “So give me a
booyah
when I say Brooke Barrons is fucking hot, not some bullshit answer about the sociological implications of stereotypical beauty.”

“You almost sounded intelligent just now.”

“I mean, shit, look at her. That hair. Those tits. That tiny little waist, and legs so long they could wrap around you and squeeze the living daylights out of your ass.”

“From her outfit, I’m thinking she’s off the market.”

Cowboy sneered at her formfitting T-shirt with “Bride” written on it and the long veil flowing from her head. “Probably marrying some Hollywood metrosexual like all those movie stars do. I swear, some of them actresses can throw their husbands across the room, unless a high wind beats ’em to it.”

A loud crack of thunder made the hotel walls shake.

“Fucking Cabo San Lucas,” the men said in unison.

Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!

Matteo took a long swig of beer. “What do you think the others are doing?”

“Let’s see…Jax is getting fitted with a shiny new stick up his ass, Logan is white-boy dancing at a bar with his mother, and Hawk is sitting in a dark room, brooding.”

“Pass me the cheese balls.”

Cowboy pointed into the bowl. “These here are what real men call cheese puffs. They ain’t no cheese balls.”

“Whatever. Pass ’em over here.” Matteo took a handful. “You’re not far off about Hawk. What’s the matter with him lately?”

Cowboy moved for another beer. He was going to feel like bloated roadkill in the morning. He considered what to tell Matteo. “Ain’t just lately. Been since Ralph died.”

“What happened?”

Cowboy eyed the second newest member of HERO Force, sizing him up. Matteo was a former SEAL — everyone but Logan was a SEAL — but Matteo was the only one who came from a different team. It was Jax who wanted Matteo on HERO Force, and Cowboy had yet to figure out why.

Matteo was a sniper, and a hell of a good one, but snipers were nothing special in the military. No, there was another reason Jax wanted him on the FORCE, and Cowboy was determined to figure out why.

“Tell you what, Red, you tell me what puts the sparkle in your flapjacks, and I’ll tell you what you want to know about Hawk.”

Matteo rolled his eyes. “Not this shit again.”

Cowboy turned to the window, a lighted palm tree whipping fiercely in the wind. He was getting to Matteo. He could feel it. One of these days he’d tell Cowboy everything he wanted to know. “Got to be something.”

“I was the best sniper in my class.”

Cowboy curled his lips and shook his head. “Has to be more than that.”

“And I’m a pilot. A good one.”

“Keep going.”

Matteo shrugged. “You’ll have to ask Jax. Maybe he likes my full, round ass.”

Matteo was holding out on him, but Cowboy couldn’t help but smile. The leader of HERO Force was notoriously attracted to women with large rear ends. “He is an ass man.”

Thunder rolled in the distance.

“Fucking Cabo San Lucas,” they chimed.

Cowboy stood up and the world banked left. Fuck it. He’d get the goods on Matteo sooner or later. “All right, you want to know what happened, I’ll tell you. We were doing surveillance on a guy named Steele, some badass billionaire with an import/export business. Trouble is, he imports and exports shit like drugs and human beings, with the occasional shipment of firearms.”

“Why hasn’t he been caught?”

“Because he’s got tens of thousands of shipments coming in and out of the country every year, and only a handful are illegal. He’s got hundreds of employees and an inner circle that covers his back. The feds haven’t been able to pin him with anything.” He reached for the cheese puffs, but pushed them away, then ran his hand over his forehead. “Ralph was getting close, really close. He and Hawk infiltrated Steele’s compound, Ralph in the lead, Hawk on his six. Only Hawk walked out of there that night.”

“He blames himself,” said Matteo.

“Steele’s men held him down while he watched Ralph die a slow and painful death. That’s not the kind of thing you just put out of your mind.”

Matteo made the sign of the cross, mumbling something under his breath.

Cowboy drained his beer. There wasn’t enough alcohol in the world for this story. Never had been. If it were up to Cowboy, getting Ralph’s killer would be HERO Force mission number one, but Jax would never allow it.

He sniffed and shrugged his shoulders. “Of course, by the time the cops got there the body was gone. No evidence of any wrongdoing, that sort of thing. That’s what happens when you’ve got an army of minions just waiting to cover your tracks.”

“They find him?”

Cowboy was starting to get drunk. Real drunk, the kind that made you wish things were different at the same time you stopped caring at all. “No. And he’s got a wife and little kid who was born after he died.”

“No wonder Hawk’s obsessed.”

Another crack of thunder seemed to shake the world, and it crossed Cowboy’s mind that God didn’t like this story any more than he did.

“Fucking Cabo San Lucas,” they chimed.

O
livia was
aware of the headache long before she opened her eyes, the pain pulsing and seeming to fill her entire experience. When she shifted her position, a wave of nausea bubbled through her stomach and she squinted her eyes open a tiny crack.

That made it worse.

She closed them again.

I think I’m going to be sick.

She curled in on herself, wrapping her arms around her middle. She wanted this pain to go away, wanted the edges of her consciousness to be less sharp and aching. She licked her lips. Her mouth was so dry. She needed to find some painkillers and a glass of water, but she’d have to get up, and that was far more than she felt capable of doing.

An arm reached across her midsection and she gasped. It curled up her chest, the hand grazing her breast.

She held her breath.

Who the hell is that?

Terror sluiced through her. She snuck another peek at the room around her, her eyes focused on the embers glowing brightly in the fireplace, then shifted to take in a gold-flecked bottle on the mantel. Alcohol. The man moaned and snuggled closer to her back, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

She must have been drinking.

Light-headed with panic, she worked to keep her breathing as normal as possible. She took stock of her body, clenching her thighs and the muscles inside her pelvis. Neither were sore or tender like they would be after sex, which didn’t help to explain the man currently pressed against her backside, or what felt like his growing erection.

She inched away, pain shooting through her left shoulder and down her side and surprising her into stillness. She struggled to remember what she’d been doing before she went to bed, a memory like the smallest thread she could pull and trace back to a sweater, but was unable to think beyond her sore body and the throbbing inside her skull.

She couldn’t remember anything.

What if he slipped something in my drink and brought me here without me knowing?

Her senses were instantly on high alert. As slowly as she could, she eased away from the man and rolled from the couch onto the floor, the movement once again throwing pain through half her body and making her previous headache seem like child’s play.

She looked back at the still-sleeping stranger, menacing with his sharp jaw and dark stubble. Her eyes stuck on the wide set of his enormous shoulders. There was strength there, enough to make her willowy limbs quake with the possibilities of what had happened to her.

Come on, Olivia. Think! How did you get here?

The man rolled to his side, his silhouette dramatizing his bone structure and physique. He was so masculine, like an image of primitive man in a museum somewhere, the kind of man she would have found attractive if her reaction were not threaded with this heavy fear.

The kind of man she’d have a hard time escaping from in her current condition.

She needed to get the hell out of here before this guy woke up.

As she carefully crawled away with her good arm, the pounding in her head begged her to be still as her panic egged her on. There’d be time later to coddle her headache, once she was safe and sound and out of this place. She needed to get home.

The thought resonated in her head like a punchline and she froze, her eyes widening.

Home — a word that should conjure feelings of security and peace — brought up only a blank page in her mind. She mentally shook herself.

Come on.
Home.

Nothing.

Her breath came faster, too fast now.

The man mumbled something under his breath and shifted in his sleep, forcing her to move. If she couldn’t even remember where she lived, there was no more doubt in her mind that the sleeping creep had drugged her before bringing her here last night.

Dear God, she hoped it was last night. She swallowed the possibility she’d been here longer.

As quietly as she could, she used the coffee table to lift herself to a stand. An overwhelming wave of dizziness had her knees buckling, and she fell back down to the floor, her knee banging the coffee table with enough force that her eyes immediately shot to the man.

His eyes opened. He stared at the ceiling.

He was going to grab her and have his way with her, and suddenly she wished for the vacancy in her mind to rescue her from this reality again. She wanted to throw up. Damn it, she was going to throw up. She hugged her knees, fighting the need to vomit.

“Are you okay?” the man asked.

Now she’d done it, woken the bear who was bound to try to keep her in this cave. His voice was deeper than she’d been expecting, its tone vibrating in her chest. She looked to a doorway, knowing it was too far for her to run.

She had to pretend she wasn’t afraid, had to keep him at ease. She threw him what she hoped looked like an embarrassed glance over her shoulder. “I feel sick to my stomach.”

“Does your head hurt?”

“Yes.”

He threw back the covers. “You probably have a concussion,” he said, standing. He walked past her, an obvious limp making him no less threatening. As if the strength of his body wasn’t enough to intimidate her, he towered over her like few men in her life ever had. He was six-five, easily, maybe more.

He walked back into the room, placing a mixing bowl on the table beside her. “Just in case,” he said. “How are you feeling, other than the nausea?”

“Like I got hit by a train.”

“That’s not far off. Can you lift your head?”

“Not without fireworks going off in my brain.”

“Understandable, given what happened.”

She swallowed hard against her dry throat, then realized with horror she was close to tears. Her lips began to shake. “What happened, exactly?” she asked.

“You don’t remember?”

“No.”

He reached to touch her, and she recoiled.

“I just want to see your head,” he said.

She eyed him warily. “I’m fine.”

“I’m not going to hurt you, Olivia.”

“Who are you?”

“Trevor Hawkins. Hawk.”

“Why did you bring me here, Trevor Hawkins?”

He furrowed his brow. “We were in an accident. I came around a blind curve in my truck and there you were, stuck in the snow, standing outside your car. It was too late for me to stop. The impact threw you and you hit your head, which was lucky because both cars caught fire.”

She lifted her hand to her head tentatively. A large lump and a messy scab were tender to the touch. Her hair was filled with hard bits of blood. She thought of her sharp, nasty headache. The nausea and dizziness. “Why aren’t we in the hospital?”

“My cell phone was in my car. I assume yours was, too, and the phone here is dead. I haven’t been able to contact anyone.”

She turned her gaze to the front window, instantly sorry for the movement. “What about a passing car?”

“There aren’t any. Wouldn’t surprise me if they closed the road. We’re in the middle of a blizzard on Warsaw Mountain.”

“Blizzard?”

“Yes. It’s pretty bad.” He stood, walking past her toward a hallway, and she noted a tattoo on his bicep, an eagle and an anchor.

“They have to have a radio or a TV somewhere,” he said.

Warsaw Mountain.

The name meant nothing to her. She lived in… in… God,
where did she live?

He walked back into the room, fiddling with a small radio in his hands. His eyes met hers. “You look like you’re going to cry,” he said.

She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Was this man her enemy or her friend? She watched as the muscles of his arm flexed with each movement of his hands.

If he was her enemy, she didn’t stand a chance.

Please, let him be my friend.

“I can’t remember where I live,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. He met her eyes with his calm, steely stare, clearly waiting for her to continue. She took a deep breath. “I don’t remember if I have a cat, or a dog. I don’t know if I live alone,” she dropped her eyes, “or with someone else. The first thing I remember is waking up this morning.”

She felt herself begin to come apart. Her face crumpled. “What’s happening to me?” she cried. Her hands were trembling and she took gasping breaths of air. She grabbed the bowl and vomited, horrified that he was there watching her be sick.

He moved to her and tucked her hair behind her ear, making her squirm away.

“It’s okay,” He said, touching her arm.

She pulled away from him and stood, cradling the bowl, her head reeling from the movement. “It is not okay! Nothing is okay. Everything is wrong. Who are you, anyway?”

“Trevor Hawkins.”

“You said that already. I mean, who are you? Why did you bring me here?”

“I told you, there was an accident.”

“Bullshit.”

He narrowed his eyes and took a step toward her. “What do you think happened?”

She lifted her chin, her mind searching for a reason not to tell him the truth, and finding none. “I think you drugged me. You slipped something into my drink and you took me here against my will.”

“Why would I do that?”

Blood flooded her cheeks, heat filling her face. “To take advantage of me.” She forced her eyes to remain on his as his stare slipped lower, taking in her body with cool assessment.

“The women I sleep with don’t have to be drugged, Olivia.” He closed the distance between them.

What would she do if he tried to touch her, or worse?

He leaned down and picked up the bowl, his body so close to hers she felt herself tremble.

“I was on my way to visit a friend. I rounded a corner and there you were. Your car was stuck in the snow.” He walked past her and she exhaled the breath she’d been holding. The water ran in the kitchen, and she knew he was cleaning out the dirty bowl.

She felt dirty, too. Cold and dirty and confused and aching. “Where’s the bathroom?” she called. “I want to take a bath.”

“Down the hall on the left, but there’s no hot water. I’ll heat some on the stove for you.”

She fingered the waffle weave of her pajamas. “Where are my clothes? I assume I wasn’t wearing long johns in the middle of a blizzard.”

“Your clothes have blood on them. I’ll find you something clean to wear. There’s a whole closet full of clothes that should fit.”

She nodded, instantly grimacing, then walked into the dark hallway. Her control over her emotions began to slip. Her mind worked frantically to recall something — anything — from before the accident.

She locked the door behind her and leaned against it, instantly in a full-blown cry. It was as if her life had begun the instant she woke up. The pain was swirling through her, no longer focused just on her head but in her belly and back. A word hovered on the edge of her willingness to name it, a word more frightening than any she’d ever experienced.

Amnesia.

Everything she ever knew was gone. She had amnesia and she was stuck here with this overwhelming man who could scare the bejesus out of her one moment and wash out her vomit the next.

Slipping down the door, she landed on the floor with a thud. Footsteps could be heard coming toward the bathroom.

“Olivia, are you okay?”

She leaned back against the locked door. This wasn’t happening. This awful day was nothing more than a bad dream, and she need only wake up to return to her regularly scheduled life. Her eyes drifted shut despite the pounding and Trevor calling her name. The noises seemed to get farther away, less urgent, as if they were calling for someone else.

A pleasant darkness overcame her senses, welcoming her in, and she slumped to her side.