Contract with a SEAL (Special Ops: Homefront Book 3) (7 page)

Eyes glistening, she gazed up at him. “I
promise.”

He watched her slide into the front seat,
resisting the urge to pull her back out, toss her over his shoulder and haul
her into one of those nice hotel rooms that Colonial Williamsburg boasted.
“Drive careful. Text me when you get home safely, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, and he shut her door
for her.

Damn
. What the hell was happening to him? Watching her car drive
into the distance, he felt a longing he couldn’t indulge.

Must be the holidays, he decided with a
shrug. And all that sentimental bullshit that comes along with them.

Stepping into the backyard, Vi watched
Bess ease her hands behind her against the splintered oak planks of the dock, and
let her feet dangle below her, just an inch or two above the chilly depths.

“Hey, what are you doing out here in the
cold?”

Bess glanced over her shoulder to watch Vi
approach. “This is warm compared to the way it’s supposed to be tomorrow. They’re
calling for flurries.” She cocked her head to the side. “Nice of you to finally
come home. We were expecting you a lot earlier.”

Glancing at the sun sinking toward the
horizon, Vi sat on the dock bedside her. “Joe and I went to Colonial
Williamsburg today.”

“Really?” She drew the word out to last
at least two syllables.

“Don’t get any ideas. This was not a
date.”

“Who bought?”

“Huh?”

“The tickets. You need tickets to get
into Colonial Williamsburg. Who bought?”

Vi’s shoulders sagged slightly. “He did.”

“Sounds like a date to me.”

“Bess, this guy is 110% alpha male. He
wouldn’t let me buy a stick of gum myself in his presence. That’s just how he’s
built.”

Bess whistled, low and suggestive. “And
my, my, how he’s built.”

Vi rolled her eyes. “We’re sticking to
our agreement.”

“For now. When you see him next Saturday
in uniform again, all bets are off.”

Vi sighed, knowing Bess was right. Joe
Shey in uniform was pretty hard to resist. Rather than debate futilely, she
opted for a change of subject. “Where’s Abby?”

Bess lifted the baby monitor remote that
rested on the dock next to her. “She fell asleep halfway through her mashed
potatoes tonight. We had a playdate with the little girl who lives across the
street from Edith today.”

Glancing at her, Vi did a double-take at
the grin that was plastered on Bess’s face. “What’s with you? You look like the
cat who ate the canary,” she observed.

“Huh?”

“That smile on your face. I’m somehow
thinking it has nothing to do with the playdate. What’s up?”

“Am I smiling?” Apprehensively, Bess
touched her hand to her cheeks. “Oh, it’s nothing.”

“What?” Vi pried.

Bess waved a hand carelessly. “Really,
it’s silly.”

Vi settled down on the dock alongside
her. “I could use a dose of silly. Lay it on me.”

Embarrassed, Bess shook her head. “I just
got a call from Tyler. He’s just this guy who I met when he was a West Point
cadet.”

“Oh, wait—the guy who drove you to
the hospital when you were in labor, right?”

Bess nodded.

“Yeah, Lacey told me about him. He’s
always sending Abby stuff, right?”

Bess smiled. “Yep, that’s him. He’s kind
of adopted Abby as an honorary niece or something. He actually just called to
tell me that he’s got something in the mail for her now for Christmas.”

“What a nice guy. Kinda makes me wonder
if he’s got some ulterior motives,” she added, waggling her eyebrows.

Bess snorted. “In my dreams. He’s
gorgeous. Way out of my league.”

“If the guy has been sending your kid
gifts for the past two years, believe me, there’s got to be a reason.”

“Well, it’s definitely not his attraction
to me. In fact, I met his last girlfriend. She was gorgeous. Supermodel type. Smart.
And worse, she’s even nice. Don’t you hate women like that?”

Vi narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “You
said ‘last girlfriend.’ ‘Was gorgeous.’ Sounds like Tyler’s brainy supermodel
is now in the past tense.”

Bess lips curved toward the sky. “Give up
finance. You should be an investigative reporter.”

“So she’s not his girlfriend anymore?”

Looking nearly giddy, Bess swung her legs
back and forth under the dock, almost teasing the waves beneath them. “Yep. I
told him to wish her a merry Christmas from me. You know, just trying to be
friendly. And he said they haven’t seen each other since he moved to Fort Drum
to take over a Platoon.”

“Mm. Is he seeing someone new?”

“I didn’t ask. Probably. It’s not really
my business. Besides, I didn’t want to seem like I’m interested or something.”

“But you are, right?”

Bess let out a stilted laugh. “Well,
hell, who wouldn’t be interested in a guy like him? I might be a mom, and
slighted jaded to men since my last bad relationship—”

“Catastrophically bad relationship,” Vi
chimed in.

Bess gave a nod of agreement. “—but
I’m not completely dead. We’re just friends, though. And I’m really fine with
that.”

“If you were really just his friend, you
wouldn’t have a Cheshire cat smile at the news he broke up with his girlfriend.
You’d be, well, sad for him, I’m guessing.”

“I know. This is really bitchy of me,
isn’t it?” Grimacing, her smile was sheepish.

Vi waved a careless hand. “Eh, you’re
human. Cut yourself some slack.”

“Knowing that he’s single suddenly gives
me hope. I mean, not that he’d ever go for a woman like me. But he’s like a
symbol for me, you know?”

“A symbol is the American flag or those
yellow ribbons you guys put on the trees out front. He’s no symbol. Tyler sounds
like he’s all hot-blooded male flesh, hon.”

“I mean, if Tyler is single, then that’s
living proof that the good ones aren’t all taken, you know?”

“Ah. I see… I guess.” Vi leaned back on
the deck, and gazed out to where the steel blue horizon met the orange sun. “I
still say you should make a move.”

Bess rolled her eyes. “Not a chance. First
off, he’s stationed in New York now. Second. Look at me. I’m not you, Vi. I
can’t reel in a SEAL CO. I’d be happy if the guy who serves coffee at the Buzz
would give me a second look.”

“For the record, I’m not reeling in a
SEAL, CO or otherwise. We’re just helping each other out for a couple nights.”

Bess fanned herself. “We could all use
such help.”

“And besides that, Bess, I’ve seen how
you clean up. You were smoking hot at the wedding. You’ve got that awesome red
hair, and your eyes are the color of a Tiffany box. Most women would kill for
eyes like yours.”

“Really?” Looking bolstered, Bess sat up
a little prouder on the dock. “A Tiffany box?”

“Yeah, really.” Vi turned to her,
squaring her shoulders. “You know what your problem is?”

“I think I’m about to find out.”

“You’re scared of men. And hell, who
wouldn’t be, after what you went through with your ex?”

“I’m not,” Bess denied, and followed up
with a frown. “Well, I was for a while. But knowing Mick and Jack changed that.
And Tyler too, maybe a little. I know they’re all not like Dan.”

“Yet you still do everything you can to
not attract anyone.”

Bess looked thoughtful a moment, glancing
down at the sweatshirt she wore—the one with something dry and crusty
smeared across the front. Mashed potatoes, Vi guessed. Her jeans were baggier
than was stylish these days, rendering Bess surprisingly gender neutral.

Vi angled her a look of challenge. “Let
Maeve pick out a few outfits for you. Smear on some lipstick, and I guarantee
you’ll have a date before you know it.”

Frowning, Bess sighed. “The idea of it
makes me slightly nauseous,” she admitted. “So how’d you figure me out so
fast?”

“Years of therapy.” Vi winked. “My shrink
would have said it’s safer for you to fixate on someone who is unattainable
like Tyler. He’s far away. Not a threat.”

Bess eyed her in disbelief. “You had a
therapist?”

“Honey, I lived in New York City. Everyone
has a therapist there.”

“Did it help you?”

Vi bit her lower lip thoughtfully. “I
didn’t go long. I guess it helped to talk about things. But frankly, I’d rather
have been talking to you guys out on the back deck with a glass of wine then
sitting in an office to the tune of $180 an hour.”

“Geez. Yeah. That’s a lot of diapers.
I’ll take friends over therapists any day.”

An osprey dove for its dinner, catching
Vi’s attention just as the last of the sun’s outline disappeared beneath the
horizon.

Sighing, Vi’s mind drifted from the
lovely weekend that had passed, to the week that awaited her. Two days of
freedom didn’t seem like much of a payoff for surviving five days of agony at
work. Oh, yeah. Except there was that paycheck. Vi frowned at the thought just
as Bess glanced over at her.

“So I told you why I’m smiling,” she
said. “Now, you tell me why you look like someone ran over your family dog.”

“I think I had too much fun this
weekend,” Vi confided. “Makes the week ahead look bleak.”

“You really hate that new job, don’t
you?”

Vi toyed with a piece of lint that was
stuck to her sweater. “It’s a good job. It pays well. That should be enough.”

“But it’s not.”

Stretching, Vi rested her forearms on the
top of her head. “I went to lunch with my old roommate from college. She saw I
was based in DC now and looked me up on LinkedIn.”

“Oh, well, that’s nice. Why the frown
about it?”

Vi shrugged. “It’s not really a frown.
More like a grass-is-always-greener face. She owns an investment advisory firm
in DC.”

“So you’re trying to tell me that her job
somehow tops being on TV? Are you serious?”

“No, it’s not that. In fact, she seemed
pretty envious of me. But I look at what she’s doing—actually managing
money, not just talking about it—and I remember, that’s what I used to
want to do.” Lowering her arms again, she rested her palms on the cold deck
behind her. “Meanwhile, what do I have lined up for my Monday morning? I have
to interview the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and talk about
trade priorities.”

Bess bit her lower lip. “You lost me at
Ways and Means. But I get that it’s something boring.”

“To say the least.”

“You know, I think you’re biggest problem
is that you’ve been too successful.”

Vi laughed. “Is
that
what my
problem is?”

“I’m serious. Look at me. I got knocked
up by a guy who used to beat me up. I cleaned houses to make my way through
school, and now I’m working at a small dental office that doesn’t even offer me
and Abby a good dental plan. Unless something catastrophic happens, the only
way is up for me.” She turned more toward Vi, setting one knee on the dock.
“But look at you. You’re 32, and you’ve traveled everywhere, met famous people,
you’re on TV, for Pete’s sake. Where do you go from here?”

Draping her arm over Bess’s shoulder, Vi
smiled. “Well, I don’t know if that’s true, but you did make me feel better.
Thanks.”

“Good.”

As the twilight overtook the wave-pocked Bay,
Vi hugged her legs close to stay warm. “And you’re right. Friends are better
than therapists.”

“Yeah. Just wait till you get my bill.”

Vi pulled into the tight parking lot of
the upscale store in DC’s expensive Chevy Chase neighborhood.

It wasn’t a long haul up Connecticut
Avenue from her office. But the drive had seemed to last a lifetime talking to
her sister, as Lacey shamelessly urged Vi to buy the most seductive dress
possible to bait Joe into a night of passion.

Vi found it disconcerting that she found
herself sorely tempted.

Making a beeline for the formalwear
department, Vi spotted Maeve perusing the racks.

“You’re late.”

“Sorry. Got held up a little at work.” Vi
took a glance at a dress in Maeve’s hand, grateful for the help today. For all
the designer clothes Vi owned, she really didn’t have an ounce of style about
her. Everything she owned had been chosen by a personal shopper at Bloomingdales.
She glanced around, spotting Bess on the other side of a rack. “Where’s Abby?”

“Edith said she’d babysit. I don’t think
formal shopping is really of interest to a two-year-old.”

“Or a 32-year-old if you’re talking about
me,” Vi muttered. “I keep thinking I should just wear something I already own.”

Resting her hand on her hip, Bess stepped
toward them. “Oh, that would go over great. New man on your arm, but in the
same dress you wore last year with your ex? I think not.”

 “Okay. You’re right. So what do you
have there?” Vi reached out for the first dress hung on Maeve’s forearm. “Seriously?
You can see right through that black lace, Maeve.”

“It’s got a flesh-colored underlay. All
illusion, baby.”

Vi took another look. A deep V neckline
and a slit up the front and back would leave little to the imagination. “This
isn’t the Academy Awards. It’s a correspondents’ gala. We’re a little more
conservative at this.”

“You mean
you’re
a little more
conservative. I see those financial shows. Those women on Fox Business Network are
revealing more skin on camera during the daytime than this dress does. You’re
trying it on.” With a dismissive wave, Maeve turned back to rack, fingering
through the hangers like the seasoned shopper she was. “So what’s the goal for
the night?”

Vi glanced between Maeve and Bess. “Umm,
to find a dress, I guess.”

Maeve shook her head. “Not the goal for
tonight. For Saturday night. I know you’re looking to turn heads, but is there
any head you’re particularly interested in?”

Vi knew what Maeve was insinuating,
especially after being primed by the conversation with her sister only moments
ago. Why was everyone so interested in seeing her spend the night in Joe’s
hotel room after the gala? At this point, Vi wouldn’t be surprised to hear
Maeve threaten to change the locks on her house just to keep Vi somewhere but
Annapolis that night.

Vi narrowed her eyes. “Actually, yes. I
want to turn Josh’s head. I want him to look at me and ache with desire,
knowing that I’m with Joe now.”

“I like the sound of that second part.
The first part is just so-so,” Bess said over her shoulder as she pulled a
dress from the rack, glancing it up and down.

Maeve’s eyes met Vi’s, locking on them
like tiny tractor beams. She raised one single eyebrow—how did she do
that, anyway? “Well, won’t Josh be pleased when he sees you leave the hotel by
yourself?” Arms still full of dresses, she somehow managed to cross her arms. “Won’t
news of that travel fast? Sure, Vi had a date. But can’t seem to keep him
interested enough to get an invitation to his room.”

Vi froze momentarily, and then gave a
quick shake of her head. “No one will notice.”

“They may be financial correspondents,
but at the core, they’re reporters, Vi. Of course they’ll notice,” Maeve
rebutted with a smirk.

Vi stared blankly at the racks, her blood
pressure edging upward. Why hadn’t she thought of this? She recalled the immense,
cattle-like herd of correspondents swarming the valet at the close of the
evening to wait for their cars, while the big-named network anchors were
whisked away by their drivers. Her shoulders slumped. “Shit,” she cursed
softly, not meaning to speak it aloud.

 “Don’t you think you should just
spend the night in his room?” Bess looked at Vi, a shred of sympathy in her
tone. “I mean, you’re going to all this trouble. May as well do it right.”

Maeve grinned. “That all depends upon
what ‘it’ is, if I may paraphrase one of our past Presidents.”

Bess giggled, but Vi’s face couldn’t
crack the slightest smile. “I don’t think I can handle it, guys. Seriously,
he’s way too…”

“Tempting? Good. Now you can remind me
again why you are depriving yourself.”

Vi couldn’t help remembering the words
Joe had last left her with. Don’t deprive yourself, he had told her. He didn’t
know, of course, that what she was depriving herself of was him.

“He’s not interested in me,” she said,
more to herself than to them. But her memory flashed to the feel of him against
her when he kissed her in the kitchen at his home. If the feel of his rock-hard
arousal pressing into her belly was any indication, that might be the biggest
lie she had said this year.

Feeling a rush of steam rising from her
body, Vi dared to meet the eyes of her housemates. “Seriously, he doesn’t want
to get involved. He’s leaving in January, remember?”

“And he doesn’t want to break your heart,”
Bess verified.

“Right.”

Maeve shrugged. “So tell him you want a fling.
What hot-blooded male would turn that down?”

“A fling?” Vi tried to act surprised at
the suggestion. An impossible task, seeing as though a fling with Joe Shey had
been the subject of every naughty, clothing-optional dream she’d had the past
few days.

“Yeah. A fling. You’ve had flings,
haven’t you?”

Vi’s face pinched up as she gazed at
Maeve, considering. No, really nothing in her pathetic sexual experiences could
quite be considered a fling. Though one or two of them might have been better
off as a fling, had she had the wisdom to cut the relationship short after one
night.

She looked at Bess, hoping she’d throw
her a rope.

Bess stared back at Vi, wide-eyed and
innocent. “Don’t look at me. I’m a sex-deprived mom. To me, the word ‘fling’
means to throw, as in, ‘I need to fling this dirty diaper into the trash.’”

Vi bit her lip. “I’m not really the fling
type, Maeve.”

Finally giving a nod in the direction of
the dressing rooms, they headed that way. “All the more reason to have one,
then. Could you even picture a better guy to have a one-night-stand with?”

Vi tried—really, she did. But no,
she couldn’t picture a man more enticing.

“Just think about it,” Maeve continued. “A
chance to have a night with a SEAL commander doesn’t come along twice in a lifetime.
Where’s your capitalistic spirit? You could write an article about it and sell
it to
Vogue
.”

To that, Vi couldn’t resist the laugh
that escaped her lips.

After opening a door, Maeve hung the
gowns on the small rack in the dressing room. She reached for Bess’s
selections. “Besides, with Jack gone, I need to live vicariously through the
lives of my friends. And Bess here is no help. I can’t get her to go for coffee
with a guy much less get naked with one.”

“Hey, I’ve got a kid to raise,” Bess
defended.

Maeve nodded. “She’s right. But you?” She
shot a look at Vi before closing the dressing room. “You have no excuse,” she
said on the other side of the louvered door.

Still pondering, Vi stripped out of her
tailored business suit. She tried on a blue chiffon A-line first, with a ruffle
detail coming off of one shoulder. Vi tilted her head to the side as she
smoothed down the airy fabric in front of her.

It was comfortable. Simple. And she’d
match perfectly with Joe’s dress uniform. Lacey had told her it would be a very
dark blue one—different from the dress whites he wore to the wedding. She
spun back and forth and enjoyed the feel of the light fabric against her legs.

She liked it.

They were going to hate it.

She stepped out of the room to two critical
faces.

“Take it off,” Maeve said
matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, it looks like you should be in a
wedding party or something,” Bess agreed.

Vi sulked, too clueless to argue with
either one of them, and went back into the room. She set the blue dress to the
side and saw a black dress behind it. She scoffed at the sight. “Are you
kidding me?” she called through the door.

Maeve laughed from outside the dressing
room. “I’m betting you saw the black one, right?”

“Maeve, it’s got a leather bodice,” Vi
argued.

“It’s sexy as hell. If you wore that,
there’s no way Joe could keep his hands off you.”

“That’s not the point of this evening,
remember?”

“Just try it on,” Bess chimed in. “You
could rock that gown, Vi.”

“Absolutely not.”

Four dresses later, exhaustion began taking
hold. She was never much of a shopper, and certainly not used to the firing
squad of criticism she was met with each time she emerged from the dressing
room.

Reaching for a red gown that Bess had
picked out, Vi felt a smile touch her cheeks, feeling a faint glimmer of hope.
It was a form-fitting mermaid cut dress in a spicy red color she’d never seen
before. It had a more conservative V neckline, but with satin that would hug
her curves.

“Wow,” Maeve and Bess said in unison when
she stepped tentatively out of the dressing room.

“I picked that one out,” Bess boasted. “Me.
The girl with day-of-the-week sweats.”

Maeve looked at her. “I told you, you
were a style maven in disguise.”

Vi turned slightly away from the mirror, and
regarded the plummeting back of the gown. If Joe Shey could resist her in this
gown, there was something wrong with him.

Ever the telepath when it came to the
subjects of men, sex, or interior design, Maeve read her mind. “Joe’s not going
to be able to keep his hands off you with that on.”

Vi’s mind drifted to memories of him that
past weekend. His strong, virile figure hidden behind a beard and red suit. The
feel of her hand in his as he helped her out of the car. The care in his tone
as he reminded her to not deprive herself of anything in this world.

Yep, she could handle a one-night-stand
with Joe Shey. In fact, it might be just what she needed.

“I hope he can’t,” Vi finally admitted, a
blush creeping up her neck and onto her cheeks when she realized she said it
aloud. When Maeve let out a cheer and shared a high-five with Bess, Vi shook
her head.

 “So just tell him that. One night. No
strings attached.” Maeve’s eyes flashed with excitement. “The man may look like
he’s chiseled from marble, but he’s all flesh-and-blood. In that dress, he
won’t be able to resist you.”

All flesh and blood… Vi could remember
the heat of him against her for that fleeting moment he had dared to press his
body close to hers. Flesh and blood. Yep, there was no need to remind her of
that.

***

Resting the phone in between his cheek
and his shoulder, Joe pressed his finger against his temples. How had he gotten
trapped in this conversation with his sister?

“So, you’re attracted to her, she’s
attracted to you. I don’t know why you’re holding yourself back.” Becca’s voice
was downright annoying at this point, and he was sorely tempted to hang up.

“She’s off limits, Becca. She’s newly
divorced—”

“—all the more reason she needs a
good guy like you,” his sister interrupted.

“And the sister-in-law of someone I led on
four missions. Hell, there’s a good chance I’ll be his CO again.”

“So what?”

“That’s borderline fraternization.”

Becca scoffed. “Is not. I was an Army
wife for three years. There’s no regulation that says you can’t date the sister-in-law
of someone you once commanded.”

“That doesn’t make it right.” Joe glanced
at the clock on the wall, wondering how the last five minutes of the
conversation could seem like an hour.

“But it does make it
not
wrong.”

Joe’s brow furrowed, slightly dazed by
his sister’s spinning logic. “Besides that, I’m leaving in a matter of weeks. I
don’t start things that I have no intention of finishing.”

“She’s not a home improvement project,
Joe.”

Joe sighed, relieved to see his Yeoman
appear at his door. He gave him a nod in acknowledgement. “So is this the only
reason you called me, Becca? Because I’ve got some papers I need to sign before
I get out of here for the day.”

“No. Actually I just wanted to make sure
you were still coming for Christmas. Brandon really is hoping you’ll be here.”

“Of course. I’ve already bought my
ticket.”

“And you don’t think you’ll need to ship
out suddenly on a mission? It really hurt him when you didn’t show up last
year. You know how he worries when you go away.”