Cover of Darkness (18 page)

At first she'd wondered why he'd hidden that part of himself, but after some pondering had decided he didn't want to appear weak. Plus, had he shown the kind of affection and attention she'd craved, he might have inadvertently placed her in jeopardy long before the bombing at the embassy and their kidnapping.

She'd also found pictures of her father with Luke, during the civil war back in the eighties. Luke looked so much like his son, it was uncanny. No wonder Emily had a hard time when Rayne was around. Here Bryn was, well on her way to falling in love with a SEAL, despite that being a disaster waiting to happen. And Luke was downstairs right now, planning what 166

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was going to go down, discussing the mission, logistics, strategy, resources at their disposal and a million other things she didn't have a clue about.

She would have loved to learn each man's opinion about her participation, but at least she had no worries about them taking care of her. During her visits here with her father, Ben and Rhys had been like her personal secret service detail, and they would now raise that to a whole new level. As for Dec, she knew he hated her being involved, and because he was the only one to have seen her in action in the field, she had to wonder what he really thought of her. He'd admitted she was mentally tough and not a wimp, but what did that mean?

Maybe he was convinced she was going to get them all killed.

Her hand fluttered to her throat. God, what if she did something wrong and they got shot or blown up because of her? What if they were maimed or killed because she'd been stupid and stubborn enough to sign on for this op? She'd rather die than be the cause of any more deaths.

Footsteps along the hall caught her attention and she jerked the forgotten paperback off her lap, fumbling to open the pages before someone knocked at her door.

At her invitation to the knock the door cracked open, revealing Dec's silhouette backlit by the wall sconces. "Hey."

She drew her knees up to her chest, pulse picking up.

"Hey."

"Can I come in?"

"Sure." She scooted further against the headboard to make room for him, and he sat at the foot of her bed. The scent of his soap teased her nostrils, making her wish she 167

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could bury her face in the curve of his neck just to breathe him in.

His gaze was thoughtful. "How you doing?"

"Good. I'm good." Nervous as hell with all those butterflies swarming around in her belly. "You?"

He smiled, revealing that sexy pair of dimples. "Don't worry about me. I'm tougher than I look."

Eyeing the width of his shoulders, she smiled back. "You look plenty tough to me."

He hesitated, and she realized he was making an attempt to be more human with her. His guard was down, his posture relaxed, like he'd dropped in for a visit before turning in himself. "You need anything?"

"No thanks. Was just reading a bit. You know, help take my mind off...everything." She was exhausted, but maybe insomnia was for the best. More than once she'd woken out of a dead sleep drenched in sweat, terrified she was still in that damned hole in the ground.

"Is it working?"

"Nah."

"You know, if I could make all this go away, I would."

She leaned into her pillow. "So maybe we could chat for a while?"

"Sure. What about?"

"Anything except...all this." Maybe now would be a good time to let her curiosity about him get the better of her. "You have a family back home?"

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His tawny eyes met hers, their unusual color more arresting thanks to the thick black lashes framing them.

"Parents, and a brother and sister. In Montana."

So he wasn't married. Thank God. Now she needn't feel guilty about poaching when she daydreamed about him. She did envy him, though. She'd always wanted siblings. "Are you close?"

"Yeah. You?"

"Mother and step-father live in Baltimore. But I'm guessing you already knew that." When his eyes lit with amusement, she knew she'd been bang on. "It was in my file, right?"

"Yeah."

"What else was in there?"

He moved his broad shoulders in a negligent shrug. "Your background, education, identification marks—"

"Such as?"

"I know you had your appendix out."

Oh. "Anything else?"

His eyes laughed at her. "Why? You afraid I know some dirt you don't want anyone to find out about?"

"No dirt here," she assured him. "It's just weird that you knew all about me before you met me and I still don't know anything about you."

"Made our job easier when we came in to get you."

So how much would he reveal about himself if she kept questioning him? Some level of secrecy had to be maintained, she supposed. It would make him that much more effective at his job. Plus of course, there was the issue of him keeping a 169

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professional distance between them. She didn't want to have
that
conversation with him again.

"Luke told me you were a friend of his family. That true?"

His question surprised her.

What a tidy way for Luke to sidestep all the complications of their shared connections. "His son's my best friend in the world, and I'm pretty close to Luke's ex-wife."

"Bet that bugs the hell out of him."

"I bet it does too. They all get along okay—I mean, they're civil to each other and everything. And the boys took a stab at burying the hatchet this past spring, so it's better than it was. It wasn't easy for any of them with Luke's line of work, which you can well imagine." Which was why it was so, so stupid for her to even daydream of being with Dec. She
knew
what sort of misery could come from that. What was wrong with her?

"Yeah, a lot of marriages don't work out under that kind of stress. It would take some special kind of woman to hang in there for the long haul with one of us."

She kept to herself that she figured she could handle it.

"But sometimes it's not the wife who wants out. And even when they part ways, it doesn't mean they don't still love each other."

His gaze sharpened. "Meaning Luke was the one to leave?"

She was treading on thin ice here. It wasn't her place to fill Dec in on Luke's private history. "Let's just say Emily would give up everything to be with him. In a heartbeat. I think he feels the same way, but he's either too stubborn or paranoid to let it happen."

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"Stubborn, huh. I know a few people who are too stubborn to know what's good for them."

Despite herself, she snickered. His answering smile almost melted her bone marrow.
You're only making it harder on
yourself.

"What about the twins? Where'd you meet them?"

"At a restaurant in Boston. I was working at this Greek place one weekend for some extra money when they came in with some of their military buddies." She'd been dancing, and they'd stuffed her costume bra and belt full of money. On the sly she'd paid for Ben and Rhys' dinners, and after her show they'd invited her to join them.

"Ah."

"Did you know they grew up in foster care?" She was babbling, couldn't seem to stop. "Their mother was a crack addict in Southie, had them living out of a car. Social Services took them in when they were ten and they went through hell until the Sinclairs adopted them at fourteen." She swept a stray lock of hair from her face. "That's how I ended up choosing to be a social worker. No child I was involved with was going to get tossed around like they did."

Actually, she'd probably been a caretaker all her life. Being raised by a single mother, Bryn had always been very protective of her. "Anyway, we kept in touch while I went through grad school and after they left the military, I mentioned to my father that they might be interested in doing private security. One thing led to another, and here we are."

"So with your job, it's the kids that you're in it for?"

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"I can't stand knowing kids are out there suffering all sorts of abuse, especially when it comes from the people who are supposed to love and protect them. If I find out about it, I do everything in my power to take that child away to a safe and loving environment." She cocked her head. "What about you?"

"What about me?"

Her shoulders moved. Hopefully she was coming across as casual and not scaring him off. "What did you do before becoming a SEAL?"

"Earned my engineering degree with the Navy two years before I entered BUD/S."

"An engineer? What kind?"

"Civil. I learned how to make bridges, and then in the Navy I learned how to blow them up. Turns out blowing them up's way more fun. Who knew?"

He wasn't just an elite soldier with a pretty face, then. He had a mind every bit as formidable as his tactical skills, which made him even more irresistible to her. Though to be honest, if she hadn't seen him in action in the field she would never have believed him to be lethal. He came across as so calm and kind, she had trouble reconciling what she saw in him to what she'd witnessed out in the desert. Yet he'd risen to the occasion and proved himself to be a strong, confident leader.

She wanted to understand what made him tick. "So why did you decide to be a SEAL?"

"9/11, same as a lot of people. I got real pissed off and decided to do something about it. The SEALs seemed the 172

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obvious choice, since we're in hot zones all over the world.

Lucky for me, I was good at it. I thrived on the challenge."

"Challenge? I know what they do to you guys. You call being tortured and living day and night in freezing cold water with no sleep a
challenge
?"

His dimples materialized. "Loved it. See, the trick is to not quit. That's all that got me through the training, and why other guys rang out. Sheer willpower. Most recruits are in great physical shape, but the mentally tough ones are the guys who finish. You stop thinking about how bad it is and just do it." He laid his left palm on the mattress, the crescent-shaped scar on the back of his hand reminding her of when he'd framed her against that sheer rock face with his body. "If you let yourself think about being cold and wet and tired for days on end, you'll never make it because your brain's telling you your body can't endure it. So you shut everything out except what you're doing at any given moment and get through it one task at a time."

She eyed him like he was nuts and he laughed.

"When you think about it, they have to train us SEALs the way they do. They need guys who are motivated, mentally tough and won't give up on themselves or their teammates.

Pretty simple, really."

If she looked awed by that speech, she couldn't help it. He was heroic down to his core and he didn't realize it.

"Anyway, that's why I signed up."

"How long are you planning to stay in?"

"Not sure. Another few years, unless something changes."

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Like the number of limbs or his vital status
. "And then what? Private contracting?" Part of her hoped he would say something that would turn her off getting involved with him, to make it easier to get him out of her head.

"Maybe some, but..." He gave a faraway smile. "My older brother and I built this log house in Montana. My kid sister decorated it. We have this pipedream of turning the place into an adventure ranch."

"Like hiking, horseback riding?"

"Yeah. Rock climbing, kayaking, rappelling—"

"God forbid you forget the rappelling." After her rappelling experience on that Syrian cliff, she wouldn't be trying that again any time soon.

"Absolutely. So yeah, that kind of thing. What about you?"

How typical of him to turn the tables on her.

"What do you like to do?"

"Camp, hike, kayak. Love to swim. Teach dance classes.

Other than that, kind of an outdoorsy type."

As his expression turned thoughtful, it occurred to her they'd just discovered they had more shared interests than they'd imagined. Would have been easier to find out they had nothing in common. She fought back the yawn that had been forming, figured she concealed it well enough.

He still noticed, of course. Nothing got past him. "Better get some sleep while you can. We've got a long day ahead of us."

"Okay. Thanks for talking with me. It helped." Venturing a glance at him, she found him looking back at her with warmth 174

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in his eyes, same as when he'd kissed her in the hospital. Her poor, stupid heart fluttered. God, she was in big trouble.

"Yeah. About tomorrow," he began. "I wanted to tell you...look, you don't have to do this." His amber gaze lifted to hers and held. "It's not too late, Bryn. You can still walk away and no one will think less of you for it."

Wouldn't they? She'd been given this opportunity to help collar the man responsible for the bombing, the kidnapping, Qamar's murder and her father's death, preventing him from hurting any more innocent people. If she had died and her father was in her place, wouldn't he have done whatever he could to bring Tehrazzi to justice? Absolutely. So how could she not do the same for him? She owed him that much, to show courage and resolve and push past her fear and insecurities. No way would she let him down.

"Don't do this out of revenge, Bryn," Dec said quietly, his instincts unerring. "Even if we get him, it won't bring your father back."

The words hit her square in the heart like an arrow. "I know that. But I still have to do it."

He stared at her. "For who? Him? You?"

"For all of us."

He looked away, and she wished he hadn't. It felt too much like he was shutting her out.

"Please, Dec, say you'll help me. I'm scared enough about what's going to happen without having you mad at me."