Protecting Caroline (SEAL of Protection Book 1) (12 page)

Wolf couldn’t
wait until the ship he was on got closer to land. He wanted to check his voice
mail, but knew it wouldn’t work until they were in range of a cell phone tower
on American soil. For the thousandth time he wished he had a satellite phone,
but of course that was impractical for everyday use. He shook his head and
laughed at himself. He was worse than a high schooler with his first crush.

Mozart and Abe
had given him a hard time, but he knew they were just as anxious to hear from Caroline,
to make sure she was all right. They’d really taken to her and had told Wolf
all the time how lucky he was.

Cookie, Benny,
and Dude hadn’t met Caroline, but they’d certainly heard all about her from the
team. They’d been stunned at her actions on the plane and had asked a million
questions about her job as a chemist. Wolf knew they’d find her as amazing as
he did. As long as they kept their hands to themselves, all would be well.

Wolf should’ve
been surprised at how possessive he felt about Caroline, but he wasn’t. It just
seemed right. He couldn’t be freaked out about it when she felt like
his
.

It went against
everything Wolf knew to leave Caroline in that hotel bed without talking to her
first, but he didn’t have a choice. As soon as he’d answered his phone he knew
he’d have to leave. His boss had notified Wolf the situation had changed and
they had to go right away. No one argued with him, such was life as a Navy
SEAL, but Wolf hadn’t liked it. For the first time in his life there was
someone in his life that came before his job.

Being a Navy
SEAL had always come first. Always. At no time had he allowed a woman to
dictate what he did when. It felt weird because in the past when a woman tried
to tie him down, he got antsy and broke things off. Now, he
wanted
Caroline to tie him down. He didn’t know if he loved her, but he figured with
the way he felt about her after the short time he’d spent with her, he was well
on his way. 

When he’d made
it to the ship Mozart and Abe wanted to know how Caroline was doing. How was
her side? Were the stiches okay? Wolf had answered their questions and told
them how much he’d enjoyed his time with her. Expecting the guys to give him
crap, he was shocked when they’d just smiled at him and told him it was about
time he found a woman who was good enough for him.

Even Tex had
pulled him aside at his house and told him how much he liked Caroline. Tex had
always been an easy-going guy and never, not once, had he commented on Wolf’s
choice of woman…until Caroline. His team’s approval meant a lot to him. That
wasn’t to say Wolf would’ve listened to them if they didn’t like her, but he
was glad they did. They’d hopefully be seeing more of Caroline in the future.

Finally the
phone in Wolf’s hand vibrated. They’d sailed close enough to the United States
to be able to receive a signal. Thank God he had a message! He eagerly drew the
phone up to his ear, hoping to hear Caroline’s voice saying she wanted to see
him again.

“
Hi Matthew,
it’s me, Caroline…um…Ice…”
At first Wolf was thrilled to hear her voice,
but confused about why she was whispering. Then his blood ran cold.
What the
hell? Oh shit.
His Caroline was in trouble. Listening to her soft voice
quavering in fear was heart wrenching. She’d been in trouble and called to
reassure
him
. Jesus. She knew he couldn’t help her, but she’d called
anyway. Wolf couldn’t even think.
Him
, the Navy SEAL, had no idea what
to do.

He spun, took
the stairs two at a time, and burst into the day room. All five members of his
team looked up sharply, instantly alarmed. They’d never seen Wolf so frazzled
and it put them on high alert.

“Caroline,” was
all he could get out. He was breathing hard and was definitely panicked. Mozart
and Abe came over to him and Wolf just held out the phone. Abe grabbed it and
played the message on the speaker for them all to hear.

No one said a word
until Mozart uttered, “Fuck.” It looked like she’d called about twenty four
hours ago. Twenty four freaking hours ago. There were no other messages from
her. No one wanted to say it, but they all knew that wasn’t a good sign.

They couldn’t
get off the ship for at
least
another four hours. They had to dock and
get clearance. Benny, Cookie, and Dude hadn’t met Caroline, but with everything
they’d heard enough about her from the others, they were just as concerned
about her as Mozart, Abe, and Wolf were. Well, maybe not as concerned as Wolf.

Wolf immediately
dialed the number Caroline had called from. He listened to it ring and ring and
ring. When her message came on, he didn’t bother to listen to it. As much as he
wanted to hear her voice again, he wanted to hear her in person, not a
recording. He hung up and called back. He had no idea how many times he
would’ve kept calling her back, probably until one of his team members
confiscated his phone, but luckily the third time he’d hit her number she
finally answered.

“Hello?” She answered
tentatively.

“Caroline?” Wolf
said urgently, hoping like hell it was her. How she’d become so important to
him in such a short time, he had no idea. But there it was. It was the moment
he’d heard her whispered voice and realized he wasn’t there and couldn’t help
her that he knew she was his. Period. His.

“Yes, this is
she,” Caroline said shakily. She hadn’t recovered from the break in at her
apartment and didn’t recognize the voice on the other end of the line.

“It’s me,
Wolf…er…Matthew. Are you okay? Jesus, Caroline. Talk to me.”

“Matthew!” Caroline
breathed a sigh of relief. Oh my God, she was so relieved to hear his voice she
had to sit down. She collapsed on a chair that luckily was nearby, then
remembered the message she’d left for him. “Are you back? Are you calling to see
when we can get together?” Caroline tried to play dumb and pretend Matthew was
calling about a date. Maybe he hadn’t checked his voice mail yet. She wasn’t
thinking straight because he wouldn’t know her number if he hadn’t checked his messages.
She also knew by the tone of his voice when he’d asked if she was all right,
he’d heard the panicked message she’d left.

“What the hell,
Caroline?” He practically roared at her. “Are you all right woman? What the
hell is going on?”

Caroline winced.
Shit. Maybe she shouldn’t have called him from her apartment after all. He
sounded pissed, not excited to hear from her. She leaned over in the chair
clutching her stomach. Her lower lip trembled and she closed her eyes.

Abe grabbed the
phone from Wolf and glared at him as he brought it up to his ear. Abe knew Wolf
was frantic, but Jesus, he was going to piss Ice off or scare her away if he
didn’t get control of himself.

“This is Abe,
Ice. What Wolf
meant
to say was that he got your message and he wanted
to make sure you were all right,” he said quietly gesturing at Wolf to “relax” and
shooting daggers at him with his eyes.

Caroline sighed
and choked back a sob. “I’m okay, Christopher. Thanks. Can you put Matthew back
on? Please?” Caroline was impressed she remembered his real name. She’d been
afraid she’d forget them, so she’d repeated them to herself several times over
the last few weeks, making sure she knew them backward and forward.

Abe looked over
at his team leader. Wolf was sitting on a chair with his head resting on his
clenched fists. He could see the whites of Wolf’s knuckles and could tell he
was in no condition to talk rationally yet.

“Um, no, sorry, not
just yet. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on.”

Caroline sighed.
Christopher had asked her to tell him what was going on, but she knew it wasn’t
really a question. It was a demand.

“I didn’t mean
to upset him, Christopher. God, can you tell him that? I just…hell…If something
happened, I didn’t want Matthew to think I didn’t want to see him again. That’s
all. He’s the best thing that’s happened to me in my life.” She paused, took a
deep breath, and continued. “Then I …got busy…and forgot to call him back.”
That was a lie, but she figured it was safer for the moment to stretch the truth.
She didn’t want to blurt out that she missed Matthew terribly and had wanted to
call him every day, every hour. That was a little too “stalkerish,” even for
her.

Abe repeated his
question. “What’s going on? I can tell you aren’t telling me everything. You
know
I hate it when people lie. Tell me, Ice. Tell me now.”

Caroline didn’t
like the hardness in Christopher’s voice, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to
beat around the bush for much longer. She told him a watered down version of
what had happened at her apartment.

“I got home from
work and someone tried to break in. I hid in the bathroom until the cops got
there and whoever it was left.”

Abe knew there
was more to what happened than what she’d told him. Hell, she’d tried to
downplay wrestling with a damn terrorist; there was no way that two sentence
explanation was anywhere
close
to what had happened. Deciding to let it
rest until they could see her in person, he informed her, “It’ll take us a bit
to get over there, probably about five hours or so, but don’t you
move
from your apartment until we get there. Okay?”

Caroline
hesitated.

“Okay, Ice?” Abe
asked again impatiently when she didn’t immediately agree.

“I’m not at my
apartment, Christopher.” Caroline told him in a small voice.

“Where the hell
are you then?” Abe practically shouted at her.

Caroline
flinched at the other end of the phone as she sat up in the chair. Her stomach
hurt. This was horrible. She wanted Matthew and his team there, but she wanted
them to be safe more. Why were they yelling at her? Crap. She drew her feet up
and sat them on the chair by her butt. She grabbed her knees with one arm and
held the phone to her ear with the other hand. She couldn’t deal with this on
top of everything else. A new voice came on the other end of the phone.

Dude had taken
the phone from Abe. “Ice? My name’s Dude and I’m on Wolf’s team. I take it you
aren’t at home? Why don’t you tell me where you are and we can come and see in
person that you’re okay.”

Caroline shook
her head. “Sorry Faulkner, it
is
Faulkner right? I’m trying to match up
everyone’s given names with nicknames. Matthew told me all about you guys, and I
think I have it, but I could make a mistake.” Caroline knew she was stalling so
she continued, “I don’t really know you though. I’m not telling someone I
haven’t met where I am, even if you
are
in the same room as Matthew and
Christopher.”

Silence followed
her pronouncement, and yet another voice came at her from the other end of the
phone.

“Ice, this is
Mozart. You remember me right?”

Caroline snorted,
and it came out as a half laugh and half sob. It looked they were going to keep
passing the phone around until everyone on the team spoke with her. “Duh. Of
course I do. You did such a pretty embroidery job on my side, Sam.” She tried
to keep it light.

“That’s right.
Now where are you?” Mozart cut to the chase, glad to hear her voice and know
she seemed to be okay, but not happy at the way she was prevaricating. “Why aren’t
you at your apartment?”

“It’s a long
story, Sam, but I can’t tell you right now.”

“Why not, Ice?
Please, you know you can trust us, we’ll help you.”

“I know, but I’m
not allo…..I just can’t. Okay?”

“Allowed? You
aren’t allowed to tell us? What the
hell,
Ice?” Mozart sputtered,
getting more and more incensed and worried about her.

Wolf finally had
himself under control and gestured for his phone back. Mozart saw that Wolf did
indeed seem to have himself back under his iron control and handed the phone over
while whispering urgently, “Find out what the hell’s going on and do it now.
Something’s wrong.”

Wolf nodded
curtly and tried to soften his tone when he spoke into the phone again.
“Caroline? It’s Matthew.”

“I know,”
Caroline told him softly, “I recognize your voice now.”

“I need to know
where you are, honey,” Wolf pleaded, emotion coating his words, “Please.”

“Matthew, I’m
not allowed to tell anyone. I’m not even supposed to be on the phone.”

Ignoring the “allowed”
comment for the moment, Wolf tried to back up a bit. She’d get to it; he just
had to make her feel safe with him again. In a tender voice, he urged, “Tell us
what happened Caroline. Please. I’m going to put you on speaker so we can all
hear you and you don’t have to repeat it.”

Caroline sighed.
When Matthew spoke to her in that low urgent voice she really couldn’t deny him
anything. She wasn’t happy about being on speaker, and having his entire team
hear what had happened, but Matthew had a good point. She didn’t want to repeat
her story a million times either.

“It was dark
when I headed home from work and all the way home I felt like someone was
watching me. Actually I felt that way all week.”