Redeeming Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 9) (25 page)

Mama C gave him the longest look and then smoothed back his hair. “My sweet boy. You’ve been carrying so many burdens for so long. You’ve got to lay that cross down. Whenever love is involved, so is hurt. You can’t avoid that. Your girl is at home waiting for you to let her forgive you. Waiting for you to figure out that love covers a multitude of sins. That’s the nature of forgiveness. You can’t earn it, but you can sure give it freely.”

Her logic bled through him, seeking to salve the jagged places inside, and he wanted to grab on to what she was saying so badly.

“I don’t know how to do that,” he mumbled.

“Best way is to practice,” she advised with nothing but compassion in her gaze. “So in that vein, go home and talk to your father.”

The bottom dropped out of Charlie’s stomach. “My father? What does he have to do with anything?”

Nothing
. He hadn’t spoken to his father in sixteen years and ignored every overture the bastard had ever made to contact him.

Mama C clucked. “Everything. That man scarred you, and you’ve let his wounds ruin half your life. Go see him and find a way to forgive him. Then you’ll see what you need to do to patch things up with your friend and your girl.”

God, how could that be the answer? And who said he wanted to patch things up with anyone other than Audra? Jared Anderson could burn in hell right alongside Charlie’s father—

But that was exactly what Mama C was trying to get him to stop. Charlie clung to his absolutes like he’d found the Holy Grail, and life was just not that black and white.

It didn’t matter whether Audra had slept with Jared or done a pole dance naked in the man’s bed. What mattered was that Jared had been there when Charlie couldn’t be, and it was killing him. What if that happened again? He’d been secretly convinced that Audra would run back to Jared when she needed someone. Charlie was a bad bet. But she didn’t seem to think so.

He was letting history color his relationship with Audra in so many subtle ways. He had to figure out how to be with Audra without destroying their relationship. Because he loved her, and if the last year was any kind of indicator, nothing would ever make that stop.

Maybe he should give himself the same advice he’d offered to Anderson and let Audra make her own choices.
After
he’d given her all the facts she needed to make a decision.

T
he little area the locals called Town was barely that. Audra had walked from the Duchess Island Resort after hitching a ride with one of the FARC teams headed to do some research on the opposite side of Abaco.

She took a deep breath and knocked on the door of number 8, the bungalow Rachel had told her Charlie lived in. Jace answered the door and swept her with an evaluating once-over laced with a fair amount of suspicion. But he stepped out of the way and ushered her inside.

Five pairs of eyes tracked her movements as she rode on a wave of testosterone into the living area. Charlie’s ice-blue eyes were not among them, which was the only reason she’d been able to do this. There was little chance she could face him while her heart was still so shredded.

Rachel and Emma came out of the kitchen carrying drinks and smiled at Audra when they caught sight of her.

“Hey, hon,” Rachel called. “I got them all here, just like you asked.”

Yeah, she could see that. And Charlie’s team appeared none too happy to be in the presence of the woman who had caused them a lot of problems, not the least of which was the absence of their leader—who had understandably gotten the hell out of dodge after the double whammy of dealing with the master of manipulation and Audra’s inability to trust Charlie with the truth. But how could she come right out and tell a man with one foot out the door that she’d blathered to Jared about her feelings for Charlie before she’d told Charlie himself?

He might never come back to her, and she had to find a way to be okay with that. All part of her stay-independent plan. Next—beat Jared at his own game. She planned to do everything she could to help this group of ex-SEALs benefit from her expertise in the field of marine biology. She’d like to have that part laid out if and when Charlie returned because, if nothing else, she owed him.

“Thanks for coming,” she said and swallowed. “For those of you I haven’t met, I’m Dr. Audra Reed. Which I guess you already know.”

That was a lot of steely-eyed glaring. These men did not like her, and while she understood that they viewed her as the reason their business was floundering, she was here to help. She had to make them see that.

“They weren’t confused,” Jace interjected with a mulish crossing of his arms. “Rachel said you wanted to talk to us. Here we are.”

One of Charlie’s partners, a drool-worthy dark-haired, solidly built man, shot Jace a withering look and stood, crossing the room in one stride to hold out his hand. “Forgive him, he’s very protective of Charlie. I’m Dex.”

She shook the hand of Emma’s husband. “I understand congratulations are in order.”

Rachel had mentioned that Emma had finally gotten a plus sign on a pregnancy test. Which was great, if that was the result you wanted. Audra had been too scared to pee on a stick of her own and was currently subscribing to the denial pregnancy prevention method.

Dex lit up at the comment and grinned so wide, she could have fit a surfboard in his mouth sideways. “Thanks. I’m pretty freaked out. But it’s going to be great.”

The mention of Dex’s impending fatherhood broke a bit of the tension. The only other man in the room she hadn’t met, a wiry-framed athletic type with light brown hair topping a finely chiseled face, followed Dex’s lead.

“I’m Jack. Or Jaxon if you prefer.” He shrugged his well-built shoulders, easily discernable under his Aqueous Adventures T-shirt. “I’ve been called worse.”

Evan, whom she had met parasailing and again after the marina incident, nodded to Audra as Rachel wedged herself into his lap and murmured something to him which must have been dirty given all the heat that sprang up around them. It was so sweet the way he held her as if she was the most important thing in his world, population two. No one else existed for either of them in that moment, and Audra was not ashamed to say that it put a jealous lump in her throat.

Yeah, she’d stood there and let Charlie walk out the door, but not because she’d stopped wanting exactly what she saw on the faces of Evan and Rachel: love stronger than the struggles of life, bigger than the strain of distance, and more eternal than the sun.

Miles rounded out the cast of ex-SEALs, and he gave her a brief smile that almost reached his stunning green eyes. It was better than the glare of earlier. Audra cleared her throat as Emma perched on the couch between Dex’s legs after passing out everyone’s drink of choice. The room was crowded with people who cared about Charlie, and that alone bolstered her in the face of so much opposition.

She had some damage to undo, no doubt.

“I’m sure you’re all aware of the events of the last few months, but bear with me for a moment,” she began. “I filed a report to recommend Ilhota Rosa as a wildlife sanctuary, which unfortunately only strengthened the injunction against commercial ventures disturbing the habitat of the dolphins. That includes the coral reef off the coast. Rachel’s been working on the legal aspects of including an educational component to the snorkeling excursion, but I’m afraid there’s a new wrinkle.”

“Like what?” Rachel asked.

“Jared threatened to revoke Charlie’s business license,” she said flatly. “So I threatened to make a couple of anonymous calls to the IRS regarding ReefCo’s creative handling of income to keep him busy. But he’s going to come up with something else just as dirty. Until we know what his next move is, I can’t advise you to go anywhere near that reef or we’re going to be in a heap of trouble.”

“
We
?” Jace stressed. “When did you become part of us?”

“When I told Jared to go to hell,” she said succinctly. “And then quit my job at FARC. I’m also homeless at the moment too, if that solidifies the point for you.”

If nothing else, she’d cut that tie irrevocably, and walking away from Freeport and all the bad memories was a weight off her shoulders that she hadn’t realized would be so freeing until it was gone.

“Oh, honey.” Rachel shook her head. “Why didn’t you mention that? Evan and I have an extra bedroom, and we’d be thrilled for you to stay with us.”

Evan glanced at her askance until she elbowed him in the ribs. “Thrilled,” he repeated drily.

“I would be pathetically grateful to take you up on that,” Audra admitted. “I have a plan that I think you’ll like which will circumvent all of the issues Jared has caused. If I’m on the island, I can manage it better.”

All seven people zeroed in on her as she stood there at the edge of the living area, not quite a part of the group, but gaining ground. At least she had their attention.

“We need to build our own coral reef,” she said and began spinning her vision for her rapt audience. “One that Aqueous Adventures can own outright. Of course it will be located in waters governed by the Bahamas, but we put a legal stake in the ground if we file for the permits to build it. Then no one can threaten it.”

Everyone started talking at once, and Dex shushed them, clearly the de facto leader with Charlie temporarily out of the picture. “I’m in. One hundred percent. It’s so brilliant, I’m embarrassed we haven’t thought of it before. How does it work?”

Audra smiled at her lone supporter—for the moment. “You’ve already got one of the most important skills. Coral transplantation. Having worked for ReefCo for so long is about to pay off for you. The only thing we need now is an underwater structure for the coral to cling to. Most artificial reefs start out as shipwrecks.”

“Yeah, but there are no shipwrecks around here,” Jace interjected, clearly still stubbornly clinging to his mad despite Audra’s Exhibit A about how she was here to resolve the issues. She understood that she’d hurt someone he loved and it was her due penance. But he needed to understand that she’d hurt someone she loved too. This would go a long way toward absolving her sins.

“You have to create one,” Audra explained. “With explosives.”

That got Miles’s attention. Fast. “I like the sound of this already. I could definitely get on board with a plan that involved blowing something up.”

“You have experience with explosives,” she guessed as she took in the undisguised glee in his eyes and didn’t even need his nod to know that she’d gained another recruit. Perfect. “There’s a company that specializes in this type of thing. It’s run by a college friend of mine, and I would be more than happy to put you on point to work out the details.”

“I’m your man.” Miles nodded once, his mind clearly busy thinking through what she was saying. “Give me your buddy’s contact info, and I’ll set up a meeting with him to get this going. What else do we need to know?”

She tucked her tongue in her cheek and opted not to correct his egregious assumption that her “buddy” was male. Sure, Lale Sakir wore combat boots better than any man, but she was also a former Miss Turkey and did not suffer fools easily. Hopefully all the explosions would be limited to the things that were supposed to blow up.

But knowing Lale, odds were not good. Her friend had a hot temper and ate men like Miles Lynch for lunch. Might be fun to get a front row seat for that.

The smiles outweighed the frowns by the time she’d finished laying out her plan, and Audra took her first deep breath since Charlie had stormed out of her apartment and her life three days ago.

“Why are all of you listening to her?” Jace interrupted the various conversations going on around him as he stood and pointed at Audra. “This is the chick who messed up Charlie. He left because of her. How can all of you forget that?”

“She didn’t mess me up, actually.” Charlie’s quiet voice bled through her soul from behind.

She whirled to see him standing in the doorway, so solid and amazing and beautiful. Would it kill him to make some noise when he moved? But his ice-blue eyes were warm as he drank her in, and she forgave his cat-like grace.

Warm. Not frozen, like they had been the last time she’d seen him.

“Meeting is over,” Dex said decisively and started herding everyone, including Jace, whom she thought lived here, toward the door. “Anyone who wants to talk further, I’ve got beer in the fridge at my house and soda for Emma and Evan. Come on.”

The entire house emptied in record time, save the one man she’d thought she might never see smile at her again. It wasn’t much of a smile, but the small tipping up of his lips definitely beat the anguish he’d worn the last time they were both in the same place.

Please God
—did that mean they were in a
different
place this time? She shouldn’t want that. It was too soon, with too much unsaid. But he was here. And she couldn’t stop herself from hoping it meant something.

“Hi,” she said and wasn’t at all embarrassed at how hungry it sounded. “I’m not the one who messed you up?”

He shook his head slowly. “No. That honor goes to Naomi.”

That was one name she’d definitely never heard before. “I don’t know who she is. Do I?”