SEALed With a Kiss: Even a Hero Needs Help Sometimes... (9 page)

The sight of Tyler's terrified little face was like a knife twisting in his gut. He needed to reassure the child. He wasn't sure how. "It's all right." He patted the boy's narrow shoulder. "Don't worry about what your grandmother said. I'm going to take care of everything."

Inside his head the voice—always grading his performance, always evaluating whether he'd led well or poorly—sneered,
Yeah, right.

Reacting would have to stop. What he needed was a plan.

A knock sounded at the door. He lifted Tyler down from the counter. "Find some dry shorts in your suitcase," he said. "I'll be right back."

The paunchy owner of the motel was at the door, a scowl on his gray-whiskered face. "You the fool that was running on the roof?" he demanded. "What the hell were you doing?"

Jax felt his face coloring. "My son ran away."
Because I failed to anticipate him.

"And you thought he was on the dad-blamed roof?" the man bellowed.

"I needed a high vantage point to see which way he went."

"How the hell did he get away from you in the first place?"

I didn 't understand what he meant when he kept saying he wanted to leave.
"He was afraid of the hurricane. He got away when my back was turned."

"Got away!" The old man hauled his pants up over his paunch. "They said he was clear on the other side of Sal's before you caught him. He's in more danger from you than from a hurricane."

The old windbag was right. Jax deserved every bit of scorn the man could give him.

You didn't realize how upset Tyler was,
he accused himself.
You didn't anticipate he would leave the room by himself. You didn't keep up with where he was. You didn't lock the door between trips to the car. Excuses don't count. Results do.

"Yes, sir," Jax met the motel owner's faded blue eyes without flinching. "It won't happen again."

"Damn right, it won't." The old man's mouth was a thin, angry line, but after a moment his eyes slid away. He stared at the planter by the door and continued, "Not enough sense to know you gotta watch kids. Running on the roof. I don't need this with a hurricane coming on. Get your stuff and get out. I'll tear up the charge slip. Just get out."

So that he wouldn't give into the urge to slam it, Jax closed the door very, very carefully after the departing owner. The man was a coward, unable to look at him while giving him the boot, but the responsibility for their predicament rested squarely on Jax's shoulders.

He was out of options for keeping Tyler with him. By now, there probably wasn't a hotel room to be found near Wilmington. If he had to drive further inland anyway, he might as well take Tyler to his grandmother's house in Raleigh.

But damn! He wasn't ready to accept defeat. He wanted—needed—to keep trying. If he let things end like this between them, every bit of hope for him and Tyler was gone. From the day he arrived on Topsail Island, and found Tyler so cold, so changed from the child he remembered, Jax had only been reacting to everything, thinking that maybe time would close the gap between the two of them. Thinking maybe it didn't matter if the gap didn't close, regardless of how it made him feel, because he'd shortly have to give up Tyler anyway.

Reacting, instead of thinking strategically, had gotten him here, fresh out of options.

What he needed was a plan, and he didn't have one.

He scrubbed at his forehead with a fist. He knew eighty-six ways to kill a man, how to make a bomb from ingredients found under a kitchen sink. He could hotwire a car, pick a lock, and start an IV. He spoke four languages, two fluently. SEALs, able to operate on the sea, in the air, and on land, were the most highly trained warriors in the world. And a helluva lot of good that did him right this minute.

Tyler was where he had left him, sitting on the black-and-white tiles of the bathroom floor, still in his wet shorts.

First things first. He lifted Tyler to his feet. "Come on, buddy, let's get you some dry pants."

He pulled the wet shorts from the smooth little buns, and his mind, still turning over his problem, slid on the crumbling-edge feeling of deja vu.

Wet shorts.
Tyler had gotten his shorts wet when they'd built the sand castle. The hour or so they had spent digging and molding sand was the best time they'd had. They hadn't said much. Pickett had hung around making suggestions and chatting. Jax was amazed later when he realized how much information she had elicited without seeming to. Once Pickett left, Tyler had acted a little shy again, but they'd done okay. Good, really.

The corners of Jax's mouth kicked up. Pickett with the mischievous, bright turquoise eyes and dancing, golden curls—the sand castle had been her idea.

She said she lived near Topsail Island, but on the mainland.

Tyler
liked
her. This was more than he could say for how Tyler felt about him. At last he could imagine something happening between him and Tyler that he wanted to happen.

It would take a lot of balls to call up a woman he hardly knew and ask for shelter from a hurricane, but hell, he was a SEAL. SEALs did things all the time other people didn't think were possible. And—he grinned at the thought—they showed up where they were least expected.

Pickett... what was her last name? ...
Sessoms!
His even teeth gleamed white in a sharkish smile.

"Put these on." He tossed a pair of dry shorts toward Tyler.

Jax flipped open his cell phone and reached for the phone book. "I've got us a plan."

Scanned by Coral

Hurricane Elvira, a category one storm, packing winds of eighty-two miles per hour, is barreling down on the North Carolina coast, folks, and it's already bringing tides four feet above normal, with beach erosion as far north as Nags Head. Located three hundred twenty nautical miles—" Pickett cut the weather girl's relentlessly upbeat recital of the storm's current position. Someday she'd have to learn what a nautical mile was, but today all she needed to know was that the storm would come ashore sometime early the next morning. Neither did she need the weather girl's ridiculously cheerful warnings about the dangers of storm surge, high winds, and flooding.

Pickett made a face. Her great-grandfather would be proud of the farmhouse he had built. In its hundred-year history it had weathered worse that this hurricane and, despite being on the sound, had never flooded. The boring truth was that the worst danger she faced was the possible loss of electricity, and
that
was pretty much a sure thing. But the amount of dirt and dog hair that would accumulate with two dogs in the house if she couldn't vacuum? Now that was scary. Not to mention the laundry that would pile up. And living without hot water.

The worst thing about losing power, though, was that she didn't have city water. She depended on a well. No electricity, no water. All she could do to prepare was fill plastic jugs and the bathtub. When that was gone she'd have to buy drinking water for herself and the dogs.

Lucy thrust her black muzzle with its white streak under Pickett's hand, and raised anxious eyes to Pickett's face. Patterson's radar instantly detected affection being handed out and lumbered over, leaning his big old yellow Lab body against Pickett's other side.

Pickett knelt and put an arm around each dog's neck. "It's going to be okay, you guys. But let's go over the hurricane rules. One. No shedding. Two. No drinking from the toilets. Three. Try to convince your brother, Hobo Joe, it's safe for him to come in the house. He's lived here long enough to know this is his home now."

The two pairs of eyes fixed on her were earnest enough but Pickett didn't sense a lot of cooperation forthcoming.

She gave each dog a final pat and stood up. "Okay, since we're going to end up with a mess, we'd better start this hurricane with a house as clean as I can make it." Pickett grabbed dish towels from the sink and headed for the mud room to start the washer. "But I do wish you'd talk to Hobo Joe."

Two hours later Pickett smoothed clean sheets onto her bed and pulled the comforter in its blue-and-white eyelet duvet into place. She surveyed the room with satisfaction. It was the most recently finished one in her ongoing renovation of the old house.

Pickett's face softened with affection for her family as she looked about. Everywhere she looked she could see some family member's contribution.

The king-sized pineapple post bed came from her grandmother. Her grandmother claimed she needed to get rid of it to free up a room for her painting hobby. The Oriental rug in shades of green, rose, cream, and blue, her aunt declared, was a decorating mistake she never wanted to see again, and Pickett would do her a favor by taking it. The exuberantly feminine duvet with its matching pillow shams and dust ruffle was a gift from her mother. A slipper chair and lamps came from her sisters Grace and Sarah Bea. And Lyle had been right. Painting the walls a deep green harmonized all the elements.

It was a shame she'd had to leave last night after less than an hour, but since it looked like this section of the North Carolina coast might take a direct hit, it was probably for the best.

Lyle was the only member of her family who wouldn't be calling to ask if Pickett planned to evacuate, for which Pickett was grateful. Her other sisters would be on her case, as would her mother.

Pickett nudged Patterson from the nest he had made of the bed's pillows on the floor. "Get up, Patterson. I've got to put the pillows back on the bed."

The yellow face looked at her accusingly. "I know you think it's my fault if you lie down on the pillows. You're saying, 'Pillows on the floor are for dogs,' and I put them on the floor. However, I am the mama and you are the dog, so move!"

Patterson shambled his old bones into the hall where he hoped to find a place a dog could get some peace. It sounded like someone had dropped a sack of potatoes when he lay down. Pickett laughed in amused affection. Patterson wasn't going to be happy when she vacuumed the hall, and that was going to happen next.

She giggled and tossed the new needlepoint pillow with its cynical epigram high in the air. She didn't know all that much about men, but she did love her dogs! She set Lyle's gift on top of the other pillows at the very center of the bed.

The phone rang.

"Pickett, this is Jax Graham." His voice was warm and dark.

Pickett's heart changed gears without warning. Having a fantasy call, when you were expecting your mother to be on the line, did that.

He continued, "Have you heard the weather report? The hurricane has turned this way, and speeded up. They've ordered evacuation of the beaches from here to Nags Head."

She Wasn't Interested in Lt. Jax Graham, U.S. Navy SEAL, stationed in Little Creek, Virginia, visiting his rarely seen son (and what did
that
tell you about his priorities?) with whom he was definitely out of his depth. She'd learned a lot about him as they talked—getting people to tell her a lot in a short time was her job—but that didn't mean she was
interested.
Really, she wasn't—fantasies last night notwithstanding. His behavior in the grocery store made it clear he wasn't interested either.