Forever with the SEAL (HERO Force Book 8) Read online

  She could picture their life together. Trevor in her bed day in and day out, happiness a steady trickle through her soul. She would marry him, become his wife. Maybe even have a child someday.

  There would be no more movies in foreign countries, that was for sure. Being away from him was too difficult and life too short to balance that equation. No, they’d stay together in the States and she’d pass on roles like this in the future, her need for security easily trumping her career ambitions.

  Sure, it does right now. But what about a year from now, when your stalker is gone and you get offered the part of a lifetime?

  She shook her head. She wouldn’t think about that now. No need to borrow trouble from tomorrow.

  She dragged eyeshadow over her lid. The makeup artists at the studio would remove it, but she didn’t care, wanting to look good for Trevor when he returned.

  She picked up a fat brush and applied blush to the apples of her cheeks. The makeup crew would be appalled, always choosing to accentuate the hollows in her face over the peaks. But this was the look she preferred, and it felt good to look like herself for a change.

  The door unlocked and she grinned. “I was starting to wonder where you went.” She withdrew mascara from her bag, the door to the room closing behind him.

  “I’m right here, sweetheart.”

  She turned and screamed, but the dark figure was already upon her, his big hand covering her mouth as he pushed her down. This was it, everything she’d been afraid of since she’d gotten the first letter. This was her stalker, the man who wanted to see her naked, who wanted to see her dead.

  He dragged her from the room. All she could think about was Trevor and how much she loved him, praying she would see him again.

  8

  Olivia was gone.

  Trevor was pumped full of adrenaline, his reaction all consuming. His emotions were wrecked, completely short-circuited, every molecule of energy directed toward a tactical response.

  “Are you drunk?” he asked Mac, who sat beside him in Olivia’s rented car as they flew toward the studio.

  “I could shoot an apple off a nun’s head right now.”

  “Good. I need you on your toes.”

  “Do you know where they’re holding her?” asked Mac.

  “I don’t even fucking know who took her.” Hawk slammed his palm on the top of the steering wheel. “The director. My best guess at this point is the director, Evan Lockheed.”

  They careened around turns and through hillsides.

  “Whoever took her isn’t likely to have brought her to the set,” said Mac.

  “Right. But all possible suspects should be at the studio thirty minutes from now. I need to narrow it down. Get addresses. I don’t fucking know where to start.”

  Trevor cursed himself and the length of time he’d spent talking to Mac before heading back to the hotel to pick up Olivia. God only knew what time she’d been taken. All that remained was a scribbled note in the stalker’s handwriting—I’m taking what’s mine.

  He pulled into the studio lot, his gun holstered at his side and Mac two steps behind him. Just like the first time he’d come on the set, there were no barriers to entry, and he cursed colorfully.

  In the distance a man sat in a classic director’s chair, an open binder in his lap. “Lockheed!” Hawk snapped, and the man’s head came up. “Where is she?”

  The director stood up, dropping the binder to the ground. “Who? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Hawk grabbed him by the collar. “Olivia, damn it.”

  “I thought she was with you.”

  Mac bent down and picked up the binder, flipping through it. “Is this the right handwriting?” he asked, showing the pages to Hawk.

  “No, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t write the letters.”

  “The stalker’s letters? I assure you I did not,” said Lockheed.

  Hawk loosened his grip on the man’s shirt but didn’t let him go. “It’s someone with access to the script.”

  “That’s half the people on the set!” squeaked the director. “More than that if they really wanted to get their hands on a copy.”

  “Trevor!” Olivia’s voice rang out, Trevor twisting around to find her. She stood on the roof of the same building the sniper had shot from, a big man half-hidden behind her.

  “It’s the goddamn bodyguard,” said Hawk.

  People all around them were screaming, dropping to the ground or running away. Lockheed cursed and pulled away from Hawk, desperate to get away, and Hawk let him go as he looked for cover, finding it behind an apple cart. Mac was ten feet away behind another vendor stand.

  Hawk pulled out his weapon. “Let her go!”

  A gunshot echoed through the set for the second time in as many days. “That son of a bitch is shooting at us,” said Mac.

  “Cover me,” said Hawk. “I’m going in.”

  “Got it.”

  Hawk ran for the building as Mac fired, darting for the cover of the overhang and making it safely across the lot. He moved quickly around the building, again scaling the ladder that ran up the back, just as he had when he first arrived at the set.

  Olivia was in even more danger this time. If the bodyguard wanted her dead, she would already be so long before Hawk made it to the top of the building, and he chanted, “No, no, no,” under his breath as his muscles pulled him toward the top. The continued play of gunshots gave him hope Mac was keeping up a major distraction.

  Olivia was crying as he crested the edge, her captor coming into view before her, the twisted lines of her face speaking to her terror. He pulled his gun, another hidden at his ankle if he needed it. “Let her go!” he yelled.

  The bodyguard turned toward him, yanking Olivia with him, holding her in front of his body. “She is evil. A witch, here to kill us all.”

  The guy was a whack job, the look on his face all too sincere. He remembered his training on how to deal with someone who was delusional. “No, you misunderstood. She’s a young woman. Innocent and good.” He took a slow step toward the pair.

  The bodyguard raised the elbow of the arm holding the gun, pushing the weapon into Olivia’s neck and making her whimper. “Don’t come any closer!”

  “Okay, I won’t. Look, I’m staying right here. We can stop this right now. Just let her go.”

  “She needs to die.”

  She cried more loudly, almost howling now. Hawk trained his weapon on the man, but he couldn’t get a clear shot. “Let her go! You’re making a mistake.”

  A sound of gunfire exploding in a steel barrel rippled through the air, the bodyguard and Olivia falling to the ground. For a moment Hawk didn’t know if one or both of them had been hit. “No!” The single word was ripped from his rib cage as he rushed to her side just as Olivia moved to free herself from the bodyguard’s big arms.

  Hawk kneeled down in front of them, a pool of blood quickly spreading across the tarred roof beneath the bodyguard. He couldn’t see the shot that had taken him down. He checked for a pulse, finding a weak one. Hawk signaled the all clear to Mac and told him to call an ambulance before moving again to Olivia, cutting the ropes that bound her wrists with his pocketknife. “What happened?”

  “I was waiting for you. He just walked in and grabbed me.”

  “Did he hurt you?”

  “He tied me up and threw me in the back of a van. I hit my head. He kept mumbling about how I ruined everything.”

  He pulled her tightly against his chest. “Thank God you’re okay.”

  “Where were you? You were gone so long.”

  “I’m sorry. I went to see an old friend. My partner in arms down there on the set who just saved your life.”

  “I think he’s going to be my friend, too.”

  Hawk smiled and tried to laugh, but a sob came out. “I think he already is.”

  9

  Mac sat in a small row of chairs outside Brooke Barrons’ hospital room, Hawk by his side. His head ached from
a lack of alcohol, the fluorescent lights of the hallway humming too loudly in his brain.

  Look what you’ve done to yourself.

  He leaned his head back against the painted brick wall and let his eyes close a beat too long. It was tempting to drift off, to disassociate, to leave. But that wasn’t what he was going to do.

  He flexed the fingers of his right hand, the feeling slowly returning with pins and needles as the local anesthetic wore off. He’d sustained a long gash up his forearm from the goddamn apple cart that had taken twenty-seven stitches to sew up.

  It felt good to be useful again.

  To fight with his hands and defend something worth saving. It had been a long goddamn time since he’d done any such thing. Hawk’s words to him back at the house rang through his head in an endless circuit. Something positive. You don’t get to waste it.

  Work for me.

  It was a fucking pipe dream from where he was now to where Hawk was asking him to be. A leap longer than any faith was great. It had never been his intention to become a drunk, to fall off the edge of society and lock himself up in a three-hundred-year-old house in another country. He just hadn’t known what to do next.

  How to move on.

  He could see Ellie in his mind’s eye, her rich brown eyes forever laughing, her pale brown skin dotted with freckles year-round. The first time he’d set eyes on her she’d been sixteen, with full breasts hidden beneath an Aerosmith T-shirt and curvy legs stuffed in jeans she’d outgrown.

  Her beauty had shone through it all.

  He’d been in full uniform, ready for departure, and more than a little filled with pride. He’d kissed her that day, her tentative response and unschooled technique telling him she was innocent and untouched. As their passion heated, she’d offered herself to him completely. It had taken every bit of restraint he possessed to turn her down, and he knew he’d hurt her feelings even as he promised to come back when she was old enough for more.

  The words were spoken casually, but he never forgot them. It was Ellie’s voice he heard in his dreams, Ellie he talked to in his mind when he was alone and deployed. He came back four years later and found a grown woman in that sweet girl’s place—a grown woman who’d been saving herself for him.

  He took her virginity in a real hotel room, after a half bottle of champagne and as much gentleness as he could muster, holding himself above her and watching her expressive face as her body accommodated his size. He’d been given a gift—one he didn’t deserve—that began with her body and ended with her heart.

  They were married six weeks later.

  Ellie was pregnant before he left for his second tour, the pictures of their baby girl capturing his heart just as quickly as her momma had done. By the time Mac met Hawk, he and Ellie had been married eight years and had three children, but the sum total of their time together stood at less than eighteen months.

  He’d been a fool not to listen when she told him of the sleepless nights, her need for a flesh-and-blood man beside her in bed more often than not. But he’d been in love with the job just as much as with her, the SEALs becoming his mistress. Now that his eyes were open, he knew every single nail he’d hammered into the wood of their coffin, but it was too late to get Ellie back.

  “Thanks for what you did back there,” said Hawk, pulling him out of his reverie.

  “No problem.” His voice was hoarse and deeper than normal, his hangover obvious.

  “I would have been dead in the water without you. And Olivia—shit. You saved her.”

  Mac reached in his pocket. “I forgot to give you this.” He handed Hawk the small box with the engagement ring inside, the slightest pang in his chest. He longed to give his friend a piece of advice, but who would listen to an old fuckup like him?

  Don’t take her for granted.

  “Where’d you find it?” asked Hawk.

  “On the ground as the EMTs loaded Olivia into the ambulance.”

  Trevor opened the top, gazing at the glittering diamond with a sigh. “I screwed up, Mac. I never even considered her phone could be used to locate her.”

  “Shit happens. You did the best you could.”

  “It wasn’t good enough. I’m not leaving her alone like that again.”

  Mac crossed his arms over his chest and stretched out his legs. “Age-old problem. How are you going to be there for her and get your work done, too?”

  Hawk met his stare. “I’m done working for HERO Force.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Nothing else matters.”

  “Be careful. Don’t become so focused on her safety that you let go of who you are.”

  Hawk narrowed his eyes. “Look who’s talking.”

  Mac looked at his hands, dark brown skin contrasting with the gold of his wedding band. “It’s a balance. Not one I ever found. Now I’m nothing but a drunk old man waiting on a woman who doesn’t want me. I know every moment of every day how I got this way, believe me.”

  Hawk was quiet, and Mac imagined the other man was trying to figure out the best way to phrase pity. In that moment he longed so intensely to be back home, a drink in his hand and Trevor Hawkins several thousand miles away, back where he belonged.

  He’d stared into this particular mirror long enough.

  “I want you to work with me,” said Hawk.

  Mac blew out air and shook his head. “Not this shit again.”

  “Help me get it off the ground. Take care of everyday operations while I pay more attention to Olivia.”

  “Not a good idea.” Even as he said the words, the tiniest spark lit within him. He could be commanding men again. Running covert ops. Making a difference, and he cursed Trevor for lighting that particular flame, because it was out of reach. As impossible as holding a star in his hand.

  “Why the hell not?” demanded Hawk.

  Mac’s mouth dropped open. Didn’t he see it? Couldn’t he tell? He would have to spell it out. “Because I’m broken, man.”

  Hawk shook his head. “I don’t give a shit about your leg.”

  “Not my leg, Hawk.” He pounded on his chest. “In here.”

  The moment stretched out between them like the quiet after an accident. Hawk stood. “So do something good with your life. Fight the bad guys. Kick some ass. Don’t just sit there and wait for something that might never happen.”

  “For my wife and kids to come back?” He frowned. He knew Hawk was right, but it didn’t make one damn bit of difference. “They’re the only reason worth living.” He stood, a look passing between them before he walked away. He’d made his choice long before this moment.

  Trevor jogged to him. “You’d have HERO Force’s resources available to you.”

  Mac kept walking, eyes forward.

  “You could find them, Mac.”

  Mac stopped. All this time he’d been waiting on Ellie, unable to go after her or know where she was. But he knew the kind of resources Hawk was talking about. Computer databases. Connections with government agencies.

  I could find her.

  Wherever she was in the world. It might take some time, some doing, but he was right. With HERO Force’s resources he could find his wife and kids. The scale that had been so heavily weighted toward one side began to shift, a difference so slight but fundamental. He could see her face in his mind’s eye. Wondering how she’d changed.

  “You’d have to give up the booze,” said Hawk. “I need you sober.”

  Of course that was necessary, but well worth it if he could set his eyes on his wife one more time. He imagined he could touch her face from her temple to her jaw, the smooth skin warm beneath his fingers.

  He turned, his eyes meeting Hawk’s. It wasn’t a fair bargain. His friend needed his help, yes. But he was reaching down to lift Mac up, and he knew it. “Why me?”

  “I need someone I can trust.”

  He laughed without humor. “I’m a one-legged drunk who dropped out of the game a long time ago. That’s one short list of friends
you’ve got there.”

  “No, Mac.” He grinned. “Just a short list of heroes.”

  It had been a long damn time since Mac O’Brady considered himself a hero. Was it possible? Could he pull himself together and go back to the States, do what Hawk was asking? He was tempted, the idea looming large in his mind. “My family is my number one priority. If I find them, I can’t guarantee how long I’ll stick around.”

  “We can deal with that when the time comes.”

  He’d be a commander again. Have elite soldiers under his foot, important missions dependent on his actions. The faces of the men under his command through the years flashed through his mind. Those who’d done well and gotten out, like Hawk. Those who had died. Those who were as good as dead.

  The broken ones, like him.

  There were far too many of them—at least a dozen over the years from his own team. Guys who’d seen too much, done too much. Left too much behind. Some of them were physically changed like he was, but most were visibly the same, the current beneath their calm exterior frightening even themselves. He thought of the rush he’d gotten when helping Olivia, the healing power of work.

  He was changed for saving her. Change like that could help other men, too. He eyed Hawk warily. “I pick my own men.”

  “Fine.”

  “They won’t be the squeaky-clean kind you’re used to. The men I want working with me have problems.”

  Hawk crossed his arms. “What kind of guys are we talking about?”

  “Strong, capable soldiers. But we’ll be a motley crew. It will be a second chance for the guys who need help.”

  “SEALs?”

  “Yeah. Broken, busted-up, fucked-up SEALs.”

  “Sir?” called the doctor behind the men. “Miss Barrons will see you now.”

  “I have to run it by Jax, the owner of HERO Force.”

  He was going to turn him down, the drapes pulled tight against the first rays of sunshine to come his way in years. “Look, don’t do me any favors,” said Mac, suddenly sorry he’d suggested it. “I’m sure you want guys with their fucking heads screwed on straight. Not men like me.”