Point Blank SEAL Read online

  “Just showing what you’re not supposed to do.”

  One of the girls, her face serious, grabbed Jennifer’s hand. “You need to be careful, Ms. Lynch.”

  The girl’s words caused a little trickle of fear to drip down her spine as her gaze darted to the park’s now empty lot across the street.

  “You’re right, Maddy. I do.”

  * * *

  LATER THAT EVENING, Jennifer cuddled her son, Mikey, against her chest, her feet kicked up on the coffee table. She pressed her face against his springy, dark hair and inhaled the scent of...toddler, very different from the scent of baby.

  His lashes fluttered against his cheek, and she held her breath. She’d just gotten him to sleep after a wild play session that had involved cars, stuffed animals and crackers. She slid her feet from the coffee table and held Mikey close as she threaded her way through the toys on the floor to his bedroom. She liked that Mikey had his own room, even if they shared a bathroom. Two bedroom, one bath places in the nice areas of Austin weren’t all that easy to find, but now she had to move.

  She hadn’t felt safe here ever since the break-in.

  Kneeling next to Mikey’s new toddler bed, shaped like a car, she pulled back the covers and tucked him in. She kissed his forehead and whispered, “Mommy loves you.”

  On the way out of the room, she flicked on his night-light. For being a fearless daredevil, Mikey didn’t like the dark. She needed a night-light as much as he did these days.

  After that day when she’d come home from picking up Mikey to find that someone had broken into her house, tossed it and had stolen some small electronics, she had a hard time falling asleep at night. Every little noise had her bolting upright in bed, and then lying awake the rest of the night with eyes wide-open.

  She shuffled into the kitchen and uncorked a bottle of red. She splashed some into a glass and swirled it around before taking a sip. She took another sip and closed her eyes, allowing the warmth of the alcohol to seep into her tight muscles.

  Having a drink shouldn’t feel so good. She shouldn’t let it feel so good—not with her mother’s alcoholism running through her genes. Mom beat her drinking problem, but Jennifer would never let it get to that point. She sucked in another mouthful of wine and returned to the sofa, dragging a pillow into her lap.

  Having Mikey had probably saved her from traveling down the same road as Mom. She couldn’t be impaired and take care of her son. She’d never do that to him.

  But, oh, those nights when Mikey stayed with Mom and Dad? The booze was the only thing that allowed Jennifer to forget.

  A tear seeped from the corner of her eye. Who was she kidding? She’d never forget. Would never forget the day that crisp naval officer stood on her porch and delivered the news that would shatter her world.

  She stabbed the power button on the remote and clicked through the channels, settling on a comedy she’d seen before. She couldn’t laugh, not even with a half a glass of wine swirling in her veins.

  As she switched the channel, the dog next door started barking. Max never barked unless something—or someone—wandered into his yard.

  Jennifer set down the wineglass. On her way to the sliding door to the patio, she picked up a bat that she’d propped up in the corner of the room after the break-in. Staring outside, she flicked on the light, which illuminated the table, chairs and small barbecue that clustered on one side of the cement slab that passed for a patio. The potted plants and flowers on the other side remained in darkness. She turned the light on and off again and then sucked in her lower lip.

  The bulb on the left side of the door must’ve burned out. When had that happened? After the robbery, she’d checked all her locks and lights.

  A dark shape moved in the shadows beyond the patio, and her knees almost buckled. Was that an animal? She cupped her hand at the glass and peered into the night.

  She needed a dog. She needed a gun. She had a bat.

  Hoisting the bat in one hand, she clicked the lock down and slid open the door. She advanced toward the dark side of the patio, raising the bat like Babe Ruth.

  “Jennifer?”

  She spun around and faced a man standing on her patio, bathed in an otherworldly light.

  Her mouth dropped open and she grabbed on to a trellis rising from one of the pots.

  “Jen, it’s me. Miguel.”

  Miguel? It couldn’t be. How much wine had she drunk in there? She cleared her throat and said the only thing that made sense. “You’re dead.”

  Chapter Two

  Miguel eyed the bat still clutched in Jennifer’s hand. He didn’t come this far to have it all end on her patio with a crushed skull, although he wouldn’t blame her for taking a swing at him.

  He spread his arms, palms up, and stated the obvious, “I’m not dead.”

  She dropped the bat. It bounced once before toppling over. Then she breathed his name. “Miguel.”

  In those two syllables, she expressed all the hope, longing and love that had kept him alive for a year and half in captivity.

  She reached out her arms and seemed to sway toward him, her feet apparently rooted to the cement beneath them.

  He closed the space between them and swept her into his arms, holding her body so close he couldn’t tell where his ended and hers began. He pressed his lips against her soft hair, the blond strands almost glowing in the dark as if they had collected all of the moonlight.

  She wrapped her arms around his waist, tilting her head back, her cheeks wet. “My every prayer has been answered, but how...? Why did they tell me you were dead?”

  The navy and the CIA had their reasons, but he didn’t need to tell her those reasons—right now.

  “The navy thought I was dead. Everyone on that mission died.”

  She jerked in his arms. “Where have you been all this time?”

  “I’ve been...I’ve been a prisoner of war.” Was that a nice enough way to put it?

  Gasping, she took his face in her hands. “Are you all right?”

  “I am now.” He kissed her lips and felt as if he were living a familiar dream, one that had kept him alive...and sane.

  She returned his kiss like a woman starving. He broke away first as the passion rose, and she grabbed his hands.

  “Come inside. You have to see Mikey. Miguel, we have a son.”

  He cupped her face with one hand, and smoothed the pad of his thumb across her cheek. “I know and I can’t wait to see him, but I have to tread carefully.”

  “What are you talking about?” She tilted her head farther into his hand.

  He touched his lips to her soft earlobe. “You had a break-in recently, didn’t you?”

  She drew back from him, her eyes wide. “How do you know that? How long have you been here, in Austin?”

  “I’ll tell you everything later, Jen.” He jerked his thumb toward the small house where his son was sleeping. “There’s something I need to do in the house first.”

  “What? Is Mikey in danger?”

  “No.” The lie felt right on his lips—for now. “Before we talk inside, I need to sweep the place for bugs.”

  If he discovered a hidden camera, that would be a different matter completely. He’d have to leave immediately.

  “Why would someone want to bug my house?” She grabbed handfuls of his shirt and tugged.

  “To get to me.”

  “I don’t understand any of this, Miguel. I don’t even know if you’re really here.”

  “Oh, I’m here all right.” He pressed another kiss against her lips to prove it.

  “D-do I need to wait outside?”

  “No, but when we’re inside don’t talk to me. Pretend you’re alone.”

  “I can do that. I’m good at that.”

 
He pinched her chin. “I’m sorry.”

  “Okay, let’s do this. I’m getting cold.” She rubbed her arms.

  He stopped to pick up the bat and held it up. “Glad you still have my Louisville Slugger for protection.”

  “You almost got a hit upside the head for sneaking around out here.” Pressing her fingers to her lips, she led him into the house and slid the door closed behind her.

  Miguel’s eye twitched as he watched Jennifer pluck up the wineglass from the coffee table and carry it into the kitchen. She’d vowed never to drink like her mother, but he guessed a dead fiancé and raising a child on your own could change plans.

  He pulled the electronic bug detector from the front pocket of his jeans and began scanning the living room. He’d gotten lucky with the size of this house.

  It shouldn’t take him long to get through the house...and into the bedroom to see his son.

  Jennifer rinsed her glass in the sink and turned toward him.

  He put his finger to his lips and flicked the switch on his bug detector. He had it set to the display option. If there were any listening devices planted in Jennifer’s house, he wouldn’t want the sound of his bug sweeper to transmit to the people on the other end of the device.

  Facing the wall, he waved the tracker from corner to corner, sweeping across the bookshelf. The listening device would most likely be in this area, across from the TV.

  Miguel’s pulse jumped along with the squiggly red line on his tracker. He followed its lead and was rewarded with the gleam of a tiny mic wedged between two books.

  He became aware of Jen hovering over his shoulder, and he jerked back. He pointed at the TV and then cupped his ear.

  She dipped next to the coffee table and picked up the remote control. Aiming at the TV, she clicked, and the sound of a commercial jingle filled the small room.

  Perfect. He plucked the listening device from its hiding place, and pinched it between his thumb and forefinger.

  They’d hear a bunch of static on the other end and not much more. With the mic still squeezed between his two fingers, he mimed drinking a glass of water.

  He didn’t remember Jennifer being very good at charades but she was catching on quickly to this game.

  She scurried in the kitchen and filled a glass with water from the tap. When she put it down on the kitchen table, he dropped the device in the water.

  Her blue eyes widened as she stared at the black spec settling at the bottom of the water glass. She parted her lips, but he shook his head and placed two fingers against them.

  This might not be the only bug in the place. He continued his search by sweeping the kitchen, but beyond a few false reads from the microwave, he found nothing there.

  Swallowing hard, he moved toward the hallway. He turned into the first room on the right and turned on the bathroom light. He gestured toward the sink, and Jennifer cranked on the water.

  His throat tightened when he saw the yellow rubber duck on the edge of the tub and the cartoon fish on the shower curtain. He’d missed so damn much.

  A familiar sharp pain lanced the back of his head and he dragged in a long breath. He had to stay focused if he didn’t want to miss even more of his son’s life.

  With the bathroom clear, Miguel turned back into the hallway, holding his breath. He stepped into his son’s room, a gentle glow from a night-light illuminating a path to his bed.

  Miguel followed the light and crouched next to his son’s bed. Pride and joy overwhelmed his senses, and he reached out and traced Mikey’s chubby cheek with the tip of his finger. He wanted to gather the boy in his arms and never let go, but he had unfinished business.

  Jen had come up behind him and squeezed his shoulder.

  He covered her hand with his own and squeezed back, hoping to convey all his regret and sorrow at not being here with her during her pregnancy and the first year and a half of Mikey’s life.

  His nose stung, but he knew there would be no tears. He’d lost the ability to cry, but crouching here next to his son, inhaling the smell of his hair and skin, he knew he hadn’t lost the ability to feel.

  That thought had been the one thing that terrified him during his months of captivity.

  Miguel pushed to his feet and scanned this room with even more vigor than the others. The guys who’d planted that bug obviously hadn’t wanted to listen to the crying and fussing of a toddler.

  Miguel shook his head at Jennifer and she straightened Mikey’s covers before leading him out of the room.

  When he walked into Jen’s bedroom, the scent of her signature perfume hit him like a wave. Some nights he’d wake up in his cell smelling that fragrance. He knew it was a dream or hallucination at the time, but he’d wallowed in it anyway.

  His gaze tripped over the king-size bed, and he momentarily squeezed his eyes shut. Had she shared that bed with anyone else since his...disappearance? He couldn’t hold that against her if she did. She had every right to move on with her life.

  But the way she’d kissed him and clung to him outside gave him a selfish hope that she hadn’t.

  He swept the room and got a hit. The blood boiled in his veins as he removed the device from a picture frame above her bed. He dropped that bug in the same glass of water and then finished his search of the rest of the house.

  He tossed the bug detector on the kitchen counter and enfolded Jen in his arms again. “I’m just glad they didn’t plant a camera, or all of that would’ve been for nothing.”

  She squirmed from his grasp and pressed her palms against his chest. “You’re going to tell me what’s going on, where you’ve been and why someone is bugging my house.” Her fingers curled into the material of his shirt. “Not that I’m not thrilled you’re back and safe, even if I am still pinching myself.”

  He took both of her hands and kissed one wrist and then the other. “Let’s sit down.”

  “Do you want something to drink? To eat?” She skimmed her hands down his sides. “You’ve lost weight.”

  “I’ll just get some water.” He pushed aside the glass with the two bugs. “Not this glass.”

  She filled a glass with water from a dispenser in the fridge and handed it to him. “Let’s talk.”

  As he followed her to the sofa in the living room, his mind whirled with images from the past two years of his life. What could he tell her? What would she want to hear?

  The truth? Nobody could bear that. He’d barely survived it.

  Jennifer sat on the sofa, curling one leg beneath her. “Can you start at the beginning?”

  He settled beside her and draped an arm around her shoulders. “God, it’s amazing to see you. Unbelievable.”

  “How do you think I feel? At least you knew I was alive. You even knew about Mikey...somehow.” She threaded her fingers through his. “I thought—They told me you were dead.”

  “I’m sorry.” He kissed the side of her head. “If I could take it all back, all those months, everything.”

  “The beginning, Miguel.” She pursed her lips together in that schoolteacher way she had.

  “We received some intel on Vlad. You remember I told you about him, right?”

  “He was the sniper for the other side you guys kept coming up against until he disappeared from the field.”

  “He seemed to have dropped off the face of the Earth. We thought he might be dead, but we heard chatter and then received specific intelligence that he was regrouping in the caves of Afghanistan, which seemed totally likely.”

  “The last I heard from you was that you were going off on some assignment as a lone sniper, apart from your team.”

  “That assignment was tracking Vlad to his hideaway. I was pulled off a mission with my own team to help this one.” He might be revealing classified information to Jen, but he didn’t give a damn. The
navy, his brothers, had never turned their backs on him, but he couldn’t say the same for the shadowy intelligence agencies that called the shots.

  “And it all went horribly wrong. The navy wouldn’t tell me much, but I knew others had died with you.” She bumped her knee against his. “Are they alive, too?”

  “No. They’re all dead.”

  She covered her eyes with one hand and sniffed. “So I’m the only one who gets the homecoming.”

  Miguel closed his eyes and clearly saw the ambush of the other SEALs at the cave, the pop of the guns, the flash of the gunpowder.

  “What happened to you, Miguel?”

  His lips twisted. “Do you have a few days?”

  She snuggled closer to him and rested her head on his chest. “I have all the time you need, mi amor.”

  Smiling, he ruffled her soft hair. He’d been teaching her Spanish and she’d picked it up quickly, despite her atrocious accent.

  “The mission went to hell. Someone set a trap. The SEAL team on the ground was ambushed and killed, and I was captured.”

  Her back rose and fell with quick, panting breaths. “H-how long? How long were you a prisoner?”

  “Just over eighteen months.”

  She must’ve been doing the calculation in her head because her shoulders stiffened. She mumbled into his shirt. “Where have you been the past four to five months? Why didn’t you contact me?”

  “Various hospitals, starting with the one in Germany, debriefing sessions, intelligence meetings.” He didn’t mention the psychiatric units. He didn’t want her pity.

  She finally raised her head from his chest and met his gaze. “I’m sure you needed...treatment. I’m sure the navy and the CIA wanted to pick your brain. But those places didn’t have telephones?”

  “No. Literally, no. None for me anyway.”

  “They wouldn’t allow you to use the phone?”

  “No.”

  “And they wouldn’t notify me? Your father? Your brother? Miguel, your father...”

  “I know he’s dead.” His nostrils flared. “They wanted you to go on believing I was dead, too. They still want you believing that.”