Hard to Hold Page 4

  The real SEAL medical files remained somewhere under lock and key, taken out only when a severe enough injury warranted them. Until then, team members committed to memory one anothers’ medical history, medication allergies and the like, to make for light travel and easy ground medic.

  “What’s the guy want with my stuff?” Jake asked.

  “Not a guy. Woman. Civilian—friend of the admiral’s. Tall. Long dark hair. Hot as—”

  Jake clenched a fist around the pencil he’d been using and snapped it in half. Because there was no way in hell Isabelle was working on this base. She would’ve mentioned that yesterday.

  “Are you all right?” Max asked. Max was the go-to guy, handled all the comms for the team when they were in the field. He was their lifeline, and always seemed to have all the right information at just the right time.

  “Yeah, fine,” he said. Max shrugged and turned back to his computer. Jake threw the pencil in the garbage and pushed out into the cold January air, wishing he was healed enough to go for a run or a swim or something that could get rid of this extra tension before he went to see Isabelle.

  Because he was not fine at all. He’d been having the nightmares again. Although they’d eased considerably over the past years, they were now a nightly ritual. That hadn’t happened since he was fifteen and went through boot camp.

  Fuck.

  He’d come into the Navy half-shattered, half-wild and not expecting the process to do much for him except keep him out of jail.

  He’d been wrong. The military had saved him, nurtured him. Understood him, maybe more than he ever expected a woman to.

  He’d been placed in BUD/S from boot camp on a dare—they’d been trying to break him. They never succeeded. There was nothing they could do to him that he hadn’t already endured in some way, shape or form, but in this case, enduring was just a step on the road that led to what he wanted to do.

  He didn’t need his past leaking out for the rest of the free world to see.

  He slipped into the infirmary through the back door that led to the small hallway in between the treatment rooms and the doctors’ offices.

  Isabelle was sitting behind a desk filling out paperwork. Her hair was pulled back from her face and she bit her bottom lip as she concentrated. Her foot tapped against the desk to some beat only she could hear, and for a second, he almost walked away.

  Instead of knocking, he leaned against the doorjamb until she noticed him, which took a few minutes. He was used to that, had mastered the fine art of seeming to appear out of nowhere. It was useful in both his job and in real life, although it tended to scare people.

  Isabelle shifted, looked up and gasped. Her pen screeched across what she was writing, ripping the paper, and she threw the pen down. “How long have you been there? Why didn’t you just knock?”

  “Why are you looking through my stuff?” he demanded.

  “I’m not … I wasn’t.” She paused and got herself together, and he realized that the woman in front of him was a terrible liar when she was caught off guard. Bad for her, good for him.

  There’s nothing about Isabelle Markham that’s good for you.

  “You couldn’t be bothered to tell me that you’d be working here—on base?”

  “I wasn’t sure how you’d react,” she said.

  “I react a whole lot better to honesty,” he said. “Jesus Christ.”

  “I was planning on telling you yesterday—I just got distracted,” she said, and then her cheeks flushed.

  He willed himself to ignore that. “I don’t get it—you’re not Reserves and I know you didn’t go through OCS. Why are you here?”

  She crossed her arms in front of her like a shield. “Now who’s looking through someone else’s files?”

  He ignored her. “I don’t see a huge need for plastic surgeons on this base.”

  “The DoD feels differently. I’ve been hired as a civilian, with the option to enlist.”

  “You’ve been doing more than consulting.”

  “I don’t have to explain this to you, but the admiral pulled a few strings for me. If I decide I want to enlist, I’ll complete Officer Candidate School when I’m fully healed and then I’ll be reassigned to a base that deals primarily with reconstruction.”

  That made him pull back for a second. She was still in danger. The admiral might be letting her think she wanted to be here, but Jake had no doubt that she was here for her own protection.

  “If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t look through your file,” she said.

  “It doesn’t. Besides, I know you didn’t look through it, because it’s not kept with the other files. It’s somewhere buried deep, or else it’s been burned or shredded to the point where I exist only to a very select group of people.”

  “It’s not like I’m going to tell people about you.”

  “You can’t tell anyone about me. Can’t mention me, can’t mention what I look like. Nothing. And you especially can’t mention that goddamned rescue story.”

  He’d pushed it a little too far that time, which was something he tended to do. All the time. But he didn’t usually get choked-back tears from the people he’d pushed. Clenched fists, yes, and she had those too.

  “That goddamned rescue story is important to me. You asshole. You complete and utter asshole,” she said. “It must be great to be the man of steel, to let nothing bother you.”

  “I never said that,” he said quietly, but it was too late.

  “I promise, my goddamned rescue story and I will never bother you again,” she said, and then she turned and walked out past him, that same determined set to her shoulders he’d seen the day before.

  Admiral James Callahan knew how old Jake Hansen was when he’d enlisted, even though he’d pretended to buy the fake birth certificate, doctored to trick the admiral into thinking Jake was seventeen going on eighteen. Jake had forged that part of the document poorly to draw attention away from the fact that he was really fifteen going on sixteen. He’d had no way of knowing Cal had done the same thing himself some twenty years earlier.

  Cal figured the boy would never make it through the first day, never mind the first week, and then there’d be no harm, no foul.

  Jake turned out to be one of the best men the Navy had ever seen. Or so the drill sergeant told the admiral after the first week of boot camp. Wanted Jake to go through BUD/S.

  “He’s fifteen,” Cal had said.

  “Almost sixteen. If he passes the training, he’ll be seventeen by the time he sees combat. We can keep him back if he needs to be older.” Captain Harry Lopez had sat across from Cal in his barracks, over whiskey and cigars. It had been close to midnight, and the base was quiet.

  “He’s fifteen.”

  “He handles himself like he’s older. He was born for this,” Harry had argued.

  Cal remembered holding Hansen’s file, complete with the police report and the psychologicals obtained from the kid’s supposed adoptive father, figured that by the time Jake entered his office, he’d have the intel read and be able to put any hint of softheartedness aside.

  He’d been wrong. Since that day, Jake’s file had been stored in a very special place, out of public consumption, and Jake remained one of the best he’d ever come across.

  Jake would help Cal protect the daughter of one of his best friends. He was the perfect, and most obvious, choice.

  “You asked to see me?”

  Cal looked up to find Jake standing by the door, having completely bypassed his gunny and a locked door. “In,” he said.

  Jake moved across the expansive office silently and sat in front of Cal’s desk. He actually looked patient, but Cal knew better. “I’ve got a job for you.”

  “I’ve already got a job.”

  “It’s a favor.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “There’s a family friend I’m worried about. She’s working on base now, and I need some extra protection for her,” Cal said. Jake nodded, like he kn
ew, and Cal wondered if Jake had bugged his office. Because he never put anything past Jake. “It’s the doctor your team rescued.”

  “That might not work out so well,” Jake muttered.

  “Jesus, Jake. What did you do? She’s only been on base for two goddamned days!”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Jake said, and sighed, as if Cal was bothering him.

  The boy never did have any fear or what counted as common sense. He got away with more than most, and should’ve ended up under someone’s boot long ago.

  “You never said you knew Dr. Markham,” Jake said finally.

  “There wasn’t a need for you to know. You saved her life—that was the important part,” Cal said. “I had to tell her you and your team were stationed here. She’d come across you eventually. She was asking for you. About you.”

  If Jake was surprised at that, he didn’t let on.

  “You’re the best one for this job. The only one I feel comfortable asking.”

  “How much protection are you talking about?”

  “As much as you can give her over the next few weeks. Until we finish collecting the intel we need. But it’s all on the QT, which is why I need you.” Speaking of hides, Cal thought about Isabelle’s mother and how she’d have his if something happened to her daughter again. Isabelle had been lucky so far. But Cal knew that the man who’d taken her would make good on his threats—Rafe had refused Cal’s last payment, sent back a message that simply said, Time’s up.

  Cal had two former CIA men on the case and a constant feeling of a noose tightening around his neck.

  “Wait a minute. She’s not going to know anything about this?” Jake asked, his voice tinged with concern—and anger.

  “It’s in her best interest that she doesn’t.”

  “She deserves to know,” Jake said.

  “That’s not your call.”

  “What am I supposed to do? Get myself shot so I can be under her constant care?”

  “You were already shot—maybe it’s infected. Hell, I don’t know; figure something out, dammit. She’s as stubborn as you are and it took all I had to get her off a plane headed back to some damned shithole and onto this base. What does that tell you?” Cal slammed his fists on the desk and paused to collect himself. “I’m not asking you to marry her, Jake. Just don’t let her get hurt again.”

  “I need more information.”

  Cal glanced at the picture on his desk—him with Isabelle’s father, Sergeant James Markham. Nicknamed Ox and as stubborn as one. The man who’d died saving Cal’s life.

  Cal stared Jake down, but the younger man didn’t flinch. Cal hadn’t expected him to. “I can’t give you anything now. You’ve jumped into the fire with much less than this before.”

  “I want a name,” Jake said. “You can’t send me into war if I don’t know the enemy.”

  Cal’s nostrils flared even as he saw Jake’s own private war flash in his eyes. “He was a private contractor Isabelle’s mother hired. Rafe McAllistar.”

  “He was never caught,” Jake spoke more to himself than to Cal, let out a low whistle and shook his head.

  “We told Isabelle that he was. That’s why she can’t know about this protection.”

  “You think he’ll come after her again?”

  “I have reason to believe so, yes. And you are not to investigate this further. I have people on it.”

  “You sure he works alone?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. But he’s former Delta. Formidable.”

  “She’s vulnerable as hell,” Jake muttered.

  “Which is why I chose you.”

  “She needs more secure protection than I can give.”

  “If the threat were imminent, she’d have it. This is a precaution. Like I said, you’ve trusted me before on much less than this.”

  “Guess I have.” Jake stood, reached across the desk with his right hand out. Mission accepted.

  Cal shook it and Jake turned to leave the room.

  “One thing, Admiral,” he called casually over his shoulder. “She’s going to have to stay with me.”

  Cal curled his hands into fists and stood. He should’ve known Jake would try to back him into a wall. “With you and two other SEALs?”

  “Can you think of a safer place?” Jake asked.

  “Yes. Many safer places, and none of them include living with three single men,” Cal said. “She’ll stay with me.”

  Jake sighed and shook his head. “Then I’ll move back in with you,” he said, and Cal had instant flashbacks to that brief period of time, ten years earlier, when that had been tried and abandoned within a forty-eight-hour period.

  “That won’t work.”

  “I didn’t think so,” Jake said.

  “Boy, you are really pushing it with me.”

  “There’s a connection between you and the senator. Isabelle doesn’t belong with you.”

  Cal stared at him before answering. “This isn’t a joke.”

  “Do you think I want to move her into my house, my space—my life?” Jake asked, ran a hand through his hair, and Cal knew he was tugging the man past the point of frustration. Which was never a good idea.

  “I know how much you value your privacy,” Cal said quietly.

  “I can’t do limited protection for her, Admiral. You and I both know that kind of thing never works. If you want me to do this, you’re going to have to let me do this.”

  Cal sat back down. “You’ll start tomorrow. She’s to know nothing about the situation. Just keep her safe, Jake. Keep her safe any way you have to.”

  Jake nodded and left the office without another word.

  CHAPTER

  3

  Nick hadn’t been with a woman since he’d gotten back on U.S. soil from Afghanistan, which was some kind of record he never wanted to have to beat. It had been nearly forty-eight hours, thanks to Jake’s gunshot wound and the subsequent paperwork that needed to be handed in immediately, plus the debriefings and the physicals, and right now Nick craved the kind of release only hot sex—or a good demolition—could bring.

  Of course, being out with the man you called Dad could put a severe cramp in both those options.

  “I didn’t want to come here to watch the battle of the fucking bands in the first place,” Jake was complaining to Chris.

  “I need to get laid,” Nick told his brothers.

  “Go for it,” Chris said, then downed another shot.

  “It’s not like I can leave with someone—not with Dad here,” Nick said.

  “Like he didn’t know about all the other times, starting with freshman year in high school,” Chris said and Jake and Nick groaned in unison at that image.

  “Freshman year wasn’t my first,” Nick said at the same time Jake asked, “Are you trying to make sure I can never have sex again?”

  “Dad probably gets more ass than any of us combined,” Chris said, and Nick and Jake groaned again. Chris just laughed. Tonight, he wore a white T-shirt, which made the fact that his eyes were two different colors stand out even more. One was bright blue, the other an intense green, and they gave him an unbalanced, slightly crazed look. Once people got to know him, they realized that it wasn’t just a look.

  “He’s got to stop with the mind-reading bullshit,” Nick muttered.

  “Just don’t start a fight tonight,” Jake warned and Nick immediately figured that a good, old-fashioned fight could work to distract him for a while, since the band about to take the stage looked like Mötley Crüe gone wrong. Until he felt the tap on his shoulder and turned to see Kenny Waldron, the man he’d called Dad since he’d been fourteen, staring all of them down.

  “I’m here to show off the new band, not my sons’ excellence at bar fights,” he said.

  All three men held up their hands in silent surrender. Like they were being put under house arrest.

  “Hey, we don’t start them,” Chris protested, and that much at least was true. There were guys who knew they were SEALs, want
ed to pick fights with them just because of that. Sometimes it was because other men’s girlfriends looked at them a little too long, but hey, they couldn’t help that either.

  Kenny rolled his eyes at them, and then his stare stayed on Jake for a few minutes too long. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but the band started in and he got distracted.

  Score one for Jake. And speaking of score, Jake should be chomping at the bit worse than Nick was. Jake was definitely tense, but he appeared off the market tonight—not looking around for any kind of action, the way he normally would. Which could only mean that Jake was already in some kind of major trouble.

  Nick looked around and his eye caught on one woman who looked familiar. It took him a minute, but he was finally able to place her. “Hey, Dr. Markham’s here.”

  “Who’s that?” Kenny asked.

  “The woman Jake pissed off today,” Chris said and Jake shot him a look, which he ignored.

  “You saw her today?” Nick asked.

  “It’s a long story,” Jake mumbled and Nick knew there was more to it than that. A lot more. But he was content to let Jake shrug it off if he wanted. He’d get the full story from Chris later on.

  “Were you rude?” Kenny asked.

  “I was the way I always am,” Jake said. Chris choked on his beer, Kenny started lecturing Jake in Cajun French and Nick figured that this was a perfect time to slip away.

  When Zeke had offered to show her around town, Isabelle had agreed only after he’d understood that this was in no way, shape or form a date. She wasn’t going to accept at all, but she still had the ball of anger welling in her chest every time she thought about what Jake said in her office.

  It was, of course, partially her fault, but he didn’t have to be so arrogant. Or dismissive.

  The more she thought about it, the more she realized that the whole idea that she and Jake had some kind of connection was something she must’ve made up in order to get through her recovery.

  She’d done the therapy, dealt with the It’s not your fault thing. That part was easy. She knew that. She knew she’d be able to handle another man’s touch—one man’s specifically—because on a small level she already had.