“Fuckin’ hell,” he cursed when another barrage of gunfire bit into the masonry behind his back. But he couldn’t continue to take cover. Bran was in the open and needed his help.
Turkey-peeking around the corner of the seawall, Mason bellied out flat in the sand and gritted his teeth as he laid on his trigger, aiming for the ground at the feet of the masked men, hoping to draw all their fire in his direction and away from the trio on the beach.
It worked.
The seawall continued to take a beating from the assailants’ lead as the end of his M4 flashed with orange lightning in return. The pressure against his shoulder, not to mention the growing warmth of the metal in his hands, felt wonderfully familiar.
Which just goes to show how far from normal you are.
He shook off the thought as soon as it hit him. Not because there wasn’t truth in it. But because there was, and it had been one of his ex-wife’s biggest beefs with him. Right behind you’re never home and you never talk to me.
Ya-huh! On account of me being a fuckin’ SEAL who goes on fuckin’ missions that are fuckin’ classified!
And she’d known that when she married him.
Of course, it’d all seemed very romantic while they were flush with hormones and having sex on every vertical and horizontal surface. But once the honeymoon was over and the hard part of being hitched to a covert operator set in, she’d quickly come to see how truly unromantic it was. He just wished she’d had the guts to divorce him before she turned to another. Because what her duplicity and faithlessness had left him with was a sore on his heart. An open, festering wound that refused to heal.
And what the fuck are you doing thinking about her at a time like this, chowderhead?
Right. What was he doing thinking about her? She was the past. And his present required all his attention.
He released his trigger for a second, looking for an opening to take out one of the motherfuckers. He wasn’t as good a shot as Bran, but more times than not he could hit what he was aiming at. Unfortunately, the three assailants had made it to the bridge over the moat. And they were smart enough to keep the teenagers in front of them while they continued to lay down covering fire aimed in his general direction.
“Fuckin’ hell!” he cursed again.
He waited, counting each round that slammed into the masonry above his head, each steady thud of his heart, until the masked men stopped shooting to disappear into the arched entry of the fort. Then he jumped up and zigzagged his way toward the beach in a classic scoot-and-shoot crouched position. But there was no need to shoot. Nothing breached the deafening silence of the island except for the sound of the tide hissing against the sand and the gentle breeze teasing the fronds of the palm trees and making them rattle in delight.
“Bran!” he whispered, edging ever faster through the sand. “Headed your way, bro!”
Of their own accord, his eyes traveled out over the dark water. Out there, anchored far behind the fort, was the catamaran. With the intrepid Alexandra Merriweather on board—that is if she hadn’t already decided to set sail for Wayfarer Island like he’d told her to if she thought there might be any trouble headed her way.
Regardless of whichever outcome she was facing, she was alone in facing it. And the poor woman had to be terrified. She was a pocket-sized historian, for fuck’s sake, not some trained operator.
For one quick second, he was tempted to dive into the surf, swim out to her, and take her in his arms. But the impulse was fleeting. Firstly, because Alex might be a pocket-sized historian, but she was also completely brazen. So even if she was scared, she’d never let him see it, much less welcome his coddling. And secondly, because taking her in his arms, even for that brief moment on the catamaran when she’d jumped in his lap, had reminded him what it was to hold a woman. All soft curves and warm skin and sweet weight and…
He’d sworn off the fairer sex. Which was working out wickedly awesome for him, thank you very much. So he could totally do without being reminded of what he was missing. Especially when that reminder came with an adorable mop of curly red hair and freckles across her nose. Little Orphan Annie all grown up and ready for a man to show her what it was like to—
Aw, hell.
He shook the image of Alex away at the same time he skidded to a stop beside the people proned out on the beach. At first glance, he thought the blood on the sand beside Bran and Maddy’s pancaked bodies was coming from the corpse sprawled alongside them. Then he realized it was draining from a wound on Bran’s thigh.
“Fuckin’ hell,” he cursed for the third time.
Chapter 5
7:22 p.m.…
If Bran’s thigh wasn’t barking like a bitch in heat, he was sure he would appreciate the feel of the plump ass wiggling beneath him. As it was, he couldn’t stop himself from growling impatiently, “Maddy! Stop squirming around, damnit!”