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Tall, Dark and Deadly: Get Lucky
Suzanne Brockmann


Navy SEAL Lucky was used to women swooning at his feet.So how could it be that feisty journalist Sydney seems immune to his charms? Working a dangerous case together, Lucky’s determined to turn her frosty attitude around – and make her fall head over heels for him. Protecting the innocent is Navy SEAL Bobby’s passion.That’s why his best friend asked him to look out for his little sister. Except Colleen’s all grown up now, which has Bobby wanting to do so much more than keep her safe. He wants her in his arms and his bed!










Praise for the novels of New York Timesbestselling author

SUZANNE BROCKMANN

“Zingy dialogue, a great sense of drama, and a pair of lovers who generate enough steam heat to power a whole city.”

—RT Book Reviews on Hero Under Cover

“Brockmann deftly delivers another testosterone-drenched, adrenaline-fuelled tale of danger and desire that brilliantly combines superbly crafted, realistically complex characters with white-knuckle plotting.”

—Booklist on Force of Nature

“Readers will be on the edge of their seats.”

—Library Journal on Breaking Point

“Another excellently paced, action-filled read.

Brockmann delivers yet again!”

—RT Book Reviews on Into the Storm

“Funny, sexy, suspenseful, and superb.”

—Booklist on Hot Target

“Sizzling with military intrigue and sexual tension, with characters so vivid they leap right off the page, Gone Too Far is a bold, brassy read with a momentum that just doesn’t quit.”

—New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen

“An unusual and compelling romance.”

—Affaire de Coeur on No Ordinary Man

“Sensational sizzle, powerful emotion and sheer fun.”

—RT Book Reviews on Body Language




Tall, Dark and Deadly

Get Lucky

Taylor’s Temptation



Suzanne Brockmann







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)



Get Lucky


For Patricia McMahon




PROLOGUE


IT WAS LIKE BEING HIT by a professional linebacker.

The man barreled down the stairs and bulldozed right into Sydney, nearly knocking her onto her rear end.

To add insult to injury, he mistook her for a man.

“Sorry, bud,” he tossed back over his shoulder as he kept going down the stairs.

She heard the front door of the apartment building open and then slam shut.

It was the perfect end to the evening. Girls’ night out—plural—had turned into girl’s night out—singular. Bette had left a message on Syd’s answering machine announcing that she couldn’t make it to the movies tonight. Something had come up. Something that was no doubt, six-foot-three, broad-shouldered, wearing a cowboy hat and named Scott or Brad or Wayne.

And Syd had received a call from Hilary on her cell phone as she was pulling into the multiplex parking lot. Her excuse for cancelling was a kid with a fever of one hundred and two.

Turning around and going home would have been too depressing. So Syd had gone to the movie alone. And ended up even more depressed.

The show had been interminably long and pointless, with buff young actors flexing their way across the screen. She’d alternately been bored by the story and embarrassed, both for the actors and for herself, for being fascinated by the sheer breathtaking perfection of their bodies.

Men like that—or like the football player who’d nearly knocked her over—didn’t date women like Sydney Jameson.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t physically attractive, because she was. Or at least she could be when she bothered to do more than run a quick comb through her hair. Or when she bothered to dress in something other than the baggy shirts and loose-fitting, comfortable jeans that were her standard apparel—and that allowed the average Neanderthal rushing past her down the stairs to mistake her for a man. Of course, she comforted herself, the dimness of the 25-watt bulbs that the landlord, Mr. El Cheap-o Thompkins, had installed in the hallway light fixtures hadn’t helped.

Syd trudged up the stairs to the third floor. This old house had been converted to apartments in the late 1950s. The top floor—formerly the attic—had been made into two units, both of which were far more spacious than anyone would have thought from looking at the outside of the building.

She stopped on the landing.

The door to her neighbor’s apartment was ajar.

Gina Sokoloski. Syd didn’t know her next-door neighbor that well. They’d passed on the stairs now and then, signed for packages when the other wasn’t home, had brief conversations about such thrilling topics as the best time of year for cantaloupe.

Gina was young and shy—not yet twenty years old—and a student at the junior college. She was plain and quiet and rarely had visitors, which suited Syd just fine after living for eight months next door to the frat boys from hell.

Gina’s mother had come by once or twice—one of those tidy, quietly rich women who wore a giant diamond ring and drove a car that cost more than Syd could make in three very good years as a freelance journalist.

The he-man who’d barrelled down the stairs wasn’t what Syd would have expected a boyfriend of Gina’s to look like. He was older than Gina by about ten years, too, but this could well be more proof that opposites did, indeed, attract.

This old building made so many weird noises during the night. Still, she could’ve sworn she’d heard a distinctly human sound coming from Gina’s apartment. Syd stepped closer to the open door and peeked in, but the apartment was completely dark. “Gina?”

She listened harder. There it was again. A definite sob. No doubt the son of a bitch who’d nearly knocked her over had just broken up with Gina. Leave it to a man to be in such a hurry to be gone that he’d leave the door wide open.

“Gina, your door’s unlatched. Is everything okay in here?” Syd knocked more loudly as she pushed the door open even farther.

The dim light from the hallway shone into the living room and …

The place was trashed. Furniture knocked over, lamps broken, a bookshelf overturned. Dear God, the man hurrying down the stairs hadn’t been Gina’s boyfriend. He’d been a burglar.

Or worse…

Hair rising on the back of her neck, Syd dug through her purse for her cell phone. Please God, don’t let Gina have been home. Please God, let that funny little sound be the ancient swamp cooler or the pipes or the wind wheezing through the vent in the crawl space between the ceiling and the eaves….

But then she heard it again. It was definitely a muffled whimper.

Syd’s fingers closed around her phone as she reached with her other hand for the light switch on the wall by the door. She flipped it on.

And there, huddled in the corner of her living room, her face bruised and bleeding, her clothing torn and bloody, was Gina.

Syd locked the door behind her and dialed 911.




CHAPTER ONE


ALL EARLY-MORNING CONVERSATION in Captain Joe Catalanotto’s outer office stopped dead as everyone turned to look at Lucky.

It was a festival of raised eyebrows and opened mouths. The astonishment level wouldn’t have been any higher if Lieutenant Luke “Lucky” O’Donlon of SEAL Team Ten’s Alpha Squad had announced he was quitting the units to become a monk.

All the guys were staring at him—Jones and Blue and Skelly. A flash of surprise had even crossed Crash Hawken’s imperturbable face. Frisco was there, too, having come out of a meeting with Joe and Harvard, the team’s senior chief. Lucky had caught them all off guard. It would’ve been funny—except he wasn’t feeling much like laughing.

“Look, it’s no big deal,” Lucky said with a shrug, wishing that simply saying the words would make it so, wishing he could feel as nonchalant as he sounded.

No one said a word. Even recently promoted Chief Wes Skelly was uncharacteristically silent. But Lucky didn’t need to be telepathic to know what his teammates were thinking.

He’d lobbied loud and long for a chance to be included in Alpha Squad’s current mission—a covert assignment for which Joe Cat himself didn’t even know the details. He’d only been told to ready a five-man team to insert somewhere in Eastern Europe; to prepare to depart at a moment’s notice, prepare to be gone for an undetermined amount of time.

It was the kind of assignment guaranteed to get the heart pumping and adrenaline running, the kind of assignment Lucky lived for.

And Lucky had been one of the chosen few. Just yesterday morning he’d done a victory dance when Joe Cat had told him to get his gear ready to go. Yet here he was, barely twenty-four hours later, requesting reassignment, asking the captain to count him out—and to call in some old favors to get him temporarily assigned to a not-so-spine-tingling post at the SEAL training base here in Coronado, effective ASAP.

Lucky forced a smile. “It’s not like you’ll have trouble replacing me, Captain.” He glanced at Jones and Skelly who were both practically salivating at the thought of doing just that.

The captain gestured with his head toward his office, completely unfooled by Lucky’s pretense at indifference. “You want to step inside and tell me what this is all about?”

Lucky didn’t need the privacy. “It’s no big secret, Cat. My sister’s getting married in a few weeks. If I leave on this assignment, there’s a solid chance I won’t be back in time.”

Wes Skelly couldn’t keep his mouth shut a second longer. “I thought you were heading down to San Diego last night to read her the riot act.”

Lucky had intended to. He’d gone to visit Ellen and her alleged fiancé, one geeky college professor by the name of Gregory Price, intending to lay down the law; intending to demand that his twenty-two-year-old baby sister wait at least another year before she take such a major step as marriage. He’d gone fully intending to be persuasive. She was impossibly young. How could she be ready to commit to one man—one who wore sweaters to work, at that—when she hadn’t had a chance yet to truly live?

But Ellen was Ellen, and Ellen had made up her mind. She was so certain, so unafraid. And as Lucky had watched her smile at the man she was determined to spend the rest of her life with, he’d marveled at the fact that they’d had the same mother. Of course, maybe it was the fact they had different fathers that made them such opposites when it came to commitment. Because, although Ellen was ready to get married at twenty-two, Lucky could imagine feeling too young to be tied down at age eighty-two.

Still, he’d been the one to give in.

It was Greg who had convinced him. It was the way he looked at Ellen, the way the man’s love for Lucky’s little sister shone in his eyes that had the SEAL giving them both his blessing—and his promise that he’d be at the wedding to give the bride away.

Never mind the fact that he’d have to turn down what was shaping up to be the most exciting assignment of the year.

“I’m the only family she’s got,” Lucky said quietly. “I’ve got to be there for her wedding, if I can. At least I’ve got to try.”

The Captain nodded. “Okay,” he said. That was explanation enough for him. “Jones, ready your gear.”

Wes Skelly made a squawk of disappointment that was cut off by one sharp look from the senior chief. He turned away abruptly.

Captain Catalanotto glanced at Frisco, who worked as a classroom instructor when he wasn’t busy helping run the SEAL BUD/S training facility. “What do you think about using O’Donlon for your little project?”

Alan “Frisco” Francisco had been Lucky’s swim buddy. Years ago, they’d made it through BUD/S training together and had worked side by side on countless assignments—until Desert Storm. Lucky had been ready to ship out to the Middle East with the rest of Alpha Squad when he’d received word that his mother had died. He’d stayed behind and Frisco had gone—and gotten his leg nearly blown off during a rescue mission. Even though Frisco no longer came out into the field, the two men had stayed tight.

In fact, Lucky was going to be the godfather later this year when Frisco and his wife Mia had their first baby.

Frisco now nodded at the Captain. “Yeah,” he said. “Definitely. O’Donlon’s perfect for the assignment.”

“What assignment?” Lucky asked. “If it’s training an all-woman SEAL team, then, yes, thank you very much, I’m your man.”

There, see? He’d managed to make a joke. He was already starting to feel better. Maybe he wasn’t going out into the real world with Alpha Squad, but he was going to get a chance to work with his best friend again. And—his natural optimism returning—he just knew there was a Victoria’s Secret model in his immediate future. This was California, after all. And he wasn’t nicknamed Lucky for nothing.

But Frisco didn’t laugh. In fact, he looked seriously grim as he tucked a copy of the morning paper beneath his arm. “Not even close. You’re going to hate this.”

Lucky looked into the eyes of the man he knew better than a brother. And he didn’t have to say a word. Frisco knew it didn’t really matter what his buddy did over the next few weeks. Everything would pale beside the lost opportunity of the assignment he’d passed up.

Frisco gestured for him to come outside.

Lucky took one last look around Alpha Squad’s office. Harvard was already handling the paperwork that would put him temporarily under Frisco’s command. Joe Cat was deep in discussion with Wes Skelly, who still looked unhappy that he’d been passed over yet again. Blue McCoy, Alpha Squad’s executive officer, was on the phone, his voice lowered—probably talking to Lucy. He had on that telltale frown of concern he wore so often these days when he spoke to his wife. She was a San Felipe police detective, involved with some big secret case that had the usually unflappable Blue on edge.

Crash sat communing with his computer. Jones had left in a rush, but now he returned, his gear already organized. No doubt the dweeb had already packed last night, just in case, like a good little Boy Scout. Ever since the man had gotten married, he hurried home whenever he had the chance, instead of partying hard with Lucky and Bob and Wes. Jones’s nickname was Cowboy, but his wild and woolly days of drinking and chasing women were long gone. Lucky had always considered the smooth-talking, good-looking Jones to be something of a rival both in love and war, but he was completely agreeable these days, walking around with a permanent smile on his face, as if he knew something Lucky didn’t.

Even when Lucky had won the spot on the current team—the spot he’d just given up—Jones had smiled and shaken his hand.

The truth was, Lucky resented Cowboy Jones. By all rights, he should be miserable—a man like that—roped into marriage, tied down with a drooling kid in diapers.

Yeah, he resented Cowboy, no doubt about it.

Resented, and envied him his complete happiness.

Frisco was waiting impatiently by the door, but Lucky took his time. “Stay cool, guys.”

He knew when Joe Cat got the order to go, the team would simply vanish. There would be no time spent on farewells.

“God, I hate it when they leave without me,” he said to Frisco as he followed his friend into the bright sunshine. “So, what’s this about?”

“You haven’t seen today’s paper, have you?” Frisco asked.

Lucky shook his head. “No, why?”

Frisco silently handed him the newspaper he’d been holding.

The headline said it all—Serial Rapist Linked to Coronado SEALs?

Lucky swore pungently. “Serial rapist? This is the first I’ve heard of this.”

“It’s the first any of us have heard of this,” Frisco said grimly. “But apparently there’s been a series of rapes in Coronado and San Felipe over the past few weeks. And with the latest—it happened two nights ago—the police now believe there’s some kind of connection linking the attacks. Or so they say.”

Lucky quickly skimmed the article. There were very few facts about the attacks—seven—or about the victims. The only mention of the women who’d been attacked was of the latest—an unnamed 19-year-old college student. In all cases, the rapist wore a feature-distorting pair of panty hose on his head, but he was described as a Caucasian man with a crew cut, with either brown or dark blond hair, approximately six feet tall, muscularly built and about thirty years of age.

The article focused on ways in which women in both towns could ensure their safety. One of the tips recommended was to stay away—far away—from the U.S. Navy base.

The article ended with the nebulous statement, “When asked about the rumored connection of the serial rapist to the Coronado naval base, and in particular to the teams of SEALs stationed there, the police spokesman replied, ‘Our investigation will be thorough, and the military base is a good place to start.’

“Known for their unconventional fighting techniques as well as their lack of discipline, the SEALs have had their presence felt in the towns of Coronado and San Felipe many times in the past, with late-night and early-morning explosions often startling the guests at the famed Hotel del Coronado. Lieutenant Commander Alan Francisco of the SEALs could not be reached for comment.”

Lucky swore again. “Way to make us look like the spawn of Satan. And let me guess just how hard—” he looked at the top of the article for the reporter’s name “—this S. Jameson guy tried to reach you for comment.”

“Oh, the reporter tried,” Frisco countered as he began moving toward the jeep that would take him across the base to his office. Lucky could tell from the way he leaned on his cane that his knee was hurting today. “But I stayed hidden. I didn’t want to say anything to alienate the police until I had the chance to talk to Admiral Forrest. And he agreed with my plan.”

“Which is…?”

“There’s a task force being formed to catch this son of a bitch,” Frisco told him. “Both the Coronado and San Felipe police are part of it—as well as the state police, and a special unit from FInCOM. The admiral pulled some strings, and got us included. That’s why I went to see Cat and Harvard. I need an officer I can count on to be part of this task force. Someone I can trust.”

Someone exactly like Lucky. He nodded. “When do I start?”

“There’s a meeting in the San Felipe police station at 0900 hours. Meet me in my office—we’ll go down there together. Wear your whites and every ribbon you’ve got.” Frisco climbed behind the wheel of the jeep, tossing his cane into the back. “There’s more, too. I want you to handpick a team, and I want you to catch this bastard. As quickly as possible. If the perp is a spec-warrior, we’re going to need more than a task force to nail him.”

Lucky held on to the side of the jeep. “Do you really think this guy could be one of us?”

Frisco shook his head. “I don’t know. I hope to hell he’s not.”

The rapist had attacked seven women—one of them a girl just a little bit younger than his sister. And Lucky knew that it didn’t matter who this bastard was. It only mattered that they stop him before he struck again.

“Whoever he is,” he promised his best friend and commanding officer, “I’ll find him. And after I do, he’s going to be sorry he was born.”

SYDNEY WAS RELIEVED TO find she wasn’t the only woman in the room. She was glad to see that Police Detective Lucy McCoy was part of the task force being set up this morning, its single goal: to catch the San Felipe Rapist.

Out of the seven attacks, five had taken place in the lower-rent town of San Felipe. And although the two towns were high-school sports-team rivals, this was one case in which Coronado was more than happy to let San Felipe take the title.

They’d gathered here at the San Felipe police station ready to work together to apprehend the rapist.

Syd had first met Detective Lucy McCoy last Saturday night. The detective had arrived on the scene at Gina Sokoloski’s apartment clearly pulled out of bed, her face clean of makeup, her shirt buttoned wrong—and spitting mad that she hadn’t been called sooner.

Syd had been fiercely guarding Gina, who was frighteningly glassy-eyed and silent after the trauma of her attack.

The male detectives had tried to be gentle, but even gentle couldn’t cut it at a time like this. Can you tell us what happened, miss?

Sheesh. As if Gina would be able to look up at these men and tell them how she’d turned to find a man in her living room, how he’d grabbed her before she could run, slapped his hand across her mouth before she could scream, and then…

And then that Neanderthal who had nearly run Syd down on the stairs had raped this girl. Brutally. Violently. Syd would’ve bet good money that she had been a virgin, poor shy little thing. What an awful way to be introduced to sex.

Syd had wrapped her arms tightly around the girl, and told the detectives in no uncertain terms that they had better get a woman down here, pronto. After what Gina had been through, she didn’t need to suffer the embarrassment of having to talk about it with a man.

But Gina had told Detective Lucy McCoy all of it, in a voice that was completely devoid of emotion—as if she were reporting facts that had happened to someone else, not herself.

She’d tried to hide. She’d cowered in the corner, and he hit her. And hit her. And then he was on top of her, tearing her clothing and forcing himself between her legs. With his hands around her throat, she’d struggled even just to breathe, and he’d…

Lucy had quietly explained about the rape kit, explained about the doctor’s examination that Gina still had to endure, explained that as much as Gina wanted to, she couldn’t take a shower. Not yet.

Lucy had explained that the more Gina could tell her about the man who’d attacked her, the better their chances were of catching him. If there was anything more she could report about the words he’d spoken, any little detail she may have left out….

Syd had described the man who nearly knocked her over on the stairs. The lighting was bad. She hadn’t gotten a good look at him. In fact, she couldn’t even be sure that he wasn’t still wearing the nylon stocking over his face that Gina had described. But she could guess at his height—taller than she was, and his build—powerful—and she could say for a fact that he was a white male, somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five years of age, with very short, crew-cut hair.

And he spoke in a low-pitched, accentless voice. Sorry, bud.

It was weird and creepy to think that a man who’d brutalized Gina would have taken the time to apologize for bumping into Syd. It was also weird and creepy to think that if Syd had been home, she might have heard the noise of the struggle, heard Gina’s muffled cries and might’ve been able to help.

Or, perhaps Syd might’ve been the victim herself.

Before they’d headed over to the hospital, Gina had loosened her grip on the torn front of her shirt and showed Lucy and Syd a burn. The son of a bitch had branded the girl on her breast, in what looked like the shape of a bird.

Lucy had stiffened, clearly recognizing the marking. She’d excused herself, and found the other detectives. And although she’d spoken in a lowered voice, Syd had moved to the door so she could hear.

“It’s our guy again,” Lucy McCoy had grimly told the other detectives. “Gina’s been burned with a Budweiser, too.”

Our guy again. When Syd asked if there had been other similar attacks, Lucy had bluntly told her that she wasn’t at liberty to discuss that.

Syd had gone to the hospital with the girl, staying with her until her mother arrived.

But then, despite the fact that it was three o’clock in the morning, there were too many unanswered questions for Syd to go home and go to sleep. As a former investigative reporter, she knew a thing or two about finding answers to unanswered questions. A few well-placed phone calls connected her to Silva Fontaine, a woman on the late-night shift at the hospital’s Rape Counseling Center. Silva had informed Syd that six women had come in in half as many weeks. Six women who hadn’t been attacked by husbands or boyfriends or relatives or co-workers. Six women who had been attacked in their own homes by an unknown assailant. Same as Gina.

A little research on the Internet had turned up the fact that a budweiser wasn’t just a bottle of beer. U.S. Navy personnel who went through the rigorous Basic Underwater Demolition Training over at the SEAL facility in nearby Coronado were given a pin in the shape of a flying eagle carrying a trident and a stylized gun, upon their entrance into the SEAL units.

This pin was nicknamed a budweiser.

Every U.S. Navy SEAL had one. It represented the SEAL acronym of sea, air and land, the three environments in which the commando-like men expertly operated. In other words, they jumped out of planes, soaring through the air with specially designed parachutes as easily as they crawled through jungle, desert or city, as easily as they swam through the deep waters of the sea.

They had a near-endless list of warrior qualifications—everything from hand-to-hand combat to high-tech computer warfare, underwater demolition to sniper-quality marksmanship. They could pilot planes or boats, operate tanks and land vehicles.

Although it wasn’t listed, they could also, no doubt, leap tall buildings with a single bound.

Yeah, the list was impressive. It was kind of like looking at Superman’s resume.

But it was also alarming.

Because this superhero had turned bad. For weeks, some psycho Navy SEAL had been stalking the women of San Felipe. Seven women had been brutally attacked, yet there had been no warnings issued, no news reports telling women to take caution.

Syd had been furious.

She’d spent the rest of the night writing.

And in the morning, she’d gone to the police station, the freelance article she’d written for the San Felipe Journal in hand.

She’d been shown into Chief Zale’s office and negotiations had started. The San Felipe police didn’t want any information about the attacks to be publicized. When Zale found out Syd was a freelance reporter, and that she’d been there at the crime scene for hours last night, he’d nearly had an aneurysm. He was convinced that if this story broke, the rapist would go into deep hiding and they’d never apprehend him. The chief told Syd flatly that the police didn’t know for certain if all seven of the attacks had been made by the same man—the branding of the victim with the budweiser pin had only been done to Gina and one other woman.

Zale had demanded Syd hold all the detailed information about the recent attacks. Syd had countered with a request to write the exclusive story after the rapist was caught, to sit in with the task force being formed to apprehend the rapist—provided she could write a series of police-approved articles for the local papers, now warning women of the threat.

Zale had had a cow.

Syd had stood firm despite being blustered at for several hours, and eventually Zale had conceded. But, wow, had he been ticked off.

Still, here she was. Sitting in with the task force.

She recognized the police chief and several detectives from Coronado, as well as several representatives from the California State Police. And although no one introduced her, she caught the names of a trio of FInCOM Agents, as well. Huang, Sudenberg and Novak—she jotted their names in her notebook.

It was funny to watch them interact. Coronado didn’t think much of San Felipe, and vice versa. However, both groups preferred each other over the state troopers. The Finks simply remained aloof. Yet solidarity was formed—at least in part—when the U.S. Navy made the scene.

“Sorry, I’m late.” The man in the doorway was blindingly handsome—the blinding due in part to the bright white of his naval uniform and the dazzling rows of colorful ribbons on his chest. But only in part. His face was that of a movie star, with an elegantly thin nose that hinted of aristocracy, and eyes that redefined the word blue. His hair was sunstreaked and stylishly long in front. Right now it was combed neatly back, but with one puff of wind, or even a brief blast of humidity, it would be dancing around his face, waving tendrils of spun gold. His skin was perfectly tanned—the better to show off the white flash of his teeth as he smiled.

He was, without a doubt, the sheer perfection of a Ken doll come to life.

Syd wasn’t sure, but she thought the braids on his sleeves meant he was some sort of officer.

The living Ken—with all of his U.S. Navy accessories—somehow managed to squeeze his extremely broad shoulders through the door. He stepped into the room. “Lieutenant Commander Francisco asked me to convey his regrets.” His voice was a melodic baritone, slightly husky with just a trace of Southern California, dude. “There’s been a serious training accident on the base, and he was unable to leave.”

San Felipe Detective Lucy McCoy leaned forward. “Is everyone all right?”

“Hey, Lucy.” He bestowed a brief but special smile upon the female detective. It didn’t surprise Syd one bit that he should know the pretty brunette by name. “We got a SEAL candidate in a DDC—a deck decompression chamber. Frisco—Lieutenant Commander Francisco—had to fly out to the site with some of the doctors from the naval hospital. It was a routine dive, everything was done completely by the book—until one of the candidates started showing symptoms of the bends—while he was in the water. They still don’t know what the hell went wrong. Bobby got him out and back on board, and popped him in the DDC, but from his description, it sounds like this guy’s already had a CNS hit—a central nervous system hit,” he translated. “You know, when a nitrogen bubble expands in the brain.” He shook his head, his blue eyes somber, his pretty mouth grim. “Even if this man survives, he could be seriously brain damaged.”

U.S. Navy Ken sat down in the only unoccupied chair at the table, directly across from Sydney, as he glanced around the room. “I’m sure you all understand Lieutenant Commander Francisco’s need to look into this situation immediately.”

Syd tried not to stare, but it was hard. At three feet away, she should have been able to see this man’s imperfections—if not quite a wart, then maybe a chipped tooth. Some nose hair at least.

But at three feet away, he was even more gorgeous. And he smelled good, too.

Chief Zale gave him a baleful look. “And you are…?”

Navy Ken half stood up again. “I’m sorry. Of course, I should have introduced myself.” His smile was sheepish. Gosh darn it, it said, I plumb forgot that not everybody here knows who I am, wonderful though I may be. “Lieutenant Luke O’Donlon, of the U.S. Navy SEALs.”

Syd didn’t have to be an expert at reading body language to know that everyone in the room—at least everyone male—hated the Navy. And if they hadn’t before, they sure did now. The jealousy in the room was practically palpable. Lieutenant Luke O’Donlon gleamed. He shone. He was all white and gold and sunlight and sky-blue eyes.

He was a god. The mighty king of all Ken dolls.

And he knew it.

His glance touched Syd only briefly as he looked around the room, taking inventory of the police and FInCOM personnel. But as Zale’s assistant passed out manila files, Navy Ken’s gaze settled back on Syd. He smiled, and it was such a perfect, slightly puzzled smile, Syd nearly laughed aloud. Any second now and he was going to ask her who she was.

“Are you FInCOM?” he mouthed to her, taking the file that was passed to him and warmly nodding his thanks to the Coronado detective who was sitting beside him.

Syd shook her head, no.

“From the Coronado PD?” he asked silently.

Zale had begun to speak, and Syd shook her head again, then pointedly turned her attention to the head of the table.

The San Felipe police chief spoke at length about stepping up patrol cars in the areas where the rapes had taken place. He spoke of a team that would be working around the clock, attempting to find a pattern in the locations of the attacks, or among the seven victims. He talked about semen samples and DNA. He glared at Syd as he spoke of the need to keep the details of the crimes, of the rapist’s MO—method of operation—from leaking to the public. He brought up the nasty little matter of the SEAL pin, heated by the flame from a cigarette lighter and used to burn a mark onto the bodies of the last two victims.

Navy Ken cleared his throat and interrupted. “I’m sure it’s occurred to you that if this guy were a SEAL, he’d have to be pretty stupid to advertise it this way. Isn’t it much more likely that he’s trying to make you believe he’s a SEAL?”

“Absolutely,” Zale responded. “Which is why we implied that we thought he was a SEAL in the article that came out in this morning’s paper. We want him to think he’s winning, to become careless.”

“So you don’t think he’s a SEAL,” the SEAL tried to clarify.

“Maybe,” Syd volunteered, “he’s a SEAL who wants to be caught.”

Navy Ken’s eyes narrowed slightly as he gazed at her, clearly thinking hard. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know just about everyone else here, but we haven’t been introduced. Are you a police psychologist?”

Zale didn’t let Syd reply. “Ms. Jameson is going to be working very closely with you, Lieutenant.”

Ms. not Doctor. Syd saw that information register in the SEAL’s eyes.

But then she realized what Zale had said and sat back in her chair. “I am?”

O’Donlon leaned forward. “Excuse me?”

Zale looked a little too pleased with himself. “Lieutenant Commander Francisco put in an official request to have a SEAL team be part of this task force. Detective McCoy convinced me that it might be a good idea. If our man is or was a SEAL, you may have better luck finding him.”

“I assure you, luck won’t be part of it, sir.”

Syd couldn’t believe O’Donlon’s audacity. The amazing part was that he spoke with such conviction. He actually believed himself.

“That remains to be seen,” Zale countered. “I’ve decided to give you permission to form this team, provided you keep Detective McCoy informed of your whereabouts and progress.”

“I can manage that.” O’Donlon flashed another of his smiles at Lucy McCoy. “In fact, it’ll be a pleasure.”

“Oh, ack.” Syd didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until Navy Ken glanced at her in surprise.

“And provided,” Zale continued, “you agree to include Ms. Jameson in your team.”

The SEAL laughed. Yes, his teeth were perfect. “No,” he said, “Chief. You don’t understand. A SEAL team is a team of SEALs. Only SEALs. Ms. Jameson will—no offense, ma’am—only get in the way.”

“That’s something you’re just going to have to deal with,” Zale told him a little too happily. He didn’t like the Navy, and he didn’t like Syd. This was his way of getting back at them both. “I’m in charge of this task force. You do it my way, or your men don’t leave the naval base. There are other details to deal with, but Detective McCoy will review them with you.”

Syd’s brain was moving at warp speed. Zale thought he was getting away with something here—by casting her off on to the SEALs. But this was the real story—the one that would be unfolding within the confines of the naval base as well as without. She’d done enough research on the SEAL units over the past forty-odd hours to know that these unconventional spec-warriors would be eager to stop the bad press and find the San Felipe Rapist on their own. She was curious to find out what would happen if the rapist did turn out to be one of them. Would they try to hide it? Would they try to deal with punishment on their own terms?

The story she was going to write could be an in-depth look at one of America’s elite military organizations. And it could well be exactly what she needed to get herself noticed, to get that magazine editor position, back in New York City, that she wanted so desperately.

“I’m sorry.” O’Donlon started an awful lot of his sentences with an apology. “But there’s just no way a police social worker could keep up with—”

“I’m not a social worker,” Syd interrupted.

“Ms. Jameson is one of our chief eyewitnesses,” Zale said. “She’s been face to face with our man.”

O’Donlon faltered. His face actually got pale, and he dropped all friendly, easygoing pretense. And as Syd gazed into his eyes, she got a glimpse of his horror and shock.

“My God,” he whispered. “I didn’t…I’m sorry—I had no idea….”

He was ashamed. And embarrassed. Honestly shaken. “I feel like I should apologize for all men, everywhere.”

Amazing. Navy Ken wasn’t all plastic. He was at least part human. Go figure.

Obviously, he thought she had been one of the rapist’s victims.

“No,” she said quickly. “I mean, thanks, but I’m an eyewitness because my neighbor was attacked. I was coming up the stairs as the man who raped her was coming down. And I’m afraid I didn’t even get that good a look at him.”

“God,” O’Donlon said. “Thank God. When Chief Zale said…I thought…” He drew in a deep breath and let it out forcefully. “I’m sorry. I just can’t imagine…” He recovered quickly, then leaned forward slightly, his face speculative. “So…you’ve actually seen this guy.”

Syd nodded. “Like I said, I didn’t—”

O’Donlon turned to Zale. “And you’re giving her to me?”

Syd laughed in disbelief. “Excuse me, I would appreciate it if you could rephrase that….”

Zale stood up. Meeting over. “Yeah. She’s all yours.”




CHAPTER TWO


“HAVE YOU EVER BEEN HYPNOTIZED?” Lucky glanced over at the woman sitting beside him as he pulled his pickup truck onto the main drag that led to the naval base.

She turned to give him a disbelieving look.

She was good at that look. He wondered if it came naturally or if she’d worked to perfect it, practicing for hours in front of her bathroom mirror. The thought made him smile, which only made her glower even harder.

She was pretty enough—if you went for women who hid every one of their curves beneath androgynous clothes, women who never let themselves smile.

No, he mused, looking at her more closely as he stopped at a red light. He’d once dated a woman who’d never smiled. Jacqui Fontaine. She’d been a beautiful young woman who was so terrified of getting wrinkles she kept her face carefully devoid of all expression. In fact, she’d gotten angry with him for making her laugh. At first he’d thought she was joking, but she’d been serious. She’d asked him back to her apartment after they’d seen a movie, but he’d declined. Sex would have been positively bizarre. It would have been like making love to a mannequin. The thought still made him shudder.

This woman, however, had laugh lines around her eyes. Proof that she did smile. Probably frequently, in fact.

She just had no intention of smi ling at him.

Her hair was thick and dark, curling around her face, unstyled and casual—cut short enough so that she probably could get away with little more than raking her fingers through it after climbing out of bed.

Her eyes were dark brown and impossibly large in a face that could only be called pixielike.

Provided, of course, that pixies had a solid dose of unresolved resentment. She didn’t like him. She hadn’t liked him from the moment he’d walked into the San Felipe police-station conference room.

“Cindy, wasn’t it?” He knew damn well that her name was Sydney. But what kind of woman was named Sydney? If he was going to have to baby-sit the woman who could potentially ID the San Felipe Rapist, why couldn’t she be named Crystal or Mellisande—and dress accordingly?

“No,” she said tightly, in a voice that was deceptively low and husky, unfairly sexy considering she clearly didn’t want anyone looking at her to think even remotely about sex, “it wasn’t. And no, I’ve never been hypnotized.”

“Great,” he said, trying to sound as enthusiastic as possible as he parked in the lot near Frisco’s office. His office now, too, at least temporarily. “Then we’re going to have some fun. A real adventure. Uncharted territory. Boldly going, etcetera.”

Now Sydney was looking at him with something akin to horror in her eyes. “You can’t be serious.”

Lucky took the keys out of the ignition and opened the truck’s door. “Of course not. Not completely. Who’d ever want to be completely serious about anything?” He climbed out and looked back inside at her. “But the part I’m not completely serious about is whether it’s going to be fun. In fact, I suspect it’s going to be pretty low key. Probably dull. Unless while you’re under, I can convince the hypnotist to make you quack like a duck.”

If she were a Crystal or a Mellisande, Lucky would’ve winked at her, but he knew, without a doubt, that winking at Sydney would result in her trying to melt him into unidentifiable goo with her death-ray glare.

Most women liked to be winked at. Most women could be softened up with an appreciative look and a compliment. Most women responded to his “hey, baby” body language and subtle flirting with a little “hey, baby” body language and subtle flirting in return. With most women, he didn’t have to wait long for an invitation to move from subtle flirting to flat-out seduction.

Sydney, however, was not most women.

“Thanks, but I don’t want to be hypnotized,” she told him as she climbed awkwardly down from the cab of his truck. “I’ve read that some people are less susceptible to hypnotism—that they just can’t be hypnotized. I’m pretty sure I’m one of them.”

“How do you know,” Lucky reasoned, “if you’ve never tried?”

His best smile bounced right off her. “It’s a waste of time,” she said sternly.

“Well, I’m afraid I don’t think so.” Lucky tried his apologetic smile as he led the way into the building, but that one didn’t work either. “I guess you’ll have an opportunity to prove me wrong.”

Sydney stood still. “Do you ever not get your way?”

Lucky pretended to think about that for a moment. “No,” he finally said. He smiled. “I always get my way, and I’m never completely serious. You keep that in mind, and we’ll get along just fine.”

SYDNEY STOOD IN THE building’s lobby watching as Lieutenant Luke O’Donlon greeted a lovely, dark-haired, very pregnant woman with a stunner from his vast repertoire of smiles.

“Hey, gorgeous—what are you doing here?” He wrapped his arms around her and planted a kiss full on her lips.

His wife. Had to be.

It was funny, Syd wouldn’t have believed this man capable of marriage. And it still didn’t make sense. He didn’t walk like a married man. He certainly didn’t talk like a married man. Everything about him, from the way he sat as he drove his truck to the way he smiled at anything and everything even remotely female, screamed bachelor. Terminal bachelor.

Yet as Syd watched, he crouched down and pressed his face against the woman’s burgeoning belly. “Hello in there!”

Whoever she was, she was gorgeous. Long, straight, dark hair cascaded down her back. Her delicately featured face held a hint of the Far East. She rolled her beautiful, exotic eyes as she laughed.

“This is why I don’t come out here that often,” she said to Syd over the top of O’Donlon’s head as he pressed his ear to her stomach, listening now. “I’m Mia Francisco, by the way.”

Francisco. The Lieutenant Commander’s wife.

“He’s singing that Shania Twain song,” O’Donlon reported, looking past Syd and grinning. “The one Frisco says never leaves your CD player?”

Syd turned to see a teenaged girl standing behind her—all long legs and skinny arms, surrounded by an amazing cloud of curly red hair.

The girl smiled, but it was decidedly half-hearted. “Ha, ha, Lucky,” she said. “Very funny.”

“We heard about the diving accident,” Mia explained as O’Donlon straightened up. “They weren’t releasing any names, and we couldn’t reach Alan, so Tasha talked me into driving out to make sure Thomas was okay.”

“Thomas?”

“King,” Mia said. “Former student of mine? You remember him, don’t you? He’s going through BUD/S training with this class.”

“Yeah.” O’Donlon snapped his fingers. “Right. Black kid, serious attitude.”

“It wasn’t Thomas,” the red-haired girl—Tasha—informed him. “It was someone else who got hurt.”

“An ensign named Marc Riley. They’ve got him stabilized. He’s in a lot of pain, but it’s not as bad as they first thought.” Mia smiled at Syd again, friendly but curious, taking in her shapeless linen jacket, her baggy khaki pants, her cloddish boots and the mannish blouse she wore buttoned all the way to her neck.

Syd had no doubt that she looked extremely different from the usual sort of women who followed Lieutenant O’Donlon around.

“I’m sorry,” Mia continued. “We didn’t mean to shanghai Lucky this way.”

Lucky. The girl had referred to O’Donlon by that name, too. It was too perfect. Syd tried her best not to smirk.

“It’s not a problem,” she said. “I’m Syd Jameson.”

“We’re working together on a special project,” the man who was actually nicknamed Lucky interjected, as if he were afraid Mia might assume they were together socially. Yeah, as if.

“Is that the same project Lucy McCoy kicked us out of Alan’s office to talk to him about?” Mia asked.

Lucky started to speak, then put his hands over Tasha’s ears and swore. The girl giggled, and he winked at her before looking at Mia. “Lucy’s already here?”

“Tell Alan it’s my fault you’re late.”

“Yeah, great.” Lucky laughed as he waved good-bye, leading Syd down one of the corridors. “I’ll tell him I’m delayed because I stopped to flirt with his wife. That’ll go over just swell.”

Syd had to run to keep up. She had no doubt that whatever excuse O’Donlon gave for being late, he would be instantly forgiven. Grown men didn’t keep nicknames like Lucky well past adolescence for no reason.

Lucky.

Sheesh.

Back in seventh grade, Syd had had a nickname.

Stinky.

She’d forgotten to wear deodorant one day. Just one day, and she was Stinky until the end of the school year.

Speaking of stinky, she’d have dressed differently if she’d known she was going to be running a marathon today. Lieutenant Lucky O’Donlon was well out in front of her and showed no sign of slowing down. How big was this place, anyway?

Not content to wait for an elevator, he led the way into a stairwell and headed up.

Syd was already out of breath, but she pushed herself to keep up, afraid if she let him out of her sight, she’d lose him. She tried to keep her eyes glued to his broad back, but it was hard, particularly since his perfect rear end was directly in her line of sight.

Of course he had a perfect rear end—trim and tiny, about one one-hundredth the size of hers, and a perfect match for his narrow hips. She shouldn’t have expected anything less from a man named Lucky.

She followed his microbutt back out into the hallway and into an empty outer office and…

Syd caught her breath as he knocked on a closed door. The SEAL wasn’t even slightly winded, damn him, and here she was, all but bent over, hands on her knees, puffing and wheezing.

“Smoker?” he asked, almost apologetically. Almost, but not quite. He was just a little too amused to be truly sorry.

“No,” she said. She was more out of shape than she’d realized. She’d always enjoyed running, but this spring and summer she hadn’t quite managed to get started again.

The door opened, and standing in the inner office was a man who could have been a mirror reflection of Lucky. His hair was a slightly different color, and his face was more craggy than pretty, but the widths of the two men’s shoulders were close to exact.

“I have a meeting with Admirals Forrest and Stonegate,” the man said in a way of greeting. “Lucy’s already here. Hear her out, and do whatever you’ve got to do to catch this guy. Preferably before the end of this week.”

He looked from Lucky to Syd. His eyes were different from Lucky’s and not just in color. He seemed capable of looking past the unruly hair that was falling into her own eyes, past the high neck of her shirt, past her near-permanent expression of slightly bored, slightly raised-eyebrow disbelief that she’d adopted after too many years of being given nicknames like Stinky.

Whatever he saw when he looked at her made him smile.

And it wasn’t a condescending smile, or a “wow, you are such a freak” smile, either.

It was warm and welcoming. He held out his hand. “I’m Alan Francisco.” His grip was as pleasantly solid as his smile. “Welcome to Coronado. If there’s anything you need while you’re here, I’m sure Lieutenant O’Donlon will be more than happy to provide it for you.”

And just like that, he was gone. It wasn’t until he was out the far door that Syd realized he’d moved stiffly, leaning heavily on a cane.

With a jolt, she realized she was standing there gazing after Alan Francisco. Lucky had already gone into the lieutenant commander’s office, and she followed, shutting the door behind her.

Surprise, surprise—Lucky had his arms wrapped around Detective McCoy. As Syd watched, he gave her a hello kiss.

“I didn’t get to say hello properly before,” he murmured. “You are looking too good for words, babe.” Keeping his arm looped around her shoulders, he turned to Syd. “Lucy’s husband, Blue, is XO of SEAL Team Ten’s Alpha Squad.”

Lucy’s husband. Syd blinked. Lucy had a husband, who was also a SEAL. And presumably the two men were acquaintances, if not friends. This guy was too much.

“XO means executive officer,” Lucy explained, giving Lucky a quick hug before slipping free from his grasp, reaching up to adjust the long brown hair that had slipped free from her ponytail holder. She really did have remarkably pretty eyes. “Blue’s second in command of Alpha Squad.”

“Blue,” Syd repeated. “His name’s really Blue?”

“It’s a nickname,” Lucy told her with a smile. “SEALs tend to get nicknames when they first go through BUD/S training. Let’s see, we’ve got Cat, Cowboy, Frisco—” she ticked the names off on her fingers “—Blue, Lucky, Harvard, Crow, Fingers, Snakefoot, Wizard, Elmer, the Priest, Doc, Spaceman, Crash…”

“So your husband works here on the Navy base,” Syd clarified.

“Some of the time,” Lucy said. She glanced at Lucky and what that look meant, Syd couldn’t begin to guess. “Alpha Squad went wheels up while we were downtown.”

Syd couldn’t guess the meaning of Lucy’s words, either. “Wheels up?” She was starting to sound like a parrot.

“They’ve shipped out,” Lucky explained. He leaned back casually, half sitting on Lieutenant Commander Francisco’s desk. “The expression refers to a plane’s wheels leaving the ground. Alpha Squad is outta town.”

Again, Lucy and Lucky seemed to be communicating with no words—only a long, meaningful look. Was it possible that this blue-eyed blond god was having an affair with the wife of a superior officer? Anything was possible, but that seemed a little too sordid.

“What you’ve done,” Lucy said quietly, breaking the silence, “is going to mean everything to Ellen. Looking back, you know it’s going to be worth it.”

“I could still be shipped out myself,” he countered. “If something big came up, and I was needed, I wouldn’t even be able to attend my own wedding.”

Syd cleared her throat. She didn’t know what they were talking about, didn’t want to know. She wasn’t interested in Ellen—whoever she was—or what Lucky and Lucy McCoy did behind her husband’s back. She just wanted to help catch the rapist, get her story and be off to New York.

“I’m okay, you know,” Lucky told the detective. “And I’ll be even more okay if you’ll meet me for dinner one of these nights.”

Lucy gave him a quick smile, glancing at Syd, obviously aware that the two of them weren’t alone. “You’ve got my number,” she said. She sat down at the conference table that was over by the window. “Right now, we need to go over some task-force rules, talk about your team.”

Lucky sat at the head of the table. “Great. Let’s start with my rules. You let me form a team of SEALs, you don’t hammer me with a lot of useless rules and hamper me with unqualified people who will only slow us down—” he shot Syd an apologetic version of his smile “—no offense—and then we’ll catch your guy.”

Lucy didn’t blink. “The members of your team have to meet Chief Zale’s approval.”

“Oh, no way!”

“He—and I—believe that since we don’t know who we’re dealing with, and since you have plenty of alternatives for personnel, you should construct your team from SEALs or SEAL candidates who absolutely—no question—do not fit the rapist’s description.”

Syd sat down across from Lucky. “So in other words, no one white, powerfully built, with a crew cut.”

Lucky sputtered. “That eliminates the majority of the men stationed in Coronado.”

Lucy nodded serenely. “That’s right. And the majority of the men are all potential suspects.”

“You honestly think a real SEAL could have raped those women?”

“I think until we know more, we need to be conservative as to whom we allow into our information loop,” she told him. “You’d be a suspect yourself, Luke, but your hair’s too long.”

“Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“The second rule is about weapons,” Lucy continued. “We don’t want you running around town armed to the teeth. And that means knives as well as sidearms.”

“Sure,” he said. “Great. And when we apprehend this guy, we’ll throw spoons at him.”

“You won’t apprehend him,” she countered. “The task force will. Your team’s job is to help locate him. Track him down. Try to think like this son of a bitch and anticipate his next move, so we—the police and FInCOM—can be there, waiting for him.”

“Okay,” Lucky said. He pointed across the table at Sydney. “I’ll follow your rules—if you take her off my hands. After we do the hypnotist thing tomorrow afternoon, all she’s going to do is get in the way.” He looked at Syd. “No offense.”

“Too bad,” she said, “because I am offended.”

Lucky looked at her again. “I don’t know what Zale has against you, but it’s obvious he doesn’t like me. He’s trying to make it close to impossible for my team to operate by assigning me…”

“I’m a reporter,” Syd told him.

“…what amounts to little more than baby-sitting duty and…” His impossibly blue eyes widened. “A reporter.” Now he was the parrot. His eyes narrowed. “Sydney Jameson. S. Jameson. Ah, jeez, you’re not just a reporter, you’re that reporter.” He glared at her. “Where the hell do you get off making us all sound like psychotic killers?”

He was serious. He’d taken offense to the one part of her story the police had actually requested she include. “Cool your jets, Ken,” she told him. “The police wanted me to make it sound as if they actually believed the rapist was a SEAL.”

“It’s entirely likely our man is a SEAL wannabe,” Lucy interjected. “We were hoping the news story would feed his ego, maybe make him careless.”

“Ken?” Lucky asked Syd. “My name’s Luke.”

Oops, had she actually called him that? “Right. Sorry.” Syd gave him the least sorry smile she could manage.

Lucky looked at her hard before he turned to Lucy. “How the hell did a reporter get involved?”

“Her neighbor was attacked. Sydney stayed with the girl—and this was just a girl. She wasn’t more than nineteen years old, Luke. Sydney was there when I arrived, and oddly enough, I didn’t think to inquire as to whether she was with UPI or Associated Press.”

“So what did you do?” Lucky turned back to Syd. “Blackmail your way onto the task force?”

“Damn straight.” Syd lifted her chin. “Seven rapes and not a single word of warning in any of the papers. It was a story that needed to be written—desperately. I figured I’d write it—and I’ll write the exclusive behind-the-scenes story about tracking and catching the rapist, too.”

He shook his head, obviously in disgust, and Syd’s temper flared. “You know, if I were a man,” she snapped, “you’d be impressed by my assertive behavior.”

“So did you actually see this guy, or did you just make that part up?” he asked.

Syd refused to let him see how completely annoyed he made her feel. She forced her voice to sound even, controlled. “He nearly knocked me over coming down the stairs. But like I told the police, the light’s bad in the hallways. I didn’t get a real clear look at him.”

“Is there a chance it was good enough for you to look at a lineup of my men and eliminate them as potential suspects?” he demanded.

Lucy sighed. “Lucky, I don’t—”

“I want Bobby Taylor and Wes Skelly on my team.”

“Bobby’s fine. He’s Native American,” she told Syd. “Long dark hair, about eight feet tall and seven feet wide—definitely not our man. But Wes…”

“Wes shouldn’t be a suspect,” Lucky argued.

“Police investigations don’t work that way,” Lucy argued in response. “Yes, he shouldn’t be a suspect. But Chief Zale wants every individual on your team to be completely, obviously not the man we’re looking for.”

“This is a man who’s put his life on the line for me—for your husband—more times than you want to know. If Sydney could look at Skelly and—”

“I really don’t remember much about the man’s face,” Syd interrupted. “He came flying down the stairs, nearly wiped me out, stopped a few steps down. I’m not even sure he turned all the way around. He apologized, and was gone.”

Lucky leaned forward. “He spoke to you?”

God, he was good-looking. Syd forced away the little flutter she felt in her stomach every time he gazed at her. She really was pathetic. She didn’t like this man. In fact, she was well on her way to disliking him intensely, and yet simply looking into his eyes was enough to make her knees grow weak.

Obviously, it had been way too long since she’d last had sex. Not that her situation was likely to change any time in the near future.

“What did he say?” Lucky asked. “His exact words?”

Syd shrugged, hating to tell him what the man had said, but knowing he wouldn’t let up until she did.

Just do it. She took a deep breath. “He said, ‘Sorry, bud.’”

“Sorry…bud?”

Syd felt her face flush. “Like I said. The light was bad in there. He must’ve thought I was, you know, a man.”

Lucky O’Donlon didn’t say anything aloud, but as he sat back in his seat, the expression on his face spoke volumes. His gaze traveled over her, taking in her unfeminine clothes, her lack of makeup. An understandable mistake for any man to make, he telegraphed with his eyes.

He finally looked over at Lucy. “The fact remains that I can’t possibly work with a reporter following me around.”

“Neither can I,” she countered.

“I’ve worked for years as an investigative reporter,” Syd told them both. “Hasn’t it occurred to either one of you that I might actually be able to help?”




CHAPTER THREE


THIS SHOULDN’T BE TOO HARD.

Lucky was a people person—charming, charismatic, likeable. He knew that about himself. It was one of his strengths.

He could go damn near anywhere and be best friends with damn near anyone within a matter of hours.

And that was what he had to do right here, right now with Sydney Jameson. He had to become her best friend and thus win the power to manipulate her neatly to the sidelines. Come on, Syd, help out your old pal Lucky by staying out of the way.

His soon-to-be-old-pal Syd sat in stony silence beside him in his pickup truck, arms folded tightly across her chest, as he drove her back to her car which was parked in the police-station lot.

Step one. Get a friendly conversation going. Find some common ground. Family. Most people could relate to family.

“So my kid sister’s getting married in a few weeks.” Lucky shot Syd a friendly smile as well, but he would’ve gotten a bigger change of expression from the Lincoln head at Mount Rushmore. “It’s kind of hard to believe. You know, it feels like she just turned twelve. But she’s twenty-two, and in most states that’s old enough for her to do what she wants.”

“In every state it’s old enough,” Syd said. What do you know? She was actually listening. At least partly.

“Yeah,” Lucky said. “I know. That was a joke.”

“Oh,” she said and looked back out the window.

O-kay.

Lucky kept on talking, filling the cab of the truck with friendly noise. “I went into San Diego to see her, intending to tell her no way. I was planning at least to talk her into waiting a year, and you know what she tells me? I bet you can’t guess in a million years.”

“Oh, I bet I can’t either,” Syd said. Her words had a faintly hostile ring, but at least she was talking to him.

“She said, we can’t wait a year.” Lucky laughed. “And I’m thinking murder, right? I’m thinking where’s my gun, I’m going to at the very least scare the hell out of this guy for getting my kid sister pregnant, and then Ellen tells me that if they wait a year, this guy Greg’s sperm will expire.”

He had Syd’s full attention now.

“Apparently, Greg had leukemia as a teenager, years and years ago. And before he started the treatment that would save him but pretty much sterilize him, he made a few deposits in a sperm bank. The technology’s much better now and frozen sperm has a longer, um, shelf life, so to speak, but Ellen’s chances of having a baby with the sperm that Greg banked back when he was fifteen is already dropping.”

Lucky glanced at Syd, and she looked away. Come on, he silently implored her. Play nice. Be friends. I’m a nice guy.

“Ellen really loves this guy,” he continued, “and you should see the way he looks at her. He’s too old for her by about seventeen years, but it’s so damn obvious that he loves her. So how could I do anything but wish them luck and happiness?”

Syd actually graced him with a glance. “How are your parents taking this?”

Lucky shook his head, glad at the perfect opportunity to segue into poor-little-orphaned-me. This always won him sympathy points when talking to a woman. “No parents. Just me and Ellen. Mom had a heart attack years ago. You know, you really don’t hear much about it, but women are at just as much risk for heart disease as men and—” He cut himself off. “Sorry—I’ve kind of turned into a walking public service announcement about the topic. I mean, she was so young, and then she was so gone.”

“I’m sorry,” Syd murmured.

“Thanks. It was roughest on Ellen, though,” he continued. “She was still just a kid. Her dad died when she was really young. We had different fathers and I’m not really sure what happened to mine. I think he might’ve become a Tibetan monk and taken a vow of silence to protest Jefferson Airplane’s breakup.” He flashed her a smile. “Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. With a name like Lucky, I should have rich parents living in Bel Air. I actually went to Bel Air a few years ago and tried to talk this old couple into adopting me, but no go.”

Syd actually smiled at that one. Bingo. He knew she was hiding a sense of humor in there somewhere.

“Now that you know far too much about me,” he said, “it’s your turn. You’re from New York, right?”

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “How did you know that? I don’t have an accent.”

“But you don’t need an accent when you come from New York,” Lucky said with a grin. “The fact that you do everything in hyperspeed gives you away. Those of us from southern California can spot a New Yorker a mile away. It’s a survival instinct. If we can’t learn to ID you, we can’t know to take cover or brace for impact when you make the scene.”

Sydney might’ve actually laughed at that. But he wasn’t sure. Her smile had widened though, and he’d been dead right about it. It was a good one. It lit her up completely, and made her extremely attractive—at least in a small, dark, non-blond-beauty-queen sort of way.

And as Lucky smiled back into Sydney’s eyes, the answer to all his problems became crystal clear.

Boyfriend.

It was highly likely that he could get further faster if he managed to become Sydney Jameson’s boyfriend. Sex could be quite a powerful weapon. And he knew she was attracted to him, despite her attempts to hide it. He’d caught her checking him out more than once when she thought he wasn’t paying attention.

This was definitely an option that was entirely appealing on more than one level. He didn’t have to think twice.

“Do you have plans for tonight?” he asked, slipping smoothly out of best-friend mode and into low-scale, friendly seduction. The difference was subtle, but there was a difference. “Because I don’t have any plans for tonight and I’m starving. What do you say we go grab some dinner? I know this great seafood place right on the water in San Felipe. You can tell me about growing up in New York over grilled swordfish.”

“Oh,” she said, “I don’t think—”

“Do you have other plans?”

“No,” she said, “but—”

“This is perfect,” he bulldozed cheerfully right over her. “If we’re going to work together, we need to get to know each other better. Much better. I just need to stop at home and pick up my wallet. Can you believe I’ve been walking around all day without any cash?”

Hoo-yah, this was perfect. They were literally four blocks from his house. And what better location to initiate a friendly, low-key seduction than home sweet home?

Syd had to hold on with both hands as Lucky quickly cut across two lanes of traffic to make a right turn into a side street.

“Don’t you live on the base?” she asked.

“Nope. Officer’s privilege. This won’t take long, I promise. We’re right in my neighborhood.”

Now, that was a surprise. This neighborhood consisted of modestly sized, impeccably kept little houses with neat little yards. Syd hadn’t given much thought to the lieutenant’s living quarters, but if she had, she wouldn’t have imagined this.

Sure enough, he pulled into the driveway of a cheery little yellow adobe house. A neatly covered motorcycle was parked at the back of an attached carport. Flowers grew in window boxes. The grass had been recently, pristinely mowed.

“Why don’t you come in for a second?” Lucky asked. “I’ve got some lemonade in the fridge.”

Of course he did. A house like this had to have lemonade in the refrigerator. Bemused and curious, Syd climbed down from the cab of his shiny red truck.

It was entirely possible that once inside she would be in the land of leather upholstery and art deco and waterbeds and all the things she associated with a glaringly obvious bachelor pad. And instead of lemonade, he’d find—surprise, surprise—a bottle of expensive wine in the back of the refrigerator.

Syd mentally rolled her eyes at herself. Yeah, right. As if this guy would even consider her a good candidate for seduction. That wasn’t going to happen. Not in a million years. Who did she think she was, anyway? Barbie to his Ken? Not even close. She wouldn’t even qualify for Skipper’s weird cousin.

Lucky held the door for her, smiling. It was a self-confident smile, a warm smile…an interested smile?

No, she had to be imagining that.

But she didn’t have time for a double take, because, again, his living room completely surprised her. The furniture was neat but definitely aging. Nothing matched, some of the upholstery was positively flowery. There was nothing even remotely art deco in the entire room. It was homey and warm and just plain comfortable.

And instead of Ansel Adams prints on the wall, there were family photographs. Lucky as a flaxen-haired child, holding a chubby toddler as dark as he was fair. Lucky with a laughing blonde who had to be his mother. Lucky as an already too-handsome thirteen-year-old, caught in the warm, wrestling embrace of a swarthy, dark-haired man.

“Hey, you know, I’ve got an open bottle of white wine,” Lucky called from the kitchen, “if you’d like a glass of that instead of lemonade…?”

What? Syd wasn’t aware she had spoken aloud until he repeated himself, dangling both the bottle in question and an extremely friendly smile from the kitchen doorway.

The interest in his smile was not her imagination. Nor was the warmth in his eyes.

God, Navy Ken was an outrageously handsome man. And when he looked at her like that, it was very, very hard to look away.

He must’ve seen the effect he had on her in her eyes. Or maybe it was the fact that she was drooling that gave her away. Because the heat in his eyes went up a notch.

“I’ve got a couple of steaks in the freezer,” he said, his rich baritone wrapping as enticingly around her as the slightly pink late-afternoon light coming in through the front blinds. “I could light the grill out back and we could have dinner here. It would be nice not to have to fight the traffic and the crowds.”

“Um,” Syd said. She hadn’t even agreed to go to dinner with him.

“Let’s do it. I’ll grab a couple of glasses, we can sit on the deck,” he decided.

He vanished back into the kitchen, as if her declining his rather presumptuous invitation was an impossibility.

Syd shook her head in disbelief. This was too much. She had absolutely no doubt about it now. Lieutenant Lucky O’Donlon was hitting on her.

His motive was frightfully obvious. He was attempting to win her over. He was trying to make her an ally instead of an adversary in this task-force-coupling from hell. And, in typical alpha male fashion, he’d come to the conclusion that the best way to win her support involved full-naked-body contact. Or at least the promise of it.

Sheesh.

Syd followed him into the kitchen, intending to set him straight. “Look, Lieutenant—”

He handed her a delicate tulip-shaped glass of wine. “Please, call me Lucky.” He lifted his own glass, touching it gently to hers, as he shot her a smile loaded with meaning. “And right now I am feeling particularly lucky.”

Syd laughed. Oh, dear God. And instead of telling him flat out that she had to go and she had to go now, she kept her mouth shut. She didn’t have any plans for tonight, and—God help her—she wanted to see just how far this clown was willing to go.

He continued to gaze at her as he took a sip of his wine.

His eyes were a shade of blue she’d never seen before. It was impossible to gaze back at him and not get just a little bit lost. But that was okay, she decided, as long as she realized that this was a game, as long as she was playing, too, and not merely being played.

He set his wineglass down on the counter. “I’ve got to change out of my Good Humor man costume. Excuse me for a minute, will you? Dress whites and grilling dinner aren’t a good mix. Go on out to the deck—I’ll be there in a flash.”

He was so confident. He walked out of the kitchen without looking back, assuming she’d obediently do as he commanded.

Syd took a sip of the wine as she leaned back against the counter. It was shockingly delicious. Didn’t it figure?

She could hear Lucky sing a few bars of something that sounded suspiciously like an old Beach Boys tune. Didn’t that figure also? We’ll have fun, fun, fun indeed.

He stopped singing as he pushed the button on his answering machine. There were two calls from a breathy-voiced woman named Heather, a third from an equally vapid-sounding Vareena, a brief “call me at home,” from an unidentified man, and then a cheerful female voice.

“Hi, Luke, it’s Lucy McCoy. I just spoke to Alan Francisco, and he told me about Admiral Stonegate’s little bomb. I honestly don’t think this is going to be a problem for you—I’ve met the candidates he’s targeted and they’re good men. Anyway, the reason I’m calling is I’ve found out a few more details about this case that I think you should know, and it’s occurred to me that it might be a good idea for the grown-ups—assuming Bobby’s part of your team—to meet tonight. I’m on duty until late, so why don’t we say eleven o’clock—2300 hours—at Skippy’s Harborside? Leave a message on my machine if this works for you. Later, dude.”

There was one more call—the pool cleaner wanted to reschedule her visit for later in the week—but then the answering machine gave a final-sounding beep. There was silence for a moment, and then Syd heard Lucky’s lowered voice.

“Hey, Luce. S’me. 2300 sounds peachy keen. I haven’t talked to Frisco yet—did you actually use the word candidates? Why do I hate this already, before I even know what the hell’s going on?” He swore softly and laughed. “I guess I just have a good imagination. See you at Skip’s.”

He hung up the phone without making any noise, then whistled his way into the bathroom.

Syd quietly opened the screen door and tiptoed onto the deck. She stood there, leaning against the railing, looking down into the crystal blueness of his swimming pool and the brilliantly lush flower gardens as he made his grand entrance.

He had changed, indeed. The crisp uniform had been replaced by a pair of baggy cargo shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, worn open to reveal the hard planes of his muscular, tanned chest. Navy Ken had magically become Malibu Ken. He’d run his fingers through his hair, loosening the gel that had glued it down into some semblance of a conservative military style. It now tumbled over his forehead and into his eyes, waving tendrils of sun-bleached gold, some of it long enough to tickle his nose. His feet were bare and even his toes were beautiful. All he needed was a surfboard and twenty-four hours’ worth of stubble on his chin, and he’d be ready for the Hunks of the Pacific calendar photo shoot.

And he knew it, too.

Syd took little sips of her wine as Lucky gave a running discourse on his decision four years ago to build this deck, the hummingbird feeders he’d put in the garden, and the fact that they’d had far too little rain this year.

As he lit the grill, he oh-so-casually pointed out that the fence around the backyard made his swimming pool completely private from the eyes of his neighbors, and how—wink, wink—that helped him maintain his all-over tan.

Syd was willing to bet it wouldn’t take much to get him to drop his pants and show off the tan in question. Lord, this guy was too much.

And she had absolutely no intention of skinny dipping with him. Not now, not ever, thanks.

“Have you tried it recently?” he asked.

Syd blinked at him, trying to remember his last conversational bounce. Massage. He’d just mentioned some really terrific massage therapy he’d had a few months ago, after a particularly strenuous SEAL mission. She wasn’t sure exactly what he’d just asked, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t wait for her to answer.

“Here, let me show you.” He set his glass on the railing of the deck and turned her so that she was facing away from him.

It didn’t occur to him that she might not want him to touch her. His grip was firm, his hands warm through the thin cotton of her shirt and jacket as he massaged her shoulders. He touched her firmly at first, then harder, applying pressure with his thumbs.

“Man, you’re tense.” His hands moved up her neck, to the back of her head, his fingers against her skin, in her hair.

Oh. My. God.

Whatever he was doing felt impossibly good. Fabulously good. Sinfully good. Syd closed her eyes.

“It’s been a stressful few days, hasn’t it?” he murmured, his mouth dangerously close to her ear. “I’m glad we’ve got this chance to, you know, start over. Get to know each other. I’m…looking forward to…being friends.”

God, he was good. She almost believed him.

His hands kept working their magic, and Syd waited to see what he’d do or say next, hoping he’d take his time before he crossed the line of propriety, yet knowing that it wasn’t going to be long.

He seemed to be waiting for some sort of response from her, so she made a vague noise of agreement that came out sounding far too much like a moan of intense pleasure as he touched a muscle in her shoulders that no doubt had been tightly, tensely flexed for the past fifteen years, at least.

“Oh, yeah,” he breathed into her ear. “You know, I feel it, too. It’s crazy, isn’t it? We hardly know each other and yet…” In one smooth move he turned her to face him. “I’m telling you, Sydney, I’ve been dying to do this from the moment we first met.”

It was amazing. It was like something out of a movie. Syd didn’t have time to step back, to move away. His neon-blue gaze dropped to her mouth, flashed back to her eyes, and then, whammo.

He was kissing her.

Syd had read in her massive research on Navy SEALs that each member of a team had individual strengths and skills. Each member was a specialist in a variety of fields. And Lieutenant Lucky O’Donlon, aka Navy Ken, was clearly a specialist when it came to kissing.

She meant to pull away nanoseconds after his lips touched hers. She meant to step back and freeze him with a single, disbelieving, uncomprehending look.

Instead, she melted completely in his arms. The bones in her body completely turned to mush.

He tasted like the wine, sweet and strong. He smelled like sunblock and fresh ocean air. He felt so solid beneath her hands—all those muscles underneath the silk of his shirt, shoulders wider than she’d ever imagined. He was all power, all male.

And she lost her mind. There was no other explanation. Insanity temporarily took a tight hold. Because she kissed him back. Fiercely, yes. Possessively, absolutely. Ravenously, no doubt about it. She didn’t just kiss him, she inhaled the man.

She slanted her head to give him better access to her mouth as he pulled her more tightly against him.

It was crazy. It was impossibly exciting—he was undeniably even more delicious than that excellent wine. His hands skimmed her back, cupping the curve of her rear end, pressing her against his arousal and—

And sanity returned with a crash. Syd pulled back, breathing hard, furious with him, even more furious with herself.

This man was willing to take her to bed, to be physically intimate with her—all simply to control her. Sex meant so little to him that he could cheerfully use himself as a means to an end.

And as for herself—her body had betrayed her, damn it. She’d been hiding it, denying it, but the awful truth was, this man was hot. She’d never been up close to a man as completely sexy and breathtakingly handsome as Lucky O’Donlon. He was physical perfection, pure dazzling masculine beauty. His looks were movie-star quality, his body a work of art, his eyes a completely new and unique shade of blue.

No, he wasn’t just hot, he was white-hot. Unfortunately, he was also insensitive, narrow-minded, egocentric and conniving. Sydney didn’t like him—a fact she conveniently seemed to have forgotten when he kissed her.

The hunger in his perfect eyes was nearly mesmerizing as he reached for her again.

“Thanks but no thanks,” she managed to spit out as she sidestepped him. “And while I’m at it, I’ll pass on dinner, too.”

He was completely thrown. If she’d felt much like being amused, she could have had a good laugh at the expression on his face as he struggled to regroup. “But—”

“Look, Ken, I’m not an idiot. I know damn well what this is about. You figure you can keep me happy by throwing me a sexual bone—no pun intended. And yes, your kisses are quite masterful, but just the same—no thanks.”

He tried to feign innocence and then indignation. “You think that…? Wait, no, I would never try to—”

“What?” she interrupted. “I’m supposed to believe that crap about ‘isn’t it crazy? This attraction—you feel it, too?’” She laughed in disbelief. “Sorry, I don’t buy it, pal. Guys like you hit on women like me for only two reasons. It’s either because you want something—”

“I’m telling you right now that you’re wrong—”

“Or you’re desperate.”

“Whoa.” It was his turn to laugh. “You don’t think very highly of yourself, do you?”

“Look me in the eye,” she said tightly, “and tell me honestly that your last girlfriend wasn’t blond, five-foot-ten and built like a supermodel. Look me in the eye and tell me you’ve always had a thing for flat-chested women with big hips.” Syd didn’t let him answer. She went back into the house, raising her voice so he could hear her. “I’ll catch a cab back to the police-station parking lot.”

She heard him turn off the grill, but then he followed her. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll give you a ride to your car.”

Syd pushed her way out the front door. “Do you think you can manage to do that without embarrassing us both again?”

He locked it behind him. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you or offended you or—”

“You did both, Lieutenant. How about we just not say anything else right now, all right?”

He stiffly opened the passenger-side door to his truck and stood aside so that she could get in. He was dying to speak, and Syd gave him about four seconds before he gave in to the urge to keep the conversation going.

“I happen to find you very attractive,” Luke said as he climbed behind the wheel.

Two and a half seconds. She knew he’d give in. She should have pointedly ignored him, but she, too, couldn’t keep herself from countering.

“Yeah,” she said. “Right. Next you’ll tell me it’s my delicate and ladylike disposition that turns you on.”

“You have no idea what’s going on in my head.” He started his truck with a roar. “Maybe it is.”

Syd uttered a very non-ladylike word.

The lieutenant glanced at her several times, and cranked the air-conditioning up a notch as Syd sat and stewed. God, the next few weeks were going to be dreadful. Even if he didn’t hit on her again, she was going to have to live with the memory of that kiss.

That amazing kiss.

Her knees still felt a little weak.

He pulled into the police-station parking lot a little too fast and the truck bounced. But he remembered which car was hers and pulled up behind it, his tires skidding slightly in the gravel as he came to a too-swift stop.

Syd turned and looked at him.

He stared straight ahead. It was probably the first time he’d ever been turned down, and he was embarrassed. She could see a faint tinge of pink on his cheeks.

She almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

After she didn’t move for several seconds, he turned and looked at her. “This is your car, right?”

She nodded, traces of feeling sorry turning into hot anger. “Well?”

“Well, what?” He laughed ruefully. “Something tells me you’re not waiting for a good-night kiss.”

He wasn’t going to tell her. He’d had no intention of telling her, the son of a bitch.

Syd glared at him.

“What?” he said again. “Jeez, what did I do now?”

“Eleven o’clock,” she reminded him as sweetly as she could manage. “Skippy’s Harborside?”

Guilt and something else flickered in his eyes. Disappointment that she’d found out, no doubt. Certainly not remorse for keeping the meeting a secret. He swore softly.

“Don’t make me go over your head, Lieutenant,” Syd warned him. “I’m part of your team, part of this task force.”

He shook his head. “That doesn’t mean you need to participate in every meeting.”

“Yes, it does.”

He laughed. “Lucy McCoy and I are friends. This meeting is just an excuse to—”

“Exchange information about the case,” she finished for him. “I heard her phone message. I would have thought it was just a lovers’ tryst myself, but she mentioned what’s-his-name, Bobby, would be there.”

“Lovers’ tryst…?” He actually looked affronted. “If you’re implying that there’s something improper between Lucy and me—”

Syd rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on. It’s a little obvious there’s something going on. I wonder if she knows what you were trying to do with me. I suppose she couldn’t complain because she’s married to—”

“How dare you?”

“Your…what did you call it? XO? She’s married to your XO.”

“Lucy and I are friends.” His face was a thundercloud—his self-righteous outrage wasn’t an act. “She loves her husband. And Blue…he’s…he’s the best.”

His anger had faded, replaced by something quiet, something distant. “I’d follow Blue McCoy into hell if he asked me to,” Luke said softly. “I’d never dishonor him by fooling around with his wife. Never.”

“I’m sorry,” Syd told him. “I guess…You just…You told me you never take anything too seriously, so I thought—”

“Yeah, well, you were wrong.” He stared out the front windshield, holding tightly to the steering wheel with both hands. “Imagine that.”

Syd nodded. And then she dug through her purse, coming up with a small spiral notebook and a pen. She flipped to a blank page and wrote down the date.

Luke glanced at her, frowning slightly. “What…?”

“I’m so rarely wrong,” she told him. “When I am, it’s worth taking note of.”

She carefully kept her face expressionless as he studied her for several long moments.

Then he laughed slightly, curling one corner of his mouth up into an almost-smile. “You’re making a joke.”

“No,” she said. “I’m not.” But she smiled and gave herself away. She climbed out of the truck. “See you tonight.”

“No,” he said.

“Yes.” She closed the door and dug in her purse for her car keys.

He leaned across the cab to roll down the passenger-side window. “No,” he said. “Really. Syd, I need to be able to talk to Lucy and Bob without—”

“Eleven o’clock,” she said. “Skippy’s. I’ll be there.”

As she got into her car and drove away, she glanced back and saw Luke’s face through the windshield.

No, this meeting wasn’t going to happen at Skippy’s at eleven. But the time couldn’t be changed—Lucy McCoy had said she was on duty until late.

But if she were Navy Ken, she’d call Lucy and Bobby what’s-his-name and move the location—leaving Syd alone and fuming at Skipper’s Harborside at eleven o’clock.

Bobby what’s-his-name.

Syd pulled up to a red light and flipped through her notebook, looking for the man’s full name. Chief Robert Taylor. Yes. Bobby Taylor. Described as an enormous SEAL, at least part Native American. She hadn’t yet met the man, but maybe that was a good thing.

Yeah, this could definitely work.




CHAPTER FOUR


LUCKY HADN’T REALLY EXPECTED to win, so he wasn’t surprised when he followed Heather into La Cantina and saw Sydney already sitting at one of the little tables with Lucy McCoy.

He’d more than half expected the reporter to second-guess his decision to change the meeting’s location and track them down, and she hadn’t disappointed him. That was part of the reason he’d called Heather for dinner and then dragged her here, to this just-short-of-seedy San Felipe bar.

Syd had accused him of being desperate as she’d completely and brutally rejected his advances. The fact that she was right—that he had had a motive when he lowered his mouth to kiss her—only somehow served to make it all that much worse.

Even though he knew it was foolish, he wanted to make sure she knew just how completely non-desperate he was, and how little her rejection had mattered to him, by casually showing up with a drop-dead gorgeous, blond beauty queen on his arm.

He also wanted to make sure there was no doubt left lingering in her nosy reporter’s brain that there was something going on between him and Blue McCoy’s wife.

Just the thought of such a betrayal made him feel ill.

Of course, maybe it was Heather’s constant, mindless prattle that was making the tuna steak he’d had for dinner do a queasy somersault in his stomach.

Still he got a brief moment of satisfaction as Syd turned and saw him. As she saw Heather.

For a fraction of a second, her eyes widened. He was glad he’d been watching her, because she quickly covered her surprise with that slightly bored, single-raised-eyebrow half-smirk she had down pat.

The smirk had stretched into a bonafide half smile of lofty amusement by the time Lucky and Heather reached their table.

Lucy’s smile was far more genuine. “Right on time.”

“You’re early,” he countered. He met Syd’s gaze. “And you’re here.”

“I got off work thirty minutes early,” Lucy told him. “I tried calling you, but I guess you’d already left.”

Syd silently stirred the ice in her drink with a straw. She was wearing the same baggy pants she’d had on that afternoon, but she’d exchanged the man-size, long-sleeved, button-down shirt for a plain white T-shirt, her single concession to the relentless heat. She hadn’t put on any makeup for the occasion, and her short dark hair looked as if she’d done little more than run her fingers through it.

She looked tired. And nineteen times more real and warm than perfect, plastic Heather.

As Lucky watched, Syd lifted her drink and took a sip through the straw. With lips like that, she didn’t need makeup. They were moist and soft and warm and perfect. He knew that firsthand after kissing her.

That one kiss they’d shared had been far more real and meaningful than Lucky’s entire six month off-and-on, whenever-he-was-in-town, non-relationship with Heather. And yet, after kissing him as if the world were coming to an end, Syd had pushed him away.

“Heather and I had dinner at Smokey Joe’s,” Lucky told them. “Heather Seeley, this is Lucy McCoy and Sydney Jameson.”

But Heather was already looking away, her MTV-length attention span caught by the mirrors on the wall and her distant but gorgeous reflection…

Syd finally spoke. “Gee, I had no idea we could bring a date to a task-force meeting.”

“Heather’s got some phone calls to make,” Lucky explained. “I figured this wasn’t going to take too long, and after…” He shrugged.

After, he could return to his evening with Heather, bring her home, go for a swim in the moonlight, lose himself in her perfect body. “You don’t mind giving us some privacy, right, babe?” He pulled Heather close and brushed her silicone-enhanced lips with his. Her perfect, plastic body…

Sydney sharply looked away from them, suddenly completely absorbed by the circles of moisture her glass had made on the table.

And Lucky felt stupid. As Heather headed for the bar, already dialing her cell phone, he sat down next to Lucy and across from Syd and felt like a complete jackass.

He’d brought Heather here tonight to show Syd…what? That he was a jackass? Mission accomplished.

Okay, yes, he had taken Syd into his arms on his deck earlier this evening in an effort to win her alliance. But somehow, some way, in the middle of that giddy, free-fall-inducing kiss, his strictly business motives had changed. He thought it had probably happened when her mouth had opened so warmly and willingly beneath his. Or it might’ve been before that. It might’ve been the very instant his lips touched hers.

Whenever it had happened, all at once it had become very, very clear to him that he kept on kissing her purely because he wanted to.

Desperately.

Yes, there was that word again. As he ordered a beer from the bored cocktail waitress, as he pointed out Heather and told the waitress to get her whatever she wanted—on him—he tried desperately not to sound as if he were reeling from his own ego-induced stupidity in bringing Heather here. He knew Syd was listening. She was still pretending to be enthralled with the condensation on the table, but she was listening, so he referred to Heather as “that gorgeous blonde by the bar, with the body to die for.”

Message sent: I don’t need you to want to kiss me ever again.

Except he was lying. He needed. Maybe not quite desperately, but it was getting pretty damn close. Jeez, this entire situation was growing stupider and stupider with every breath he took.

Syd was so completely not Lucky’s type. And he was forced to work with her to boot, although he was still working on ways to shake her permanently after tomorrow’s session with the hypnotist.

She was opinionated, aggressive, impatient and far too intelligent—a know-it-all who made damn sure the rest of the world knew that she knew it all, too.

If she tried, even just a little bit, she’d be pretty. In a very less-endowed-than-most-women way.

Truth was, if life were a wet T-shirt contest and Heather and Syd were the contestants, Heather would win, hands down. Standing side by side, Syd would be rendered invisible, outshone by Heather’s golden glory. Standing side by side, there should have been no contest.

Except, one of the two women made Lucky feel completely alive. And it wasn’t Heather.

“Hey, Lucy. Lieutenant.” U.S. Navy SEAL Chief Bobby Taylor smiled at Sydney as he slipped into the fourth seat at the table. “You must be Sydney. Were my directions okay?” he asked her.

Syd nodded. She looked up at Lucky almost challengingly. “I wasn’t sure exactly where the bar was,” she told him, “so I called Chief Taylor and asked for directions.”

So that’s how she found him. Well, wasn’t she proud of herself? Lucky made a mental note to beat Bobby to death later.

“Call me Bob. Please.” The enormous SEAL smiled at Syd again, and she smiled happily back at him, ignoring Lucky completely.

“No nickname?” she teased. “Like Hawk or Cyclops or Panther?”

And Lucky felt it. Jealousy. Stabbing and hot, like a lightning bolt to his already churning stomach. My God. Was it possible Sydney Jameson found Bob Taylor attractive? More attractive than she found Lucky?

Bobby laughed. “Just Bobby. Some guys during BUD/S tried to call me Tonto, which I objected to somewhat…forcefully.” He flexed his fists meaningfully.

Bobby was a good-looking man despite the fact that his nose had been broken four or five too many times. He was darkly handsome, with high cheekbones, craggy features, and deep-brown eyes that broadcast his mother’s Native American heritage. He had a quiet calmness to him, a Zen-like quality that was very attractive.

And then there was his size. Massive was the word for the man. Some women really went for that. Of course, if Bobby wasn’t careful to keep up his PT and his diet, he’d quickly run to fat.

“I considered Tonto politically incorrect,” Bobby said mildly. “So I made sure the name didn’t stick.”

Bobby’s fists were the size of canned hams. No doubt he’d been extremely persuasive in his objections.

“These days the Lieutenant here is fond of calling me Stimpy,” Bob continued, “which is the name of a really stupid cartoon cat.” He looked down at his hands and flexed his hot-dog-sized fingers again. “I’ve yet to object, but it’s getting old.”

“No,” Lucky said. “It’s because Wes—” he turned to Syd. “Bobby’s swim buddy is this little wiry guy named Wes Skelly, and visually, well, Ren and Stimpy just seems to fit. It’s that really nasty cartoon that—”

“Wes isn’t little,” Lucy interrupted. “He’s as tall as Blue, you know.”

“Yeah, but next to Gigantor here—”

“I like Gigantor,” Bobby decided.

Syd was laughing, and Lucky knew from the way the chief was smiling at her that he was completely charmed, too. Maybe that was the way to win Syd’s alliance. Maybe she could be Bobby’s girlfriend.

The thought was not a pleasant one, and he dismissed it out of hand. Charming women was his strength, damn it, and he was going to charm Sydney Jameson if it was the last thing he did.

Lucy got down to business. “You talk to Frisco?” she asked him.

Lucky nodded grimly. “I did. Do you think it’s possible Stonegate doesn’t really want us to apprehend the rapist?”

“Why? What happened?” Syd demanded.

“Lieutenant Commander Francisco got called in to meet with Admiral Stonegate,” Lucy explained. “Ron Stonegate’s not exactly a big fan of the SEAL teams.”

“What’d Stonehead do this time?” Bobby asked.

“Easy on the insults,” Lucky murmured. He glanced at Syd, wishing she weren’t a reporter, knowing that anything they said could conceivably end up in a news story. “We’ve been ordered by the…admiral to use this assignment as a special training operation,” he said, choosing his words carefully, leaving out all the expletives and less-than-flattering adjectives he would have used had she not been there, “for a trio of SEAL candidates who are just about to finish up their second phase of BUD/S.”

“King, Lee and Rosetti,” Bobby said, nodding his approval.

Lucky nodded. Bobby had been working as an instructor with this particular group of candidates right from the start of phase one. He wasn’t surprised the chief should know the men in question.

“Tell me about them,” Lucky commanded. He’d made a quick stop at the base and had pulled the three candidates’ files after he’d talked to Frisco and before he’d picked up Heather. But you could only tell so much about a man from words on a piece of paper. He wanted to hear Bobby’s opinion.

“They were all part of the same boat team during phase one,” Bobby told him. “Mike Lee’s the oldest and a lieutenant, Junior Grade, and he was buddied up with Ensign Thomas King—a local kid, much younger. African American. Both have IQs that are off the chart, and both have enough smarts to recognize each other’s strengths and weaknesses. It was a good match. Petty Officer Rio Rosetti, on the other hand, is barely twenty-one, barely graduated from high school, struggles to spell his own name, but he can build anything out of nothing. He’s magic. He was out in a skiff and the propeller snagged a line and one of the blades snapped. He took it apart, built a new propeller out of the junk that was on board. They couldn’t move fast, but they could move. It was impressive.

“Rosetti’s swim buddy bailed during the second day of Hell Week,” Bobby continued, “and Lee and King took him in. He returned the favor a few days later, when Lee started hallucinating. He was seeing evil spirits and not taking it well, and King and Rosetti took turns sitting on him. The three of them have been tight ever since. King and Lee spend nearly all their off time tutoring Rosetti. With their help, he’s managed to stay with the classroom program.” He paused. “They’re good men, Lieutenant.”

It was good to hear that.

Still. “Turning a mission this serious into a training op makes about as much sense as sticking the team with Lois Lane, here,” Lucky said.

“Twelve hours, seventeen minutes,” Syd said. “Hah.”

He blinked at her, temporarily distracted. “Hah? What hah?”

“I knew when you found out that I was a reporter it was only a matter of time before you used the old Lois Lane cliché,” she told him. Her attitude wasn’t quite smug, but it was a touch too gleeful to be merely matter-of-fact. “I figured twenty-four, but you managed in nearly half the time. Congratulations, Lieutenant.”

“Lois Lane,” Bobby mused. “Shoot, it’s almost as bad as Tonto.”

“It’s not very original,” even Lucy agreed.

“Can we talk about this case please?” Lucky said desperately.

“Absolutely,” Lucy said. “Here’s my late-breaking news. Four more women have come forward since Sydney’s article appeared in the paper this morning. Four.” She shook her head in frustration. “I don’t know why some women don’t report sexual assault when it happens.”

“Is it our guy?” Syd asked. “Same MO?”

“Three of the women were branded with the budweiser. Those three attacks took place within the past four weeks. The fourth was earlier. I’m certain the same perp was responsible for all four attacks,” Lucy told them. “And frankly, it’s a little alarming that the severity of the beatings he gives his victims seems to be increasing.”

“Any pattern among the victims as to location, physical appearance, anything?” Lucky asked.

“If there is, we can’t find anything other than that the victims are all females between the ages of eighteen and forty-three, and the attacks all took place in either San Felipe or Coronado,” the detective replied. “I’ll get you the complete files first thing in the morning. You might as well try searching for a pattern, too. I don’t think you’re going to find one, but it sure beats sitting around waiting for this guy to strike again.”

Bobby’s pager went off. He glanced at it as he shut it off, then stood. “If that’s all for now, Lieutenant…”

Lucky gestured with his head toward the pager. “Anything I should know about?”

“Just Wes,” the bigger man said. “It’s been a rough tour for him. Coronado’s the last place he wanted to be, and he’s been here for nearly three months now.” He nodded at Sydney. “Nice meeting you. See you later, Luce.” He turned back. “Do me a favor and lock your windows tonight, ladies.”

“And every night until we catch this guy,” Lucky added as the chief headed for the door. He stood up. “I’m going to take off, too.”

“See you tomorrow.” Syd barely even looked at him as she turned to Lucy. “Are you in a hurry to get home, detective? Because I have some questions I was hoping you could answer.”

Lucky lingered, but aside from a quick wave from Lucy, neither woman gave him a second glance.

“I did some research on sex crimes and serial rapists and serial murderers,” Syd continued, “and—”

“And you’re thinking about what I said about the level of violence escalating,” Lucy finished for her. “You want to know if I think this guy’s going to cross the line into rape-homicide.”

Oh, God, Lucky hadn’t even considered that. Rape alone was bad enough.

Lucy sighed. “Considering the abuse the perp seems to enjoy dishing out, in my opinion, it could be just a matter of time before he—”

“Heads up,” Syd said in a low voice. “Barbie’s coming this way.”

Barbie?

Lucky looked up to see Heather heading toward them. Her body in motion made heads turn throughout the entire room.

She was gorgeous, but she was plastic. Kind of like a Barbie doll. Yeah, the name fit.

He wanted to stay, wanted to hear what Lucy and Syd had to say, but he’d saddled himself with Heather, and now he had to pay the price.

He had to take her home.

With Heather, there was always a fifty-fifty chance she’d invite him up to her place and tear off his clothes. Tonight she’d made a few suggestive comments at dinner that led him to believe it was, indeed, going to be one of those nights where they engaged in a little pleasure gymnastics.

“Ready to go home?” Heather smiled at him, a smile loaded with promise. A smile he knew that Syd had not missed.

Good. Let her know that he was going to get some tonight. Let her know he didn’t need her to make fireworks.

“Absolutely.” Lucky put his arm around her waist.

He glanced at Syd, but she was already back to her discussion with Lucy, and she didn’t look up.

As Heather dragged him to the door, Lucky knew he was the envy of every man in the bar. He was going home with a beautiful woman who wanted to have wild sex with him.

He should have been running for his car. He should have been in a hurry to get her naked.

But as he reached the door, he couldn’t stop himself from hesitating, from looking back at Syd.

She glanced up at that exact moment, and their eyes met and held. The connection was instantaneous. It was cracklingly powerful, burningly intense.

He didn’t look away, and neither did she.

It was far more intimate than he’d ever been with Heather, and they’d spent days together naked.

Heather tugged at his arm, pressed her body against him, pulled his head down for a kiss.

Lucky responded instinctively, and when he looked back at Syd, she had turned away.

“Come on, baby,” Heather murmured. “I’m in a hurry.”

Lucky let her pull him out the door.

THE PICKUP TRUCK WAS following her.

Syd had first noticed the headlights in her rearview mirror as she’d pulled out of La Cantina’s parking lot.

The truck had stayed several car lengths behind her as she’d headed west on Arizona Avenue. And when she’d made a left turn onto Draper, he’d turned, too.

She knew for sure when she did a series of right and left turns, taking the shortcut to her neighborhood. It couldn’t be a coincidence. He was definitely following her.

Syd and Lucy had talked briefly after Navy Ken had taken his inflatable Barbie home. She’d stayed in the bar after Lucy had left as well, having a glass of beer as she wrote her latest women’s safety article on her laptop. It was far easier to write in the noisy bar than it would have been in her too-quiet apartment. She missed the chaos of the newsroom. And being home alone would only have served to remind her that Lucky O’Donlon wasn’t.

Miss Vapid USA was, no doubt, his soul mate. Syd wondered rather viciously if they spent all their time together gazing into mirrors. Blond and Blonder.

Lucy had volunteered the information that Heather was typical of the type of women the SEAL fraternized with. He went for beauty queens who were usually in their late teens, with an IQ not much higher than their age.

Syd didn’t know why she was surprised. God forbid a man like Luke O’Donlon should ever become involved with a woman who actually meant something to him. A woman who talked back to him, offering a differing opinion and a challenging, vivacious honest-to-God relationship….

Who was she kidding? Did she really imagine she tasted integrity in his kisses?

It was true that he’d protested admirably when she’d accused him of trying to steal his XO’s wife, but all that meant was that he had a line in his debauchery that he would not cross.

He was hot, he was smooth, he could kiss like a dream, but his passion was empty. For indeed, what was passion without emotion? A balloon that, when popped, revealed nothing but slightly foul-smelling air.

She was glad she’d seen Luke O’Donlon with his Barbie doll. It was healthy, it was realistic and just maybe it would keep her damned subconscious from dreaming erotic dreams about him tonight.

Syd took a right turn onto Pacific, pulling into the right lane and slowing down enough so that anyone in their right mind would pass her, but the truck stayed behind her.

Think. She had to think. Or rather, she had to stop thinking about Luke O’Donlon and his perfect butt and focus on the fact that a sociopathic serial rapist could well be following her through the nearly deserted streets of San Felipe.

She’d written an article dealing with this very subject just minutes ago.

If you think someone is following you, she’d said, do not go home. Drive directly to the police station. If you have a cell phone, use it to call for help.

Syd fumbled in her shoulder bag for her cell phone, hesitating only slightly before she pushed the speed-dial button she’d programmed with Lucky O’Donlon’s home phone number. It would serve him right if she interrupted him.

His machine picked up after only two rings, and she skipped over his sexy-voiced message.

“O’Donlon, it’s Syd. If you’re there, pick up.” Nothing. “Lieutenant, I know my voice is the last thing you probably want to hear right now, but I’m being followed.” Oh, crud, her voice cracked slightly, and her fear and apprehension peeked through. She took a deep breath, hoping to sound calm and collected, but only managing to sound very small and pitiful. “Are you there?”

No response. The answering machine beeped, cutting her off.

Okay. Okay. As long as she kept moving, she’d be okay.

And chances were, if she pulled into the brightly lit police-station parking lot, whoever was following her would drive away.

But what a missed opportunity that would be. If this were the rapist behind her, they could catch him. Right now. Tonight.

She pressed one of the other speed-dial numbers she’d programmed into her phone. Detective Lucy McCoy’s home number.

One ring. Two rings. Three…

“‘Lo?” Lucy sounded as if she’d already been asleep.

“Lucy, it’s Syd.” She gave a quick rundown of the situation, and Lucy snapped instantly awake.

“Stay on Pacific,” Lucy ordered. “What’s your license plate number?”

“God, I don’t know. My car’s a little black Civic. The truck’s one of those full-size ones—I haven’t been able to see what color—something dark. And he’s hanging too far back for me to see his plate number.”

“Just keep driving,” Lucy said. “Slow and steady. I’m calling in as many cars as possible to intercept.”

Slow and steady.

Syd used her cell phone and tried calling Lucky one more time.

Nothing.

Slow and steady.

She was heading north on Pacific. She could just follow the road all the way up to San Francisco, slowly and steadily. Provided the truck behind her let her stop for gas. She was running low. Of course a little car like this could go for miles on a sixteenth of a tank. She had no reason to be afraid. At any minute, the San Felipe police were going to come to the rescue.

Any minute. Any. Minute.

She heard it then—sirens in the distance, getting louder and deafeningly louder as the police cars moved closer.

Three of them came from behind. She watched in her rear-view mirror as they surrounded the truck, their lights flashing.

She slowed to a stop at the side of the road as the truck did the same, twisting to look back through her rear window as the police officers approached, their weapons drawn, bright searchlights aimed at the truck.

She could see the shadow of the man in the cab. He had both hands on his head in a position of surrender. The police pulled open the truck’s door, pulled him out alongside the truck where he braced himself, assuming the position for a full-body search.

Syd turned off the ignition and got out, wanting to get closer now that she knew the man following her wasn’t armed, wanting to hear what he was saying, wanting to get a good look at him—see if he was the same man who’d nearly knocked her down the stairs after attacking her neighbor.

The man was talking. She could see from the police officers standing around him that he was keeping up a steady stream of conversation. Explanation, no doubt, for why he was out driving around so late at night. Following someone? Officer, that was just an unfortunate coincidence. I was going to the supermarket to pick up some ice cream.

Yeah, right.

As Syd moved closer, one of the police officers approached her.

“Sydney Jameson?” he called.

“Yes,” she said. “Thank you for responding so quickly to Detective McCoy’s call. Does this guy have identification?”

“He does,” the officer said. “He also says he knows you—and that you know him.”

What? Sydney moved closer, but the man who’d been following her was still surrounded by the police and she couldn’t see his face.

The police officer continued. “He also claims you’re both part of a working police task force…?”

Sydney could see in the dim streetlights that the truck was red. Red.

As if on cue, the police officers parted, the man turned his face toward her and…

It was. Luke O’Donlon.

“Why the hell were you following me?” All of her emotions sparked into anger. “You scared me to death, damn it!”

He himself wasn’t too happy about having been frisked by six unfriendly policemen. He was still standing in the undignified search position—legs spread, palms against the side of his truck, and he sounded just as indignant as she did. Maybe even more indignant. “I was following you home. You were supposed to go home, not halfway across the state. Jeez, I was just trying to make sure you were safe.”

“What about Heather?” The words popped out before Sydney could stop herself.

But Luke didn’t even seem to hear her question. He had turned back to the police officers. “Are you guys satisfied? I’m who I say I am, all right? Can I please stand up?”

The police officer who seemed to be in charge looked to Syd.

“No,” she said, nodding yes. “I think you should make him stay like that for about two hours as punishment.”

“Punishment?” Luke let out a stream of sailor’s language as he straightened up. “For doing something nice? For worrying so much about you and Lucy going home from that bar alone that I dropped Heather off at her apartment and came straight back to make sure you’d be okay?”

He hadn’t gone home with Miss Ventura County. He’d given up a night of steamy, mindless, emotionless sex because he had been worried about her.

Syd didn’t know whether to laugh or hit him.

“Heather wasn’t happy,” he told her. “That’s your answer for ‘what about Heather?’” He smiled ruefully. “I don’t think she’s ever been turned down before.”

He had heard her question.

She’d spent most of the past hour trying her hardest not to imagine his long, muscular legs entangled with Heather’s, his skin slick and his hair damp with perspiration as he…

She’d tried her hardest, but she’d always had a very good imagination.

It was stupid. She’d told herself that it didn’t matter, that he didn’t matter. She didn’t even like him. But now here he was, standing in front of her, gazing at her with those impossibly blue eyes, with that twenty-four-carat sun-gilded hair curling in his face from the ocean’s humidity.

“You scared me,” she said again.

“You?” He laughed. “Something tells me you’re unscareable.” He looked around them at the three police cars, lights still spinning, the officers talking on their radios. He shook his head with what looked an awful lot like admiration. “You actually had the presence of mind to call the police from your cell phone, huh? That was good, Jameson. I’m impressed.”

Syd shrugged. “It wasn’t that big a deal. But I guess you just don’t spend that much time with smart women.”

Lucky laughed. “Ouch. Poor Heather. She’s not even here to defend herself. She’s not that bad, you know. A little heartless and consumed by her career, but that’s not so different from most people.”

“How could you be willing to settle for ‘not that bad?’” Syd countered. “You could have just about anyone you wanted. Why not choose someone with a heart?”

“That assumes,” he said, “that I’d even want someone’s heart.”

“Ah,” she said, turning back to her car. “My mistake.”

“Syd.”

She turned back to face him.

“I’m sorry I scared you.”

“Don’t let it happen again,” she said. “Warn me in advance all right?” She turned away.

“Syd.”

She sighed and turned to face him again. “Quickly, Ken,” she begged. “We’ve got a seven o’clock meeting scheduled at the police station. I’m not a morning person, and I’m even less of a morning person when I get fewer than six hours of sleep.”

“I’m going to follow you home,” he told her. “When you go up to your apartment, flash your light a few times so I know everything’s okay, all right?”

Syd didn’t get it. “You don’t even like me. Why the concern?”

Lucky smiled. “I never said I didn’t like you. I just don’t want you on my team. Those are two very different things.”




CHAPTER FIVE


“SIT ON THE COUCH—or in the chair,” Dr. Lana Quinn directed Sydney. “Wherever you think you’ll be more comfortable.”

“I appreciate your finding the time to do this on such short notice,” Lucky said.

“You got lucky,” Lana told him with a smile. “Wes called right after my regular one o’clock cancelled. I was a little surprised actually—it’s been a while since I’ve heard from him.”

Lucky didn’t know the pretty young psychologist very well. She was married to a SEAL named Wizard with whom he’d never worked. But Wizard had been in the same BUD/S class with Bobby and Wes, and the three men had remained close. And when Lucky had stopped Wes in the hall to inquire jokingly if he knew a hypnotist, Wes had surprised him by saying, yes, as a matter of fact, he did.

“How is Wes?” Lana asked.

Lucky was no shrink himself, but the question was just a little too casual.

She must have realized the way her words had sounded and hastened to explain. “He was in such a rush when he called, I didn’t even have time to ask. We used to talk on the phone all the time back when my husband was in Team Six, you know, when he was gone more often than not—I think it was because Wes and I both missed Quinn. And after he transferred back to California, back to Team Ten, Wes kind of dropped out of touch.”

“Wes is doing good—just made chief,” Lucky told her.

“That’s great,” Lana enthused—again just a little too enthusiastically. “Congratulate him for me, will you?”

Lucky was not an expert by any means, but he didn’t have to be an expert to know there was more to that story than Lana was telling. Not that he believed for one minute that Wes would’ve had an affair with the wife of one of his best friends. No, Wes Skelly was a caveman in a lot of ways, but his code of honor was among the most solid Lucky had ever known.

It did make perfect sense, though, for Wes to have done something truly stupid, like fall in love with his good friend’s wife. And if that had happened, Wes would have dropped out of Lana’s life like a stone. And Lucky suspected she knew that, psychologist that she was.

God, life was complicated. And it was complicated enough without throwing marriage and its restrictions into the picture. He was never getting married, thank you very much.

It was a rare day that went by without Lucky reminding himself of that—in fact, it was his mantra. Never getting married. Never getting married.

Yet lately—particularly as he watched Frisco with his wife, Mia, and Blue with Lucy, and even the captain, Joe Cat, who’d been married to his wife, Veronica, longer than any of the other guys in Alpha Squad, Lucky had felt…

Envy.

God, he hated to admit it, but he was a little jealous. When Frisco draped his arm around Mia’s shoulder, or when she came up behind him and rubbed his shoulders after a long day. When Lucy stopped in at the crowded, busy Alpha Squad office and Blue would look across the room and smile, and she’d smile back. Or Joe Cat. Calling Veronica every chance he got, from a pay phone in downtown Paris, from the Australian outback after a training op. He’d lower his voice, but Lucky had overheard far more than once. Hey babe, ya miss me? God, I miss you….

Lucky had come embarrassingly close to getting a lump in his throat more than once.

Despite his rather desperate-sounding mantra, Joe and Blue and Frisco and all of the other married SEALs made the perils of commitment look too damn good.

As Lucky watched, across the room Sydney perched on the very edge of the couch, arms folded tightly across her chest as she looked around Lana’s homey office. She didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to be hypnotized. Her body language couldn’t be any more clear.

He settled into the chair across from her. “Thanks for agreeing to this.”

He could see her trepidation in the tightness of her mouth as she shook her head. “I don’t think it’s going to work.”

“Yeah, well, maybe it will.”

“Don’t be too disappointed if it doesn’t.”

She was afraid of failing. Lucky could understand that. Failure was something he feared as well.

“Why don’t you take off your jacket,” Lana suggested to Sydney. “Get loose—unbutton your shirt a little, roll up your sleeves. I want you to try to get as comfortable as possible. Kick off your boots, try to relax.”

“I don’t think this is going to work,” Sydney said again, this time to Lana, as she slipped her arms out of her jacket.

“Don’t worry about that,” Lana told her, sitting down in the chair closest to Sydney. “Before we go any further, I want to tell you that my methods are somewhat unconventional. But I have had some degree of success working with victims of crimes, helping them clarify the order and details of certain traumatic or frightening events, so bear with me. And again, there’s no guarantee that this will work, but we’ve got a better shot at it if you try to be open-minded.”

Syd nodded tightly. “I’m trying.”

She was. Lucky had to give her that. She didn’t want to be here, didn’t have to be here, yet here she was.

“Let’s start with you telling me what you felt when you encountered the man on the stairs,” Lana said. “Did you see him coming, or were you startled by him?”

“I heard the clatter of his footsteps,” Syd told her as she unfastened first one, then two, then three buttons on her shirt.

Lucky looked away, aware that he was watching her, aware that he didn’t want her to stop at three, remembering with a sudden alarming clarity the way she had felt when he’d held her in his arms. She’d tasted so sweet and hot and…

Lucky was dressed in his summer uniform, and he resisted the urge to loosen his own collar. He was overheating far too often these days. He should have called Heather after following Syd home last night. He should have called and groveled. Chances are she would have let him in.

But he’d gone home instead. He’d swum about four hundred laps in his pool, trying to curb his restlessness, blaming it on the fact that Alpha Squad was out there, in the real world, while he’d been left behind.

“He was moving fast,” Syd continued. “He clearly didn’t see me, and I couldn’t get out of his way.”

“Were you frightened?” Lana asked.

Syd thought about that, chewing for a moment on her lower lip. “More like alarmed,” she said. “He was big. But I wasn’t afraid of him because I thought he was dangerous. It was more like the flash of fear you get when a car swerves into your lane and there’s nowhere to go to avoid hitting it.”

“Picture the moment that you first heard him coming,” Lana suggested, “and try to flip it into slow motion. You hear him, then you see him. What are you thinking? Right at that second when you first spot him coming down the stairs?”

Syd looked up from untying the laces of her boots. “Kevin Manse,” she said.

She was still leaning over, and Lucky got a sudden brief look down the open front of her shirt. She was wearing a black bra, and he got a very clear look at black lace against smooth pale skin. As she moved to untie her other boot, Lucky tried to look away. Tried and failed. He found himself watching her, hoping for another enticing glimpse of her small but perfectly, delicately, deliciously shaped, lace-covered breasts.

Sydney Jameson was enormously attractive, he realized with a jolt as he examined her face. Sure he’d always preferred women with a long mane of hair, but hers was darkly sleek and especially lustrous, and the short cut suited the shape of her face. Her eyes were the color of black coffee, with lashes that didn’t need any makeup to look thick and dark.

She wasn’t traditionally pretty, but whenever she stopped scowling and smiled, she was breathtaking.

And as far as her clothes…

Lucky had never particularly liked the Annie Hall look before, but with a flash of awareness, he suddenly completely understood its appeal. Buried beneath Syd’s baggy, mannish clothing was a body as elegantly, gracefully feminine as the soft curves of her face. And the glimpse he’d had was sexy as hell—sexy in a way he’d never imagined possible, considering that the women he usually found attractive were far more generously endowed.

She straightened up, kicking off her boots. She wasn’t wearing socks, and her feet were elegantly shaped with very high arches. God, what was wrong with him that the sight of a woman’s bare foot was enough to push him over the edge into complete arousal?

Lucky shifted in his seat, crossing his legs, praying Lana wouldn’t ask him to fetch anything from her desk all the way across the room.

“Who’s Kevin Manse?” the psychologist asked Sydney.

Syd sat back, crossing her legs tailor-style, tucking her sexy feet beneath her on the couch. “He was a football player I, um…” she flashed a look in Lucky’s direction and actually blushed “…knew in college. I guess the sheer size of this guy reminded me of Kevin.”

Wasn’t that interesting? And completely unexpected. Syd Jameson certainly didn’t seem the type to have dated a football player in college. “Boyfriend?” Lucky asked.

“Um,” Syd said. “Not exactly.”

Ah. Maybe she’d liked the football player, and he hadn’t even noticed her. Maybe, like Lucky, Kevin had been too busy trying to catch the eyes of the more bodacious cheerleaders.

Lana scribbled a comment on her notepad. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s give this a shot, shall we?”

Syd laughed nervously. “So how do you do this? All I can think of is Elmer Fudd trying to hypnotize Bugs Bunny with his pocket watch on a chain. You know, ‘You ah getting vewwy sweepy.’”

Laughing, Lana crossed the room and turned off the light. “Actually, I use a mirror ball, a flashlight and voiced suggestions. Lieutenant, I have to recommend that you step out into the waiting room for a few minutes. I’ve found that SEALs are highly susceptible to this form of light-induced hypnotism. My theory is that it has to do with the way you’ve trained yourself to take combat naps.” She sat down again across from Syd. “They fall, quickly, into deep REM sleep for short periods of time,” she explained before looking back at Lucky. “There may be a form of self-hypnosis involved when you do that.” She smiled wryly. “I’m not sure though. Quinn won’t let me experiment on him. You can try staying in here, but…”

“I’ll leave the room—temporarily,” Lucky said.

“Good idea. I’m sure Dr. Quinn doesn’t want both of us waddling around quacking like ducks,” Syd said.

Hot damn, she’d made a joke. Lucky laughed, and Syd actually smiled back at him. But her smile was far too small and it faded far too quickly.

“Seriously,” she added. “If I do something to really embarrass myself, don’t rub it in, all right?”

“I won’t,” he told her. “As long as you promise to return the same favor some day.”

“I guess that’s fair.”

“Step outside, Lieutenant.”

“You’ll wait to ask her any questions until I come back in?”

Lana Quinn nodded. “I will.”

“Quack, quack,” Syd said.

Lucky closed the door behind him.

As he paced, he punched a number into his cell phone. Frisco picked up the phone on his office desk after only half a ring.

“Francisco.”

“Answering your own phone,” Lucky said. “Very impressive.”

“Understaffed,” Frisco said shortly. “S’up?”

“I’m wondering if you’ve heard anything about yesterday’s diving accident.”

Frisco said some choice words, none of them polite. “God, what a stupid-fest. The SEAL candidate—former SEAL candidate—who nearly had nitrogen bubbles turn his brain into Swiss cheese, apparently snuck out of the barracks the night before the accident. It was his birthday, and some well-meaning but equally idiotic friends flew him to Vegas to visit his girlfriend. The flight back was delayed, and he didn’t land in San Diego until oh-three-hundred. The stupid bastard made it back into the barracks without being found out, but he was still completely skunked when the training op started at oh-four-thirty.”

Lucky cringed. It was dangerous to dive any less than twenty-four hours after flying. And if this guy was diving drunk, to boot…

“If he’d spoken up then, he would’ve been forced out of BUD/S, but this way they’re throwing the book at him,” Frisco continued. “He’s facing a dishonorable discharge at the very least.”

The fool was lucky he was alive, but indeed, that was where his luck ended. “How many of the candidates were covering for him?” Lucky asked. An incident like this could well eliminate half of an entire class.

“Only five of ‘em,” Frisco said. “All officers. All gone as of 0600 this morning.”

Lucky shook his head. One guy couldn’t handle having a birthday without getting some from his girlfriend, and six promising careers were flushed.

The door opened, and Lana Quinn poked her head out of her office. “We’re ready for you, Lieutenant.”

“Whoops,” Lucky said to Frisco. “I’ve got to go. It’s hypno-time. Later, man.”

He hung up on his commanding officer and snapped his phone shut, slipping it into his pocket.

“Move slowly,” Lana told him. “She’s pretty securely under, but no quick motions or sudden noises, please.”

The blinds were down in the office and, with the overhead lights off, Lucky had to blink for a moment to let his eyes adjust to the dimness.

He moved carefully into the room, standing off to the side, as Lana sat down near Syd.

She was stretched out on the couch, her eyes closed, as if she were asleep. She looked deceptively peaceful and possibly even angelic. Lucky, however, knew better.

“Sydney, I want to go back, just a short amount of time, to the night you were coming home from the movies. Do you remember that night?”

As Lucky sat down, Syd was silent.

“Do you remember that night?” Lana persisted. “You were nearly knocked over by the man coming down the stairs.”

“Kevin Manse,” Syd said. Her eyes were still tightly shut, but her voice was strong and clear.

“That’s right,” Lana said. “He reminded you of Kevin Manse. Can you see him, Syd?”

Sydney nodded. “He nearly knocks me over on the stairs. He’s angry. And drunk. I know he’s drunk. I’m drunk, too. It’s my first frat-house party.”

“What the—”

Lana silenced Lucky with one swift motion. “How old are you, Sydney?”

“I’m eighteen,” she told them, her husky voice breathless and young-sounding. “He apologizes—oh, God, he’s so cute, and we start talking. He’s an honors student as well as the star of the football team and I can’t believe he’s talking to me.”

“Now it’s more than ten years later,” Lana interrupted gently, “and the man on the stairs only reminds you of Kevin.”

“I’m so dizzy,” Syd continued, as if she hadn’t heard Lana. “And the stairs are so crowded. Kevin tells me his room’s upstairs. I can lie down for a while on his bed. And he kisses me and…” She sighed and smiled. “And I know he doesn’t mean alone.”

“Oh, God,” Lucky said. He didn’t want to hear this.

“Sydney,” Lana said firmly. “I need you to come back to the present day now.”

“I pretend not to be nervous when he locks the door behind us,” Syd continued. “His books are out on his desk. Calculus and physics. And he kisses me again and…”

She made a soft noise of pleasure, and Lucky rocketed out of his seat. “Why won’t she listen to you?”

Lana shrugged. “Could be any number of reasons. She’s clearly strong-willed. And this could well have been a pivotal moment in her life. Whatever her reasons, she doesn’t want to leave it right now.”

Syd moved slightly on the couch, her head back, her lips slightly parted as she made another of those intense little sounds. Dear God.

“Why don’t we see if we can get to the end of this episode,” Lana suggested. “Maybe she’ll be more receptive to moving into the more recent past if we let her take her time.”

“What,” Lucky said, “we’re just going to sit here while she relives having sex with this guy?”

“I’ve never done this before,” Syd whispered. “Not really, and—Oh!”

Lucky couldn’t look at her, couldn’t not look at her. She was breathing hard, with a slight sheen of perspiration on her face. “Okay,” he said, unable to stand this another second. “Okay, Syd. You do the deed with Mr. Wonderful. It’s over. Let’s move on.”

“He’s so sweet,” Syd sighed. “He says he’s afraid people will talk if I stay there all night, so he asks a friend to drive me back to my dorm. He says he’ll call me, and he kisses me good night and I’m…I’m so amazed at how good that felt, at how much I love him—I can’t wait to do it again.”

Okay. So now he knew that not only was Sydney hot, she was hot-blooded as well.

“Sydney,” Lana’s voice left no room for argument. “Now it’s just a little less than a week ago. You’re on the stairs, in your apartment building. You’re coming home from the movies—”

“God.” Sydney laughed aloud. “Did that movie suck. I can’t believe I spent all that money on it. The highlight was that pop singer who used to be a model who now thinks he’s an actor. And I’m not talking about his acting. I’m talking about the scene that featured his bare butt. It alone was truly worthy of the big screen. And,” she laughed again, a rich, sexy sound, “if you want to know the truth, these days the movies is the closest I seem to be able to get to a naked man.”

Lucky knew one easy way to change that, fast. But he kept his mouth shut and let Lana do her shrink thing.

“You’re climbing the stairs to your apartment,” she told Syd. “It’s late, and you’re heading home and you hear a noise.”

“Footsteps,” Syd responded. “Someone’s coming down the stairs. Kevin Manse—no, he just looks for half a second like Kevin Manse, but he’s not.”

“Can you mentally push a pause button,” Lana asked, “and hold him in a freeze-frame?”

Syd nodded. “He’s not Kevin Manse.”

“Can you describe his face? Is he wearing a mask? Panty hose over his head?”

“No, but he’s in shadow,” Syd told them. “The light’s behind him. He’s got a short crew cut, I can see the hair on his head sticking straight up, lit the way he is. But his face is dark. I can’t really see him, but I know he’s not Kevin. He moves differently. He’s more muscle-bound—you know, top-heavy from lifting weights. Kevin was just big all over.”

Lucky could well imagine. God, this was stupid. He was jealous of this Kevin Manse guy.

“Let him move toward you,” Lana suggested, “but in slow motion, if you can. Does the light ever hit his face?”

Syd was frowning now, her eyes still closed, concentrating intensely. “No,” she finally said. “He swerves around me, hits me with his shoulder. Sorry, bud. He turns his face toward me and I can see that he’s white. His hair looks golden, but maybe it’s just brown, just the reflected light.”

“Are you sure he’s not wearing a mask?” Lana asked.

“No. He’s still moving down the stairs, but he’s turning his head to look at me, and I turn away.”

“You turn away,” Lana repeated. “Why?”

Syd laughed, but there was no humor in it. “I’m embarrassed,” she admitted. “He thought I was a man. It’s happened to me before, and it’s worse when they realize they’ve made a mistake. I hate the apologies. That’s when it’s humiliating.”

“So why do you dress that way?” Lucky had to ask.

Lana shot him an appalled “what are you doing?” look. He didn’t give a damn. He wanted to know.

“It’s safe,” Syd told him.

“Safe.”

“Lieutenant,” Lana said sternly.

“Back to the guy on the stairs,” Lucky said. “What’s he wearing?”

“Jeans,” Syd said without hesitating. “And a plain dark sweatshirt.”

“Tattoos?” Lucky asked.

“His sleeves are down.”

“On his feet?”

She was silent for several long seconds. “I don’t know.”

“You turn away,” Lana said. “But do you look back at him as he goes down the stairs?”

“No. I hear him, though. He slams the front door on his way out. I’m glad—it sometimes doesn’t latch and then anyone can get in.”

“Do you hear anything else?” Lucky asked. “Stop and listen carefully.”

Syd was silent. “A car starts. And then pulls away. A fan belt must be loose or old or something because it squeals a little. I’m glad when it’s gone. It’s an annoying sound—it’s not an expensive part, and it doesn’t take much to learn how to—”

“When you’re home, do you park in a garage,” Lucky interrupted, “or on the street?”

“Street,” she told him.

“When you pulled up,” he asked, “after the movie, were there any cars near your apartment building that you didn’t recognize?”

Syd chewed on her lip, frowning slightly. “I don’t remember.”

Lucky looked at Lana. “Can you take her back there?”

“I can try, but…”

“Gina’s door is open,” Syd said.

“Syd, let’s try to backtrack a few minutes,” Lana said. “Let’s go back to your car, after you’ve left the movie theater. You’re driving home.”

“Why is her door open?” Syd asked, and Lana glanced at Lucky, shaking her head.

“Her boyfriend must’ve left it open,” Syd continued. “Figures a guy can’t replace a fan belt also can’t manage to shut a door and…” She sat up suddenly, her eyes wide open. She was looking straight at Lucky, but through him, or in front of him, not at him. She didn’t see him. Instead, she saw something else, something he couldn’t see. “Oh, my God“

Her hair was damp with perspiration, and she reached up with a shaking hand to push it away from her eyes.

Lana leaned forward. “Sydney, let’s go back—”

“Oh, my God, Gina! She’s in the corner of the living room, and her face is bleeding! Her eye’s swollen shut and…oh, God, oh, God. She wasn’t just beaten. Her clothes are torn and…” Her voice changed, calmer, more controlled. “Yes, I need the police to come here right away.” She recited the address as if she were talking on the telephone. “We’ll need an ambulance, too. And a policewoman, please. My neighbor’s been…raped.” Her voice broke, and she took a deep breath. “Gina, here’s your robe. I think it would be okay if you put it around yourself. Let me help you, hon…”

“Sydney,” Lana said gently. “I’m going to bring you back now. It’s time to go.”

“Go?” Syd’s voice cracked. “I can’t leave Gina. How could you even think that I could just leave Gina? God, it’s bad enough I have to pretend everything’s going to be okay. Look at her! Look at her!” She started to cry; deep, racking sobs that shook her entire body, a fountain of emotion brimming over and spilling down her cheeks. “What kind of monster could have done this to this girl? Look in her eyes—all of her hopes, her dreams, her life, they’re gone! And you know with that mother of hers, she’s going to live the rest of her life hiding from the world, too afraid ever to come back out again. And why? Because she left the window in the kitchen unlocked. She wasn’t careful, because nobody had bothered to warn any of us that this son of a bitch was out there! They knew, the police knew, but nobody said a single word!”

Lucky couldn’t stop himself. He sat next to Sydney, and pulled her into his arms. “Oh, Syd, I’m sorry,” he said.

But she pushed him away, curling into herself, turning into a small ball in the corner of the couch, completely inconsolable.

Lucky looked at Lana helplessly.

“Syd,” she said loudly. “I’m going to clap my hands twice, and you’re going to fall asleep. You’ll wake up in one minute, feeling completely refreshed. You won’t remember any of this.”

Lana clapped her hands, and just like that, Syd’s body relaxed. The room was suddenly very silent.

Lucky sat back, resting his head against the back of the couch. He drew in a deep breath and let it out with a whoosh. “I had no idea,” he said. Syd was always so strong, so in control…. He remembered that message he’d found on his answering machine last night when he’d gotten home. The way she hadn’t quite managed to hide the fear in her voice when she’d called him for help, thinking she was being followed by a stranger. You scared me to death, she’d told him, but he hadn’t really believed it until he’d heard that phone message.

What else was she hiding?

“She clearly considers her stake in this to be personal,” Lana said quietly. She stood up. “I think it would be better if you were in the waiting room when she wakes up.”




CHAPTER SIX


“WHERE ARE WE GOING?” Syd asked, following Luke down toward the beach.

“I want to show you something,” he said.

He’d been quiet ever since they’d left Lana Quinn’s office—not just quiet, but subdued. Introspective. Brooding.

It made her nervous. What exactly had she said and done while under the hypnotist’s spell to make the ever-smiling Navy Ken brood?

Syd had come out of the session feeling a little disoriented. At first she’d thought the hypnosis hadn’t worked, but then she’d realized that about half an hour had passed from the time she’d first sat down. A half hour of which she remembered nothing.

To Syd’s disappointment, Lana told her she hadn’t got a clear look at the rapist’s unmasked face as he’d come down the stairs. They weren’t any closer to identifying the man.

Luke O’Donlon hadn’t said a word to her. Not in Lana’s office, not in his truck as they’d headed back here to the base. He’d parked by the beach and gotten out, saying only, “Come on.”

They stood now at the edge of the sand, watching the activity. And there was a great deal of activity on this beach, although there was nary a beach ball, a bikini-clad girl, a picnic basket or a colorful umbrella in sight.

There were men on the beach, lots of men, dressed in long pants and combat boots despite the heat. One group ran down by the water at a pounding pace. The other group was split into smaller teams of six or seven, each of which wrestled a huge, heavy-looking, ungainly rubber raft toward the water, carrying it high above their heads while men with bullhorns shouted at them.

“This is part of BUD/S,” Luke told her. “SEAL training. These men are SEAL candidates. If they make it through all the phases of this training, they’ll go on to join one of the teams.”

Syd nodded. “I’ve read about this,” she said. “There’s a drop-out rate of something incredible, like fifty percent, right?”

“Sometimes more.” He pointed down the beach toward the group of men that were running through the surf. “Those guys are in phase two, which is mostly diving instruction, along with additional PT. That particular class started with a hundred men and today they’re down to twenty-two. Most guys ring out in the first few days of phase one, which consists mostly of intense PT—that’s physical training.”

“I’d kind of figured that out.”

“Navyspeak contains a lot of shorthand,” he told her. “Let me know if you need anything explained.”

Why was he being so nice? He could have managed to sound patronizing, but he just sounded…nice. “Thanks,” Syd managed.

“Anyway, this class,” he pointed again to the beach, “is down to only twenty-two because they had a string of bad luck—some kind of stomach flu hit during the start of Hell Week, and a record number of men were evac-ed out.” He smiled, as if in fond memory. “If it was just a matter of barf and keep going, most of ‘em probably would’ve stayed in, but this flu came with a dangerously high fever. Medical wouldn’t let them stay. Those guys were rolled back to the next class—most of them are going through the first weeks of phase one again right now. To top that off, this particular class also just lost six men in the fallout from that diving accident. So their number’s low.”

Syd watched the men who were running through the water—the candidates Luke had said were in the second phase of BUD/S training. “Somehow I was under the impression that the physical training ended after Hell Week.”

Luke laughed. “Are you kidding? PT never ends. Being a SEAL is kind of like being a continuous work in progress. You always keep running—every day. You’ve got to be able to do consistent seven-and-a-half-minute miles tomorrow and next month—and next year. If you let it slip, your whole team suffers. See, a SEAL team can only move as fast as its slowest man when it’s moving as a unit.”

He gestured toward the men still carrying the black rubber boats above their heads. “That’s what these guys are starting to learn. Teamwork. Identify an individual’s strengths and weaknesses and use that information to keep your team operating at its highest potential.”

A red-haired girl on a bicycle rode into the parking lot. She skidded to a stop in the soft sand a few yards away from Luke and Syd, and sat down, watching the men on the beach.

“Yo, Tash!” Luke called to her.

She barely even glanced up, barely waved, so intent was she on watching the men on the beach. It was the girl Syd had met yesterday, the one who’d been at the base with Lieutenant Commander Francisco’s wife. She was looking for someone, searching the beach, shading her eyes with her hand.

“Frisco’s not out here right now,” Luke called to her.

“I know,” she said and went right on looking.

Luke shrugged and turned back to Syd. “Check out this group here.” He pointed at the men with the boats. “See this team with the short guy? He’s not pulling his weight, right? He’s not carrying much of the IBS—the inflatable boat—because he can hardly reach the damn thing. The taller men have to compensate for him. But you better believe that the vertically challenged dude will make up for it somewhere down the road. He’s light, probably fast. Maybe he’s good at climbing. Or he can fit into tight places—places the bigger men can’t. Shorty may not help too much when it comes to carrying something like an IBS, but, guaranteed, he’ll do more than his share in the long run.”

He was quiet then, just watching the SEAL candidates. The group of runners—the candidates in the second phase of BUD/S training—collapsed on the sand.

“Five minutes,” Syd heard distantly but distinctly through a bullhorn. “And then, ladies, we do it all over again.”

The instructor with the bullhorn was Bobby Taylor, his long dark hair pulled back into a braid.

As Syd watched, one of the candidates approached Bobby, pointing up toward the edge of the beach, toward them. Bobby seemed to shrug, and the candidate took off, running toward them through the soft sand.

He was young and black, and the short, nearly shaved hairstyle that all the candidates sported served to emphasize the sharp angles of his face. He had a few scars, one disrupting the line of his right eyebrow, the other on his cheek, and they added to his aura of danger.

Syd thought he was coming to talk to Luke, but he headed straight for the little girl on the bike.

“Are you crazy?” His less-than-friendly greeting was accompanied by a scowl. “What did I tell you about riding your bike out here alone? And that was before this psycho-on-the-loose crap.”

“No one wanted to ride all the way out here with me.” Tasha lifted her chin. They were both speaking loudly enough for Syd to easily overhear. “Besides, I’m fast. If I see any weirdos, I can get away, no problem.”

Sweat was literally pouring off the young man’s face as he bent over to catch his breath, hands on his knees. “You’re fast,” he repeated skeptically. “Faster than a car?”

She was exasperated. “No.”

“No.” He glared at her. “Then it’s not no problem, is it?”

“I don’t see what the big deal—”

The black man exploded. “The big deal is that there’s some son-of-a-bitch psycho running around town raping and beating the hell out of women. The big deal is that, as a female, you’re a potential target. As a pretty, young female who’s riding her bike alone, you’re an attractive, easy target. You might as well wear a sign around your neck that says victim.”

“I read this guy breaks into women’s homes,” Tasha countered. “I don’t see what that has to do with me riding my bike.”

Syd couldn’t keep her mouth shut any longer. “Actually,” she said, “serial rapists tend to do something called troll for victims. That means they drive around and look for a likely target—someone who’s alone and potentially defenseless—and they follow her home. It’s possible once they pick a victim, they follow her for several days or even weeks, searching for the time and place she’s the most vulnerable. Just because all of the other attacks we know about occurred in the victims’ homes doesn’t mean he’s not going to pull his next victim into the woods.”

“Thank you, voice of reason,” the young man said. He gave Tasha a hard look. “Hear that, wild thing? Uncle Lucky’s girlfriend here sounds like she knows what she’s talking about.”

Uncle Lucky’s girlfriend…? “Oh,” Syd said. “No. I’m not his—”

“So, what am I supposed to do?” The girl was exasperated and indignant. “Stay home all day?”

Tasha and her friend were back to their fight, intently squaring off, neither of them paying any attention to Syd’s protests.

Luke, however, cleared his throat. Syd didn’t dare look at him.

“Yes,” the young man answered Tasha’s question just as fiercely and without hesitation. “Until this is over, yes. Stay home.”

She gave him an incredulous look. “But, Thomas—”

“How many times in the years that we’ve been friends have I ever asked you for a favor, princess?” Thomas asked, his voice suddenly quiet, but no less intense. “I’m asking for one now.”

Tears welled suddenly in Tasha’s eyes and she blinked rapidly. “I needed to see you. After hearing about that diving accident…”

The harsh lines of his face softened slightly. “I’m fine, baby.”

“I see that,” she said. “Now.”

Syd turned away, aware that she was watching them, afraid that her curiosity about their relationship was written all over her face. Thomas had to be in his twenties, and Tasha was only in her teens. He’d referred to them as friends, but it didn’t take a genius-level IQ to see that the girl’s attachment to this man was much stronger. But he was being careful not to touch her, careful to use words like friends, careful to keep his distance.

“How about I call you?” he suggested, kindly. “Three times a week, a few minutes before 2100—nine o’clock? Check in and let you know how I’m doing. Would that work?”

Tasha chewed on her lower lip. “Make it five times a week, and you’ve got a deal.”

“I’ll try for four,” he countered. “But—”

She shook her head. “Five.”

He looked at her crossed arms, at the angle of her tough-kid chin and assumed the same pose. “Four. But I don’t get every evening off, you know, so some weeks it might be only three. But if I get weekend liberty, I’ll drop by, okay? In return, you’ve got to promise me you don’t go anywhere alone until this bad guy is caught.”

She gave in, nodding her acceptance, gazing up at him as if she were memorizing his face.

“Say it,” he insisted.

“I promise.”

“I promise, too,” he said then glanced at his watch. “Damn, I gotta go.”

He turned, focusing on Luke and Syd as if for the first time. “Hey, Uncle Lucky. Drive Tasha home.”

It was, without a doubt, a direct order. Luke saluted. “Yes, sir, Ensign King, sir.”

Thomas’s harshly featured face relaxed into a smile that made him look his age. “Sorry, Lieutenant,” he said. “I meant, please drive Tasha home, sir. It’s not safe right now for a young woman to ride all that distance alone.”

Luke nodded. “Consider it done.”

“Thank you, sir.” The young man pointed his finger at Tasha. “I don’t want to see you here again. At least not without Mia or Frisco.”

And he was gone, lifting his hand in a farewell as he ran back to the rest of his class.

Luke cleared his throat. “Tash, you mind hanging for a minute? I’ve got—”

The girl had already moved down the beach, out of earshot. She sat in the sand, arms around her knees, watching the SEAL candidates. Watching Thomas.

“I’ve got to finish this really important discussion I was having with my girlfriend,” Luke finished, purely for Syd’s benefit.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Not funny.”

“Damn,” he said with a smile. “I was hoping I could get you to squawk again. ‘I’m not his girlfriend,’” he imitated her badly.

“Also not funny.”

His smile widened. “Yes, it is.”

“No, it’s—”

“Let’s call it a healthy difference of opinions and let it go at that.”

Syd closed her mouth and nodded. Fair enough.

He looked out over the glistening ocean, squinting slightly against the glare. “The reason I wanted you to see this, you know, BUD/S, was to give you a look at the teamwork that takes place in the SEAL units.”

“I know you think I’m going to get in your way over the next few days or weeks,” Syd started. “But—”

Luke cut her off. “I know you’ll get in my way,” he countered. “When was the last time you ran a seven-and-a-half minute mile?”

“Never, but—”

“The way I see it, we can make this work by utilizing your strengths and being completely honest about your weaknesses.”

“But—” This time Syd cut her own self off. Did he say make this work?

“Here’s what I think we should do,” Luke said. He was completely serious. “I think we should put you to work doing what you do best. Investigative reporting. Research. I want you to be in charge of finding a pattern, finding something among the facts we know that will bring us closer to the rapist.”

“But the police are already doing that.”

“We need to do it, too.” The breeze off the ocean stirred his already tousled hair. “There’s got to be something they’ve missed, and I’m counting on you to find it. I know you will, because I know how badly you want to catch this guy.” He gazed back at the ocean. “You, uh, kind of gave that away in Lana Quinn’s office.”

“Oh,” Syd said. “God.” What else had she said or done? She couldn’t bring herself to ask.

“We’re both on the same page, Syd,” Luke said quietly, intensely. “I really want to catch this guy, too. And I’m willing to have you on my team, but only if you’re willing to be a team player. That means you contribute by using your strengths—your brain and your ability to research. And you contribute equally by sitting back and letting the rest of us handle the physical stuff. You stay out of danger. We get a lead, you stay back at the base or in the equipment van. No arguments. You haven’t trained for combat, you haven’t done enough PT to keep up, and I won’t have you endanger the rest of the team or yourself.”

“I’m not that out of shape,” she protested.

“You want to prove it?” he countered. “If you can run four miles in thirty minutes while wearing boots, and complete the BUD/S obstacle course in ten minutes—”

“Okay,” she said. “Good point. Not in this lifetime. I’ll stay in the van.”

“Last but not least,” he said, still earnestly, “I’m in command. If you’re part of this team, you need to remember that I’m the CO. When I give an order you say ‘yes, sir.’”

“Yes, sir.”

He smiled. “So are we in agreement?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You obviously need to learn the difference between a question and an order.”

Syd shook her head. “No,” she said, “I don’t.”

“OKAY,” SYD ASKED, “it’s ten against one. Do you fight or flee?”

“Fight. Definitely fight.” Petty Officer Rio Rosetti’s Brooklyn accent came and went depending on who he was talking to, and right now it was one hundred percent there. When he was with Syd, he was one hundred percent tough guy.

Lucky stood outside his temporary office, eavesdropping as Lieutenant Michael Lee added his quiet opinion.

“Depends on who the ten are,” Lee mused. “And what they’re carrying. Ten of Japan’s elite commandos—I might choose the old ‘live to fight another day’ rule and run.”

“What I want to know,” Ensign Thomas King’s rich voice chimed in, “is what I’m doing in a ten-to-one situation without the rest of my SEAL team.”

Syd fit right in. For the past two days, she and Lucky and Bobby had been working around the clock, trying to find something that the police might’ve missed. Syd worked with the information they had on the victims, and Bobby and Lucky went through file after file of personnel records, looking for anything that connected any of the officers and enlisted men currently stationed in Coronado to any hint of a sex crime.

Admiral Stonegate’s handpicked trio of SEAL candidates spent their off hours helping. They were a solid group—good, reliable men, despite their connection to Admiral Stonehead.

And after only two days, Syd was best friends with all three of them. And Bobby, too.

She laughed, she smiled, she joked, she fumed at the computers. It was only with Lucky that she was strictly business. All “yes, sir,” and “no, sir,” and that too-polite, slightly forced smile, even when they were alone and still working at oh-one-hundred….

Lucky had managed to negotiate a truce with her. They had a definite understanding, but he couldn’t help but wish he could’ve gone with the girlfriend alliance scenario. Yes, it would’ve been messy further down the road, but it would have been much more fun.

Especially since he still hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that kiss.

“Here’s another ‘what if’ situation for you,” Lucky heard Syd say. “You’re a woman—”

“What?” Rio hooted. “I thought you wanted to know about being a SEAL?”

“This is related to this assignment,” she explained. “Just hear me out. You’re a woman, and you turn around to find a man wearing panty hose on his head in your apartment in the middle of the night.”

“You tell him, ‘no darling, that shade of taupe simply doesn’t work with your clothing.’” Rio laughed at his joke.

“You want me to kill him or muzzle him?” Thomas King asked.

“Rosetti, I’m serious here,” Syd said. “This has happened to eleven women. There’s nothing funny about it. Maybe you don’t understand because you’re not a woman, but personally I find the thought terrifying. I saw this guy. He was big—about Thomas’s size.”

“Flee,” Mike Lee said.

“But what if you can’t?” Syd asked. “What if there’s no place to run? If you’re trapped in your own apartment by a known rapist? Do you fight? Or do you submit?”

Silence.

Submit. The word made Lucky squirm. He stepped into the room. “Fight,” he said. “How could you do anything but fight?”

The three other men agreed, Rio pulling his boots down off the table and sitting up a little straighter.

Syd glanced up at him, her brown eyes subdued.

“But we’re not women,” Rio said with a burst of wisdom and insight. “We’re not even men anymore.”

“Hey, speak for yourself,” Thomas said.

“I mean, we’re more than men,” Rio countered. “We’re SEALs. Well, almost SEALs. And with the training I’ve had, I’m not really afraid of anyone—and I’m not exactly the biggest guy in the world. Most women haven’t got either the training or the strength to kick ass in a fight with a guy who outweighs ‘em by seventy pounds.”

Lucky looked at Syd. She was wearing a plain T-shirt with her trademark baggy pants, sandals on her feet instead of her boots. Sometime between last night and this morning, she’d put red polish on her toenails.

“What would you do?” he asked her, taking a doughnut from the box that was open on the table. “Fight or…” He couldn’t even say it.

She met his gaze steadily. “I’ve been going through the interviews with the victims, looking for a pattern of violence that correlates to their responses to his attack. A majority of the women fought back, but some of them didn’t. One of them pretended to faint—went limp. Several others say they froze—they were so frightened they couldn’t move. A few others, like Gina, just cowered.”

“And?” Lucky said, dragging a chair up to the table.

“And I wish I could say that there’s a direct relationship between the amount of violence the rapist inflicted on the victim and the amount that she fought back. In the first half-dozen or so attacks, it seemed as if the more the woman fought, the more viciously he beat her. And there were actually two cases where our perp walked away from women who didn’t fight back. As if he didn’t want to waste his time.”

“So then it makes sense to advise women to submit,” Lucky figured.

“Maybe at first, but I’m not so sure about that anymore. His pattern’s changed over the past few weeks.” Syd scowled down at the papers in front of her. “We have eleven victims, spanning a seven-week period. During those seven weeks, the level of violence our guy is using to dominate his victims has begun to intensify.”

Lucky nodded. He’d overheard Syd and Lucy discussing this several nights ago.

“Out of the six most recent victims, we’ve had four who fought back right from the start, one who pretended to faint, and Gina, the most recent, who cowered and didn’t resist. Out of those six, Gina got the worst beating. Yet—go figure—the other woman who didn’t resist was barely touched.”

“So if you fight this guy, you can guarantee you’ll be hurt,” Lucky concluded. “But if you submit, you’ve got a fifty-fifty chance of his walking away from you.”

“And a chance of being beaten within an inch of your life,” Syd said grimly. “Keep in mind, too, that we’re making projections and assumptions based on six instances. We’d really need a much higher number of cases to develop any kind of an accurate pattern.”

“Let’s hope we don’t get that opportunity,” Mike Lee said quietly.

“Amen to that,” Thomas King seconded.

“I still think, knowing that, I would recommend zero resistance,” Lucky said. “I mean, if you had a shot at this guy just walking away…”

“That’s true.” Syd chewed on her lower lip. “But actually, there’s more to this—something that puts a weird spin on the situation. It has to do with, um…” She glanced almost apologetically at the other men. “Ejaculation.”

Rio stood up. “Whoops, look at the time. Gotta go.”

Syd made a face. “I know this is kind of creepy,” she said, “but I think it’s important you guys know all the details.”

“Sit,” Lucky ordered.

Rio sat, but only on the edge of his seat.

“Actually, Lieutenant,” Mike said evenly, “we’ve got a required class in five minutes. If we leave now, we’ll be on time.” He looked at Syd. “I assume you’ll be writing a memo about…this for the other members of the task force…?”

Syd nodded.

“There you go,” Rio said with relief. “We’ll read all about it in your memo.”

All three men stood up, and Lucky felt a surge of panic. They were going to go, leaving him alone with Syd, who wanted to discuss…Yikes. Still, what was he supposed to say, “no, you can’t go to class?”

“Go,” he said, and they all nearly ran out the door.

Syd laughed. “Well,” she said, “I sure know how to clear a room, don’t I?” She raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you don’t want to follow them, Lieutenant? Read about this in my memo instead?”

Lucky stood up to pour himself a cup of coffee from the setup by the door. He had to search for a mug that was clean, and he was glad for the excuse to keep his back to her. “Nothing about this assignment has been pleasant. So if you think this is something I need to hear…”

“I do.”

Lucky poured himself a cup of coffee, then, taking a deep breath, he turned to face her. He carried it back to the table and sat down across from her. “Okay,” he said. “Shoot.”

“According to the medical reports, our man didn’t…shall we say, achieve sexual completion, unless the woman fought back,” Syd told him.

Oh, God.

“We need to keep in mind,” she continued, “the fact that rape isn’t about sex. It’s about violence and power. Domination. Truth is, many serial rapists never ejaculate at all. And in fact, out of these eleven cases of rape, we’ve got only four instances of sexual, um, completion. Like I said, all of them occurred when the victim fought back, or—and this is important—when the victim was forced to fight back.”

“But wait. You said a majority of the victims fought back.” Lucky leaned forward. “Couldn’t he have been wearing a condom the other times?”

“Not according to the victims’ statements.” Syd stood up and started to pace. “There’s more, Luke, listen to this. Gina said in her interview that she didn’t resist. She cowered, and he hit her, and she cowered some more. And then, she says he spent about ten minutes trashing her apartment. I went in there. The place looked like there’d been one hell of a fight. But she didn’t fight back.

“I’m wondering if this guy was trying to simulate the kind of environment in which the victim has fought back, in an attempt to achieve some kind of sexual release. When he went back to Gina after he tore the place up, he kicked the hell out of her, but she still didn’t do more than curl into a ball—and, if my theory’s right, she therefore didn’t give him what he wanted. So what does he do? He’s angry as hell and he tears at her clothes, but she still doesn’t resist. So he grabs her by the throat and starts squeezing. Bingo. Instant response. She can’t breathe—she starts struggling for air. She starts fighting. And that does the trick for him, maybe that plus the sheer terror he can see in her eyes, because now, you know, she thinks he’s going to kill her. He achieves sexual completion, inflicts his final moment of pain upon her by burning her, then leaves. The victim’s still alive—this time.”

Oh, God.

“It’s really just a matter of time before he squeezes someone’s throat too hard, or for too long, and she dies,” Syd continued grimly. “And if taking a life gives him the right kind of rush—and it’s hard to believe that it won’t—he’ll have transitioned. Serial rapist to serial killer. We already know he’s into fear. He likes terrorizing his victims. He likes the power that gives him. And letting someone know she’s going to die can generate an awful lot of terror for her and pleasure for him.”

Syd carried her half-empty mug to the sink and tossed the remnants of her coffee down the drain. “Fight or submit,” she said. “Fighting gives him what he wants, but gets you a severe beating. Still, submitting pisses him off. And it could enrage him enough to kill.”

Lucky threw his half-eaten doughnut into the trash can, feeling completely sick. “We’ve got to catch this guy.”

“That,” Syd agreed, “would be nice.”




CHAPTER SEVEN


LUKE O’DONLON WAS WAITING when Syd pulled up.

“Is she alive?” she asked as she got out of her car.

The quiet residential area was lit up, the street filled with police cars and ambulances, even a fire truck. Every light was blazing in the upscale house.

Luke nodded. “Yes.”

“Thank God. Have you been inside?”

He shook his head. “Not yet. I took a…walk around the neighborhood. If he’s still here, he’s well hidden. I’ve got the rest of the team going over the area more carefully.”

It was remarkable, really. When Syd had received Luke’s phone call telling her Lucy had just called, that there’d been another attack, she’d been fast asleep. She’d quickly pulled on clothes, splashed water on her face and hurried out to her car. She felt rumpled and mismatched, slightly off-balance and sick to her stomach from exhaustion and fear that this time the attacker had gone too far.

Luke, on the other hand, looked as if he’d been grimly alert for hours. He was wearing what he’d referred to before as his summer uniform—short-sleeved, light fabric—definitely part of the Navy Ken clothing action pack. His shoes were polished and his hair was neatly combed. He’d even managed to shave, probably while he was driving over. Or maybe he shaved every night before he went to bed on the off chance he’d need to show up somewhere and be presentable at a moment’s notice.

“Is the victim…?”

“Badly beaten,” he said tersely.

As if on cue, a team of paramedics carried a stretcher from the house, one of them holding an IV bag high. The victim was strapped down, her neck in a brace. She was carried right past them—the poor woman looked as if she’d been hit by a truck, both eyes swollen shut, her face savaged with bruises and cuts.

“God,” Luke breathed.

It was one thing to read about the victims. Even the horror of photographs was one step removed from the violence. But seeing this poor woman, a mere hour after the attack…

Syd knew the sight of that battered face had brought the reality of this situation home to the SEAL in a way nothing else could have.

“Let’s go inside, “she said.

Luke was still watching the victim as she was gently loaded into the ambulance. He turned his head toward Syd almost jerkily.

Uh-oh. “You okay?” she asked quietly.

“God,” he said again.

“It’s awful, isn’t it? That’s pretty much what Gina looked like,” she told him. “Like she’d gone ten rounds with a heavyweight champ on speed. And what he did to her face is the least of it.”

He shook his head. “You know, I’ve seen guys who were injured. I’ve helped patch up guys who’ve been in combat. I’m not squeamish, really, but knowing that someone did that to her and got pleasure from it….” He took a deep breath and blew it out hard. “I’m feeling a little…sick.”

He’d gone completely pale beneath his tan. Oh, boy, unless she did something fast, the big tough warrior was going to keel over in a dead faint.

“I am, too,” Syd said. “Mind if we take a minute and sit down?” She took his arm and gently pulled him down next to her on the stairs that led to the front door, all but pushing his head down between his knees.

They sat there in silence for many long minutes after the ambulance pulled away. Syd carefully kept her eyes on the activity in the street—the neighbors who’d come out in their yards, the policemen keeping the more curious at a safe distance—looking anywhere but at Luke. She was aware of his breathing, aware that he’d dropped his head slightly in an attempt to fight his dizziness. She took many steadying breaths herself—but her own dizziness was more from her amazement that he could be affected this completely, this powerfully.

After what seemed like forever, she sensed more than saw Luke straighten up, heard him draw in one last deep breath and blow it out in a burst.

“Thanks,” he said.

Syd finally risked a glance at him. Most of the color had returned to his face. He reached for her hand, loosely lacing her fingers with his as he gave her a rueful smile. “That would’ve been really embarrassing if I’d fainted.”

“Oh,” she said innocently, “were you feeling faint, too? I know I’m not taking enough time to eat right these days, and that plus the lack of sleep….”

He gently squeezed her hand. “And thanks, also, for not rubbing in the fact that right now I’m the one slowing you down.”

“Well, now that you mention it….”

Luke laughed. God, he was good-looking when he laughed. Syd felt her hands start to sweat. If she hadn’t been light-headed before, she sure as hell was now.

“Let’s go inside,” Luke said. “Find out if this guy left a calling card this time.”

Syd gently pulled her hand free as she stood up. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“MARY BETH HOLLIS…” Detective Lucy McCoy told Syd over the phone “…is twenty-nine years old. She works in San Diego as an administrative assistant to a bank president.”

Syd was sitting in the airless office at the naval base, entering the information about the latest victim into the computer. “Single?” she asked.

“Recently married.”

Syd crossed her fingers. “Please tell me her husband works here at the base…” She had a theory about the victims, and she was hoping she was right.

But Lucy made the sound of the loser button. “Sorry,” she said. “He works in legal services at the same bank.”

“Her father?”

“Deceased. Her mother owns her own flower shop in Coronado.”

Syd didn’t give up. “Brothers?”

“She’s an only child.”

“How about her husband. Did he have any brothers or sisters in the Navy?”

Lucy knew where she was going. “I’m sorry, Syd, Mary Beth has no family ties to the base.”

Syd swore. That made her theory a lot less viable.

“But…” Lucy said.

Syd sat up. “What? You’ve got something?”

“Don’t get too excited. You know the official police and FInCOM position—”

“That the fact that eight out of twelve victims are connected to the base is mere coincidence?” Syd said a most indelicate word. “Where’s the connection with Mary Beth?”

“It’s a stretch,” Lucy admitted.

“Tell me.”

“Former boyfriend. And I mean former. As in nearly ancient history. Although Mary Beth just got married, she’s been living with her lawyer for close to four years. Way before that, she was hot and heavy with a captain who still works as a doctor at the military hospital. Captain Steven Horowitz.”

Syd sighed. Four years ago. That was a stretch.

“Still think there’s a connection?” Lucy asked.

“Yes.”

Lucky poked his head in the door. “Ready to go?”

Like Syd, he’d been working nonstop since last night’s late-night phone call about the most recent attack. But unlike Syd, he still looked crisp and fresh, as if he’d spent the afternoon napping rather than sifting through the remaining personnel files of the men on the naval base.

“I gotta run,” Syd told Lucy. “I’m going back to the hypnotist, see if I noticed any strange cars parked in front of my house on the night Gina was attacked. Wish me luck.”

“Good luck,” Lucy said. “If you could remember the license-plate number, I’d be most appreciative.”

“Yeah, what are the odds of that? I don’t even know my own plate number. Later, Lucy.” Syd hung up the phone, saved her computer file and stood, trying to stretch the kinks out of her back.

“Anything new turn up?” Lucky asked as they started down the hall.

“Four years ago, Mary Beth Hollis—victim twelve—used to date a Captain Horowitz.”

“Used to date,” he repeated. He gave her a sidelong glance. “You’re working hard to keep your theory alive, eh?”

“Don’t even think of teasing me about this,” Syd countered. “Considering all the women who lived in San Felipe and Coronado, it couldn’t be coincidence that nine out of twelve victims were related to someone who worked at the base. There’s a connection between these women and the base, I’m sure of it. However, what that connection is…” She shook her head in frustration. “It’s there—I just can’t see it. Yet,” she added. “I know I’m close. I have this feeling in my…” She broke off, realizing how ridiculous she sounded. She had a feeling….

“In your gut?” he finished for her.

“Okay.” She was resigned. “Go ahead. Laugh at me. I know. It’s just a crazy hunch.”

“Why should I laugh at you,” Luke said, “when I believe that you’re probably on to something?” He snorted. “Hell, I’d trust your hunches over FInCOM’s any day.”

He wasn’t laughing. He actually believed her.

As Syd followed Lieutenant Lucky O’Donlon out into the brilliant afternoon, she realized that over the past few days, something most unlikely had occurred.

She and Navy Ken had actually started to become friends.

SYD OPENED HER EYES and found herself gazing up at an unfamiliar ceiling in a darkened room. She was lying on her back on a couch and…

She turned her head and saw Dr. Lana Quinn’s gentle smile.

“How’d I do?” she asked.

Lana made a slight face and shook her head. “A ‘dark, old-model sedan’ was the best you could come up with. When I asked you what make or model, you said ugly. You didn’t see the plates—not that anyone expected you to—but I have to confess I’d hoped.”

“Yeah, me, too.” Syd tiredly pulled herself up into a sitting position. “I’m not a car person. I’m sorry—” She looked around. “Where’s Luke?”

“Waiting room,” Lana said as she pulled open the curtains, brightening up the room. “He fell asleep while he was out there—while I was putting you under. He looked so completely wiped out, I couldn’t bring myself to wake him.”

“It’s been a tough couple of days,” Syd told the doctor.

“I heard another woman was attacked last night.”

“It’s been frustrating,” Syd admitted. “Particularly for Luke. We haven’t had a whole lot of clues to go on. There’s not much to do besides wait for this guy to screw up. I think if Luke had the manpower, he’d put every woman in both of these cities in protective custody. I keep expecting him to start driving around with a bullhorn warning women to leave town.”

“Quinn’s in DC this week,” Lana said. “He’s worried, too. He actually asked Wes Skelly to check up on me. I left for work earlier than usual this morning, and Wes was sitting in his truck in front of my house. It’s crazy.”

“Luke keeps trying to get me to stay overnight at the base,” Syd told her, “and for the first time in his life, it’s for platonic reasons.”

Lana laughed as she opened the door to the waiting room. “I’m sorry to have to kick you out so soon, but I’ve got another patient.”

“No problem. Dark, old-model sedan,” Syd repeated. “Thanks again.”

“Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”

Syd went into the waiting room, where a painfully thin woman sat as far away as possible from Luke, who lay sprawled on the couch, still fast asleep.

He was adorable when he slept—completely, utterly, disgustingly adorable.

The skinny woman went into Lana’s office, closing the door tightly behind her as Syd approached Luke.

“Time to go,” she announced briskly.

No response.

“O’Donlon.”

He didn’t even twitch. His eyes remained shut, his lashes about a mile long, thick and dark against his perfect, tanned cheeks.

No way was she going to touch him. She’d read far too many books where professional soldiers nearly killed the hapless fool who tried to shake them awake.

She clapped her hands, and still he slept on. “Damn it, Luke, wake up.”

Nothing. Not that she blamed him. She was exhausted, too.

All right. She wasn’t going to touch him, but she was going to poke him from a safe distance. She took the copy of Psychology Today that was on the end table, rolled it up and, trying to stay as far back from him as possible, jabbed him in the ribs.

It happened so fast, she wasn’t completely sure she even saw him move. One moment, his eyes were closed, the next he had her pinned to the waiting-room floor, one hand holding both of her wrists above her head, his other forearm heavy against her throat.

The eyes that gazed into hers were those of an animal—soulless and fierce. The face those eyes belonged to was hard and severe and completely deadly, his mouth a taut line, his teeth slightly bared.

But then he blinked and turned back into Luke O’Donlon, aka Lucky, aka her own living Navy Ken.

“Jeez.” He lifted his arm from her throat so that she could breathe again. “What the hell were you trying to do?”

“Not this,” Syd said, clearing her throat, her head starting to throb from where it had made hard contact with the floor. “In fact, I was trying to do the exact opposite of this. But I couldn’t wake you up.”

“Oh, man, I must’ve…” He shook his head, still groggy. “Usually I can take a combat nap and wake up at the least little noise.”

“Not this time.”

“Sometimes, if I’m really tired, and if I know I’m in a safe place, my body takes over and I go into a deep sleep and—” his eyes narrowed slightly. “You’re supposed to be hypnotized,” he remembered. “How come you’re not hypnotized?”

As Syd stared up into the perfect blueness of his eyes, she wasn’t sure she wasn’t hypnotized. Why else would she just lie here on the floor with the full weight of his body pressing down on top of her without protesting even a little?

Maybe she’d gotten a concussion.

Maybe that was what had rendered her so completely stupid.

But maybe not. Her head hurt, but not that much. Maybe her stupidity was from more natural causes.

“Dark, old-model sedan,” she told him. “Lana didn’t want to wake you, and it’s just as well. I’m an idiot when it comes to cars. That and calling it ugly was the best I could do.”

Was he never going to get off her ever again? She could feel the muscular tautness of his thigh pressed between her legs. She could feel…Oh, God.

“Are you okay?” he asked, rolling away from her. “Last time you were hypnotized it was something of an emotional roller coaster. I’m sorry I fell asleep. I really wanted to be there, in case…” He laughed sheepishly, giving her what she thought of as his best Harrison Ford self-deprecating smile. It was as charming on Luke as it was on Harrison. “Well, this sounds really presumptuous, but I wanted to be there in case you needed me.”

She would have found his words impossibly sweet—if she were the type to be swayed by sweet words. And she would’ve missed the warmth of his body if she were the type to long for strong arms to hold her. And if she were the type to wish he’d pull her close again and kiss her and kiss her and kiss her…

But she wasn’t. She wasn’t.

Having a man around was nice, but not a necessity.

Besides, she never took matters of the heart and all of their physical, sexual trappings lightly. Sex was a serious thing, and Luke, with his completely unplastic, extremely warm body, didn’t do serious. He’d told her that himself.

“I was okay,” she said, desperately trying to bring them back to a familiar place she could handle—that irreverent place of friendly insults and challenges, “until you hit me with a World Wrestling Federation-quality body slam, Earthquake McGoon.”

“Ho,” he said, almost as if he were relieved to be done with the dangerously sweet words and their accompanying illusion of intimacy himself, as if he were as eager to follow her back to the outlined safety of their completely platonic friendship. “You’re a fine one to complain, genius, considering you woke me up by sticking a gun barrel into my ribs.”

“A gun barrel!” She laughed her disbelief. “Get real!”

“What the hell was that, anyway?”

Syd picked up the magazine and tightly rolled it, showing him.

“It felt like a gun barrel.” He pulled himself to his feet and held out his hand to help Syd up. “Next time you want to wake me, and calling my name won’t do it,” he said, “think Sleeping Beauty. A kiss’ll do the trick every time.”

Yeah, right. Like she’d ever try to kiss Luke O’Donlon awake. He’d probably grab her and throw her down and…

And kiss her until the room spun, until she surrendered her clothes, her pride, her identity, her very soul. And probably her heart, as well.

“Maybe we shouldn’t leave,” she said tartly, as she followed Luke out the door. “It seems to me that the safest place for a Navy SEAL who fantasizes that he’s Sleeping Beauty is right here, in a psychologist’s waiting room.”

“Ha,” Luke said, “ha.”

“WHAT’S ON THE SCHEDULE for this afternoon?” Syd asked as Luke pulled his truck into the parking lot by the administration building.

“I’m going to start hanging out in bars,” Luke told her. “The seedier the better.”

She turned to look at him. “Well, that’s productive. Drinking yourself into oblivion while the rest of us sweat away in the office?”

He turned off the engine but didn’t move to get out of the truck. “You know as well as I do that I have no intention of partying.”

“You think you’ll single-handedly find this guy by going to bar after bar?” she asked. “You don’t even know what he looks like.”

He ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “Syd, I’ve got to do something before he hurts someone else.”

“His pattern is four to seven days between attacks.”

Luke snorted. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?” He swore, hitting the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. “I feel like I’m sitting on a time bomb. What if this guy goes after Veronica Catalanotto next? She’s home all alone, with only a toddler in her house. Melody Jones is out of town with her baby, thank God.” He ticked them off on his fingers—the wives of his teammates in Alpha Squad. “Nell Hawken lives over in San Diego. She’s safe—at least until this bastard decides to widen his target area. PJ Becker works for FInCOM. Both she and Lucy are best qualified to deal with this. They’re both tough but, hell, no one’s invincible. And there’s you.”




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