Bullseye: Seal

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“The FBI? DEA? You’re working with them?”

“What did you say before?” He rubbed his knuckles across the stubble on his jaw. “It’s complicated.”

“But what you’re telling me is that if it was some federal agency trying to trap me, they wouldn’t have sent you out here to protect me from that agency.”

“Exactly.” He placed his hands over her restless fingers. “I’m going to ask you a couple of questions. Can you try not to go off on me? I’m just asking.”

Her gaze shifted to his broad hands covering hers. God, his touch felt good—warm, secure. She nodded. “I won’t go off on you.”

“Is there any reason why these people would think you know something about your father’s business? Did he give you any information? Leave anything to you?”

“There wasn’t much left.” She slipped her hands from beneath his. Unless you counted the bank account on Isla Perdida. The same type of account her father had set up for her mother when they split, the one Mom had been using ever since to fund her lifestyle. Blood money.

“They seized all his assets...and mine.”

“I’m sorry about that.” He drummed his fingers against his glass. “They must think you know something. They wouldn’t contact you, otherwise.”

“They’re sadly mistaken. Do you think I’m in danger from them?”

“You could be.” Sounding casual, Josh lifted his shoulders, but they were stiff, indicating anything but casual.

“Great.” She pushed away the mug of beer. “What was your original assignment? Get close to the grieving widow? Why the pretended interest in the property? Why not just approach me?”

His gaze floated over her left shoulder and she wondered if he’d heard her. Then his attention snapped back to her face. “I thought it might be better to get to know you in a nonthreatening way first. I did shock you with all these revelations, didn’t I?”

“Partly because I thought you were a mild-mannered programmer.” Although there’d been nothing to suggest Josh Edwards/Elliott was mild mannered in any way, shape or form—her gaze skimmed over the powerful muscles on display beneath his shirt—especially form.

“My instructions were to get close to you.” He cleared his throat. “This is a new type of assignment for me, so I wasn’t sure about the best approach.”

His lips twisted into a half smile, and her gaze lingered on his strong jaw imagining for a second what it would feel like to get close to Josh Elliott. Then she flipped her hair over her shoulder and said, “Honesty?”

“What?” The hand holding his beer mug jerked, and the amber liquid sloshed into small waves.

“I said you could’ve tried honesty in approaching me.”

He curled his hands around the heavy, beveled glass and stared into its depths. “You really would’ve been open to a navy SEAL on a secret assignment appearing on your doorstep?”

“It’s not like you were personally responsible for the deaths of my father and husband.” She rolled her shoulders. “Besides, I accepted you when you did tell me the truth, didn’t I? I mean, we’re sitting here sharing a beer.”

He held up one finger. “Ah, that’s because I saved you in the alley, and you were still shaken up. I’m not sure you would’ve been so...accepting otherwise.”

She screwed up her mouth and didn’t bother refuting him. The man in the alley had shaken her up and she hadn’t appreciated Josh’s intervention at the time. Now that she knew Ricky really was dead, she was grateful for his protection. This might be a new type of assignment for him, but he’d caught on quickly.

Digging her elbow into the table, she buried her chin in one palm. “How exactly did the Navy SEALs fit into the raid on my father’s place?”

“I can’t talk about that.”

“Okay, top secret.” She tapped her fingertips against her cheekbone. “What now?”

“Keep your eyes and ears open, and be careful. I’ll be here to look out for you until we can figure out why your father’s associates are trying to contact you.”

“If they tell me anything, I’ll be sure to pass it along to you.”

His dark eyes narrowed. “Tell you anything? Why and how would they have the opportunity to tell you anything?”

As she studied his glittering eyes, a chill touched her spine. In that instant she had an odd sense that she was staring into Ricky’s eyes again. Josh’s expression contained that same single-minded ferocity that Ricky had, but surely, Josh had a passion for good and justice, not evil and greed.

“I mean, if they text me again or, God forbid, call me since they seem to have my cell phone number.”

Josh leveled a finger at her. “You’re not going to run off and meet anyone again, are you?”

“No. I just thought...” She glanced down and studied her fingernails as she trailed off.

“Ricky’s dead, Gina.”

“I know.” A single tear puddled in her right eye. Ricky had died a long time ago.

Josh slouched back in his chair and downed the rest of his beer. “Are you ready?”

She tapped her phone to wake it up, and the numbers of the clock glowed in the dark bar. “My mom’s going to think I had one hot date.”

“If you want her to think that, you need to take a couple of deep breaths. Your face looks—” he touched a finger to her cheek “—tight.”

His fingertip seemed to scorch her, to brand her. She sucked in a breath, and then shook her head. He was right. The events of the evening had taken their toll on her. The fear still had her senses buzzing.

“With any luck, my mother will be sound asleep and not lying in wait to ask nosy questions.”

“Did your mother have any contact with your father after the divorce?”

“Divorce?” She dropped her phone into her purse. “Your sources aren’t very well-informed. My mother and father never divorced, but they had very little contact after the separation.”

“Did they separate after she discovered his business, or did she know his line of work before they married?”

“Top secret.” Her lips formed a thin line, and she dragged her finger across the seam. If Josh, and the US government, didn’t know the details of her parents’ lives, she sure wasn’t going to inform them.

She still had to protect her mom.

Clasping her purse to her body, she pushed up from the chair. “I’m ready to go.”

Josh hopped up beside her and placed his hand at the small of her back to guide her out of the still-crowded bar. They spilled onto the sidewalk, joining the rest of the late-night revelers, stragglers from spring breaks across the country and snowbirds escaping the last ravages of winter in the Northeast.

A few steps later, and a popping noise had the press of people scattering and yelping in confusion.

Gina tripped over a crack in the sidewalk and stumbled off the curb. The cars in the street honked, as people surged into the road from the sidewalk to escape the firecrackers.

As Gina stood on her tiptoes to find Josh, she noticed from the corner of her eye a car peel away from the curb where it had been illegally parked. She turned toward the white sedan, and the back door flew open. A man lurched into the street and made a beeline for her.

Taking a step backward, Gina bumped into someone who wouldn’t budge. She put a hand out. “Excuse me.”

“Stop pushing, lady. Somebody’s gonna get hurt.”

“Yeah, me.” She twisted her head back around, and the man from the car was an arm’s length away.

Gina shifted sideways, but the man anticipated the move.

His fat fingers clamped around her upper arm and he almost lifted her from her feet as he dragged her toward the sedan.

She dug her heels into the asphalt. She was no match for him, but Josh was.

“Josh! Josh!”

As they got to the open door of the car, Gina grabbed onto the door frame. The big man peeled her fingers from the metal and twisted them back. She screamed amid another flurry of pops.

It was the driver of the car who’d been tossing firecrackers out the window.

Her abductor gave her a hard push from behind, and she fell face forward across the leather seats.

The man from the front seat growled, “Welcome back, Mrs. Rojas.”

Chapter Five (#u384220e4-1c6b-5e90-9906-f81936431ef2)

The firecrackers were some sort of diversion. Josh craned his neck just in time to see Gina carried into the street by a sea of people.

He swallowed hard and plowed his way through the panicked pedestrians, losing sight of Gina in the process. A big white sedan, the same one that had carried away her assailant in the alley, blocked his view of the rest of the street and when he saw a large man at the open door, Josh’s heart slammed against his chest.

He pushed a few people out of his way, and then jumped on the trunk of the car, sliding to the other side.

The big man was stuffing Gina into the back seat of the car.

Josh drew back his fist and landed it against the side of the man’s head. The man stumbled back and Josh shouted, “Get out of the car, Gina!”

Encouraged by a pair of legs in white denim that appeared in the doorway, Josh went at the big man again who was quickly regaining his composure and reaching into his pocket.

This bunch didn’t want a dead body in the street any more than he did, but the big guy would probably make an exception for him. Josh charged the man, which felt like running into a brick wall. He grabbed the man’s arm, twisting it behind his formidable bulk in one fluid movement.

The guy grunted and Josh continued to apply pressure until the man dropped to his knees. The driver began to get out of the car, but the whoop of sirens stopped him in his tracks.

Josh kicked the man’s fat gut before leaping over his body and making his way back to the sidewalk. The whole attack took seconds, and the cops were rolling in for crowd control.

The squeal of tires told him the men in the sedan weren’t going to stick around to answer questions about why they were tossing firecrackers onto a crowded sidewalk.

Josh’s gaze swept up and down the street. Had Gina run to her mother’s building? He squinted toward the purple awning, hoping to see her waiting there for him.

When someone wrapped an arm around him from behind, he spun around, fist clenched.

Gina held up one hand. “It’s just me.”

Warm relief rushed through his body and he pulled her into his arms. It’s what he’d been wanting to do all night anyway.

“Are you all right? That big guy wasn’t the same one from the alley.”

“No, but I think the driver was the same guy.”

He rubbed his hands up and down her arms. “Did he hurt you?”

“Just my fingers.” She shook out her hand. “They really want me to go with them, don’t they?”

“They sure do. They were behind the firecrackers. They wanted to create a panic and separate us.”

“It worked. I nearly got trampled in the street. Before they drove off, I tried to get a license plate but there was no plate on the car.”

“They’d never allow themselves to be traced through something like a license plate. Even if the car had one, it would’ve been stolen.” He squeezed her shoulders before releasing her. “But good thinking.”

“Maybe I should’ve just gone with them.”

“What?” That was not good thinking. “Are you crazy?”

“Maybe they’d just tell me what they want and I could tell them I didn’t have it, and they’d leave me alone.” She chewed on her bottom lip.

“You know that’s ridiculous, don’t you? You already know what they want. They texted that to you—drugs and weapons. And you already told them you don’t know anything. Do you think they believe you?”

“I don’t know.” She tucked her fingertips into the front pockets of her jeans, crossing one leg over the other where she stood. “I didn’t recognize those two tonight, but some of these guys have to be past associates of my father. Maybe I can reason with a couple of them.”

“You don’t follow the news much, do you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Does it look like the drug cartels are big fans of reasoning with anyone?”

“But my father...”

Josh sliced his hand through the air to stop her. “Your father was a vicious killer getting ready to deal with terrorists.”