The Socialite and the SEAL Read online

They sat in silence a minute. “Thank you,” she said.

  “You’re welcome,” warred with “Just doing my job, ma’am,” in his mind.

  While he was busy trying to figure out what would make him sound like less of an idiot, she moved on. “Kareem was working with them.”

  It wasn’t a question, but JB nodded anyway. “Looked that way.”

  She sank down in the boat until she could put her head back to look up at the stars. “I’m so stupid.”

  JB scooted down next to her, ignoring the pain in his shoulder. “He probably talked a good game.”

  “They all do.” She rolled her head to look at him. “I thought he was different, you know? He had plenty of money of his own, so I figured he wasn’t interested in mine. I thought he liked me for me. And then it turned out to be about the money after all.”

  With someone like her, it would probably always be about the money. Not about her, but about whatever someone could get out of her.

  “Tell you what,” he told her, “if you ever make it to Little Creek, Virginia, I’ll buy you a beer at the FUBAR and tell you how to spot a guy who isn’t in it for the money.”

  She smiled. “If I ever get down that way, I may take you up on that.”

  She put her head back and looked up at the sky.

  After a second, JB did the same. He knew he’d never see her again after he dropped her off to the brass when they reached shore. She’d never make it to Little Creek, Virginia, and if she did, she wouldn’t be having a beer with him at the FUBAR. The only reason she even deigned to speak to him now, was because she was out of her element and in shock and she didn’t have a choice.

  But she was alive. They’d done good work tonight. He looked up at the stars and was grateful he was here, in the middle of the Mediterranean, instead of in a coal mine in West Virginia.

  1

  “A bodyguard?” Tansy said, wrinkling her nose. On her lap, Mimi the Pomeranian yipped in solidarity.

  Tansy buried her fingers in Mimi’s soft fur as Walter Leighton nodded. “I think it would be best. At least for a little while. Until we can figure out what’s going on.”

  He glanced at his head of security, who was sitting in on this meeting with Tansy.

  Mick Callahan nodded. “We’ll try to be unobtrusive about it. And some of us clean up all right in a tux.” He grinned.

  “Oh, no.” Tansy shook her head. “You’d better not be talking about yourself. Your job is to protect my dad. Not me.”

  “This nutcase isn’t coming after me,” her dad pointed out. “The note makes that very clear.”

  Tansy pulled it closer for another look. She’d already read it, and didn’t think she’d missed anything—there wasn’t much to miss—but it couldn’t hurt to read it one more time.

  The writing was a little blurred through the plastic Ziploc Mick had insisted on putting the note in, in case of fingerprints.

  YOU TOOK MINE, NOW I’M GOING TO TAKE YOURS.

  Short and sweet. Or not necessarily sweet, but at least to the point.

  “You don’t know that he means me,” Tansy pointed out, also not for the first time. “You don’t know who he is, or what it was you supposedly took from him.” They didn’t even know that the note-writer was a he. It was just simpler to call him that. “But unless you’ve taken someone’s daughter away, he’s probably not coming for me, either.”

  “Be that as it may,” her father said, “it’s not a risk I’m willing to take. You’re the most important thing in the world, pumpkin. And I’m not going to risk losing you again.”

  Tansy refrained from pointing out that he hadn’t lost her last time. He’d risked losing her, but it had all worked out. And none of it had been his fault.

  That hadn’t made much of a difference to her father. After the hijacking, he’d insisted she take a bodyguard everywhere she went.

  Shopping trip = bodyguard.

  Dentist visit = bodyguard.

  Lunch with a friend = bodyguard.

  Taking Mimi to the groomer = bodyguard.

  At first, it had been nice to have Conrad around. She didn’t have to worry about anything. If someone tried to approach her, Conrad would take care of it. Whether it was another hijacker or just some idiot paparazzi wanting to talk about her experience.

  The last thing she wanted to do, was talk about it. That just kept it alive in her head. She wanted to forget it ever happened, so she could sleep again.

  As time went by, the paparazzi disappeared as the latest Hollywood hot couple hit on hard times and took over the front page of the gossip rags. And nothing else happened to her. And Tansy realized that as long as Conrad was around, she couldn’t move on. The fact that she needed him to feel safe, made her uncomfortable.

  So she made herself ditch Conrad. And it had been one of the hardest things she’d ever done. Not just because she still didn’t feel safe, even though logic told her she was, but because Conrad hadn’t wanted to go back to his former boring guard duty.

  That had been more than nine months ago. It was almost a year since the hijacking. She had worked hard to put what happened behind her. And for the most part, she’d succeeded. She didn’t wake up in a cold sweat much anymore, thinking she was still locked in that stateroom, with three hijackers outside the door. And the last thing she wanted, was to stir up the memories.

  She put the Ziploc back on the desk. “Are you sure we shouldn’t just wait and see? It could be a prank, right?”

  She looked from one to the other of them. Her father behind his desk, Mick in the chair next to hers. Hoping that one of them, that both, would give some credence to her suggestion. That someone would tell her not to worry, because it was likely nothing to worry about.

  “I wouldn’t recommend it,” her father’s chief of security said, shaking his head. “Better safe than sorry, and all that. I can assign Conrad to you again.”

  “No.” Tansy shook her head. “No offense, but if there’s any chance at all that this is real and that I’m in danger, I’m picking my own bodyguard.”

  Mick and her father both arched their brows.

  Tansy added, “I want John.”

  There was a moment of silence. They were probably running down the list of personnel in the security department. And then, when there was no John there, anyone else they knew with that name.

  Eventually, her father asked, “Who’s John?”

  Tansy turned his way. “Don’t you remember I told you about him? The Navy SEAL who rescued me from Kareem’s boat?”

  There was another moment’s pause while her father and Mick looked at one another. Then Mick shifted on his chair. “Uncle Sam doesn’t really offer his sailors for hire, Ms. Leighton.”

  “Never?” Panic crept down her spine, and she looked from one man to the other. “Are you sure there isn’t a way around that?”

  Maybe they could offer him money, or something. Everyone liked money.

  The two men exchanged another look. “Do you suppose...?” Walter Leighton said.

  Mick shrugged. “I can ask. I’m sure I can find someone who’d know who the guy is. How many sailors named John can there be in the Navy, after all?”

  He was clearly trying to look on the bright side. Or he was being sarcastic. Chances were there were thousands of sailors named John in the Navy.

  Luckily, Tansy had a little more info than that.

  “Petty Officer First Class John Walton, Navy SEAL Team Sixteen, Alpha Squad, out of Little Creek, Virginia. You might find him drinking beer at a place called the FUBAR.”

  Both men stared at her.

  “Just how much time did you spend with this man, pumpkin?” Walter Leighton asked.

  “Just enough time to get from the yacht to shore,” Tansy told him. “When I went looking for him again after they let me out of the hospital, there wasn’t a single Navy SEAL anywhere near Tripoli.”

  “They work in secret most of the time,” Mick said with a nod. “Regular military goes in with gun
s blazing, but not these guys. Unless something goes wrong, you never even realize they’ve been there. Until something blows up.”

  The hijackers probably wouldn’t have known the SEALs were on the yacht either, if Tansy hadn’t tried to kill John Walton when he opened the door to her stateroom. She still felt bad about that, even though she hadn’t realized who he was when she hit him. Had she known he was coming to rescue her, she wouldn’t have. And he was a smart guy. He’d probably figured that out. Although that knowledge really didn’t make her feel any better.

  He’d probably refuse to help now, just because of it. Why would he risk his neck a second time to try to help someone who’d hurt him the first time he tried to help?

  She pushed the thought away. He had to agree to help. Mick would just have to do whatever it took, offer whatever it took, to arrange it. “There were three of them. John and Max and one more guy whose name I can’t remember. There might have been more of them on shore, but there were only three on the boat.”

  “I’m sure they had their whole squad nearby,” Mick said. “Six or seven guys. Someone was out there with a sniper rifle trained on the yacht, no doubt. Probably more than one.”

  “Hire them all if you have to,” Walter Leighton said. “If they’re Navy SEALs, they’d be an asset to the organization anyway.”

  Mick nodded agreement, but disagreed verbally. “With respect, sir, it’s not as easy as that. A petty officer is enlisted. The Navy owns him. He can’t just quit, no matter how much money you offer him. And if he’s like most SEALs, he won’t want to. But I’ll pull some strings and see what I can find out.”

  He thought for a second and added, “Given the Khan el Balushi connection, and the one year anniversary of the hijacking coming up, this might be something they’d be interested in anyway.”

  Walter Leighton straightened his chair. So did Tansy, across the desk. “What do you mean?”

  “You took mine,” Mick quoted. “Now I’m going to take yours.”

  It took Tansy no more than a second to figure out what he meant. “You think Kareem’s father has something to do with this?”

  “It’s worth considering,” Mick said. “Kareem died in the raid.”

  Tansy nodded, and suppressed a shudder. The picture of him lying there on the floor in his cabin, with blood all around and his eyes open and staring, had given her nightmares for weeks last year. Even now, the picture came back sometimes to give her shivers.

  “If Sheik el Balushi blames you,” Mick looked at Walter, “for not paying the ransom and for getting his son killed, he could be going after your daughter in retaliation.”

  Walter looked concerned.

  Mick continued, “If there’s any chance at all that the Saudis are involved, or anyone in that part of the world, Homeland Security would want to know. So would the FBI’s antiterrorism unit. And the SEALs who were involved.”

  “Good angle,” Tansy said approvingly.

  Mick looked at her. “It’s not an angle, Ms. Leighton. Considering the evidence, it really could be Sheik el Balushi at the bottom of this. His son had ties to terrorism. The father might, too.”

  That was a bit scary. Kareem’s father had always been nice to her when they’d met, during the couple of months she and Kareem had been dating, but she hadn’t gotten the impression the old man held a very high opinion of her, or of women in general. He’d adored his son, and had thought it perfectly fitting that Tansy would adore Kareem, too, but beyond that, she’d pretty much been furniture. There for Kareem’s convenience, but not really a person in her own right.

  She snuggled Mimi a little closer. “How soon will you know anything?”

  “Depends on how soon I can find someone to talk to in Virginia,” Mick said. “And whether your SEAL is OCONUS right now.”

  “OCON-what?”

  “Outside the continental US. If they’re on a mission or training exercise somewhere, you can’t have the guy, no matter how much you want him. He owes his allegiance to Uncle Sam, and until Uncle Sam’s finished with him, that’s where he’ll be.”

  Tansy nodded. “Let me know how it goes.” She got to her feet. “I think I’m going to go for a swim.”

  “If you go anywhere,” her father warned her, “take Conrad with you.”

  The idea of swimming with Conrad standing on the edge of the pool was off-putting. “On second thought,” Tansy said, “I think I’m just going to stay here. At least until we know more. I can walk Mimi on the back patio.”

  She put the Pomeranian on the floor. “Come on, Mimi. Let’s go.”

  She headed for the door with Mimi bouncing after her, a furry ball on four tiny legs.

  * * *

  All JB wanted was a shower, a beer, and his bed, in that order. Maybe a woman, too, but until he’d had all the others, and about thirty hours of sleep, he wasn’t going to do her any good.

  Unfortunately, such was not to be. No sooner had they touched down, and were gathering their gear to escape the base for a few hours of shuteye, than the word came down. “Alpha Squad, report to the squad room for a briefing.”

  Max muttered something in Russian. It might not have been a curse, but it sounded like one. “Let’s go.”

  They all dropped their gear and went.

  Inside the squad room, Commander Baker was ready for them. “I’ll be quick. I know it’s been a long time since you saw your bunks.”

  No argument there.

  “Last year, Alpha Squad went to the Mediterranean on a mission to rescue an American citizen, Tansy Leighton, from a yacht which had been hijacked by terrorist sympathizers.”

  JB figured Baker went over the mission for the two or three SEALs who had joined the squad since then. It wasn’t like he, or anyone else who had been involved, was likely to have forgotten. It wasn’t every day they were called upon to rescue heiresses.

  “While you were crawling through the jungle in South America,” Baker said, “we got word that Walter Leighton has received an anonymous note possibly targeting his daughter, and possibly going back to the hijacking last year.”

  “Possibly?”

  It was Max who asked. Of course it was Max.

  Baker nodded. “Agents from the FBI’s Philadelphia office are looking at the note now. But it’s very short and simple. They sent me a copy. All it says is, You took mine, now I’m going to take yours. It could refer to Leighton’s daughter, or to something else entirely.”

  Max nodded.

  “Walter Leighton has requested that Alpha Squad come to Philadelphia and work with the FBI on the investigation. The FBI has agreed to the request.”

  JB wasn’t surprised. When you had as much money as Walter Leighton, you could order anybody to dance to your tune, even the Navy and the FB-freaking-I.

  “In addition,” Commander Baker said, “Tansy Leighton has asked specifically for Petty Officer Walton to act as her personal bodyguard during the op.”

  Every SEAL in the room turned to look at JB, and he knew damn well that if Commander Baker hadn’t been standing there, and if they all didn’t respect Commander B so much, there’d be whistling and cat-calls.

  “You’re going wheels up tomorrow at seven,” Commander Baker said. “Be on the airfield with enough changes of underwear and socks for at least a couple of days. Any problems, come see me. Everyone else, go home and get some sleep. Dismissed.”

  He waited for everyone to start the shuffle toward the door before he gestured to JB. “Hold on, Walton.”

  When the room was clear, he added, “Anything going on that I should know about?”

  JB stood at attention, his eyes fixed on a spot just over the commander’s shoulder. “No, sir.”

  Baker sighed. “At ease, Walton. I’m not accusing you of anything. Just trying to figure out if anything happened I don’t know about.”

  JB shook his head. “No, sir. I met her once, the night we took her off the yacht. I didn’t see her again after I dropped her off to the medics on shore. We got
out of there as quick as we could, since we weren’t really supposed to be there in the first place.”

  Baker nodded.

  “I never heard from her again. Never spoke to her, never got a letter or an email. Nothing.”

  “So you have no idea why she’d request you for this assignment?”

  “Maybe she wants to apologize,” JB said. “She tried to crack my skull with some sort of Chinese paperweight. Broke my collar bone.” He put his hand on his shoulder, reflectively. It didn’t hurt anymore, but he could still occasionally feel the phantom pain. Like, when he talked about it.

  Commander Baker hid a smile. “You’re sure she isn’t looking for a chance to do it again?”

  Lord, he hoped not. “I’ll be careful, sir. And introduce myself before I open any doors.”

  Baker nodded. “You do that, Walton. Get out of here. Go on home and get some sleep. You look beat. And six o’clock will be here before you know it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And Walton?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  JB wasn’t sure what Ian Baker would or wouldn’t do—he’d heard rumors, but nobody knew whether they were true or not—but he managed a salute before staggering out of the squad room and back to his duffel.

  He’d wanted a shower, a beer, his bed, and eventually a woman. Looked like he was about to get all four, if not quite in the way he’d anticipated.

  2

  The SEALs were scheduled to arrive at nine, and Tansy couldn’t believe how giddy she was. She’d changed clothes twice before she’d decided on what to wear, and had fiddled with her hair until it was perfect.

  Part of her couldn’t believe Mick had talked them into taking on this guard duty. Sure, her father had as much money as God. And with that much money, you usually got what you wanted. But John Walton had no reason to remember her fondly. She’d almost killed him—a couple of inches to the right, and she would have hit him in the head instead of the shoulder—and then she hadn’t even had the courtesy to say she was sorry for hurting him.