Page 59

Because if fear and peril don’t destroy us, the fire of our passion just might…

SEAN

The sea breeze brushed over his sweat-coated skin, carrying with it the heavy scent of salt and seaweed. The hottest part of the day had come and gone, and Sean could finally appreciate the moisture-laden wind as it soothed his heated body. He was thankful their training exercise was a dry run, and they’d been able to leave most of the heavy equipment back at Fort Dale.

“Sean!”

Ricardo’s deep, drawling voice snapped Sean from his reverie, and he turned away from the ocean view. Ricardo stood near an area of bushes and trees, where the forest met the sandy beach of the island on which they were training. The man frowned as he gazed at Sean, cocking his head curiously.

Sean raised his hand in silent greeting, taking one last look at the sparkling water before walking up to his friend and team member. Ricardo’s dark eyes swept over Sean’s face, reading the emotional weather before letting his shoulders ease.

“You’re supposed to be a part of this, you know,” Ricardo informed him.

Sean shrugged. “You and everyone else decided it was break time, so I took a break.”

“And disappeared for fifteen minutes without letting anyone know where you were going.”

Sean snorted. “How many training exercises have we done on this island? How many times have I wandered off to the same place?”

Ricardo’s eyes drifted over Sean’s shoulder, and he could see the question written on his friend’s face. Having grown up in a town on the shores of Lake Superior, Ricardo took the sight of any large body of water for granted. He never entirely understood Sean’s fascination with the ocean, despite knowing Sean had grown up in the middle of nowhere, Kansas, where the largest body of water was a few scattered lakes. However, the questioning look of doubt faded, and he turned his attention back to Sean.

“We gonna continue?” Ricardo asked.

Sean nodded. “We need to run through everything again.”

Ricardo turned with a shake of his head. “Don’t see the point, man. Not like we’re going anywhere.”

“For now. But we need to remain sharp for when they decide to send us back out,” Sean told him, his voice firm.

“If you say so.”

Sean did, but mostly because he had to believe it was true. The loss of one of their own had hit their team hard in more ways than one. Where once Team Maelstrom had been a collection of five highly trained men, experts in cover extraction, now they were four soldiers without a purpose. They could barely call themselves a team. Pulled from the Middle East and set down at Fort Dale, they were left to sit around for weeks without any real direction and told to keep themselves trained and sharp by General Winter.

Walking past Ricardo, Sean moved quietly through the foliage, letting his friend stew in his thoughts. When he entered the clearing where he’d left the other team members, the twomen were lounging against a tree. Matt was tapping away at his phone, grumbling as he always did when it didn’t cooperate, while Nick was enjoying what looked like a nice nap.

“Seriously?” Sean asked.

Matt looked up, brow still furrowed. “Oh, hey, he found you.”

“Not like he wanders off anywhere different,” Nick muttered without opening his eyes.

“There’s always a first time,” Matt said.

Sean took a deep breath. “Get your asses up. We’ve got work to do.”

Matt shoved his phone away. “Not like I’m getting anything done here anyway. Damn thing doesn’t want to load anything.”

“Maybe if you didn’t feel the need to fuss with every bit of code on every app and program you’ve got on it, it might actually work.”

“I’m trying to improve it!”

“Yeah, just like you improved the last five.”

Sean rubbed his head as the two men bickered back and forth over whether Matt’s technological tinkering had merit. They’d always been like brothers, too close in age, and it usually fell on Sean’s shoulders to tell them to shut it. Being stuck at Fort Dale had only worsened the arguing, and it was beginning to wear on Sean’s nerves.

“Enough!” Sean barked, causing the two men to jerk their heads toward him.

The identical looks of shock and annoyance went a long way to proving the idea they were secretly related. That was if it wasn’t for the fact that Matthew had the deep bronze skin of his Latino roots to go with his dark hair and eyes, while Nick was a blond-haired pale boy from the middle of Nebraska. Either someone’s mother had something to own up to, or Sean had been gifted with two bickering idiots.