Page 6 of Defended By the SEAL (HERO Force #10)

Cowboy hung back while Charlotte walked away.

She was projecting her feelings onto Tom and Grams, but that didn’t mean she was wrong.

He’d been dating that woman long enough to know her gut feelings were usually right on the money, and that was reason enough for him to text Moto to look into Vanderhoffen’s past.

Hitting send, he was relieved when the message said delivered.

It was a miracle they had cell service on this remote little island, especially in this storm, and he knew it wasn’t likely to stay that way for long.

He wished he’d thought to bring his sat phone, but Charlotte’s attempt to extricate herself from his life must have momentarily scrambled his brain.

Pocketing the phone, he stared after her and took a deep breath. Loving Charlotte was a lot like that video game where you were a frog, trying to get across twenty lanes of traffic, one lane at a time. Sometimes you had to hop backwards to avoid being hit by a truck.

Two lanes forward, one lane back.

Not for the first time, he thought of her ex.

As the commander of HERO Force, Leo had resources available to him most people could only dream about.

And what had he used them for? Cyber-stalking her ex, making sure the rat bastard stayed the hell away from Charlotte.

And he had. He was a cop in Virgina Beach, remarried to a waitress named Tiffany who Cowboy truly felt bad for.

Charlotte was tough. Take the way she’d just walked out of this room, like his words hadn’t come close to affecting her.

But he knew they had. He knew that beneath all her bravado, she was easily hurt, and she loved more deeply than any woman he’d ever met.

Those two facts were inextricably knotted together.

She was capable of being so badly wounded because she’d allowed herself to be so vulnerable and open to love.

Someday, he vowed, she would be open to love like that again. And if there was a God upstairs, then Cowboy would be the lucky guy who got to be by her side.

He crossed the room to a wide bay window, noting the chilly air that moved across his skin, and tucking his hands into his pockets as he went. Outside, the snow was falling heavily, the night’s blue cast just barely illuminating the shifting spaces between the flakes.

The nerve endings in his body tingled like they did before a big op, the HERO Force chopper vibrating beneath him and anticipation running through his veins.

In this state, adrenaline eked into his bloodstream at a constant pace that kept his body on high alert, plans crystalizing as he visualized the ideal outcome he wanted to take place when the bird hit the dirt.

What did it mean that he felt that way now?

He couldn’t imagine there was any kind of danger out there. They were on an isolated island in the middle of a storm, and while they might soon be cut off from the mainland, the worst that could happen was that they’d be locked in with an elderly scam artist and an endless supply of martinis.

He blew out air, laughing at the senseless worry that had crept beneath his skin, and turning to head for dinner.

There was no danger here. Nada. Zero. Zip.

Just the guarantee of time with the people already on this island, and he was grateful for the opportunity to push his little frog back into traffic before Charlotte got too far away.

Turning on his heel, he headed for the doorway and began whistling the theme from The Muppet Show.

No sooner did he get the first few notes out than the hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and he was filled with the insidious certainty that he was being watched, reminding him of a truth he long ago should have tattooed to the front of his mind.

Danger didn’t make appointments.

It showed up whenever it damn well pleased.