Page 2 of SEAL’S Baby Surprise (Lanes #2)

AUSTIN

Our walk back to the van is slow. This big-eyed waif of a woman struggles in her dress, and she has to stop every ten feet to brush sand off her skirt.

The dress she is wearing has a satin sweetheart top that cradles and supports her breasts, barely covering her nipples.

The skirt is a gauzy affair that is gathered at the waist. Both are studded with glittery stones and seed pearls stitched on in the shape of hummingbirds and flowers. It should have been gaudy, but somehow, it suits her. It makes her look like some kind of elf or faerie.

Or like a nymph. I didn’t do so great in high school English, but I’m pretty sure that’s what you call the magic creatures who look like women but are actually water spirits or something. Something out of a fairy tale, for sure.

Her hair is a color that is definitely magical, and it adds to the allure.

She has seaweed mixed in with her long, pink hair, along with strands of more of those seed pearls and glittering stones.

If those things were real gems, she was wearing a fortune.

So, whatever has happened to her, she has not been robbed.

That’s good.

It rules out one of the thousand things that could have happened.

She is, however, barefoot and has no purse — that’s something of a puzzle. In my experience, women rarely go about without a purse.

But I guess they don’t always lie in the ocean fully clothed either.

“I’m Austin,” I say. I point to my dog, who is happily marching alongside us, giving him the hand signal to sit as we pause. “And that’s Ark-Ark. What should we call you?”

“Lee,” she introduces herself. She looks over at Ark. “Ark-Ark suits him. It’s just how he sounds.”

Ark, responding to his name, wags his tail. Since he has obediently sat as I’d commanded, he now raises a cloud of sand. He’s a long-haired German shepherd, so he has a lot of tail.

Standing up, Lee is scarcely as tall as my armpit. She is lushly rounded at her breasts and hips, with a bit of plumpness around her well-shaped waist. It makes her hourglass shape even more prominent, and since she’s a little wet too...

I stop myself.

I can’t look at her like this. She’s literally a damsel in distress.

But, I can’t help myself. The pattern of hummingbirds and flowers begins to make some sense. It was curved just right to make her look as if she has an hour-glass figure without corseting.

“Are you sure you don’t mind taking me back to your place?” Lee asks, turning those fathomless blue eyes on me. Fathomless…yeah, that’s a good word for her eyes. They are an amazing blue, as wide and guileless as can be, yet with depths that could not be plumbed by any mariner’s measure.

“It’s fine. You definitely look like you need a shower, and a shower I have. Come on,” I say. “My van is up this direction. No matter what kind of trouble you are in, everything looks better after a shower, clean clothes, and food.”

“I guess,” Lee says, in a doubtful sort of voice.

Well, not everyone is a believer. My experience is that low blood sugar, empty belly, and general physical discomfort takes away from focus and concentration. I’ve had the kind of training where I can push my way through this stuff.

Unless I’m sorely mistaken, I doubt she’s been through boot camp, let alone the rigorous special forces training that would allow her to zone out her physical needs.

Still, I have to give her some credit. She seems to be used to walking barefoot because she doesn’t wince at the hot sand and makes her way nimbly past pebbles on the sidewalk. She positions her feet duck-footed, like a dancer.

I wonder if she is.

“Where’d you learn to walk barefoot?” I ask, curious despite myself.

She makes a scrunchy kind of face. “Mom used to drag all of us to this weekend nudist camp. It was supposed to be super healthy. Mostly, it was full of gropey old men. There were regulations about girls and guys, so that helped. But I joined their gymnastics class for girls. The instructor was about a hundred years old and looked like she was made out of bone and gristle with a little skin stretched over, but the old men and a lot of the young ones steered clear of her. She had black belts in about three different kinds of martial arts.”

“Your mother was okay with that?” The whole story fascinates me. I’m known for going down rabbit holes and getting caught up in tangents, and every element of her tale appeals to me.

This time she grins. It’s an adorable grin that makes me want to smile in return. t. “Mom thought it would make me skinny like Griselda. But all it did was make me solid. And I can do a triple back roundoff. Wanna see?”

I do. That would be cool as hell. However, I glance down at the concrete sidewalk we are now on and frown. “Maybe later. I don’t want you to crack your noggin or sprain an ankle if you land wrong.”

She shrugs. “All right, your loss.”

I do actually feel like it’s a loss.

Back at the van, I dig out a pair of clean sweat-pant cut-offs and a shirt that is too tight across my shoulders, along with a towel and washcloth. I’m not sure what exactly Lee will want to wear after she showers, but I hope she appreciates the hot water.

It’s something that Julia and I have in common... we both love showers. The extra-large water tank and gas water heater I’d invested in were worth every penny I’d spent on them.

While Lee goes inside and takes a shower, I fire up the grill again.

I haven’t asked her what she likes to eat, so I make bacon and eggs again, toast, and set out jelly and jam.

After a moment’s thought, I make fresh coffee and a pot of hot water.

I have some tea on hand; I like a cup now and then. But I love my coffee in the morning.

I wonder if she does too.

Lee cuts a comical figure when she comes out. She’sunwound most of the fancy stuff, as well as the seaweed out of her hair. The pink mass flows over the shoulders of my old t-shirt. It might have been a little small on me, but that’s not how it fits her.

On her, it fits like a tent. The sleeves hang off her shoulders, and the hem comes to her knees. She is holding the sweatpant shorts up with one hand. “Do you have a belt?” she asks.

I don’t have anything that will fit. After a moment’s thought, I dig through the medical supplies and sacrifice a length of gauze. I wrap it around her waist and tie it in a bow over one hip.

She laughs and strikes a pose. “Very chic,” she comments. “Instant sash with puffy bow. Were you a tailor in another life?”

“No,” I say, smiling at her joy. “I had two older sisters who thought I was a dress-up doll until I got old enough to object. After that, I had to help them with their frills when they went somewhere. Older sisters can be real demanding.”

She looks at me for a minute with those enormous blue eyes as if she’s trying to discover if I’ve just told a whopper. “Had,” she says. “Do you still have two sisters?”

“I suppose,” I reply. “We don’t talk much anymore. They didn’t approve when I joined the Navy. Said it was too violent, that I should become a stockbroker or go into real estate. I told them that I preferred honest violence with a purpose over covert white-collar violations.”

“Oh.” She packs a world of meaning into that word. “So, you’re not on speaking terms?”

“You might say that” I reply. “I did twelve years in the Navy, joined up with the SEALS about two-thirds of the way through. Finished my last tour of duty with a bang and got honorable discharge on a medical. Took Ark with me when I went, because the K-9 unit handler couldn’t get him to stop barking.

We’ve been flying under the radar ever since. ”

I hand her a plate of eggs, bacon and toast, then point to a small table with packets of mayonnaise, mustard, and the jars of jam and jelly. “Condiments over there,” I say. “If this doesn’t work, I can make waffles.”

“Bacon!” she exclaims. “This is fine! I love good, crispy bacon with fried eggs. And I smell coffee!”

I hand her a mug with a picture of the sun coming up on one side and the logo on the other that says, “I need coffee with my sunrise.”

She smiles a thank you, looks through the assorted packets on the condiment table, and gets out two packets each of real sugar and condensed milk creamer.

Ark bumps against my knee to remind me that he had been out and about during breakfast, and he would like a reward for his efforts. Rather than make him wait while I cook for him, I open a can of dog food.

He scarfs it down, then slurps up about half a gallon of water.

Meanwhile, Lee has munched her way through the food I made and is now looking sleepy. “Hey,” I say, “I’ve got a couple of short errands to run. How about if I make up the front bunk and you get some rest. You look like you need it.”

“You sure?” she asks. “I mean, aren’t you afraid I’ll drive off with your van or steal stuff?”

“Lee,” I say, t, “There’s not much here to steal. You brought more wealth with you than I’ve got invested in this van. Unless I’m very much mistaken, those strings of beads in your hair were real diamonds and pearls.”

“Yeah, I think they’re lab created,” she replies, “And cultured pearls. I don’t think there’s actually a ton of pearls outside of farms these days, so cultured it is. “

I blink. A diamond is a diamond, isn’t it? “Even so, you were wearing a fortune’s worth of them. While I’m out, I’ll pick up a pair of flip-flops. The sidewalks around here get hot enough to blister your feet. Let me see one of your feet,” I ask, worried it’s already too late.

Obligingly, she sticks out her foot for me. It is surprisingly tiny, and I measure its size against the palm of my hand. Heel to toe, the tips of my fingers stick out longer than her feet.

Elf feet. I swear to God. They’re like elf or fairy feet.

She could easily be the heroine of some ancient story. Found by the sea, covered in seaweed, and crying out to it to be taken back.

But all of that aside, I can see that she is very much a flesh and blood girl, and one likely in some kind of trouble.

This little selkie is without her magic skin, unless you count that wreck of a dress, but I would respect the legends and treat her gently all the same.

Besides, I’ll take my keys and leave Ark on alert. He might have washed out of K-9 training, but he could take down a full-grown man and do it without even bruising the human.

“I’ll leave Ark with you,” I say.

“Ok,” she says, yawning. “I am kinda tired. And you’re right, the world looks lots better with food and dry clothes.”

I fold out the front passenger seat of the van, throw some clean sheets over it, and a blanket. Then I make sure the air conditioning unit is running, and I take our black refuse, and other trash and head to the dumping site.

As I walk, I wonder what it is exactly that I have found. Is she a treasure? Or a time bomb ticking ominously ready to blow my life apart? She is cute, no doubt about that, but I have a lot going on.

I have my kid, for one, and I haven’t quite figured out what I’m going to do come fall, when she needs to be in regular school.

I can’t worry about a strange, fairy tale woman that I found washed up on the beach. My purpose is to help her get on her feet, and that is all.

It’s weird that I’m attracted to her at all. I’m almost never interested in a woman, especially after the disaster of my marriage.

It hadn’t been for nothing my Navy SEAL team called me “the monk.” I hadn’t enlightened them that I just didn’t want anything contagious near my privates. Besides, I had been married, and it hadn’t turned out well for me.

I loved Julia’s mom at the time, and I had wanted to do everything to be with her. Too bad it had turned out not to be up to me.

I hope I can keep better control of this situation.

Because if I can’t, I’m not sure how it’s going to mess up my life.

And my life is already quite messy.