A SEAL's Return Page 10

  She’d always assumed it was because of her independent and strong personality. But maybe not so much. Was she any less strong for calling Jake tonight and wanting his protective presence now?

  No, she didn’t think so. He didn’t present as the stereotypical alpha male, oozing dominance but in a respectful way.

  Like a partner.

  That was something to think about. Tomorrow. After she had enough sleep so that the outdoors didn’t make her jump when it snapped, crackled, and popped.

  ###

  That didn’t sit right. Jake tossed his cell phone back and forth then rolled up in bed. Not two minutes beforehand, his mind had been cloudy, but now he was firing on all cylinders and unsure what to do about it.

  Charlotte was tucked in bed, and calling Nora back to double-check felt like the wrong thing to do.

  “Are you in my backyard?” What kind of question was that? The kind that he wasn’t comfortable with.

  He paced from the guest bedroom where he had been sleeping to the master bedroom, which slowly was becoming useful again, and stood in front of the chest of drawers where he’d finally unpacked his clothes.

  Even if he got dressed, what was he going to do? Nothing. Charlotte was asleep, and even if she wasn’t, he couldn’t take her to a situation where Nora was scared.

  Or was she? Was he searching for someone to save because the career he had loved was gone?

  No, this wasn’t a chance to play hero for the girl he had a crush on. His instincts had never been adrenaline driven, and he’d never gone in search of accolades. Something was wrong, and he quickly dressed in street clothes.

  He didn’t want to call his folks. It was too late, and they’d have too many questions. The guys that he’d reconnected with? What if Charlotte woke up? She’d met Dean in passing because of Baxter, but Matt had done a few solid favors for him and Ally before he got home.

  Jake scrolled through his phone contacts and swiped his buddy’s name. It rang three times before a groggy Matt answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, man. It’s Jake, and I know it’s late. But is there any way you can run over here? I’d love it if you could watch Charlotte.”

  “Everything okay?” Matt asked, yawning.

  Jake ran a hand over the scruff on his chin. “Matt, man. I know you’re good at your job, and you’ll get me when I say I don’t know.”

  The voice cleared on the other side. “See you in ten.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Headlights rolled into Jake’s driveway as he paced by the front door. The panic in Nora’s voice was seared into Jake’s memory despite her protests that nothing was wrong. If nothing was wrong, she wouldn’t have called. Or she might have, but that wasn’t what she’d say.

  Matt jogged to the front door, and Jake let him in.

  “Charlotte’s asleep. She shouldn’t wake up.”

  His friend eyed the concealed carry tucked under Jake’s shirt at his waist. “If you want me to go with you, Paige can come over here instead.”

  Jake shook his head. “It’s probably nothing.”

  “I can’t believe it’s nothing if you’re locked and loaded.”

  “True enough.” Jake’s fingers curled by his sides, and he was itching to bolt out the door. He gave a curt nod. “I’ll explain when I get back.”

  Matt’s jaw set as he lifted his chin in measured deliberation. “All right, partner. Stay safe.”

  If Jake had had any parting promises to offer, he’d have done so. But his only response was to hustle out the door and hope that he was overreacting. Everything was fine. An animal got into her trash. A branch cracked. The storms had loosened a wood plank. He continued making the list as he revved his truck and headed toward Nora’s.

  Of course, all this could be overreacting. She hadn’t asked him to come over. Was this too much? He rubbed his chest as he made a tight turn, hauling double the residential speed limit.

  If nothing was wrong and she knew he came over anyway, he might need to reassess his gut instincts. But they were never wrong.

  “You’re not in my backyard, are you?”

  Jake made the final turn toward her street and pulled over a block short of her house then slid out of his truck. He gently pressed his door shut.

  The night was eerily calm with the now familiar cool Northwest fall weather, and Jake bypassed the obvious path, the sidewalk, and skipped into the neighbor’s backyard.

  Not even a dog barked. His senses were set on high, and his eyes had adjusted to the evening. He could see among the trees and the shadows. He searched for anything out of place, coming up empty.

  “What’s bothering you?” he whispered, walking down the fence line near the back of Nora’s house until he scaled her low fence.

  The house lights were off and the window shades drawn. There was nothing back here except for a soccer ball, an oversized shed, and a well-kept lawn.

  This wasn’t normal. He’d crossed the line from protective friend to… Who knew what to call this? But there was nothing here, and her lights were out, so clearly she wasn’t worried anymore.

  Still, his senses tingled, and he made a sweep. Everything was as he had seen it before. Trash cans where he expected them to be. Tree branches barely rustling with a breeze.

  Jake walked the way he came, admitting defeat and feeling paranoid.

  Did he miss the action and adventure more than he knew? Was he going mad from denying himself the one woman who made sense? White spots reflecting on the ground broke his attention at the corner of the house, and he dropped his gaze.

  His senses fired alarms. His hand hovered on the ready as he changed course, sliding closer to the house, near a window, to inspect. Cigarette butts, several of them, piled outside a window.

  Someone had been by her house for an extended period. Doing what? And when?

  Just because she heard a noise didn’t mean it happened tonight, but he hated coincidences. Jake scanned the backyard then searched the front.

  What was he supposed to do with a pile of old smoke butts? Wake her up and scare the pants off her? He made another pass and decided to head home, not waking and scaring Nora. There wasn’t anyone here… At least that he could see.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The calm night did nothing to settle Jake as he patrolled the quiet neighborhood, listening to the steady breeze, and found zip. He needed to go home and explain to Matt where he had gone so late at night. But for now, Jake didn’t care about his opinion. A boulder of worry still lodged in his chest, and he couldn’t shake Nora’s tone of voice. There were simple answers to a pile of cigarette butts. A landscaper who ate lunch in the same place and didn’t clean up his smokes. Or a… Actually, Jake had no other readily available excuses.

  But he was going to have to admit to creeping in her backyard. Otherwise, he was nothing more than a creep.

  Opting to take the sidewalk instead of her neighbor’s backyard, Jake pulled out his cell phone and sent a text asking for her to let him know when she had a moment the next day.

  He shoved his phone back into his pocket, passing a man as he headed back to his dually truck. Despite the man’s clean-cut clothes and windbreaker, an uneasy feeling stirred inside Jake as they passed. A dog walker would make sense. But someone out for a stroll at this hour? Unease prickled—

  “Excuse me,” the unknown man called, interrupting Jake’s thoughts.

  He slowly pivoted as his defenses went up. “Yeah. Can I help you?”

  “Actually, I wanted to ask you the same question.”

  Jake’s eyes narrowed. “I’m sorry?”

  “I keep an eye on the neighborhood, and I don’t recognize you.”

  Jake didn’t know whether to chuckle in solidarity with the lone watchman or question who was roaming the streets as a vigilante huntsman. “I’m just visiting a friend. But good looking out, man.”

  “What friend?”

  Suspicious, Jake stepped closer. “What did you say your
name was?”

  “Who is the friend you’re visiting?” the man pushed.

  The telltale prickles warned him that the situation was not what it seemed. The hairs at the back of his neck stood up. The guy was a block away from Nora’s house after her hearing weird noises. Jake was on high alert. “How about we start with your name?”

  “Edward Lee.”

  Jake’s gut said that Edward Lee was a made-up name, but his friends at black ops firm Safehouse Security who could quickly run his background check. “The neighborhood watch takes themselves seriously around here, don’t they?”

  “Can never be too careful about who is near our most valuable possessions.”

  “What’s that?” Jake tested him. “Cars and boats?”

  The man smirked. “Family, of course.”

  “Of course…” He followed up. “The neighborhood watch program… Who do you work with over at Tidings PD?”

  “Did I get your name?” Edward asked.

  Jake’s jaw ticked. “No, you didn’t.”

  They sized one another up.

  “Jake Westbrook.”

  There was no shaking hands. No pleasant follow-up. Only suspicion both ways.

  Jake thought of a quick test, offering a goodbye but turned back. “Hey, do you have any smokes? I left my cigarettes back at my friends’.”

  Edward’s hands shoved deep into his pockets but shook his head. “I don’t smoke.” Then he turned without another word and left.

  Jake watched the guy disappear until he turned at the corner of a block. After he was certain the man wouldn’t double back, he then headed to his truck and pulled out his phone. Jake swiped the screen and pulled up his contacts. He paused as his thumb hovered over the familiar phone number to the Safehouse HQ war room, wanting to talk to the security company’s expert hacker. Wondering if he were about to overstep, Jake pressed Call but voicemail picked up. The tone beeped for a message.

  “Hey, Talon, it’s Jake. I guess I couldn’t stay gone for too long. Anyway, man, I’m calling for a favor, and I know I’ll owe you.” He chuckled quietly, somewhat disbelieving what he was about to say. “I’d like to anything you can find on a white male in his thirties. The name is Edward Lee. Address unknown, but he spends time here. Tidings, Vermont. Thanks.”

  Jake hung up and rubbed his hands on his face, questioning why his gut said he needed to loop in Matt and now Talon. There wasn’t a concrete reason. But his gut said Nora wasn’t telling him something important.

  It took five minutes to drive home, and Jake parked in the driveway before slipping through the door quietly to find Matt playing on his phone.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on now? Matt tossed the cell down. “Because I have a solid reputation I like to hold on to.” He gestured between them. “Past or no past, we’re not talking about transgressions that’ll land us in detention like back in high school.”

  Jake unholstered his weapon and wanted to store his weapon in the gun safe in his bedroom. “Give me a minute.”

  Matt narrowed his eyes, giving Jake grief. “Take your time. It’s not like I don’t have a warm bed and my beautiful wife to go home to.”

  They were joking, and Jake knew it, but his grin was forced. An uncomfortable tension panged in his chest, and he didn’t know what to call the feeling. Jealousy? Envy? That couldn’t be right because Jake was happy for Matt. “You’re living a wonderful life.”

  “I am.” Matt settled against the couch, back to playing on his phone again. “I’m a lucky man who knows it.”

  Jake’s chest lifted with silent but heartfelt appreciation of his old friend’s sentiments as he went to stow his gun. With a quick finger combo and a thumb scan, the safe popped open, and he’d safely disarmed and returned to the living room.

  Matt tossed the phone again then checked the time on his watch. “You have two minutes and counting to explain why you didn’t find what you went looking for, but you’re still concerned.”

  “Not a bad assumption.” There was a reason Matt was trusted in his field. The man’s eyes missed nothing, even as he played games and relaxed.

  Jake joined Matt on the couch, then looked at his friend, wanting to share without coming off as though he was losing his grip on reality. With a deep breath, he summarized Nora’s phone call, the man from the neighborhood watch, and the pile of cigarette butts.

  Matt rolled his lips, lost in thought. “If Nora’s ex-husband weren’t off exploring the wild blue yonder, I’d tell you that I never trusted that guy. I don’t trust a man who has no reason to stay but it never quite gone.”

  “Huh.” That wasn’t the response Jake expected. “Did you know him well?”

  “No.” Matt shook his head. “Not really.”

  Jake rolled his lips together.

  “Though, I’ve made it my business to know a little bit about everyone.” Matt repositioned on the couch. “I haven’t missed what the rumor mill whispers.”

  He chuckled in agreement. Matt had always made it his business to observe the world around him. But then, Jake frowned. “Why would Nora’s ex spy on her?”

  Matt lifted his shoulders.

  Jake recounted what he knew. “I never got the impression her ex was hung up over the split.”

  “That’s not always the reasons why those situations come about.”

  “Meaning what?” Jake asked.

  “I don’t know.” Matt took a deep breath. “Yeah, on the surface, it doesn’t make sense. Sean was never possessive over her, and I don’t know the reasons he comes back to town.” He paused. “But I can tell you, it’s not for his woman or his kid.”

  “She’s not his woman,” Jake grumbled, and while DNA wouldn’t discount the relation to Charlotte, Jake could make a great argument that she wasn’t his kid.

  “You know what I mean.”

  Jake chewed the inside of his cheek. “You know what? She doesn’t think anyone in town knows how he treated them.”

  Matt shook his head. “Why does a guy like that ever marry a woman like her in a town like Tidings? Not if he didn’t plan on sticking around.”

  Jake could list a hundred reasons why any sane man would want to have Nora by their side for the rest of his life. Her heart, her smile, how she cared. “She’s a wonderful woman.”

  Matt shook his head. “Did that matter to Sean? I don’t know.”

  “What do you know?”

  “That he didn’t plan for a future with her.”

  An emptiness curled through Jake. He slumped against the couch and imagined the idea of planning the future with Nora. He realized that if life let him move in that direction, Jake would call himself a lucky man just as he had before with Matt.

  He rubbed his chest, concentrating on the night’s troubles and not the unsettled hollow feeling eating at him. “All right. Thanks for your thoughts.”

  Matt shrugged. “Don’t forget get to follow up on the obvious also.”

  Jake couldn’t shake the ex-husband from his thoughts, so the obvious was making him feel oblivious. “What’s that?”

  Matt shifted on the couch. “Nora knows the ugly parts of many, many folks in this town—the kind of gossip that Coco could only dream of hearing.”

  Jake raised an eyebrow.

  “She knows wear the figurative bodies are buried,” Matt summarized. “And that can be a tricky thing to know.”

  Valid concerns that he hadn’t considered. “Hmm. That’d take this conversation in an entirely different direction.”

  “I know how we can simplify this problem.” Matt rose from the couch. “I’d say ask someone at Safehouse to find the dirt on the ex. But you need someone local who also knows where the bodies are buried.”

  “That’s why I’m talking to you.”

  Matt chuckled. “I’ll call to a detective friend and pick his brain. Then, I can touch base with you in a few days, and if there’s anything you want Safehouse to search for, you’ll be able to give them a better direction to f
ocus on.”

  Jake could get behind that plan. “Okay. That works for me.”

  “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m headed to my wife.”

  Lucky guy.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  One follow-up phone call with Matt and Jake found himself heading to the Tidings Police Department with a detective’s name on a Post-It Note instead of heading straight into High Beam. The office was small and quiet, and the detective was awaiting him.

  By the time Jake was shown to the officer’s desk, he was certain that everyone had mentioned he was the one who’d burned down Ally’s house. To the ground.

  “Matt is your friend.” The detective leaned back in the scarred office chair and rolled a toothpick between his fingers. “We did him a favor.”

  Jake worked his jaw back and forth. “I appreciate that. He also mentioned that I need to speak with you. Meaning, we’re all friends.”

  “You put me in a predicament.”

  The meeting wasn’t off to a great start. “That wasn’t my intention. I had a concern, and if it was unfounded, I didn’t want to needlessly worry Nora.”

  The detective popped the toothpick into his mouth, holding it between his teeth like a plank before he relaxed and worked the side of his gum. “And what’s your relationship with Miss Cabot?”

  Good question. “What’s that have to do with this?”

  He lifted a shoulder. “You’re new in town, question suspicious activity, and that’s not something we’re used to.”

  Man, did Jake hate the new-in-town line. He wasn’t one to name-drop, just as he didn’t use his service in the military as a shiny object to get attention. But he was raised in Tidings and born in a hospital that bore his family name—the Westbrook Center.

  “I wouldn’t say I’m new to town. ‘Returning’ might be a better word.”

  The toothpick worked its way to the other side of the detective’s mouth. “Ah.”

  This was a waste of time. Jake would have better luck getting secondhand information from Matt. “All right, thank you for your time, detective.” Jake stood, ready to shake his hand and get to work. Not that there were cars in line for tune-ups yet, but if he didn’t at least show up, there never would be.