Page 96 of Seal of Honor
What the hell? Not like his team wasn’t a ragtag bunch already. Why not add a potentially traumatized sniper to the mix?
And, speaking of second chances, maybe Quinn was right about other things, too.
Gabe picked up his beer, drained it on one breath, and stood. “All right, go talk to Seth. But he’s going to be your responsibility, Q.” With that, he strode toward his bedroom. He needed a shower, a shave, and to pack a bag.
“Where are you going?” Quinn called.
Gabe stopped just outside his bedroom door and glanced back at his messy apartment, curling his lip in disgust with himself. Why the hell had he let it get this bad? “I’m not a coward.”
Quinn raised his bottle in salute. “Hooyah.”
CHAPTER 35
DOMINICAL, COSTA RICA
If someone had told Audrey this morning that she’d come home from a lunch meeting with her manager in San Jose to find Gabriel Bristow swimming in her slice of the Pacific, she would have called them crazy.
“Gabe?”
She walked out to the end of the dock, sure she was dreaming. She had to be. He’d starred in her dreams every night, and they all began like this. She’d come home to find him begging forgiveness for being a class-A asshole, then one of two things would happen. One, she’d yell at him, call him a bunch of creative four-letter words, and then kick him out with the righteousness of a woman scorned. Or two, she’d fall into his arms and make wild, passionate love to him for hours before they lived happily ever after.
It was still a toss-up which dream she liked better.
Maybe she fell asleep on the bus ride home? But she didn’t feel like she was sleeping. This was all too vivid, and as good as an imagination she had, she didn’t think she could conjure up the feel of the salty ocean breeze playing with her skirt or the hot sun burning her cheeks. Plus, if she were dreaming, the air, soupy with summer humidity, would not be making her dress stick to the sweat rolling down her spine, and her hair would not be a frizzy mess right now.
So he really was here.
“Gabe?” she said again, so stunned she couldn’t find any other words for a solid five seconds. She shook her head. “What are you doing?”
Treading water, he looked up at her. His hair was slicked back, and his long eyelashes spiked around wary golden eyes. “Well, uh, I’m swimming.”
“You came all the way to Costa Rica for that?”
Rata playfully bumped his side, and the smile that spread over his face was so genuine it melted the ice wall she’d tried to build around her heart to ward off his memory. He stroked the dolphin’s head and then took hold of a rope and ball dog toy she’d never seen before and chucked it into the waves. With a happy chirp, Rata dove after it.
“Had to,” Gabe said. “There are no dolphins in D.C. You promised me a swim with dolphins, woman.”
She choked, caught somewhere between tears and laughter. And here she’d thought he was too out of it to hear anything she said during that long, horrible night. “You remember that?”
“Hmm. Vaguely.”
Her heart did a backflip that would have made her dolphins proud, but she couldn’t bring herself to relive that night and dredge up all the bad memories. Not yet. Not when seeing him again, alive and well and here, made her so freaking happy she struggled to hold back tears.
Instead, she took off her sandals, sat down on the end of the dock, and dangled her feet in the water. She watched her dolphins fling their new toy around with so much excitement she feared it might break.
“You brought them a toy.” And if she weren’t already in love with him, she’d have fallen hard just then. “Thank you for that.”
Gabe swam toward her, strong arms slicing through the waves with ease. Goodness, he was even more graceful in the water than out of it, fast and lithe like her dolphins.
Reaching the dock, he folded his arms on the edge and kept his lower half submerged, but he was definitely sans swim trunks under the water.
“Well,” he said with a mock-serious expression, “this amazing woman I once knew told me—several times—that I needed to learn manners. Apparently, it’s rude to come calling without a gift.”
“Very true.” She smothered a laugh. “Gabriel Bristow, are you skinny dipping?”
“Like I said.” He grabbed hold of her legs and pulled her over until he was propped between her thighs. His hands slid under the skirt of her sundress, kneading her soft flesh. “It’s rude to show up without a gift. The dolphins got the toy. You get me.”
Oh, that did it. The tears she’d been fighting spilled over, and she threaded her fingers through his wet hair. “I do, huh?”
