Texas SEAL (SEALs of Coronado Book 3) Page 12

  “It’s not your blood,” he said. “It must be Marco’s”

  Lyla’s eyes widened in horror. Both she and the little girl turned to look at Marco, who was facedown on the floor, gritting his teeth in obvious pain as Nash tended to him. Lyla scooted closer to her brother, Erika still clutched tightly to her left hip.

  “Oh, Marco,” she breathed, reaching out to gently push his dark hair back from his forehead. “What have you done?”

  “I got shot protecting you and Erika,” he said softly. “After getting you into this, I had to do something. That’s why I attacked that big guy with the bandage on his face when the lights went out. I didn’t care what happened to me, as long as long as you and Erika got out of here okay.”

  Tears rolled down Lyla’s cheeks. Beside her, Erika was crying, too.

  “How bad is it?” Lyla asked, her gaze going to Nash.

  “It’s bad,” Marco answered before Nash could say anything. “You guys need to get out of here before it’s too late. Just leave me here. I’ll try to hold them off as long as I can.”

  More tears rolled down Lyla’s face while Erika’s bottom lip started trembling like crazy.

  Trent looked at Nash. “How bad?”

  Nash didn’t look up as he ripped away part of Marco’s jeans, exposing the back of Marco’s bloody leg. “Not too bad, actually. He got hit in the butt, and the bullet bounced off his pelvis and came out his lower back. Not much damage at all.”

  “I’m not going to die?” Marco asked hesitantly.

  “Definitely not,” Nash said, reaching into his medic’s bag. “After I give you something for the pain, it won’t even hurt.”

  Marco shook his head vehemently. “I can’t take anything.”

  Nash lifted a brow, the syringe poised below the little rubber stopper of the vial of medicine. “You just got a 9mm in the butt. A small needle should be a piece of cake.”

  “It’s not that,” Marco said. “I’m a recovering drug addict. I can’t risk taking pain meds. I just can’t.”

  “Okay, then,” Nash said, putting the syringe and the vial back in his bag. “Moving is going to hurt like hell, but if you’re okay with that, it won’t cause other damage.”

  Nash was helping Marco to his feet when Chasen’s voice came through Trent’s earpiece. “Cowboy, I hope you two have what we came for because it’s time to go. The guards are starting to get their crap together and are pushing us back.”

  Trent looked over at Nash, who was already up with a shoulder under Marco’s arm. His SEAL teammate gave a nod and moved toward the double doors. Lyla clambered to her feet, Erika still clutched tightly in her arms. The kid looked at Tim Price lying dead on the floor. Lyla reached out and gently turned the girl’s face away.

  “Don’t look back,” Lyla whispered softly before nodding at Trent.

  “We’re on the way down the stairs,” Trent called over the radio as he moved to the front of their little group. “We’ll be out the back door in a few. Be ready to pick us up at the rally point in five minutes.”

  “Roger that,” Chasen said.

  Trent quickly moved, leading the way down the hall while covering the stairs ahead of them. It was a good thing he was ready because right then four men armed with automatic weapons ran up the steps.

  The men hesitated for a moment, clearly startled at the sight of Trent. It cost them because Trent didn’t hesitate at all. He charged at them, firing his M4 on full auto at the same time. It was an insane thing to do, but with Lyla and the others behind him, he didn’t have a choice.

  Two of the men went down before he reached them, but then the bolt of his weapon locked back on an empty magazine and he knew he was screwed. He kept going anyway, slamming into the other two men, knocking them backward into another man coming upstairs right behind them. Cobb went flying over the railing, falling with little more than a shout of surprise. The distance to the floor below wasn’t that great, and Trent doubted he’d be lucky enough for the fall to kill the asshole.

  Before Trent could check, the other two men recovered and got their weapons up and pointed in his general direction. Trent lunged, shoving one guy off balance and tackling the other, knocking him down the steps. Unfortunately, the son of a bitch grabbed hold of Trent, taking him down, too, and they both tumbled and bounced on the stairs.

  Trent didn’t pay much attention to the fall, mostly because he spent the entire trip trying to beat the hell out of the man grappling with him. Both of them lost their weapons somewhere along the way, so the fight was all fists as they flipped and rolled before coming to a stop on the first landing.

  Trent immediately scrambled around and got on top of the man, ready to punch him to death if necessary. But it wasn’t. The guy was already dead, his neck twisted around in a seriously anatomically incorrect direction.

  Letting out a breath, Trent looked upstairs, wondering where the hell the fourth man was and saw him lying dead on the floor. Lyla and the others hurried past the body and down the steps.

  “I probably would have just shot the guy,” Nash said, handing Trent’s M4 back to him as he walked past with Marco still on his shoulder. “But death by staircase works, too.”

  Then Lyla was at Trent’s side, reaching up to touch his face, her fingers coming away bloody from a cut he must have sustained during the trip downstairs. “Are you okay?”

  He nodded. “I’m good. Let’s get out of here.”

  She nodded, following Nash and her brother, Erika clutched tightly in her arms as if the girl was the most valuable thing in the world to her.

  Trent looked for Cobb as they got to the bottom. If that bastard was still down here, Trent wouldn’t put it past him to shoot them in the back as they left.

  But it turned out that wasn’t going to be an issue. When they turned toward the back of the house, they found Cobb sprawled on top of Marco’s big metal sculpture, the horns of the thing sticking out of the crime boss’s chest.

  Lyla kept her hand over Erika’s face as she scooted past, obviously deciding the kid had seen enough blood and death to last a lifetime. Trent couldn’t disagree, though he had to admit Cobb’s death had a touch of irony to it.

  * * * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, Trent and Lyla were in a big Econoline van with the others, heading north on Mexican Federal Highway 85D. Marco was in the back row of seats with the remains of his pants around his ankles as Nash tried to fix him up enough to make sure they didn’t have a problem getting through the border stop. Marco was trying to keep his groans of pain to a minimum but was having a hard time. No one gave him any grief, though. Taking a bullet for Lyla and Erika had earned Marco a certain amount of admiration.

  Now Trent only hoped the fake passports Joe and his SOG guys had made for Lyla and Erika were as good as the ones they’d made for him, Dalton, Nash, and Chasen, or getting an injured Marco across the border would be the least of their problems.

  In the second row of seats, Lyla rested her head on Trent’s shoulder, Erika sleeping comfortably in her lap. There hadn’t been a whole lot of conversation since the rescue, but that was mostly because there wasn’t a whole lot to say. Lyla and Erika were safe. That was all that mattered. Trent was content to simply sit there and hold the two of them for the rest of the trip home.

  Lyla lifted her head and looked at him. “Thanks for coming back for us,” she whispered.

  Trent tightened his arm around her. “Of course I came back for you. I love you.”

  She stared up at him with an expression that could only be described as shock. He was confused for a moment, until he realized what he’d just said. Damn, the words had slipped out before he realized it. Probably because it was all he’d been able to think about all day.

  “I didn’t mean for that to come out this way,” he said softly. “I wasn’t trying to rush you or anything.”

  Lyla laughed and lifted a finger to his mouth, shushing him with the tip of one delicate finger. “Stop that. I’m not mad at you fo
r saying you love me since it should have been obvious to me. Why else would a man risk his life to run all the way down to Mexico to rescue a woman he’s only been dating for a couple days unless he was in love with her?”

  “So, you’re okay with me saying it this soon?”

  She smiled, tilting her head to kiss him. “Of course it’s okay, since I’m completely in love with you, too.”

  Trent’s heart began beating so fast he almost let out a shout of happiness. That wouldn’t have been a very good idea, of course. The guys were going out of their way to give him and Lyla a little privacy, but if he started making a ruckus, they were going to take that as a sign to start ribbing him. He supposed he’d have to be content with simply kissing her for now. But he promised himself that later, when they were alone, he was going to tell Lyla exactly how he felt about her.

  He was still kissing her when Erika groaned a little in her sleep. Trent hoped the girl wasn’t having nightmares about all the horrible things she’d just seen.

  Lyla wrapped her arms around the girl tighter, patting her back and making little sounds of comfort. Erika calmed immediately, relaxing again. Lyla smiled and rested her cheek against the mop of blond hair.

  He and Lyla sat for a while in silence, watching the girl sleep. Erika must have been able to feel their gazes on her because it wasn’t long before she stirred, looking up sleepily at both of them. Her eyes soon cleared, taking on an expression sad enough to make Trent nearly cry.

  “Daddy’s not coming back, is he?” the girl asked in a small voice.

  Lyla shook her head. “No, baby. He’s not.”

  A few tears leaked out, but for a girl as young as Erika, she was amazingly strong. “Where am I going to live now? I don’t have a mommy anymore.”

  Lyla gave Trent a questioning look. He knew what she was asking. What the hell could he say to something like that? There was no way he could let this brave little girl disappear into some crazy foster care system. So he smiled and nodded.

  Lyla returned his smile then turned to Erika. “You’ll live with Trent and me. That’s where.”

  The girl seemed lost for a moment but then smiled before putting her head back down on Lyla’s shoulder and going back to sleep.

  Trent was a little surprised Erika had gone along with her new living arrangements so easily. Then again, from what Marco said, she’d been handed off from one person to another for most of her life. She had no other family. Maybe she sensed being with Lyla and him would be a more permanent thing.

  Lyla looked at him. “Are you sure?” she asked softly.

  Trent leaned over and kissed her. “Very sure.”

  Chapter Twelve

  LYLA STARED AT the engagement ring on her finger for about the thirtieth time that morning. It was probably stupid to wear it while unpacking boxes, but she simply couldn’t bring herself to take it off.

  It hadn’t exactly been a surprise when Trent had asked her to marry him. It had been necessary after the people from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services had implied it would be much easier to adopt Erika if she and Trent were married, or at last engaged. Trent had dropped down on one knee and put the ring on her finger the very next day. And yes, it had still been romantic as heck.

  They’d been working on the adoption paperwork for nearly two months now, and it was all starting to come together. Erika was currently living in temporary foster care with Lyla’s parents in San Antonio, but it really looked like she and Trent would be able to bring her out here to San Diego in time for the new school year in late August.

  Lyla started stacking dishes into the kitchen cabinet, hearing Trent and a bunch of the guys from his SEAL Team grunting and cursing as they moved the new bedroom set down the narrow hallway leading to the back of their new apartment. Dalton, Nash, and Chasen were there, of course, but so were a lot of other guys from Trent’s platoon. They’d been busting their butts all day.

  The guys from SEAL Team 5 weren’t the only ones. Chasen’s girlfriend, Hayley Garner, Logan’s girlfriend, Felicia Bradford, and Chief Kurt Travers’ wife, Melissa, were there, too, helping Lyla put the softer touches on the new apartment. While Lyla loved the fact that all the guys had come to their aid, she couldn’t have done any of it without Melissa and the other women. Some things just needed a woman’s hand more than a man’s muscles.

  Melissa, in particular, was the most amazing woman Lyla had ever met. The wife of the Team’s soon-to-be-retired chief had helped Lyla find a job as a teacher in the San Diego Unified School District. Heck, the woman had started the process of getting Erika registered in the same school where Lyla would be teaching even though the adoption paperwork hadn’t been finalized yet.

  Lyla was digging a stack of salad bowls out of the next box when she felt a pair of big, strong arms wrap around her and squeeze her tight. She snuggled back against Trent, grabbing his arms and refusing to let go.

  “The bed is officially set up,” he whispered in her ear. “No more sleeping on that crappy inflatable mattress.”

  Lyla looked over her shoulder to make sure they were alone, then she wiggled her butt against him. “I don’t know. I didn’t hear you complaining about that air mattress last night. In fact, you seemed pretty happy with it.”

  Trent slipped a hand down and gave her bottom a light smack. “I’m not saying we have to deflate the air mattress.”

  She laughed and spun around in his arms, kissing him. God, she loved him like crazy.

  “Do you like the way everything’s coming together?” he asked.

  “Definitely,” she told him, nibbling on his lower lip.

  In fact, when Lyla stopped and thought about it, she had to admit she couldn’t be any happier if she tried. She couldn’t imagine how things could be any better. She was getting married to a man she loved with all her heart, they were adopting a child who was the sweetest little thing on the planet, they were all going to Disney World together for a combined family vacation-slash-honeymoon, and her parents were beyond thrilled to finally have a grandchild to spoil—even if they were going to be living in San Diego instead of Texas.

  Lyla had managed to handle her first SEAL mission when Trent had gotten a call in the middle of the night and disappeared for three weeks without a word. It had been tough, but she’d done it—with a lot of help from Melissa, the other women, and Trent’s SEAL teammates, too.

  Things were going well for Marco, too. Her brother and Dana had gotten back together, mostly because the older woman had seemingly melted when she’d met Erika, completely understanding why Marco had risked everything to save the little girl. What was more, Marco’s actions down in Monterrey—when he’d thrown himself in front of a bullet to protect Lyla and Erika—had broken through the years of hostility between her brother and father. The two men were actually talking again for the first time in what seemed like forever.

  “Actually, I love the way things are coming together,” she said, kissing Trent harder and running her hand down his chest all the way to his crotch, smiling as he hardened in his jeans.

  “I’d tell you two to get a room, but yours isn’t ready yet,” Nash said from the doorway of the kitchen. “So dump some ice cubes down your jeans, and let’s get back to work.”

  Grinning, Nash turned and left.

  Trent took a reluctant step back. “Sorry, babe. Work calls.”

  Lyla yanked him back in and kissed him again. “Okay, but as soon as we get this place put together and they all leave, your butt is mine.”

  Trent gave her a wicked grin as he backed toward the door. “Funny. That’s the exact same line I was planning to use on you.”

  With that, he turned and walked away, leaving Lyla to wonder exactly what Trent had in mind for her that evening. Something told her that no matter what it was, she was going to enjoy it.

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  Want more hunky SEALs?

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