Scorched (3 page)

“Sir Manny said it’s important,” Roberto told her. “The call is from San Diego.”

Kelsey’s stomach dropped.
Oh God, no.
She jerked the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

For an eternity, only static.

“Kelsey?”

Just the one word and Kelsey knew.
Gage.
She’d been expecting this call for years. Her heart felt like it was being squeezed by a fist, but she managed to make her voice work.

“Mom, what is it?”

“Baby, it’s your uncle Joe.”

CHAPTER 2

San Diego, California
Two months later

Gage pulled his pickup truck into the parking lot of O’Malley’s Pub, way more than ready to put an end to his crap day.

It had started at 0430 with a training op on San Clemente Island and ended less than an hour ago with a brutal run through the obstacle course on base. Under normal circumstances, he liked training ops—especially ones that involved high-altitude jumps. And the O-course hadn’t been a problem for him since BUD/S training.

But these weren’t normal circumstances. Gage was coming off a shit week following a shit month at the end of a shit year. His shoulder hurt like hell despite endless rounds of physical therapy, and his head was in the wrong place. Gage couldn’t find his zone—hadn’t been able to in months.

O’Malley’s was quiet for a Friday, which suited him fine. He took a seat at the bar and ordered a beer. After knocking back the first swig, he stared at the bottle and
forced himself to confront the nagging possibility that maybe, just maybe, he was losing his edge.

A young blonde approached the counter. As if to confirm Gage’s depressing hypothesis, she ignored the empty stools next to him and chose one three seats over. She tucked her purse at her feet and barely gave him a glance before flagging the bartender to order a drink.

Ouch. Not the response he usually got from women in bars—especially this one, which was popular with SEAL groupies.

On the other hand, Gage really couldn’t blame her. He’d come here straight from the base, not even bothering to shower after his sixteen-hour ass-kicking.

Gage glanced across the room at Mike Dietz and Derek Vaughn, who had managed to clean up before coming out. They’d left the base not long before Gage, so they must have set the world record for speed showering. Clearly they were looking to get laid tonight, whereas Gage was simply looking to get hammered. It had been that kind of week.

Derek caught his eye and walked over. “Hey, Brewski,” he drawled, “you want in on this game?”

“Nah, I’m good.”

“Come on, bro.” He glanced over his shoulder at the two brunettes who were hanging around the pool table. “Callie’s sister’s in town. You need to come meet her.”

“Really, I’m fine.”

“You’re killing me.”

“Let Dietz talk to her.”

“He has to cut out after this. Some family thing.” Derek clamped a hand on his shoulder, and Gage made an effort not to wince. “Seriously, do
not
leave me
hanging here, man. You can have Tara. She’s older, but probably no less talented than her baby sis.” He grinned and slapped Gage on the back. “Come on. It’ll snap you out of your shit mood.”

Gage glanced at the women and he knew Derek was wrong. Nothing would snap him out of his mood tonight.

“You’re not still hung up on Kelsey, are you?”

“Hell no.”

“Then what’s up?” His brow furrowed. “Having a bad day?”

It was common knowledge that Gage had taken Joe’s death two months ago harder than anyone. And it wasn’t just because he knew the man’s family and had once dated his niece. Even before all that, Gage had had a special bond with him. Joe Quinn had been a demo expert, same as Gage, and he’d taken Gage under his wing during his very first year in the teams.

“I’m fine,” Gage said, and his friend gave him a long, hard look.

“Not so sure about that. Those are two hot-looking women. But, hey, your loss. Lemme know if you change your mind.”

Derek returned to his game of pool, and Gage nursed his beer while watching the mirror behind the bar. The blonde was still there and she had a drink in front of her now. She stirred it with a slender red straw as she glanced over her shoulder again and again. Gage checked his watch. Ten after nine. Her date was probably ten minutes late. Suddenly she smiled and jumped up from her stool as a man in service khakis entered the bar. He crossed the room in a few strides. The woman
threw her arms around his neck and kissed the hell out of him.

Gage felt a stab of envy and looked away. He remembered Kelsey kissing him like that—in this very bar, too—right before he’d drag her home with him to set his world on fire. That’s how they’d been together—weeks and months of no contact, then completely unable to keep their hands off each other when they finally got together.

Which wouldn’t be happening again anytime soon. Or ever.

Last time Gage had seen Kelsey was at her uncle’s funeral. She’d been seated at the front of the church with her boyfriend at her side—some FBI hotshot she’d dated back before she met Gage. Seeing the two of them together had been hard enough, but when they’d stood to leave the church and Gage glimpsed the ring on her finger, it was like a kick in the gut. He’d been blindsided by hurt and anger—which made the entire day of Joe’s funeral all the more torturous.

Good times. Gage tipped back his beer. He felt someone behind him and knew who it was when he got a nose full of cheap perfume.

“Hey, sailor.”

Callie’s sister had a friendly smile, and Gage did his best to return it. It wasn’t her fault he was in a foul mood.

“Hey there,” he said.

“I’m Tara.” She rested her hand on his forearm and eased close, giving him a perfect view down her low-cut shirt. “My sister says you know your way around a pool table. Wanna play with us?”

Gage looked down into her pretty blue eyes. She was young. Built. Eager to please. If he couldn’t have Kelsey, he should have someone else. He couldn’t wallow in celibate misery his whole life, could he?

Problem was, he’d been down this road and knew where it went, and waking up tomorrow with some girl in his bed wasn’t going to solve his problems, just create a few more.

Gage glanced at the mirror behind the bar as a woman who looked remarkably like Kelsey stepped through the door. He blinked at the reflection.

No way.

But there was no mistaking her. Six feet tall. Long auburn hair. In a bar filled with hot and available women, she stood out in her jeans and no-nonsense T-shirt. She rested a hand on her hip and scanned the room.

Gage drank in the sight of her body, her lips, her skin. She’d gotten some sun recently. He remembered she’d been on a dig when they’d called her about Joe, but that was probably over by now and she was back to her job at the crime lab.

But what did he know? Maybe she’d been on her damn honeymoon.

“Uh, hello? Earth to Gage?”

He snapped his attention back to the woman beside him. Her friendly smile had dimmed.

Then he glanced over her shoulder at Kelsey, who was indeed still standing there, in the flesh, in the middle of O’Malley’s Pub. What was she doing here?

Kelsey spotted him and froze. She glanced at the woman beside him, and for an instant the startled
look on her face made him feel good. He could tell she wanted to bolt, but instead she walked straight up to the bar and ordered a drink.

“Excuse me, would you?” Gage picked up his beer and walked over to Kelsey. She’d chosen a stool on the corner, which didn’t leave him a place to sit, so he rested his bottle on the counter and stood beside her.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” She avoided his gaze, but smiled at the bartender as he delivered her beer.

“What brings you to town?”

She glanced over her shoulder at the pool table, where Derek and Mike were finishing a game. Gage ignored their curious glances.

At last she looked up at him. “I came to visit my grandmother. We’re cleaning out Joe’s house.”

He’d figured as much. Joe had never married, and Kelsey was the closest thing he had to a kid. He’d helped raise her after her father died in a car wreck when she was young.

So now she was here to help go through his stuff, probably put his house on the market. It made sense. Gage hadn’t actually believed she’d flown all the way out from Texas just to see him.

She reached down and picked up her purse from the floor.

“I was hoping I’d run into you,” she said casually, unzipping the bag. “We came across something, and my grandmother thought you might want it.”

Her grandmother.

Kelsey handed him a white envelope. He hesitated a
moment before taking it. Joe’s family had wanted him to have this, whatever it was. The very idea humbled him.

Gage opened the envelope and pulled out a photo that he recognized instantly. The picture was from Afghanistan. Half of his team stood on a mountaintop, lined up in full gear. They’d just flown out from Bagram for a six-month tour, most of which had been spent assaulting cave complexes. Just three years after the towers had fallen. They’d been full of energy and optimism, good and ready to kick some terrorist ass.

Gage studied the faces: Derek, Mike, Luke, a few others who’d left the teams. It was a snapshot in time, but he felt a surge of love for these guys who had had his back on so many different occasions. They’d taken bullets for one another. It was impossible to describe what that meant to anyone who hadn’t been there.

Gage couldn’t look at Joe’s face. He ran his thumb over the edge and focused on the rugged Afghan landscape. At times it was hell on earth. Other times it was beautiful.

He glanced up, and Kelsey was watching him with those bottomless brown eyes. He cleared his throat. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Gage unbuttoned the front pocket of his BDUs and tucked the envelope inside. He looked at Kelsey and felt a sharp stab of regret. After their breakup, she’d done a damn good job of keeping her distance. He didn’t really blame her. The breakup had been his choice, not hers. The last time she’d flown out to visit him, she’d
told him she couldn’t handle the long distance anymore, the constant stress of his deployments. She’d given him an ultimatum—her or the teams. Torn between Kelsey and the SEALs, he’d done the only thing he could do—he’d chosen the SEALs. But it wasn’t the end of him wanting her. And it wasn’t the end of his bitterness. Even now—
especially
now, with her sitting there beside him—he still harbored a deep resentment toward Kelsey for making him choose between her and his job. And toward the man who’d come along in his absence and put a ring on her finger.

But along with his bitterness was something else, something he tried not to think about but couldn’t ignore with Kelsey sitting so close. Truth was, he missed her. He missed talking to her, hanging out with her. He missed that little line she got on her forehead whenever he ticked her off. Hell, he even missed her freckles.

And, yes, he missed the sex. He itched to touch her right now and had to rest his hand on the bar to keep from running it through her hair.

“Is that why you came looking for me?” He held her gaze for a long moment, not sure what he wanted her to say. He knew what he wanted to say to
her
.

How could you get engaged to someone so soon after we broke up? Was it that easy to move on?

But he didn’t ask, because the answer was a resounding
yes.

“Actually, there was something else, too.” She cut a glance at the pool table, and her businesslike voice told him the other reason wasn’t nearly as personal as he would have liked.

“Joe had some books and CDs in the office at his
house.” She looked back at him, searching his face for something. “Apparently he was learning Tagalog. Was he headed to the Philippines?”

Gage didn’t say anything. He couldn’t talk about the when and where of what they did, and the fact that he couldn’t had been an ongoing source of friction between them. Kelsey had always accused him of being too closed off—not just about the job itself, but about how it affected him personally. Maybe so. But Gage had never been big on talking. Like most SEALs he knew, he was a doer, not a talker.

She sighed, obviously frustrated by his silence. “I was just on Basilan Island.”

“Why?” He frowned.

“We were excavating a mass grave there.”

Gage clenched his teeth at this news. Basilan Island was home to some extremely dangerous people, and the military ops going on there were totally covert. Gage had been involved in a few, and he’d heard rumors. There was some serious shit happening in the Philippines right now, and he didn’t like the idea of Kelsey anywhere near there. He didn’t want her in the same hemisphere.

“Has the island become a haven for Al-Qaeda?” she asked, completely point-blank. Gage had often admired her straightforwardness, but it could be annoying, too.

“Was your team on its way there?” she persisted. “Is that why Joe wanted to learn the language?”

“That’s classified.”

Classified.
She hated that word, and Gage couldn’t count the number of arguments they’d had over it.