Revealing Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 4) (4 page)

By the time they dropped off the wet and exhilarated tourists at the dock, Evan’s hands had stopped shaking. But the yawning chasm inside—that would never be filled. The empty bungalow was not happening. Despite his inability to be social, Evan hated being alone. Small fact that few people got except his team.

He nodded to Charlie and jerked his head toward the open water. Charlie waved him off. It was fairly common for Evan to take the boat when it wasn’t in use, and no one questioned it.

Neither had he ever shared with anyone where he went.

Ilhota Rosa came into view a few minutes later as he rounded the west end of Duchess Island. The smaller island rose out of the crystal-blue water, its pink sand beach a stark contrast to its surroundings. The colors bled into his soul like a balm. He’d live on the island if he didn’t like hot water and flushing toilets so much.

If he had no choice but to be alone, this was the only place he wanted to do it.

Evan slid the boat into place at the dock he’d built himself. It listed a bit because while Evan had some know-how in the hammer department, there was a lot that went into creating a stable structure in a foundation of sand. Throw in the occasional tropical storm, and well, he’d dare anyone to call it a terrible effort for his first shot.

The warm pink sand beckoned, and Evan fell to his knees to let the grains sift through his spread fingers. He raked it back and forth, creating patterns and piles. His own personal Zen garden.

Sometimes the dolphins stuck their noses up out of the water and said hi in their high-pitched barks and squeals. Mostly they stayed in the cove on the north side of the island, and occasionally he watched them play from the beach as they rolled and sprayed each other.

Ilhota Rosa got as much credit for keeping him sober as Charlie did. Maybe more. There was no liquor store on the island, and as long as Evan was here, he couldn’t give in to the sometimes overwhelming urge to haunt the Jim Beam aisle at Zippo’s on Abaco Island.

If Jared Anderson had his way, Aqueous Adventures would lose access to the coral reef off the coast of the island where they took snorkeling excursions. It represented a big chunk of their income, and the next nearest coral reef was off Countess Cay. Which was currently undergoing restoration and not open for clumsy, careless tourists to come along and undo all the hard work the team had done over the past few months.

Worse, if Jared Anderson had his way, the island itself would be inaccessible.

Evan would lose his refuge.

His hand fisted in the sand. That was not happening. Evan would fight to keep Ilhota Rosa unspoiled and unblocked. Somehow.

Rachel was the answer. She had to be. She would fix the Jared Anderson problem. One way or another, even if Evan had to guarantee Rachel’s success with a string of orgasms.

Except… the thought didn’t sit well. Intimacy meant something to him, especially now that he was sober, and he didn’t get horizontal with a woman indiscriminately. Especially not one who was best friends with the woman married to Evan’s best friend.

Which left him with exactly nothing concrete, no plan, and an ache in his chest that felt like something a lot of beer would be the only cure for.

He raked the sand for hours until the sun went down and a cool breeze ruffled his hair. The moon rose, casting its silvery light on the water. Exhaustion drove him to his feet so he could make the trek back to his empty house and call his AA sponsor. Work would be twice as brutal tomorrow if he slept on the beach as he’d discovered.

The sand shifted under his feet, but he compensated for it. Like always. Story of his life. Just as he got his foundation under him, something changed. Just once, he’d like to wake up with the certainty that everything would be okay.

Iraq had stolen that from him. Foolishly he still had hope the Caribbean could give it back.

Emma fairly glowed when she returned from Miralinda Island. After sending her new husband off to work on the coral-reef-restoration project the guys did most mornings, Mrs. Riley tracked down Rachel and spent a solid thirty minutes spouting a no-holds-barred recitation of Dex’s inventiveness behind closed doors. And open ones. The beach, the shower, whenever the mood struck them, which seemed to be approximately every three point four seconds.

Rachel bit her tongue so many times she had a dent from the teeth marks.

“Sounds divine, hon,” Rachel murmured during a rare break in the flow of words. And she meant it. Mostly.

The rest was pure jealousy, and Rachel hated herself for it. But that didn’t make it go away. Evan had avoided her for the past few days. Or at least that was her interpretation of the fact that she hadn’t seen him once. Duchess Island was roughly the size of a postage stamp. It didn’t take a graduate degree to do that math.

“To think,” Emma gushed. “This time last year I was dealing with a fear of the ocean and wondering how I was going to get my life together. Thank you so much for forcing me to come here.”

Rachel laughed. “Is that what I did? I don’t recall strong-arming you onto the plane.”

“You know what I mean. I was so lost, and you wanted me to take charge. That’s what I did.” Her friend threw her arms around Rachel, engulfing her in warmth and Emma. “I have you to thank for changing the course of my life.”

“Yeah, just wait’ll you get the bill,” Rachel muttered into Emma’s hair, emotion clogging her throat.

She loved Emma more than anyone else on the planet. Emma never judged her by her mistakes, past or present, never made stupid comments like surely the baby Rachel had given up for adoption was better off. Emma never tried to fix up Rachel with a nice Jewish boy because otherwise she’d never get married if left to her own devices.

In other words, Emma wasn’t Rachel’s mother.

Emma laughed and plopped back down at the small, round table in the tiny bungalow Rachel shared with Anna, one of the girls who worked in the resort kitchen.

“I would pay a million dollars for that. If I had it,” Emma said.

“I know you would, sweetie. On the house. You just concentrate on finding a job. That’s payment enough,” Rachel advised and glanced up as Anna bustled into the room to presumably find some breakfast, though it was nearly eleven o’clock.

Yet another reason this living arrangement Rachel had reluctantly agreed to wasn’t working out. Totally opposing schedules made for a difficult environment. Eleven o’clock was nearly midday. Half the day gone and for what? Sleep?

Anna shot Emma a look that might have been slightly less welcoming than one she’d give a snake oil salesman at her door. “Your company, she doesn’t stay long?”

“My company is named Emma, and we were just about to start playing a marathon game of Rock Band 4, why?” Rachel responded with far less sarcasm than she’d like.

There were few housing options on an island this small, and her roommate had taken her on solely because Dex had asked her to. Rachel got that. But the woman didn’t like her and made few bones about it.

Scowling, Anna pulled cereal from the pantry. “I work the late shift. She can’t be here when I come home.”

“This is my house too. I pay half the rent,” Rachel reminded her.

If anyone should have a grievance, it was Rachel. Anna had wandered in last night near midnight and knocked over the lone houseplant in the whole place. The racket had woken Rachel, and it had taken her forever to go back to sleep.

Anna wolfed down her breakfast and left the kitchen without another word. Fine. The less they talked the better.

“I wish we could be roommates again,” Emma said wistfully after Anna was out of earshot. “That was one of the best times of my life. Your surly bungalow mate doesn’t know what she’s missing.”

That got a genuine smile out of Rachel. It had been great, but they’d both been young and single. The paper-thin walls in these bungalows coupled with Emma being married to a guy whose name rhymed with sex didn’t sound like a recipe for quite the same situation. Especially given the bedroom creativity that Emma had shamelessly credited to Dex a few minutes ago.

She honestly didn’t know how Evan shared a bungalow with two other people, let alone newlyweds. He must sleep like the dead. Or maybe he got off on it. What did she know about what turned on Evan Silva? Not a thing. But not for lack of trying. Her mood went south in a hurry.

“Yeah, well,” Rachel said. “It’s only temporary until I find something else.”

Lately she’d been thinking she might try another island. Her proximity to Evan was a constant reminder that sometimes you could work really hard to reach a goal and it would continually stay just out of reach no matter what you did.

Like trying to make up for failure to secure birth control. Teen pregnancy rated very high on the Blume scale of mistakes. Rachel included. She wasn’t proud of herself, and the consequences had been brutal. Her parents’ pinched faces—she might never exorcise the shame and greasy nausea from her stomach that she still carried from those months. But she’d done the right thing, given up her daughter to a carefully screened family via an adoption agency run by a lawyer her mom had gone to school with.

Then she’d buckled down and graduated from law school, just like everyone had planned since the day she was born. Eventually the pinched looks faded and Rachel regained her parents’ trust.

What she did not gain was a sense of atonement. It constantly eluded her. Because rarely did a day go by when she didn’t wonder if the real mistake was not keeping her daughter. Did her little girl think about her birth mom? Did she have questions only Rachel could answer? Was she really better off with her adoptive parents? What if she thought there was something wrong with her and that’s why Rachel had given her away?

The vicious cycle of guilt and shame had finally driven Rachel to leave Boston for good. The Caribbean probably wasn’t her final destination, but she had no idea what was. Wherever she could find a place that settled her insides.

For the time being she’d committed to helping Aqueous Adventures.

“So,” Emma said brightly. “I heard that Wanda got a job at a resort in Freeport to be closer to her grandkids. I was going to see if Dex and I could get her place. It’s my next stop because I did not want to lose it. If it’s still open, I’ll take it and give it to you. In fact, come with me.”

That stabbed her right through the heart. Emma was such a sweetheart. “No, honey. You and Dex need your privacy. You’re starting a life together. You go get that house and don’t worry about me.”

She should totally get a medal for biting back advice that Emma should open her own bank account that Dex knew nothing about. Over and over she’d sat with devastated wives who would have sworn the men they’d married would never do the things Rachel was telling them their husbands were doing.

They always did them. Your own money went a long way to help combat greedy husbands who didn’t want to share their wealth with stay-at-home moms who’d raised their children and had the bad taste to fall in love with a dickhead.

“Are you sure?” Emma glanced at the hallway Anna had disappeared through. “Your situation is pretty bad. Take the house. Another one that’s right for me and Dex will come up soon.”

Considering Wanda’s was the first completely open residence to become available since they’d arrived, Emma’s optimism might be misplaced.

“Go, honey. Right now.” Rachel grinned. She had a lot of practice smiling when inside it wasn’t all sunshine and roses. “It’s not that bad. I’m living on a beautiful island, and the beach is literally less than a hundred steps from the front door. I can work on my tan while I read up on the legal system.”

Assuming she didn’t kill her roommate and wind up in jail instead.

Emma lit up. “That’s true. And I have to confess. I’m really looking forward to making it our own place. You know? With a framed picture from the wedding on the wall and a cow cookie jar in the kitchen. Dex said I could go shopping for accent pieces, throw pillows, a new comforter.”

“It’ll be great.” Rachel accompanied Emma to the door as the woman gushed about how she’d be able to watch whatever she wanted on TV instead of having to take Evan’s tastes into account.

The moment she left, Anna cranked up the stereo in her room. Pointedly. If Rachel could have company, Anna could listen to music. They’d had this throwdown a dozen times or more.

No big deal. Rachel went into her own room and shut the door, fully intending to get some work done on the brief she’d been studying regarding the criteria for naming an area a wildlife sanctuary.

The thumping beat reverberated through Rachel’s chest as she reread the paragraph she’d already read three times. The concepts weren’t difficult, but she’d practiced family law for so long this was almost like starting from scratch. A lawyer didn’t magically know every aspect of the law. Even at home she often had to research precedents to ensure she didn’t mess up, and British Commonwealth law was a far cry from US law anyway.

She had to learn this stuff. Internalize it. Make it a part of her consciousness. Otherwise she couldn’t use it in a cohesive case against Jared Anderson. This would be a civil case that Charlie had to file since Rachel didn’t have a license to practice law in the Bahamas, which made the ins and outs that much more critical. There was no room for error when Charlie depended on her to get it right.