The SEAL's Second Chance: An Alpha Ops Novella Read online

  “Something big is about to go down. I need somewhere safe to get things rolling with the informant, and for a number of reasons, the banquet is the perfect opportunity. But if I use cops, it’s going to look suspicious. I can’t have anything tracking back to her.”

  “Her?” Jamie said, pausing with a rib halfway to his mouth.

  “Her.” Ian licked sauce from the side of his wrist. “She’s smack in the middle of what could be a multistate drug trafficking ring.”

  “Okay,” Jamie said. “If you want backup, I can get you two more former SEALs. They’ll be at the banquet, so no one will wonder why they’re there.”

  “Hell yes, I want them. Thanks,” Ian said, then nodded at the ribs. “Are they as good as you remember?”

  Jamie nodded, the sweet sting on his tongue reminding him of Charlie. When they finished their meal, they drove home, past the court, empty in the middle of the day. The passion was still there. All he had to do now was convince her it was worth risking her heart.

  Chapter Two

  She was restless. Not that this was news. Charlotte Stannard was always restless. But she’d learned to identify her emotions, to think through appropriate responses.

  Charlie stood in the open screen door of her little house and let the sounds of a Lancaster spring night wash over her. Crickets, evening birds darting against the darkening sky, no wind, not even a breeze. Only a few stars beginning to twinkle in the twilight. The air was losing the sun’s heat of the day and taking on the chill of spring. It was the perfect evening for sitting in her tiny screened-in porch, catching up on all the relaxing she didn’t do during the basketball season. The months between October and March were beyond hectic, with tryouts and regular-season games. This year the Lady Knights made the state tournament for the first time since Charlie’s senior season, when they won state, losing to the St. Paul Gamecocks in the semis. Next year they were coming home from the tournament with a trophy and nets cut from the hoops, and that meant Charlie, as their head coach, needed to think about summer workouts and designing plays to maximize the talent she had.

  But she was restless. What she’d told herself was the most difficult part of the year—the season—was over, very respectably handled for her first year of coaching, leaving behind only the banquet honoring the coach she’d replaced, and the team members.

  She shifted uncomfortably. That was the cause of her restlessness, if she cared to admit it. Instead, she blamed the night, the sky’s deep evocative color peeling back her carefully constructed defenses and opening up a well of memory and longing she thought she’d processed long ago. During her player days in Connecticut and Europe, spring didn’t bother her, the smells and colors unfamiliar enough to keep memory at bay. She’d returned to Lancaster in September, threw herself into patching up a program that had fallen into disarray, meeting players and parents, working out a practice schedule with the boys’ coach, and preparing for the classes she was teaching. Fall became winter, and bus rides to games in the dark, sketching plays while hunkered down in the aisle, ponytailed heads nodding in understanding, music tinnily streaming from earbuds looped around necks. Then the tournament, rallies and the pep band, the ongoing high school drama between one of the cheerleaders and her starting point guard, then a couple of weeks of nothing but sleep, eat, teach. She’d forgotten that winter came and winter left.

  But the earth traveled around the sun, and spring was here, royal skies and chilled air making her remember the sensation of game-warmed muscles and hot skin cooling under sweat, kisses stolen in the darkness between lights around an outdoor court …

  Don’t do it. Don’t go there, mentally or physically.

  “The hell with that,” she muttered.

  Avoiding the night wouldn’t help, because there would be another, and another, until summer came. She’d been avoiding more than the night. She’d been avoiding the court, playing indoors at the school or the Y where she taught a fundamentals class to grade-school kids. No more.

  She pulled on a thin hoodie over her sports T-shirt and performance leggings and grabbed her phone and earbuds for the walk, spinning up one of her upbeat playlists to get herself in game mode and set off down her front steps to the cracked sidewalk, dribbling as she went.

  The neighborhood was settling in for the night, bikes abandoned behind chain-link fences enclosing front yards, the light from televisions flickering in windows until she cut over to Second Street and walked the rest of the way along the railroad tracks. To her right loomed the steep, heavily wooded rise separating Lancaster’s working-class East Side from what was known prosaically as the Hill. Back when trains were the town’s lifeblood, railroad workers lived by the tracks. Railroad executives lived on the Hill, a separation that continued to the present day. The town had more industry than the railroad now, so all kinds of white-collar workers bought the old Victorians and renovated them, CEOs and entrepreneurs, doctors and architects and finance wizards.

  She refused to look up the Hill in search of the windows of a particular house. Back in high school she’d been too proud to do that, broadcasting the attitude of the ashamed as she practiced on the court, located in the DMZ between the East Side and the Hill. Now she coached high school students, which meant she couldn’t afford to act like one, dreaming that maybe he’d be there, waiting for her like she’d made him wait all those years ago, refusing to let him come over or to call her house, much less to climb the steep wooden staircase cut into the trees and bushes growing wild and thick up the Hill to his house.

  Wait for me at the court. Maybe I’ll be there. Maybe I won’t.

  The lights were on at the basketball court, one lone player shooting around at the far end. A man. Too big to be Jamie, taller, broader through the shoulders, wearing track pants and a body-hugging T-shirt when Jamie wore baggy 90s gangsta shorts and a T-shirt with the sleeves cut to the hem just to piss off his father a little. Short hair, when Jamie’s had skimmed his jaw, because his mother hated it, and when you grew up the son of the town’s police chief, you took your rebellion where you could get it.

  She’d grown up fast living in the East Side, and picked up a few tricks from self-defense classes in college, so she wasn’t afraid to stop and stand in the darkness under the trees sheltering the tracks and watch. He had decent moves, probably played in high school, nothing spectacular, but it was hard to show off your best stuff when you played yourself. For that, you needed a teammate, an opponent. His back to her, he worked on his crossover, knees bent, center of gravity low to the ground, the ball bouncing tight and hard off the cement as he switched it from hand to hand. Then he broke left and went in for a layup, and a thrill of recognition and something far too much like delight shot through her.

  It was in the long parabola of his body, stretched from his fingertips to his toes, pointed from pushing off for the layup, the key that turned the lock of her memory. Why wouldn’t he be there? She knew he was coming back for the banquet; the chairwoman of the booster club burbling over with excitement at having all of the boys’ team members back, including a U.S. Navy SEAL fresh off a deployment.

  Jamie.

  All this she thought in the split second he hung in midair. Then the ball rolled off his fingertips, into the hoop, rattling the chains that served as a net. It dropped to the ground, bouncing once before he palmed it back into his control, dribbling absently.

  “Come on out of there.”

  She knew an order when she heard one, and this one was given in his voice, a sandy curl no less compelling for the tenor tone, for all she knew actually roughened by sand. Her muscles jerked, not toward the court in response to his command but rather the temptation to run strong enough to make her twitch in the direction of home. She caught herself. Lifted her chin. Stepped out of the darkness, onto the court, the ball balanced between her forearm and her hip.

  He froze, his hand hanging in midair as his eyes widened. “Hey,” he said, the ball bouncing away from him. “Hi. Uh, sorry. I di
dn’t know it was it you.”

  “It’s me,” she said, trying not to stare at his body as the ball rolled to a stop at her feet. His hair glimmered with the soft brown of a fawn’s pelt when the court’s light caught it. He was tanned, twin stripes of sunglasses along his temples and around his eyes. She was used to athletes in peak condition, had dated professional tennis players, basketball players, soccer players, rugby players, and for a few months, an Olympic show jumper who had thighs she’d never forget, but Jamie was different. Jamie’s body wasn’t athletic. It was the hard musculature of a man who knew that life was no ordinary game.

  After one quick glance at his ball, now in her territory, he put his hands on his hips and looked around. “It hasn’t changed much,” he said.

  “There’s a neighborhood association working to revitalize without giving up too much to gentrification,” she said in return. “It hasn’t gotten much traction, but Eve Webber … you remember Eve? Caleb’s sister? She’s leading the charge.”

  “I remember Eve,” he said, one corner of his mouth twitching up.

  No surprise there. Everyone remembered Eve Webber. A man’s creases to go with the boy’s dimples, she thought absently. She’d forgotten his dimples. He still had the direct stare. Growing up a son of a cop meant he looked you right in the eyes, used words like “sir” and “ma’am” with ease, answered up, but this was different. This look had a man’s knowledge and a Navy SEAL’s experience behind it, and she wasn’t sure what to do. With anyone else she’d claim a basket and shoot away her restlessness. All she could do now was stare, tongue-tied.

  “You play down here much?” he asked.

  “No.” She shook her head, defensive despite the reasonable question. Kids from the Hill had their own park, complete with a playground, a sand box, a tennis court, and a basketball court, all tucked under spreading elm trees, or so she’d seen after she went to a cocktail party for the booster club held in one of the houses that backed to the playground. She’d never been up on the Hill as a kid. She had no business up there. Jamie had his cop-father’s go-anywhere attitude. Taking the steps down the Hill two at a time to the court was easy for him.

  “It’s been too cold,” she added in explanation, the drop back a decade to high school made her ache, a phantom pain left over from wanting so hard it hurt. Wanting her mother to sober up and keep a job. Wanting to get out of Lancaster. Wanting to win a spot on the team, a starter’s spot, a game, a championship, a scholarship anywhere because basketball was her way out. Wanting Jamie, knowing she could never, ever have him.

  “That never stopped you before,” he said.

  She’d played outside when the windchill was below zero, bad for the ball but needing to be anywhere but at home. “I’ve got access to a gym now,” she said, and was every conversation going to be like this, a minefield of memories?

  He must have seen the pain on her face, because he walked right up to her, bent over, and bounced his ball from immobile to dribbling, then got right in her space, his smile doing nothing to dial back his intensity. “Don’t let me stop you,” he said.

  Damn him. Damn him, because his voice held just the right amount of challenge and amusement to hook her like a fish. She was dribbling before she knew it, walking onto the court before she told her muscles to move.

  Closer to the basket Jamie fired off a jump shot, too hard, the arc more of a straight line than the sweet curve needed to swish through the hoop. The ball chunked off the rim, setting the chains rattling. Jamie took two quick steps and rebounded it, then kissed it off the backboard for two.

  She followed him with an easy layup, caught the ball when he politely bounced it her way. He smelled exactly the same, the scent of his sweat as familiar as her own. They were being oddly careful, avoiding contact, each waiting for the other to shoot. It was awkward, strange.

  “How about a game of one-on-one?” he asked.

  She sank a sweet three, remembering what they used to play for. “You sure about that? Because your game looks rusty.”

  “I’m sure,” he said, refusing to be baited as he slapped her ball back to her with one hand and aimed a skyhook at the basket with the other.

  In answer she tapped her ball toward the corner of the court, where it came to rest in the grass under a budding elm tree, and took up position at half-court, her hands on her hips. She’d been greedily eyeing him for a while now, but this was a frank assessment of an opponent. He was tight, playing through some level of pain in his shoulders and back, favoring his left knee.

  He checked the ball to her, she bounced it back, and settled low while he dribbled, using his body to protect the ball. Moving at half speed, she reached around a couple of times, reminding him to get lower, when he pulled up and got off a jump shot that clanged off the rim. She reached for the rebound, spun, and dribbled to the midcourt line.

  “Nice,” he said. “Still got your crossover?”

  “It’s a little rusty,” she said, and started driving to the basket. Her crossover was just fine, thanks, but he wasn’t playing hard enough to warrant throwing down for him, and she didn’t want to give him her best game. Not so soon. Not yet.

  The game went back and forth for a few minutes as they tested each other. With each bump of his shoulder to her collarbone, her back to his chest as she inched her way down the court, the tension grew between them, the hot sweet burn of temptation. That part was familiar. She’d always wanted Jamie. Always. But their bodies were different, his harder, filled out to a man’s size and strength, hers aware of the upside of sex when before she’d only seen the downside, the weakness, the danger. Before she’d wanted, aroused without really knowing what it would mean to have. Now she knew exactly how rare the desire between them was.

  He stopped, breathing hard. “That’s ten,” he said.

  “Was it?” she replied, avoiding his gaze. “I wasn’t keeping score.”

  He flashed her a smile, breathing hard. “Just a friendly game? That’s something we’ve never done.”

  All the nevers hung in the air for a moment before she opted for the safe answer. “We used to go at it pretty hard,” she said, then wished she’d thought about her answer, or the court would open up and swallow her whole.

  “You played harder than any of the guys on the team,” he said, then lifted the hem of his shirt and wiped the sweat from his face.

  It was a standard athlete move, one she’d done a thousand times without thinking about it But Jamie’s torso, pectorals angling into an eight-pack split by a line of hair leading from his navel into his shorts, made her mouth go dry. He’d been in good shape in high school, played with his shirt off during those spring nights. Now he was spectacular.

  She wanted. She wanted with the desperation of the girl she’d been, and with the knowledge and passion of the woman she’d become.

  “How long are you in town?” she asked, anything to break the tension.

  He stopped and looked at her, his hair sweat-dampened at temples and nape, all his cowlicks standing up. “I’m on day four of a thirty,” he said.

  Twenty-six days. She could have twenty-six days with Jamie Hawthorn. It might be enough to take what she’d wanted and never let herself have all those years ago, answer the question that haunted her in the middle of the night. Did she make the right decision when she walked away from Jamie?

  “Just like old times,” he said, dimpling at her again.

  “Not exactly,” she said before she could talk herself out of it. One game he’d bet her a kiss if he won. She’d let him win, let him kiss her, then challenged him to a rematch. He’d lost, and in the crestfallen look on his face, she knew he wasn’t playing just for the chance to kiss her. He saw her as a worthy competitor, not as a girl from the East Side, with a mother as easy as a swinging door and no future. It wasn’t about getting in her pants.

  So she’d kissed him anyway.

  His smile softened, widened into something that should have been knowing but instead held a hin
t of wariness. “Not exactly,” he repeated. “I figured you’d forgotten about that.”

  Never. That was the thing about nevers. You remembered that you broke them, or you remembered that you didn’t, that you’d clung to your word like a toddler with his binky … and regretted it. That spring with Jamie was characterized by all the nevers she’d clung to, afraid of getting pregnant and screwing up her one chance to get out of Lancaster.

  She knew she’d never let herself have sex any time, let alone for the first time, on the patchy grass in City Park, so she’d met him there, never anywhere else, only there, and all she’d let herself do was kiss him, tree bark digging into her back, his hands pulling the elastic from her hair, on her face, her throat, her breasts, her hips, but never inside her clothing. She’d never gotten into a car with him, or let him come over to her house, and she’d certainly never climbed the dark, steep staircase disappearing into the trees on the Hill.

  Most importantly, she’d never let herself fall in love with him. Even then she knew sex and love could be disconnected; she saw it happen to her mom three or four times a year. But the only thing worse than getting knocked up by Jamie Hawthorn was falling in love with him.

  “I didn’t,” she said, her mouth dry. “I didn’t forget.”

  Before she could say something she’d regret, she turned her back on him and walked across the court to pick up her ball. It had rolled to a stop between two thick roots anchoring a big elm tree. She bent over and grabbed it, straightened, turned.

  Right into Jamie’s chest.

  They were about the same height. He had maybe an inch on her, five eleven to her five ten, but he had a new, neat little trick of making himself seem bigger than he was because she caught her breath. Once again she was reminded of all the ways they’d been playing at being adults when they were just kids, and how they were all grown up now.

  Then he bent his head and kissed her. For a long moment she froze, caught by the soft, hot pressure of his mouth on hers like a fish hooked out of the water. Then she dropped the ball, fisted her hand in his shirt, and pulled him close. She opened her mouth under his, felt the slippery hot touch of his tongue to hers, suggestive and tempting. His hands came up to cup her jaw as he backed her up a step, then another, until her back hit the rough bark of the elm and there was nowhere else for her to go but into him.