Friendly Fire (The Echo Platoon Series, Book 3) (5 page)

Sonofabitch!
With the safety officer stalking up and down, barking into his megaphone, Jeremiah tipped his head back and closed his eyes, willing his visions to go away. At last, just as the crowd grew restless, the officer added one final directive.

"Enjoy your evening," he called.

With a cheer, passengers thronged toward the doors to pursue their evening entertainment. As Jeremiah moved with the flow of traffic, he resolved to engage Emma in small talk and see what came of it.

Anticipation crackled through him as she drew up alongside him.

"Well, wasn't that illuminating," she remarked.

"In all of the wrong ways," he agreed. They shared a look that warmed him to his toes.

A glance at her pink shoulders and freckled nose told him that she'd spent too much time in the sun that afternoon. Her daughter, who was all arms and legs and boasted a head of shiny dark hair, shuffled along behind her looking bored.

The adult-sized life jacket hanging on the girl's slender frame had him reaching back automatically to cinch her belt tighter.

"That's too big for you," he said when she cut him a startled look.

Premonition sparked the neural pathways in his brain. "Do me a favor," he said to Emma. "If there's ever an actual emergency, come and find me."

At his odd tone, she searched his face intently. "I bet you've seen a lot of crazy things."

"Oh, yeah. And I can keep you safer than anyone in this crew." Maybe that was why their paths had crossed. Maybe he was here to protect her.

As they surrendered their life jackets to the man collecting them, Tristan and Juliet reappeared.

"Hey, Bullfrog," Tristan said. "Let's take these beautiful women to the Lizard Lounge. I hear they like karaoke."

With his thoughts still caught up in mayhem, Jeremiah just blinked at Tristan's suggestion. He glanced at Emma to gauge her reaction.

"What is Sammy going to do?" she asked her sister. "She can't go to the bar."

Passengers jostled them as they headed for the stairs.

"I want to go to Kids' Zone," Sammy piped up. "That's where my friend Sophia's going."

"Okay, but I need to sign you in first." She looked back at Jeremiah.

"Emma has a beautiful voice," Juliet interjected. "Wait until you hear her sing."

The comment aroused Jeremiah's suspicions. Was Juliet hoping to push him and Emma together? Oh, hell no. He wasn't jumping into that murky water when keeping his head clear and his eyes peeled for terrorists was his top priority.

"Look, there's Sophia." Sammy pointed out a girl getting in the elevator with her parents. "Can we go?" As she tugged her mother toward the elevator, a line of people promptly streamed between them.

"Maybe I'll meet you there," Emma called, having to raise her voice to be heard as she and Sammy hurried away.

Jeremiah noted the look of frustration on Juliet's face.

"I'm sure she'll join us," she insisted.

"Come on, brother," Tristan urged. "Let's go hang out."

"I'm going to take a walk first," Jeremiah prevaricated. He could sense a trap, and he wasn't going to stumble blindly into it. Besides, he needed to find the service entrance and strike up conversations with the some of the staff.

With a half-salute, he swung around and marched right back outside onto the now-deserted deck. He had to examine his visions from every conceivable angle. With enough clues, he might be able to piece together the plot that was afoot. If so, he would do his best to foil it.

That had to be the reason his and Emma's paths had crossed. He was meant to protect her, and that was it. He wasn't going to initiate a rekindling of the feelings between them, not when she'd been the one to chase him off. If she wanted to have him in her life again, she would have to make the first move.

* * *

"I can't believe neither one of them showed up," Tristan commented, letting his annoyance show. Leaning back in one of the plush, eggshell-shaped seats scattered around the Lizard Lounge, he swirled his scotch in one hand while eying Juliet across the little table between them.

"I can," she drawled, nibbling on a peppermint leaf from her mojito.

Watching the way her lips and teeth moved up the stem warmed him all over. Unlike his insecure, raven-haired girlfriend of nearly two years, Juliet gave off an air of self-reliance that he found relaxing. She didn't talk endlessly the way Mariah did. When Juliet said something, it was usually insightful. Her honey-blond hair and gray eyes paired with an athletic build made her beautiful, but not in a fragile way. She looked like she could hold her own in a wrestling match. A mental image of her wrestling gave way to a vision of their arms, legs, and sweat-soaked bodies entangled, their mouths fused.

Damn, get a grip, he told himself.

"For some reason, you seem like the older sister, but you're younger, aren't you?"

"First of all, I'm going to forgive you for suggesting that I look old." She laughed when his expression shifted to one of dismay and he started to shake his head.

"I'm kidding," she assured him. "Emma's older by four years," she acknowledged. "But I've always been more grounded, more practical than Emma. She was the romantic dreamer."

"Was," he noted.

"Yep. Now, she's just disillusioned. She's probably in our cabin reading a book."

"No!" He protested the mere idea. "How could she do that when there's so much to do here?"

"I take it you don't read much," she retorted, flipping the focus of their talk onto him.

He acknowledged his shortcoming with a grimace. "Only if I have to. I like newspapers and magazines if that raises your opinion of me at all."

She studied him with wry humor. "Let me guess. You have a subscription to a fitness magazine."

"Nah, fitness doesn't interest me. I just do my job, and that's all the workout I need," he said with mild indifference. "Actually, I subscribe to racing magazines. I used to be a NASCAR driver."

She issued a startled laugh. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah, I spent four years on the circuit before becoming a SEAL."

"What, that adrenaline rush wasn't enough for you?" she needled.

He grinned at her insight. "Something like that. I like pushing myself to the edge to see what happens."

"I think you have to be crazy to race cars, let alone join the Special Forces."

"Please, don't mince your words," he begged. "You can call me crazy right to my face, and it won't hurt my feelings. I've been called that before."

Her tawny eyebrows came together as she studied him. "What makes you do it?" she queried.

He'd asked himself that question too many times to count. "I don't know," he started to say, and then he peered into his watered-down scotch. Actually, he did know, and the scotch acted like truth serum, making him admit to the reason when he would normally have kept it to himself. "I'm not like the rest of my family."

She sat forward, her evident interest inviting him to share more. "In what way?"

He cast a glance at the ceiling. "Let's see. My parents are both doctors. My brother is a lawyer, and my sister is a financial advisor. Does that give you any clues?"

Her frank gaze wandered over him. "If you're saying you're the dunce of the family, I happen to know that to make it as a SEAL, you must be bright."

See, she was a softy on the inside. "Well, thank you. Actually, I was adopted, which may explain why book learning and the traditional careers of the rest of my family didn't appeal to me. My birth mother left me in the lobby of the hospital emergency room. My parents, who worked in the ER, took me home."

She blinked several times as if deciding whether he was lying. "You're not kidding," she finally said.

"Nope."

"So you... push the limits of human capabilities because...?" She gestured for him to finish the thought.

But he didn't finish it. Telling her that he considered himself the product of human error, a mistake who should never have been born, sounded stupid, but that was the insight that drove him to do reckless shit—not that he was trying to kill himself. He really didn't understand why he did it.

"Do you want to hear me sing?" he asked, changing the subject abruptly. Not one of the individuals who'd climbed onto the stage to do karaoke had done justice to the music, and it was driving him crazy.

She regarded him for a somber moment. "I don't know," she said. "Are you any good?"

He grinned at her. "I'll let you be the judge of that."

He left her at the table, approaching the DJ to select the song he wanted to sing. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched a middle-aged man swagger up to their table and talk to Juliet. A surprising pinch of possessiveness had him looking over as the man made overtures and actually started to sit in the seat across from hers.

Tristan was about to intervene when the stranger hung his head and skulked away.

No doubt about it, Juliet could hold her own. He realized right then what song he wanted to sing—a country western piece about love growing cold on a stormy night. He shared a word with the DJ, stepped up onto the stage, and grabbed the mike.

The room went silent as all eyes beheld him. He was used to that phenomenon. Men studied him with sullen envy. Women regarded him like something edible. He'd learned a long time ago that looks didn't mean much after the initial impression.

The music started, wresting his gaze to the screen displaying the lyrics. At the proper cue, he started singing. Halfway into the first stanza, he glanced up and found Juliet's mouth hanging open. He couldn't resist a smile. This was something women didn't expect from him—
the boy could sing
. He'd heard that a time or two. He wasn't a virtuoso, and he wasn't about to bump any country music stars off the
Billboard
charts, but no one else in his family could sing like he could.

The song came to a thundering end, and the audience broke into wild applause.

"Thank you. Thank you very much," Tristan said in his best Elvis impersonation, and then he leaped off the stage to rejoin Juliet at their table. Still no sign of Bullfrog or Emma.

"So what do you think?" he prompted, plopping down in the plush seat awaiting him.

"Not bad," Juliet replied. But her eyes glinted with admiration that turned him warm from the inside out.

"Your turn," he invited.

"Oh, no," she protested with a laugh. "You don't want to hear me sing. Emma's the singer in the family."

"You should go and get her," he suggested.

"What time is it?" She peered upside down at the tactical watch he always wore.

"Twenty-three fifteen—quarter after eleven," he amended, switching to civilian-speak.

Juliet shook her head. "She won't come out now. It's getting past my bedtime, too. I need to collect my niece from Kids' Zone and hit the sack. It's been a long day considering we flew out of Dulles at dawn this morning. That seems like days ago!"

Disappointment ambushed him, but her reasons for retiring were valid, so he stood up to pull out her chair.

"Thank you." Her tone made it clear his actions weren't necessary or particularly welcome.

"We didn't compare itineraries yet," he persisted. "How are we going to get Bullfrog and your sister together?"

"I'll meet you in the Fiesta Galley at 9 a.m.," she suggested. "We can talk about it over breakfast."

The prospect of seeing her in less than ten hours gave him something to look forward to. "Cool," he agreed with a grin. "I'll see you then."

She regarded him a moment with a deer-in-the-headlights look. Then, without another word, swiveled on her strappy sandals and strode out of the Lizard Lounge with her shoulders back and her head held high. Maybe she didn't like him. Maybe he was the only one who'd enjoyed himself.

Puzzled by her aloofness, he stood there wondering if he ought to try to pick up some other woman. His gaze flickered over the gathering, and he discerned at least two ladies who appeared to be single. Both of them were watching him with hopeful expressions.

Nah. They were pretty enough, but he realized he was already focused on his target—without having realized Juliet even was one. Whether they hooked up or not, her spunk and smarts had captivated him. And he wasn't about to switch gears, not just to soothe himself for a night.

Glancing again at his watch, he smiled wryly but headed out of the lounge all the same. By SEAL standards the night was still young, but it wouldn't hurt to store up his energy in order to get the most out of the days ahead. Besides, he wanted to find Bullfrog and chew him out for being such a pansy.

* * *

Emma laid her book on the bedside table and glanced at her cell phone, only to recall that she'd turned it off to avoid roaming charges. Rolling out of bed, she hunted for the watch she had slipped into her luggage.

It was thirty minutes to midnight. Sammy was still hanging with her friend, and Juliet was out with the hunky Tristan. Under normal circumstances, Juliet could be counted on to bring Sammy back to their cabin before Kids' Zone closed. But these weren't normal circumstances. Emma had peeked into the Lizard Lounge to find her sister talking to the SEAL with a look on her face Emma didn't recall seeing her sister wear before.