Her Dominant SEAL (Midnight Delta Book 9) Read online

  Larry’s concealed weapon wasn’t all that concealed. But Drake appreciated the fact he had a gun if he was a good guy.

  “Thank you for coming over so quickly. But this shit could get dangerous.” Drake said. “You could be putting yourself in harm’s way. Why are you so willing to help us?”

  “He’s a good guy, Drake. Back off. He’s my friend. I trust him.” Evie was mad.

  Larry held up his hands. “I told you my nephew was Parker Evans.”

  “Yes,” Drake agreed slowly. “A redhead, always smiled. Sure, I remember him. We played football together.”

  “That was him.”

  “Was?”

  “He died in Afghanistan. IED.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Drake shook his head in sympathy.

  “Do you remember, he was a year behind you? He sure as hell looked up to you, and you stayed after practice to give him pointers.”

  Drake smiled. “He was a good kid. He had a lot of potential, he just needed a little extra attention.”

  “And you were the one who gave it to him. It made all the difference in the world. You know, he never believed that trumped up charge. As a matter of fact, he and some of the others in town did some digging and realized just what a raw deal you got.”

  Drake didn’t know what to say. Having his mom against him had made him question whether anybody would be on his side.

  “Anyway, I’ve been thinking about a safe place for you and yours to stay while you’re in town. I worry about this place being safe, especially with your daddy out of prison. I want to loan you a chalet I rent to some of my more private clients.”

  “Drake and Piper can stay there, maybe Trenda and her daughter, but I don’t need to,” Evie spoke up.

  Both men glared at her.

  “If you’re caught in the cross-fire, you’ll duck and cover like the rest of us. Got it?” Drake stared his sister down.

  “No, I don’t ‘got it.' Go practice your SEAL voodoo on someone else.”

  “You’re a SEAL?” Larry asked.

  “Yeah, he’s a big bad SEAL, and he thinks he gets to tell me what to do. Well, I’m a grown woman and I’ve been living my life just fine without you dictating to me, so you’re not going to start now.” Evie shoved her hands on her hips and stared up at both men, daring them to disagree.

  “Eva, it’s the Carmendy Chalet. You know the place but hardly anyone else does.” Larry turned to Drake. “It’s huge, I really think all of you need to stay there, including Eva.” He turned back to Evie and pointed at her. “I know you’re stubborn as hell, but your father is a few bricks shy of a load and meaner than a snake.”

  Drake gave a dry laugh. “That about sums him up.” He put his hand on Evie’s shoulder. “We haven’t seen him since he’s gotten out of prison, but you know he’s probably only gotten worse.”

  She gave a heavy sigh and nodded.

  “Okay, it’s a done deal,” Larry said. “I’m going to drive her and Piper up there.”

  “Larry, I don’t know how long this is going to take. Seriously, can you afford to not rent this place out?” Drake questioned one last time.

  “This is for Parker. I don’t give a shit if you take the place for the rest of the ski season.”

  Drake was dumbfounded. Here he was, coming home to find his youngest sister without a decent winter coat and on the run from her father, but he was being offered a ski chalet, for the rich and famous, to hide out in. It was amazing.

  “Well?”

  “Thank you.” Drake stuck out his hand, and Larry shook it.

  “Now, I’m going to stay with the women until you get back. I’ll make sure nobody can get to them.”

  Eva threw up her hands in disgust. “There is too much fucking testosterone in here.” She stormed back to sit next to Piper.

  “Larry, I’m in your debt.”

  “No, you’re not. We’re not keeping score, but if we were, we might finally be getting close to even. ” The man clapped him on the back. “Now go do what you need to do.”

  ***

  His old house didn’t look anything like it once had. It should have been painted at least five years ago, if not longer. The roof on the carport was drooping, besides having a hole in one corner. Drake didn’t think the yard was ever going to come back to life even in the spring, considering the fact that it was now mostly patches of dirt.

  As he got closer to the house, he saw that one of the windows was actually boarded up. Was money so tight that his mom couldn’t afford to get it replaced? When he looked around at the rest of the neighborhood, he wondered what everybody else thought. Damn, Trenda had told him that the money he’d sent had been helping cover these types of things for mom. Apparently it hadn’t.

  Drake kept the car moving at a consistent pace and noted that the neighbors across the street still showed the name Pauley on the mailbox.

  Perfection! He was in business.

  Drake now knew how he was going to keep watch on his family homestead. He drove four blocks over and got out of the car. His coat was dark and warm, which was perfect for surveillance. How often had he cut through the backyards of his neighbors to get home? More times than he could count. The Pauley’s were old back when he was growing up, at least they had been in his youthful opinion. Hell, they weren’t even retired then. His first senior chief would have kicked his ass if he’d told him what his definition of old had been back in the day. Now the Pauley’s were probably in their early sixties.

  He parked on Oak Street, which was aptly named since so many of the trees were found in the yards. Grabbing what he needed out of the gym bag, Drake got out of the car and meandered down the street until he got to old man Sherwood’s house if the guy still lived there, and Drake faded amongst the oak trees in his front yard.

  The dense foliage continued on into the back yard, and he easily made it to the wood fence that backed up to the next property. He scanned for dogs, and when he found them, he would move to the next yard, until he finally made it to the Pauley’s big backyard, which looked the same. They still had the same faded lawn furniture and the birdfeeder was the same faded yellow.

  The three dogwood trees that grew around the Eastern cedar were still in place near the corner of the house, away from the back porch. That cedar was as big and strong as ever. When he was nine, he had longed to build a tree house in it. Now he intended to use it for surveillance since it was one of the few trees that didn’t lose its leaves during the winter months.

  Drake stood next to the tree for long minutes, waiting. Just waiting. Finally, he knew that there were no eyes looking his way. He couldn’t explain it to anyone other than a fellow team member, but they would understand. After so many years of being in deadly situations, your instincts told you when you were being watched, and when you weren’t. At the moment, the coast was clear.

  He easily climbed up to the densest part of the tree and found a vee between the trunk and a thick branch to plant himself for a good long while. He put on his gloves, then pulled out the night vision binoculars he’d taken out of the gym bag and scanned the street in front of his mother’s house.

  He’d noticed a lot of cars parked on the street, besides the one under the carport and two in the driveway. Now it was time to try to figure out who all was making themselves at home at the Avery’s. Before hour two was finished, the side door opened next to the carport. Drake trained the binoculars on the duo who came out of the house. They looked like an unlikely pair. One was bigger than he was, and that didn’t happen all that often. The other guy looked like he hadn’t had a decent meal in decades.

  The big guy started walking towards the street, and the small guy grabbed his arm. It was obvious the larger man allowed himself to be stopped. As Drake watched the dynamic, it became clear that the little fellow was the one in charge. He was angry about something, and the big guy just kept nodding his head and wringing his hands. Finally, the smaller man just waved him away, and the guy jogged toward a
station wagon parked on the street. It looked like it had been manufactured in the seventies. It took a couple of tries for it to turn over. When it did, he managed to fishtail it as he went down the icy street. Obviously, he wanted to get away from the man who had yelled at him.

  Who were these two men? Who were they in relation to his dad? The small man went back to the side door and opened it, and yelled out a name. It sounded like Mike or Ike. Maybe he wanted some licorice candy, but Drake doubted it. No, nothing good was going on in that house. He shuddered, and not from the cold. The idea that Piper had been there when his fucking father brought over his prison buddies made his blood run cold. But knowing his mom was there scared him too.

  “What?” Even from the position in the tree, he could hear the question shouted at the man at the side door. Two men came out to the carport. One had his head shaved and was wearing a jean jacket with the arms cut off showing his tattoo covered arms. Drake looked closely at the tattoos and finally found what he was looking for.

  “Goddammit, Norville, you piece of shit. What the hell have you gotten yourself into?” Drake muttered as he spotted the swastika tattoo.

  The little fellow talked to the two of them for a while. Since his face was away from Drake, he couldn’t make out what he was saying, but he did take note of the hundred dollar bills that he handed the two men when he waved them away. These two must rank higher in the food chain if they got cash and the first guy didn’t. They walked down the street and got into an older model black Escalade. Apparently, they didn’t have any qualms about sticking out in Jasper Creek. He watched as that car went the same direction as the station wagon, then he turned his attention back to the man under the carport. He was smoking like a chimney, and talking on his cell phone.

  Why wouldn’t the man turn this way? Drake wasn’t great at lip reading, but he could get by. The man was holding his cell phone, like a speaker, in front of him. If he would just turn around, Drake would be able to see what he was saying. Finally, he turned.

  “The boss is rabid about his daughter. Find her.”

  He hung up his phone and went back inside.

  It made no sense to Drake that Norville could hold this kind of grudge against his youngest child. Had Piper seen something when she was five that could still be used against their father? It was the only thing that seemed reasonable. Thank God Larry was getting her to a safer place.

  Drake waited another hour, and the little guy finally left the house and got into a silver Dodge that had been parked in the driveway. He drove away, going East, instead of West, down Dogwood street. So, the bad guys weren’t all staying in the same place. Interesting. That left just one car in the driveway and one in the carport. Most of the other cars parked on the street were trucks and the type of SUV’s that mothers drove their kids to school in. Drake was willing to take the chance that the population in the house had gone down to just his parents. Now was the time to get a little closer.

  He stilled, and let the mood of the neighborhood wash over him. Two houses to the left, a dog was prowling around in its dog run. Now that he wasn’t trying to block it, he could hear the slight sound of the TV in the Pauley’s house. They’d always kept it on throughout the night, which had made it even easier to cut through their property. There was one more sound that took him a moment to place. Finally, he grinned. The Pauley’s were doing a little more than watching TV. Good for them.

  Drake climbed out of the tree without making a sound. Like a shadow, he was across the street and in his old home’s backyard. The kitchen was on the first floor. The drapes over the sink were open. He peeked inside and easily saw through to the kitchen table. His folks sitting there, like they had years and years ago, in the early days of their marriage, back when his mom had been pregnant with the twins. They were smoking and playing cards, with beer cans in front of each of them. He could see them clearly. He could hear them because even though it was freezing, they had the window cracked so the smoke would disperse. Not that it ever really worked.

  “Your play, Wanda. You better not be cheating,” his father said in a menacing tone.

  His mother giggled like a teenaged girl. “I want you to win. I like it when you win, Norville.”

  “Damn right you do.” He crushed out his cigarette and took a sip of beer, eyeing his wife over the can. “Play your card.”

  Drake couldn’t see the card she laid down, but his dad grabbed her wrist in a punishing grip. “Now that’s not the card I needed. Try again.”

  “You’re hurting me,” she whimpered.

  He let go of her arm. “Pick up the card and discard another one instead, and think this time. Think about what I need.”

  Had it always been this bad? He remembered his dad taking it out on him, but he’d been male, that’d been okay.

  “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking, you’re right, darlin’.”

  Drake shuddered. He hated the endearment darlin’. Now he remembered why. It was what his folks used. It all came flooding back. Jesus, how much had he blocked? And it wasn’t just his dad, it had been his mom allowing it. Sometimes egging it on.

  Wanda picked up the card on the pile, put it back into her hand, then discarded another one. Norville grinned, picked it up.

  “Gin,” he said with glee.

  His mother smiled brightly. “You always win. Do I get my prize?”

  “Pretty soon we’re both gonna get our prize.”

  Wanda giggled. “We deserve it after everything I’ve put into this. I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you more. You haven’t been cheating on me, now have you?”

  His mother paled. “Please, Norville, I told you, I’ve been faithful the entire time.”

  Norville stood up and reached out his hand. “A lusty woman like you? You needed it, you couldn’t have been faithful.”

  “I was, I swear.”

  He grabbed her forearm, twisting, forcing her to kneel in front of him. “Now swear to me. Swear that you were faithful.”

  “I swear it. I love you, Norville. I’ve loved you since high school, there’s never been anybody else.”

  He smiled. “Oh, darlin’.” He helped her back up. “I love you, too.”

  “I love you too.” Mascara ran down her face. “Let’s go upstairs.

  He bent down and gave her a kiss. “Let’s.”

  Drake watched as they walked out of the kitchen.

  Chapter Three

  Drake needed a minute and some Clorox to clear his head, so he double timed it back to his car. Before he took a time out, he needed to make sure Piper was safe. He pulled out his phone. He saw a couple of messages from San Diego that he’d take care of soon. First, he needed to talk to Evie.

  “Avery,” she answered.

  “That’s my line.” He smiled.

  “I knew it was you. I decided to fuck with you.” He winced. Did she have to talk like a truck driver?

  “Evie, this is important. Where’s Piper? Where’s Larry?”

  “I’ve stepped into the bedroom. I’m alone. What’s up?”

  “How secure is that place?”

  “The whole property is fenced in with an electric fence, and you have to get in with a keypad. Lots of executives and celebrities stay here.”

  Drake blew out a sigh of relief.

  “How do I get there?”

  “Are you in Jasper Creek proper?”

  “Yeah.”

  “At Mom and Dad’s?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Dammit, Drake, do you know how much I worry about you? I don’t care if you are a big bad SEAL.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Bullshit. Everybody’s out to get you.” She said something that he couldn’t make out. “I just,” her voice broke. “I just couldn’t handle it if something else bad happened to you. The first time almost killed me.”

  “Ah, Evie. Honey. I’m fine. Honest.

  He heard her swallow. “Fine. You’re fine. Sorry I bothered to care.”

&
nbsp; “Hey, wait a moment. Not so fast, Sissy.”

  “What?”

  Drake thought he heard a tremor in her voice. He should have known underneath that tough exterior was still the heart of the sister who had read every single Nancy Drew and wanted to be Lois Lane.

  “Thanks for caring.”

  “Who are you kidding, like I care.”

  “Your problem is you care too much.”

  “Enough with the mushy stuff. Here’s the directions. Are you ready Super Soldier? Go to Hwy 321 towards Route Eight. Head towards Ledlow Hill, then you’re going to see a sign that says Dwight Road on your right. Ignore the No Trespassing sign and go until it dead ends at the gate. That’s the Carmendy Chalet. Just press the intercom. One of us will buzz you in.”

  “Just like that? How do you know I’m me?”

  “Mellow. There’s a camera.”

  Drake was put at ease. It didn’t sound like the easiest place in the world to get to. He still needed to do a little bit of thinking before he went there. There was something that his father said that was nagging at him. And he needed to check in with Mason.

  It was midnight on a Wednesday night, it should be clear of kids, but he still drove slowly towards the water tower. After all, in his day, it had been the place to make out. He drove his car back behind the blackberry bushes. From that vantage point, he could see anybody who drove up, even if they had their lights off. He rolled down all the windows in the car just to be on the safe side.

  God, just seeing Norville and Wanda’s faces had churned up so many memories. If he didn’t have the Laughton feature’s as well as Norville’s build, there was no way he would have thought he came from them. Well maybe from his mom. He still held out hope that she had just been led astray by her husband, but that was getting tougher and tougher to believe. Drake gave a grim smile when he thought of Granny Laughton and how disgusted she was with her daughter.

  “It’s a damn shame when your own child gets led around by her hoo-haw instead of using the brain the good Lord gave her.”

  Drake remembered almost choking on his lemonade and sugar cookie when his Granny had said that to him.