12. Chapter 12
12
Chapter 12
Sean
Sean beat the SEALs to his building by a solid ten minutes even though he’d stopped for emotionally cleansing donuts. In those ten minutes, he cleared the outside of his business of anything that might fly away and took a dozen confections down to six. It was almost enough sugary goodness to keep him from overthinking. Almost. Thankfully his thoughts were too jumbled to focus on any one thing for too long. Mostly just images of Blue, of the way her big indigo eyes stared right through him. He set to work closing the storm shutters, against a gentle breeze that lifted his hair off his brow and that would probably be picking up to something stronger than a caress soon.
“What’s wrong with you?” Gray asked, coming up on his side —Wolfe behind him. “Your face looks like a cloudy weekend and the hurricane hasn’t even hit yet.”
Before he could turn around, big, dark arms wrapped around him, pinning his arms to his sides.
“What are you doing?” Sean asked Knox.
“Giving you and your sad face a hug.”
“It’s not my sad face you’re hugging.”
“It’d be weird to actually hug your face.” Knox squeezed his belly. “Been eating more donuts I see.”
Sean swung an elbow back, but missed as Knox wiggled away while somehow managing to hold on to him at the same time.
The sound of giggling came from behind them. “Are you the Marines?”
“Navy,” Gray said with vinegar in his tone, then under his breath, “I’m going to kill Titan Green.”
Sean and Knox turned, Sean still clasped in Knox’s embrace—because Sean allowed it, not because he couldn’t fight his way out of the hold.
Two beautiful women walked by slowly. One of them waved, while the other eyed Gray with a doe-caught-in-the-headlights look. Wolfe gave the girl a smile and a two-finger salute. Gray stared at the ground mumbling.
She shrugged like it was no big deal to mistake a SEAL for a Marine. For the record, it was a very big deal. “Thank you for your service.”
Sean bent an arm at the elbow and waved. Knox moved to let him go, but Sean threw his arms up, locking Knox in place. “No, hold me a little longer.”
The women burst into laughter and hurried off as Knox fought off Sean’s grasp on his arms. Once the women were gone, Sean released him.
“Dude.” Knox signaled after the girls with a flat palm.
Sean smirked and shrugged. “You started it.”
“See if I ever try to comfort you again.”
Gray shook his head and stepped forward. “If you ever try to comfort me like that, I’ll ram you into the building and kick dirt on you as I walk away from your crumpled body.”
Wolfe grinned. “You might change your mind once he does. The man knows how to hug.”
Gray scrunched up his face in disgust.
“See!” Knox said, indignantly. “I’m amazing at hugs.”
Sean let out a much-needed chuckle—though it did nothing to ease the tightness in his chest caused by the only woman who’d ever broken his heart. The one who’d apparently come back to stomp the pieces into dust with her stupid, hot, Australian YouTube star.
He shook off those thoughts and focused on his friends. He doubted Wolfe had ever let Knox hug him. While Wolfe was the quietest of the group, he also had a surprisingly wicked sense of humor—one almost no one ever got to see. And on top of it, he was also really dry and made Ron Swanson and Wednesday Adams seem like the life of any party by comparison. The first time he’d cracked a joke, it’d left all twenty-three men in their unit speechless, which was too bad because it’d been one of the funniest things Sean had ever heard. He’d been in stitches later that night in his sleeping bag thinking about it. He’d known he and Wolfe would get along great after that. And they did. Strangely, to this day, he couldn’t remember the joke . . .
“Where’s Ryker?” Sean asked.
“Ryker stayed behind to help Grace get Nancy taken care of,” Gray said.
Not a surprise. Ryker was a married man now, with other responsibilities, and was a Palms’ employee—even if he was just the barber. Heck, if Sean’s dad and brothers hadn’t stayed behind to help Grandpa, he’d be at The Palms too. And while Ryker had impressed the importance of getting these jewels and other valuable items back to Isola, over and over and over again, he had more than one family to think about now, and his wife’s family was in immediate danger.
But Sean and the guys weren’t married and didn’t have wives and pets to look after—like Aaron had Sweetie. And Ryker and Grace or Aaron and Cocoa were bound to start having babies soon.
He and Blue would make beautiful babies.
Gah! Again, Sean tried not to think about Blue and the children they’d never have. The mission! The mission was his focus. And that meant taking care of the treasure of Isola de la Famiglia on Ryker’s behalf.
The guys finished getting the outside of Bob’s Underwater Salvage locked down and headed inside and past Sean’s office to the large workbench where they’d laid out all their maps and supplies.
“How urgent is the situation?” Wolfe asked at the table where Sean had laid out the map of the dive sight, and the computer connected to the big screen on the far wall. Within a moment, he had the video pulled up too.
“If this hurricane hits a stage 4, it could completely relocate the Rey Del Mar ,” he said. All the guys breathed deep as they started thinking through the implications. Sean spelled it out for them anyway. “It could be months, years, or never before we find it again. Or someone else could find it before us. If we’re going to get this treasure, we have to do it before the hurricane hits.”
Sean put on the video.
“Did you happen to see a way in while you were down there?” Gray asked, running a hand through his slightly-longer-than-military-required blond locks. They’d all grown their hair out a little, all except Knox who liked to keep his hair short and tight, though none had grown their hair out as long as Liam’s nearly shoulder length. They had spent so many years with a tight military cut, having hair that was longer than an inch had become something of a novelty to them.
Sean shook his head. “What you saw in the video is what I saw.”
Knox rubbed the back of his neck. “So, we’re going in blind.”
“We need to go out tonight before the sun goes down and scout it out,” Sean said. “Once we have a better idea of what we’re getting ourselves in for, we’ll make a plan from there.”
“Do you think we’ll be able to get everything out in time?” Gray asked.
Sean thought about Ryker’s descriptions of what had been stolen. More than likely, they’d all been stored in one place, maybe even together in a container they could lift out of there with the three of them. He doubted the items would just be left lying about. “It seems likely that they were packed and transferred to the Rey Del Mar in one or two containers. I’m optimistic.”
“How’d your mom’s birthday party go?” Gray asked out of the blue.
Blue. Always Blue. “Good until the hurricane alert.”
“Nothing eventful happen?” Knox joined in on the inquiry.
“Why would you think that?” Sean wished he’d gotten two dozen donuts.
Gray leaned against the wood bench, folding his arms over his chest. “You seem off. Blue.”
Sean nearly jumped out of his skin. “Where?” he glanced around, thinking she’d just walked in when he realized what Gray had meant. Not Blue the person, blue the emotion. He tried to cover his mishap. “What?”
Knox pointed to his face. “It’s your resting face. It’s not happy. It’s always happy.”
“Is this about that girl that came in here the other day?” Gray asked. “Bluebell?”
“Guys, we have more important things to deal with right now than my love life,” Sean said.
Knox let out a startled laugh and whacked Wolfe in the shoulder. “Did he just say ‘love life?’ Sean Clayton?”
Wolfe nodded.
“I never thought I’d see the day.” Knox let out a low whistle.
Sean ignored him and stared down at the map again; the corners were curling up. He grabbed a wrench and placed it on the edge. There, problem solved.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Wolfe asked, in a quiet tone that sent goosebumps up Sean’s arms.
Sean swallowed the lump in his throat and gave his friends his biggest smile. “What I want is to strap on my SCUBA tank, dive into one of the most dangerous currents on the Florida coast, and recover the lost jewels of a small country right under Titan’s stupid Roman nose.”
Big smiles covered their faces—especially Gray’s. His attempt at distraction worked, but Sean dared any man to not get giddy, and distracted, over the idea of a treasure hunt. He’d thrown in the whole getting the better of Titan thing to sweeten the deal, even though he didn’t personally have a problem with Titan, and it’d worked beautifully.
Gray rubbed his palms together, making a sanding sound. “Let’s do it.”
“We’re gonna do the whole in-your-face Titan move.” Wolfe wagged a finger. “But this conversation isn’t over.”
Sean nodded, agreeing. He wasn’t the type of person to hold in his emotions, and he wouldn’t be now if there wasn’t a major ticking clock hanging over them. The fact of the matter was that there were thousands of people counting on him being able to complete this job.
Plus, Blue was never more lost to him than she was now. He had better chances of recovering the crown jewels off the bottom of the ocean than winning her back.