Guarded By The Mountain Man SEAL (Tidehaven SEAL Romance #4)

Chapter 1

FORD

The engine coughs twice before catching, and I count the seconds until she settles into her familiar rhythm. Three. Four. Five. There she goes.

Second Watch rocks gently in her slip as I run through my pre-dawn checklist, same as I have every morning for the past four years.

Fuel lines, bilge pump, navigation lights, VHF radio.

The ritual keeps me honest. Keeps me sane.

Keeps me from thinking about the hundred ways a man can drown in his own past before the sun clears the horizon.

April in Tidehaven means the charter business picks up.

Tourists escaping the last cold snaps up north, weekend warriors who think catching a redfish makes them Hemingway.

I take their money, point them toward the promising waters, and keep my mouth shut while they talk too loud about their stock portfolios and their second wives.

It's honest work. Quiet work. The kind of work that doesn't ask questions about the years between my last SEAL deployment and this weathered slip at the Tidehaven marina.

"You're up early." Captain Sunday's voice drifts across from his own boat, a shrimp trawler he hasn't taken out in three years but maintains like she might save his life tomorrow. The old man moves slow these days, arthritis claiming what the sea couldn't take, but his eyes miss nothing.

"Charter at seven." I coil a line that doesn't need coiling. "Henderson party. Four guys from Atlanta."

"Saw an unfamiliar boat come in last night." Sunday settles onto his deck chair, coffee steaming in a chipped mug that says WORLD'S OKAYEST SHRIMPER. "Forty-footer, Boston registration. Three men aboard who didn't look like they knew port from starboard."

I stop coiling. "They dock at the marina?"

"Nope. Anchored out past the lighthouse. Still sitting there."

Unfamiliar boats with unfamiliar men aren't unusual in a coastal town during tourist season. But Captain Sunday doesn't mention things that don't warrant mentioning. Forty years working these waters taught him the difference between fishermen and something else.

"Thanks for the heads-up."

He lifts his mug in acknowledgment and returns to watching the marsh birds pick their way through the shallows.

I finish my checklist and head up the dock toward Nettie's for coffee that won't strip paint and a biscuit that might actually kill me someday but not today.

The Boathouse sits dark at this hour, Cal and his crew not due in for another two, but I make a mental note to swing by later.

Mention Sunday's observation. Salt and Steel Security keeps tabs on strange movements along the coast, and Cal Hayes is the kind of man who files information away until it becomes useful.

My phone buzzes in my back pocket.

I almost ignore it. Almost.

The number on the screen stops me cold in the middle of the dock, three feet from Nettie's screen door and the smell of butter and bacon.

No caller ID. Just a string of digits I memorized twelve years ago and never managed to forget no matter how hard I tried.

I answer on the third ring because waiting longer won't change what's coming.

"Ford Callahan." The voice is older than I remember, rougher, but unmistakable. Enzo Mancini sounds like gravel soaked in whiskey. "You remember who this is."

It's not a question.

"I remember."

"Good. Then you remember what you owe."

My grip tightens on the phone. The morning sun catches the water, turning the harbor gold, and somewhere behind me a pelican screams at a rival over scraps from last night's catch. Normal sounds. Peaceful sounds.

"You calling in your marker."

"I am." A pause. "You're going to protect something for me. Two weeks, maybe less. Keep it hidden. Keep it breathing. Then we're even."

It. That's not how men like Enzo Mancini talk about cargo they care about. Unless...

"What kind of package are we talking about?"

His laugh carries no humor. "My daughter."

The word lands in my gut like a fist.

"Your daughter," I repeat.

"Sera. Twenty-eight years old. Works at some museum in Boston, spends her days playing with old paintings. She's clean. Always been clean. I made sure of that." His voice hardens. "But clean doesn't matter when you become leverage."

I don't need him to explain further. Turf wars among the families have been heating up for months. I've caught enough news between charter runs to know the Veroni family is making aggressive moves into Mancini territory. When direct attacks fail, smart men go after soft targets.

"And you want her here."

"I want her somewhere my enemies won't think to look.

Somewhere off the grid. Somewhere protected by someone who owes me too much to betray me and has no connection to my network they could trace.

" Another pause, heavier this time. "Priest vouched for you when you were nothing but a liability waiting to be buried.

Said you were the kind of man who pays his debts. Was he right?"

Priest. I haven't heard that name spoken aloud in years. Haven't let myself think about the CIA spook who appeared like a ghost after the compromised op, made the evidence disappear, and extracted a price that's been hanging over my head ever since.

"Yeah." I rub my free hand over my face, feeling the scrape of beard I haven't bothered trimming in a week. "He was right."

"Good. She lands in Tidehaven this afternoon. Private airstrip twenty miles north of your location. You'll pick her up at three o'clock. Keep her on your boat, at your residence, wherever you think is secure. Two weeks. Then one of my people will retrieve her and you'll never hear from me again."

"And if someone comes looking?"

"Then you do what you were trained to do." His voice drops. "But Callahan? Nothing happens to my daughter. Nothing. She's the one clean thing I have in this world, and I've spent twenty-eight years keeping her that way. You understand me?"

"I understand."

"Three o'clock. Don't be late."

The line goes dead.

I stand there on the dock while the sun climbs higher and the morning traffic of Tidehaven picks up around me. Shrimpers heading out. Shop owners unlocking doors. The early yoga class doing sun salutations on the pier because apparently people pay money to stretch in public.

My phone buzzes again. Text from the Henderson party:

Running late, push to 9?

I type back a confirmation and pocket the phone.

Two weeks. A mafia princess on my boat. The daughter of a man who could have me killed with a phone call if anything goes wrong.

I should feel something. Fear, maybe. Anger at having my quiet life disrupted. Instead, there's just the cold weight of inevitability settling into my bones.

Debts always come due.

The private airstrip north of Tidehaven is little more than a cleared field with a hangar that's seen better decades. I've used it twice for Salt and Steel ops when discretion mattered more than comfort. The kind of place where people land when they don't want records.

I arrive at 2:45 and park my truck where I can see both the runway and the access road. Old habits. The kind that kept me alive through three deployments and a dozen black-bag operations that don't officially exist.

At 3:07, a white Cessna drops out of the cloudless sky.

I watch it taxi to a stop near the hangar. Watch the door open. Watch a figure emerge into the South Carolina afternoon.

My first thought: Enzo Mancini lied to me.

This isn't cargo. This isn't a package to be delivered and forgotten.

This is a woman who walks across that cracked tarmac like she's daring the ground itself to give her trouble.

Dark hair twisted into a braid that's coming loose at the edges.

Olive skin that belongs on a Renaissance painting, which tracks with what her father said about museums. Strong features rather than delicate.

A face that doesn't smile as she approaches my truck, green eyes cataloging every detail of me and my vehicle and probably the last three decisions I've made in my life.

She's wearing practical clothes. Linen shirt, dark pants, boots that have actually seen use. The kind of outfit a woman wears when she knows she might need to move fast. Two bags, neither of them designer. She carries them herself.

I step out of the truck.

Her eyes meet mine across the fifteen feet of broken asphalt separating us, and everything in my chest does something it hasn't done in years.

"Ford Callahan." She says my name like she's tasting something bitter. "The man my father bought."

"Ms. Mancini." I extend my hand because my mother raised me with manners even if everything else went to hell. "I'm here to keep you safe."

She looks at my hand like I've offered her a snake. "You're here because you owe my father a favor. Let's not pretend this is anything other than what it is."

Direct. Furious beneath that controlled exterior. The kind of anger that burns cold instead of hot.

I drop my hand. "Fair enough. Can I take your bags?"

"I can carry my own bags." She moves past me toward the truck, and I catch the scent of something subtle beneath the airplane and tarmac smells. Lemon, maybe. Something clean.

I grab the door before she can reach for it. Not to be polite but because I need to check the interior. Verify nobody's tampered with it while I was distracted watching a woman walk toward me like a coming storm.

She notices. Of course she notices.

"Expecting company already?"

"Always expecting company." I gesture for her to get in. "It's how I've stayed alive this long."

Something flickers across her face. Not quite respect but something adjacent to it. She climbs into the passenger seat without further comment, settling her bags at her feet and clicking her seatbelt with the efficient movements of a woman who doesn't waste motion.

I round to the driver's side and start the engine.

For a full minute, neither of us speaks. I navigate the dirt access road back toward the main highway while she stares out the window at the marshland spreading out on either side of us. Spanish moss hangs from ancient oaks like gray ghosts. Egrets pick through the shallows.

"It's flatter than I expected," she finally says. "The coast here."

"Barrier island geography. Everything's low and wet until it isn't."

"How far to wherever you're planning to stash me?"

"Thirty minutes to the marina. Another ten by boat to somewhere more secure."

Her head turns sharply. "Boat?"

"Second Watch. Forty-two-foot sportfish. She'll be home for the next two weeks unless we need to relocate."

"You're putting me on a boat." Her voice carries an edge that wasn't there before. "In the water. Where anyone with a speedboat could—"

"Where anyone with a speedboat would need to know exactly where to look, have the equipment to approach undetected, and get through me before reaching you.

" I merge onto the two-lane highway that winds toward Tidehaven proper.

"Open water gives us options. Multiple exit routes.

No fixed location for them to surveil. Your father's enemies know his properties, his safe houses, his network.

They don't know a thirty-eight-year-old charter captain in a Carolina barrier island town. "

She's quiet for a moment. Processing.

"You've done this before."

"Done what?"

"Made someone disappear."

I keep my eyes on the road. "Among other things."

"What other things?"

"Ms. Mancini—"

"Sera." She cuts me off, irritation flaring. "If I'm going to be trapped on a boat with you for two weeks, you're going to use my actual name."

"Sera." I test the weight of it. Two syllables that feel more dangerous than they should. "The less you know about my history, the better."

"For who? You or me?"

"Both."

She makes a sound that's not quite a laugh.

"That's not how I operate. I'm a conservator.

My entire job is asking questions, examining details, understanding what's underneath the surface.

You're not going to give me the silent treatment for two weeks and expect me to just..

. what? Sit quietly and wait for someone to come kill me? "

"The goal is to make sure no one comes to kill you."

"And if they do?"

I glance over at her. Those green eyes are fixed on me with an intensity that makes something in my chest tighten.

"Then they'll learn why your father called me instead of one of his own people."

The words land between us. She holds my gaze for three heartbeats before turning back to the window.

We drive the rest of the way to Tidehaven in silence, but it's a different kind of silence now. Measured. Charged.

Captain Sunday was right about the unfamiliar boat. It's still anchored past the lighthouse as we pull into the marina parking lot, visible as a dark shape against the afternoon glare off the water.

Sera follows my gaze. "Problem?"

"Maybe." I pocket my keys and come around to open her door before she can argue about it. "Stay close. Don't talk to anyone until we're on the water."

She unfolds from the truck, grabbing her bags despite the look I give her. "I'm not helpless."

"Never said you were." I take one of the bags anyway, shouldering it before she can protest. "But right now, you're my responsibility. And I don't lose things I'm responsible for."

Her lips press together. Full lips, I notice. The kind that would soften when she's not furious at the world.

Which is probably never.

"Let's go," she says, and strides toward the dock without waiting for direction.

I fall into step beside her, scanning the marina, the parking lot, the faces of fishermen and tourists and locals going about their afternoon. Nothing sets off alarms. Nothing feels wrong.

But the marker's been called. The debt's come due.

And the woman walking beside me with fire in her eyes and her father's enemies at her back just became the most complicated thing in my carefully simple life.

Two weeks.

God help us both.