Chapter 3
*KNOX*
Emerson stared down the dock, her face red and her eyes filling with… tears. Was she fond of the Maribel? Fire crackled its way into the sky as the boat burned. Somewhere in the distance, sirens blared awake.
She tried to walk that way, but I grabbed her arm, stopping her. We didn’t know what was down there or if the dock was unstable. “Hold up.”
People often had attachments to boats, but from the way she jerked on my arm, you’d think Emerson planned to jump in the water and save the wreckage herself. Someone shouted, maybe Calder, but still she tried to pull away. “That’s my boat!”
“The Maribel is yours?” I brought her to my chest, clutching her close. Her lavender perfume was barely noticeable with the increasing smell of smoke.
“Yes!” She jerked again. “Someone has to save it.”
I held firm. “Babe, no one is saving that vessel.”
My words broke her, and then she broke my heart. “My life is on that boat. All my research. Everything I’ve worked for.”
The boat groaned and flipped to its side, settling in the water crookedly. Smoke poured from the shell as even the fire seemed to die out slowly. Whatever she had in there burned quickly. The ropes pulled against the dock as if trying to escape.
“It’s not worth it, Emerson,” I said as she tried to pull away again.
She curled around and shoved her face against my chest, her sobs coming freely. Ash from the fire drifted across the marina, landing in her hair and on the dock at our feet.
Just a moment ago, Emerson’s life’s work had been bobbing in the water, but now a burned, sinking silhouette slowly sank against the layers of clouds behind it.
Things just got real.
Calder was right to call me, and as Emerson cried into my chest, I silently vowed to find the asshole who did this and make him pay.
“Are we sure it was the Maribel?” she asked when she finally lifted her head from me.
Calder patted her on the back as the fire crews worked on the boat. “The chief thinks it was a small device. Probably set on a timer.”
She pushed herself against me again, and I wrapped my arm around her. Emerson was mine now, and no one touches what’s mine.
“We’re getting out of here,” I said to Calder as I took a step to the side and moved Emerson with me.
He smiled at me in that knowing way that always annoyed me when we were on the field together. “Thought you would when the time came.”
I ignored his comments. This wasn’t about him. I was here to take care of Emerson, and that’s what I’d do.
For one week.
And one week only.
Then it was back to Alaska.
“You’ll handle this?” I asked, motioning to the boat as a firefighter doused the back end with water from a cannon pumping it in from the marina.
“Wait,” Emerson said before Calder answered. “I can’t leave my boat. My stuff is on it, maybe I can save something.”
A piece of paper with charred edges twisted its way toward the dock beside us.
“I’ll take care of it, Emerson. You listen to Knox and let him keep you safe,” Calder said and swooshed his hand in the air like it was his final determination.
She crinkled her nose but didn’t argue. For about thirty seconds.
“If I leave, who will make sure the manatees are safe while everyone moves the boats?”
What in the hell was she talking about? She tried to walk to the end of the dock. My brain flooded with fear as I thought about her getting close to her destroyed boat and another bomb exploding. That would not happen on my watch.
“Hey! What the hell?” she yelled as I lifted her off the ground and dropped her over my shoulder.
This was just how things went when a client went rogue. A SEAL did whatever it took to get the job done. And I wasn’t leaving here without Emerson.
“Don’t struggle so much,” I said as her left foot came back and almost kicked me I the head. “Just trust me.”
“I don’t even know you,” she yelled as I started toward the end of the marina.
I chuckled. Something told me we were about to become much closer. “Do you want to end up like Maribel?”
She paused in thought before finally answering. “No.”
Thought so.
“Then let me do what needs to be done to keep you safe. That’s the best way to help the manatees.”
“You’d do that?” she asked, turning her head toward me but not getting a better view.
My answer came quickly because it was the truth. “Even if I wasn’t being paid.”
A second of silence passed between us. “Okay fine. You can let me down now.”
“You promise not to run?” Knowing the little I did about Emerson, I wouldn’t put it past her to take off and jump in the ocean the first time I blinked.
She nodded, and I let her slide down my body next to one of the cars Calder kept parked at the marina for cases. “Give me a second to grab the keys. I’m trusting you.”
Emerson gave me a four-finger salute as I walked toward the box with the car keys. I punched in the code, watching her as I did. Emerson wiped her eyes as she watched the firefighters on the dock, but she didn’t go back to the scene.
The car beeped as I unlocked it, and she got into the passenger seat.
“It’s probably just some kid screwing around, and it got out of hand,” she said as I slid into the driver’s seat.
The human brain’s ability to rationalize the worst events always amazed me.
“Kids don’t accidentally blow up a single boat in a full marina,” I said as we turned toward the hotel.
Emerson jerked in her seat. “Then who?”
I tilted my head toward her but didn’t answer verbally. This was the work of Rex Thorton. He loved a good explosive, and it was too targeted an attack to be an accident. But it seemed like she didn’t want to admit that.
“Where are you going? I have to go home,” she said as I turned toward the downtown section of Tidehaven.
I shook my head. “Absolutely not. If they got your boat, they can get your house.”
“They wouldn’t,” she said, horror lining her voice.
I nodded. “He would.”
Calder and Rex had been fighting for years. It seemed we were always two steps behind the conman. He always left someone else to take the blame for whatever evil he’d concocted. But he wasn’t getting Emerson.
He also had a type.
And Emerson fit the bill perfectly.
“If I can’t go home, where are you taking me?” she asked, staring out the window, her eyes filling with tears again. “I need clothes.”
Shit.
I hated when a woman cried.
“Where do you live? I’ll give you five minutes to grab a bag of clothes, and then we’re going somewhere safe.”
The corners of her lips tipped up just the faintest amount. “Turn left here.”
Did she just play me?
Fifteen minutes later, Emerson’s eyes were dry as she threw clothes into a bag in her room. I paced in the living room of her tiny apartment, keeping my ears open to anything happening outside. I’d already cleared the place before letting her in, but something in my gut couldn’t settle.
“You almost done?” I asked, wanting to make sure she was still in the apartment even though I had eyes on all the exits.
Her answer came quickly. “Almost. Just need bathroom supplies.”
“How long have you lived here?” I liked the guarantee of her safety that hearing her voice gave me.
Emerson popped her head out of the hallway bathroom. “Five years.”
“Five years?” I stopped by the empty fireplace mantel. Five years? She had nothing in the apartment besides a small television and a couch. I had more memorabilia and décor in my tiny Alaskan cabin.
“It’s a little sparse,” she said as she joined me in the living room and followed my gaze. “I’ve been busy with the manatees, so I haven’t had time to decorate.”
“Babe, you don’t even have a kitchen table.”
She shrugged. “Who would eat at it?”
“You could have invited Calder over for dinner,” I said with a laugh as I took her zipped duffel bag from her and tossed it over my shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”
I held the door open as she gave one last look at her apartment longingly. For what, I had no idea. She had nothing there.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be back soon. Until we secure the area around the marina, it will be safer in my hotel room.”
“Where are you staying? Can I get a room next to yours?”
“Nope, we don’t want to tip off Rex about where you’ve gone. We’ll keep my reservation, and no one will be the wiser.”
She nodded, and I liked the quick acceptance although something told me it wouldn’t last.
Especially not once she realized my room reservation was for one king-sized bed.