Chapter 6
“It’s been two months, man, you’ve got to stop moping around and checking your phone every two seconds,” Slate told Mustang after their morning PT run. The first thing he’d done after they’d arrived back at their cars was check his phone.
Mustang sighed. “I know.” And he did. He’d hoped that Rachel would get in touch with him by now, but it was becoming obvious she had no plans to call or text.
“Sorry, man. I know you thought you two had connected,” Jag said.
“We did,” Mustang insisted. “Look, I know it sounds weird, but there was just something about her that intrigued me. We definitely connected.”
“It’s true,” Midas confirmed. “I mean, I liked Rachel, but those two were in tune with each other. It’s as if once she’d latched onto his belt loop, they became…one…or something. Sounds completely fucked up and corny, but it’s true.”
Mustang didn’t know if he should thank his friend or tell him to fuck off.
“You really think she’s in trouble?” Pid asked.
“I don’t know what to think,” Mustang admitted.
“You want to see if we can get Tex involved?” Slate asked. “You know he’d probably love to see if he could track her down. It’d be a challenge or something for him.”
Mustang was shaking his head before his friend had finished speaking.
“No. I have no idea why she took the job on that cargo ship or why she’s using a fake name, but I don’t want to dig into her history, only to have that somehow ping whoever’s looking for her and end up leading someone right to her. ”
“First, you know Tex is better than that,” Aleck said with a shake of his head. “Second, we don’t know for sure Rachel’s not her name.”
“It’s not,” Mustang said. He was one hundred percent certain of that.
He’d had a hard time getting her attention by calling her name more than once.
And he couldn’t get the sad look in her eyes out of his mind, when he recalled calling her Rach that last time they’d talked.
He’d bet his entire SEAL career Rachel wasn’t her name.
“So what now? You just hope and pray she gets in touch with you for the next year or so?” Slate asked.
Mustang wasn’t shocked by his friend’s attitude.
Slate was always the impatient one of the team.
When they got information about a mission, he was the one who wanted to move immediately.
He valued the intel from research, but he was more of a doer rather than a sit-around-and-discuss-shit kind of guy.
“Pretty much,” Mustang said. “I’m not sure what else I can do. She didn’t have a phone or email, so I couldn’t get her info.”
“Who doesn’t have an email in today’s day and age?” Midas mused.
“Exactly,” Aleck said. “Which means Mustang is probably right, and she’s hiding from something or someone.”
“I still say Tex could help,” Slate uttered.
Mustang knew Slate was right, and he’d considered calling the former Navy SEAL more than once.
Tex was a genius with electronic shit. Pid was good, but Tex was unmatched.
Not only that, but the man had some pretty powerful friends.
Men who ran teams outside the government’s watchful eye.
Men who could get shit done without worrying about pesky things like laws.
It used to bother him that there were former military men out there who’d banded together to essentially go out and kill people.
But then he’d read about a case where a known sex trafficker in Peru had been ambushed and assassinated, and he’d understood.
The man had been taken out by one of the teams Mustang had previously disapproved of.
After learning about the horrors his victims went through, including a woman who’d been kidnapped from Las Vegas and held captive for a decade, he got it.
Rumor had it that there was also a team out of Indiana that was doing the same thing, taking care of the worst of humanity.
While Mustang knew he wasn’t cut out for that kind of work—he’d much rather save someone than kill—he’d realized the value of having people out there willing to put their lives on the line to rid the world of evil.
But he wasn’t ready to call Tex and interfere with Rachel’s life.
He had no idea what she was hiding from, but the bottom line was that if she didn’t want him involved—and obviously she didn’t, considering he hadn’t heard from her—then he wasn’t going to get involved.
He’d never forced himself on a woman before and he wasn’t going to start now.
But it still sucked, because he knew they’d clicked. And he liked Rachel.
“What are you thinking about so hard over there?” Pid asked. They were all standing around their vehicles in the parking lot next to the beach, winding down after their morning workout.
Mustang realized that he’d been staring out at the waves while lost in thought. He sighed. “Nothing much.”
“You know what I think?” Midas asked.
Mustang braced himself to hear one of his teammate’s crazy ideas.
Midas was the one who always seemed to come up with the most outlandish activities for them to do.
He liked to push the envelope, loved any kind of adrenaline rush.
He was a great SEAL because of it, but when they weren’t on a mission, he still needed that kind of excitement in his life.
Mustang used to worry about him, but had learned it was easier, and better for Midas’s mental health, to let him go a little crazy.
“Oh, Lord, here we go,” Aleck said on a sigh.
“Please don’t let it be swimming with sharks again,” Pid muttered.
“Or volunteering to hike around an active volcano to get lava samples,” Jag added.
“No, nothing like that,” Midas said. “I was thinking deep-sea fishing. I think we all need the break. We can charter a boat and spend the day on the water.”
“Because we don’t get enough time at sea,” Jag quipped.
Mustang hid a smile. His teammates cracked him up.
“Oh, come on. It’ll be nice not to have to be on the water because we’re on a mission. We can have some beers, relax, and maybe snag a marlin or ahi while we’re at it,” Midas cajoled.
“I’m in,” Mustang said. It actually did sound fun. He hadn’t been deep-sea fishing in a long time, and he truly enjoyed hanging out with the guys on the team.
“I know a guy,” Aleck said. “I’m sure he’d take us out. I don’t want to go with any of those cheesy tourist companies with guides who don’t know their asses from their heads.”
“They aren’t all that bad,” Midas said.
“I know, but still. This guy has his own boat, it’s got enough room for all of us so we won’t be sitting on top of each other the entire trip, and more than that, I trust him.
His boat’ll be up to code and we won’t have to worry about being stranded out at sea or some such bullshit,” Aleck told them.
“Great. So…this weekend?” Midas pressed. “What do you all have planned?”
“Well, there were these twin sisters…” Pid started, letting his voice trail off.
Jag smacked him on the back of the head. “Maybe in your dreams,” he joked.
Pid chuckled. “Right, of course I’m free. Since when have any of us had a life lately?”
“We’ve been too busy to have any kind of social life,” Aleck said.
“Which suits me just fine,” Slate added.
“Great. So, Mustang, you’re in?” Midas asked.
“Sounds good,” Mustang agreed. He might as well go. It wasn’t as if he needed to sit around his apartment waiting for Rachel to call.
The team all said their goodbyes then and got into their cars. They had an hour and a half before they were expected to be on the Naval base, which was plenty of time for them to go home, shower, change, and fight the traffic to get there.
On the drive home, and as Mustang got ready for work, he thought of nothing but Rachel…including their last conversation on the ship. Maybe he hadn’t been clear enough that she could trust him?
Maybe he’d freaked her out when he’d leaned forward to kiss her…
It had been instinctive. Impulsive. And if her second cook hadn’t come into the room at just the right—wrong?— moment, he would’ve done something he hadn’t ever done before.
Kissed a woman within hours of meeting her.
He wasn’t a prude, but meaningless sex had never been Mustang’s thing.
And at thirty-six, it still wasn’t. He liked to know a woman before he initiated any kind of intimacy.
But he supposed what they’d been through was enough to bring them close in a short period of time.
Rachel had literally saved his life, and she’d held up so well throughout the entire ordeal.
Mustang couldn’t help but admire her. Want to get to know her. Find out what made her tick.
Sighing, he stood in the small but functional kitchen in his apartment and stared out the window at the ocean.
He’d taken the apartment because he could see the waves from the kitchen and the master bedroom.
There were only two bedrooms, the master and a tiny room he currently used as a workout space.
But he could lie in bed and see the ocean in the distance, and that made it well worth the exorbitant price.
Then again, nothing in Hawaii was cheap. Food, lodging, clothing…it all cost a pretty penny.
Knowing he needed to get a move on if he was going to get to base on time, Mustang swallowed back the rest of his coffee and put his mug in the sink.
He hoped wherever Rachel was, she was safe and happy.
He might be bummed that she hadn’t reached out to him, but he never wanted to be with someone who wasn’t one hundred percent into him.
He’d seen too many relationships in the Navy that didn’t work.
He wanted to find a woman who would support and love him, and in return, he’d be one hundred percent devoted to her, as well.
Elodie rolled over in bed and groaned. The last couple of months had been extremely stressful, and when push came to shove and she had to make a decision about where to go after getting off the Asaka Express, she’d made a split-second choice she hoped she wouldn’t regret.