SEAL the Deal(100)

Then, his final luck spent, he’d be more than happy to leave the SEALs. After this last mission, he felt about ten years too old for this. He doubted it showed, but he’d rather leave before it did.

Hell, he’d leave the Navy if that’s what she wanted. If that’s what it took to win her back, he’d walk away from it all.

Anything to see her face waiting for him when he came home from work. He’d cup her sweet face in his hands and kiss her so gently she would beg for more. “Off your feet,” he’d say with a smile, “so that I can massage them.”

Then he’d make her dinner.

Then he’d make slow, sumptuous love to her as many times as his war-scarred body would allow.

Mick shut his eyes, savoring the image he was drawing in his mind. It had been so long since he’d seen her. What had it been? Five or six weeks, maybe? Short in terms of a deployment, but an eternity when you were forced to disappear after an argument without even being able to call or email. He would have given anything to just tell her he was sorry. To tell her that he had a ring in his pocket that last night together that belonged to her, no one else.

She probably moved on, he thought with a scowl.

Mrs. B might have even set her up with that damn doctor she had once mentioned. His eyes grew cold at the thought. If he ever mistreated her, Mick would tear him in half.

Ha! Mistreated her? Like he had, Mick remembered, questioning her ethics, even accusing her of sleeping with him to land a real estate deal, and then calling her—what was it he had said?

A vulture, that was it.

Real nice, dickhead.

If she’d only let him, he’d spend the rest of his life making it up to her.

***

Lacey stepped into the afternoon sun, grateful for its warm rays. The air conditioning had been on high in the settlement office, and she was nearly losing feeling in her fingertips.

Fortunately, the freeze hadn’t kept the seller from signing on the dotted line, Lacey thought with a sleepy grin.

Lacey’s first waterfront property was sold. Mrs. Templeman’s stunning gated community property overlooking the Chesapeake Bay was now under the ownership of a former Oswego, New York couple, anxious to embrace the milder winters of Annapolis. At this very moment, Mrs. Templeman was in a cab headed to the airport to catch her flight to Hawaii and fulfill her lifelong dream.

Such a pleasant transaction. Lacey nodded, pleased with herself, despite the constant pressure she felt behind her eyes the past twenty-four hours.

A fat commission check in her wallet, she had already reserved the services of a photographer to take her picture for some full-color brochures. And she had signed up for a summer class that she could apply toward her Masters in Social Work. Taking Edith’s advice, Lacey knew it wasn’t a step toward a lifelong dream. It was just something worth exploring, something that piqued her curiosity.

It was another part of her journey.

She’d even have enough leftover to buy a last-minute ticket to Germany, she thought, checking her cell. Her face fell at the sight of no phone messages. She fought the urge to cry, not being able to share her success with Mick. Not knowing where he was.

Not knowing whether he was even alive.

No. Mustn’t go there. She took a deep breath, trying to push Mick to the back of her mind until Jack learned more. Mick wouldn’t want this moment stolen from Lacey. She had envisioned this day for so long, picturing herself telling her parents she had finally sold a waterfront property, placing Lacey among the elite top-tier of Annapolis agents. She had imagined their relief that their only biological daughter had inherited their business sense in some small measure.

This was the moment she had waited for—the conversation she had been rehearsing since the moment she received her real estate license. She’d allow herself that, and worry the rest of the day about Mick.

Phone in hand, she paused thoughtfully a moment, and then dialed.

“Lacey?” a voice answered.

“Hey, Vi! How are wedding plans going?”

Vi’s harried voice was brimming with contempt. “Ugh! What wedding plans? Aside from picking the place, nothing has been done. I wish he’d listened when I said I wanted to elope. I’m flying to London tonight to do an interview. How am I supposed to plan a wedding?”

“Why not hire a wedding planner?” Lacey slowed her pace down the street, in no rush.

“I did. I had to fire her. She just keeps hounding me with questions like ‘what are my colors?’ My colors? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Am I a college football team?” Vi shifted her tone as easily as ever. “How are things there?”

Lacey paused, forcing herself to not cry on her sister’s shoulder about Mick. There was no reason to cry yet, she reminded herself. “Well, I just sold my first waterfront property,” she said, hoping the words would boost her own spirits.