Rogue (SEAL Team: Disavowed Book 1) Read Free Page A

thanks.”
    He forced a chuckle. “Let me get this straight, life with me would’ve been worse than a sham marriage to a drug lord?”
    Covering her face with her hands, she shook her head. “That’s not at all what I mean, you’re mixing—”
    “Don’t move . . .” A long, dark rope slithered from their tree.
     
     

4

     
     
    “FREEZE . . .”
    “What? Why?” She started to look over her shoulder, but Nash slowly reached for a mean-looking knife. Forehead furrowed, his narrowed eyes and pressed lips told her he wasn’t fooling.
    “Don’t. Move. An inch.”
    Palms sweating, pulse racing, Maisey wasn’t sure her heart could take much more.
    “No matter what . . . stay still.”
    Afraid to even nod, she swallowed hard, assuming Nash knew she understood.
    Painstakingly slow, he raised his arm, menacing knife held at the ready. Drawing his lower lip into his mouth, he inched closer, and then lunged, swinging at whatever was behind her with such force she heard his knife’s swoosh alongside her ear.
    When that something thumped against her back, she screamed, scrambling to her feet with newfound superhuman strength.
    Writhing on the dirt were two halves of a cottonmouth.
    Growing up in Florida, she’d been schooled on which snakes to steer clear of and this one topped the list.
    Hands clutched to her chest, she couldn’t breathe past the wall of panic rising in her throat. Would this night ever end? The man she’d loved ordered thugs to shoot her, and now she faced venomous snakes?
    “What are you doing?” she asked.
    Nash had sliced off the snake’s head and was now stripping the skin. “Making breakfast.”
    She retched.
    “You might feel that way now,” he said with a chuckle, “but pardon the rhyme—the meat is sweet. It’d really be good deep-fried with beer batter, but we’ll have to make do.”
    “You’re crazy. Get me out of here.”
    “That’s the plan.” He used a small stick to spear the snake lengthwise like on a spit. “But last I checked my GPS, we’re off course by a good five miles.”
    “So you do have somewhere specific in mind for us to be?”
    “Yeah.” He gathered brush and small twigs, dropping them onto a pile. “And if you hadn’t fought me back at Hubby’s—sorry, Vicente’s—you’d have already been home in a nice, soft bed.”
    Legs too rubbery from the snake incident to stand, Maisey crumpled to her former nest against the tree. Before leaning back, she glanced up and found the shadowy branches snake-free. Settled and as comfortable as she could be given her current location, she said, “I don’t have a home.”
    “Trust me, your mom would like nothing better than for you and your baby to live with her.” Using a sparking device, Nash lit the small fire. On his knees, he blew on the struggling flame. “I shouldn’t be doing this, but you’re going to need protein for our morning hike.”
    “I’m not eating that snake.”
    “And you call me stubborn?” He made quick work of raising a stick rack on which to rest their meal.
    “Who are you, MacGyver?” Was there anything the man couldn’t do?
    “Close.” He dragged a log closer to the fire, then had a seat. “I’m a SEAL—at least, I used to be.”
    “Like the ones in movies?”
    He shrugged. “I guess.”
    “How can you be so blasé? That’s a big deal. Your mom must be proud.”
    Stoking the fire, he said, “Point of fact, she hated it. Now, I’m more like a bodyguard and she’s all the time asking when I plan to retire or take a safe job selling cars.”
    For whatever reason, the fact that Nash’s mom wasn’t proud of her son’s achievements made Maisey sad. For as long as she’d known him, he’d wanted to be in the Navy—like his dad. “I assume your mom’s feelings have more to do with her already having spent a lifetime worrying about your father?”
    “You remember?” Their gazes met and in the fire’s glow, she saw him for the man he’d become.
    I remember