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

everything . “I was sorry to hear he’d passed.”
    Most especially, she remembered how much it hurt letting Nash go. Growing up in a broken home had been at times a nightmare. There had been constant bickering and her mother’s tears. Nash’s house had been her haven. His dad served in the Navy, too. He’d never cheated, but was deployed a huge chunk of his time. When Nash announced he’d enlisted, then proposed, Maisey’s gut reaction had been that she wanted no part of being a military wife.
    Like your drug lord was so much better ?
    For the first time since Nash had blown back into her life like a category five storm, she appraised him. He was classically handsome. Square-jawed with a nose crooked from when he’d been hit with a baseball the summer between their junior and senior year. When he was mad, his gray eyes sometimes took on the color of clouds on a stormy day. He used to wear his dark hair on the long side, but he now sported a messy military buzz. After all these years apart, he still took her breath away.
    “Mais?” She barely heard him over the fire’s crackle and a tree frog determined to steal the show. “What are you thinking?”
    “About the night my mom found out about Dad’s first affair. I was so upset, that you came over to sleep on our sofa. Mom made us Rice Krispies Treats and we watched the Wizard of Oz . We were in fifth grade and quizzed each other on spelling words during commercials.”
    His laugh flip-flopped her tummy in a way she hadn’t felt since she’d first met Vicente. “ Mmm . . . Your mom truly has a way with Rice Krispies Treats. She made me a batch while we talked about bringing you home.”
    “She always liked you.”
    “Feeling’s mutual.” He rotated his snake and despite her misgivings, she had to admit the delicious scent had her mouth watering.
    “How strange is it that here we are, all these years later, about to share a cottonmouth meal in the middle of a swamp?”
    “You’re going to eat?” His half-smile filled her with the oddest sense that maybe, just maybe, they would be okay.
    Then she heard gunshots.
     
     

5

     
     
    “I KNOW THERE’S a gator eyeing us for a snack.”
    “No chance. You’re too salty.”
    “Ha ha.”
    It had been hours since they’d heard shots. Dawn streaked the sky with slashes of orange and purple, yet Nash wasn’t taking chances. To hide their heat signatures in the event Vicente’s men had thermal scopes, Nash doused the fire and took Maisey into the black water alongside their camp. Her teeth hadn’t stopped chattering since. He wouldn’t tell her, but though he wasn’t too concerned about biting creatures sharing their patch of watery real estate, what spooked him was the prospect of Maisey’s core temp getting too low. A while back he’d read about four Army Ranger candidates dying during training in a Florida panhandle swamp. The water then had been in the low fifties. Lucky for Maisey and him, August water temps in the Everglades pushed ninety, meaning they shouldn’t be in immediate danger from the elements.
    She squashed a whiny mosquito on her cheek. “Is this the worst jam you’ve ever been in?”
    “Not even close.” Striving for a casual tone, he said, “One time, my team and I were dropped off by Bandar Beyla along the Indian Ocean coast. High winds killed our jump plan. We ended up twenty miles out to sea in a storm so bad I could hardly see my hand in front of my face. Oh—and let’s not forget the live nuke we were chasing.”
    “What happened?” she asked with rapt interest.
    “Fifteen hours later, we made shore and completed our mission.”
    “Which w-was?”
    He winked. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you. Ready to get out of here?”
    “Think it’s s-safe?”
    “Come on . . .” I’ll make it safe . He took her hand, leading her back to their previous camp. Again came the sensation that for once in a very long time he was needed. “But try sloshing as little as