“Thank you, sir,” King said as he backed away, fast. “You won’t regret this.”
“I already do,” Jim grumbled, but Thomas King and his buddies were already gone.
CHAPTER TWO
Ashley’s brother Clark was standing near the baggage claim at the Sarasota airport.
No, strike that. It was Ashley’s brother Clarkandhis friend Kenneth. They were both in Sarasota.
Today, Clark’s hair was Spike-from-Buffy-the-Vampire-Slayerwhite. Complete with dark roots. Since his blue-hair phase, he’d gone purple, then green—that didn’t last because it completely didn’t work with his pale skin tone and gray eyes—and evenLittle Orphan Anniered. Without the curls, thank goodness.
And despite Clark’s dyed-haired rebellion against their too-strict, too-conservative father, he was here. To… what? Ashley wasn’t sure.
“If you’ve come to talk me out of this,” she started as she approached him.
But Clark’s surprise at seeing her was genuine. Surprise that turned to immediate dismay. “Ah, fuh—”
She stopped him. “Let me guess. Dad signed you and Kenneth up for a cool week-long program at a camp just south of Sarasota, run by a former Navy SEAL. Without telling you that his real intention was for you to babysit me while I took the same course. God, I knew I shouldn’t’ve mentioned it to him…” She looked at Kenneth. “Hey, Kenneth.”
“Nice to see you, Ashley.” Kenneth, tall and pale and skinny, with reddish hair and brown eyes hidden behind the slightly smudged lenses of stylishly black-framed glasses, hailed from the UK and was terminally polite.
“No, it’s not,” Ash said. “Neither you, nor Clark, nor I think that this is even remotely nice.”
“Yes, of course that’s true,” Kenneth agreed. “But… Youarelooking… lovely.”
“She looks like crap,” her brother countered. “You sleeping?”
“Not much, not lately,” Ashley informed him crisply. “I don’t suppose I can talk you into just… not showing up? For the camp thing? Maybe go somewhere else for spring break…?”
But she could see in Clark’s eyes that he actually wanted to do it. It made sense. They both needed help in the backbone-growing department.
“Never mind. It’s okay,” she continued. “Just promise you won’t actually report back to Dad.”
“Look at it this way,” Kenneth spoke up, attempting to bright-side things. “In order to keep tabs on you, he might’ve hired some total stranger, and you would never have known…” His voice trailed off as he realized that Ashley and Clark’s father had done exactly that in the past. Her ex, Brad, had been an employee of their father’s—promised a partnership in the firm if he could convince Ashley to marry him.
“Sorry,” Kenneth muttered, because, yes, that wasstillhumiliating on every level.
“This was supposed to be my birthday present,” Clark told Ashley. “I mean, Ithoughtit was. I mean, I know I shouldn’t’ve, because…Dad, right? Nothing comes for free.”
“You know what?” Ashley interrupted him, looking from Clark to Kenneth and back. “This is going to be fun. We are going to have fun. Fuck Dad.”
“Dude!” Clark laughed his surprise. Ashley didnotdrop F-bombs often.
“You’ll report back to him,” Ash continued as the luggage carousel lurched to life, “and byyou, I mean,I’llborrow your phone, and text him for you. I can’t wait until he finds out about my torrid affair with Kenneth.”
Clark laughed as Kenneth choked. “What?”
“I know you’re young,” Ashley said, “but it was meant to be.” As Kenneth continued to cough, she patted him on the back as she laughed. “Relax, I’m just kidding, you’re practically my brother. Although you have to admit, Dad would be appalled.”
***
The hot blonde traveling with her own private two-man boy band laughed, and again caught Jim’s eye.
She was pretty, if you were into angels or fairy princesses—with her blond hair cut strikingly short, her pale blue eyes, and her porcelain doll complexion. She was dressed down in jeans and a blue T-shirt, running shoes on her feet—but her clothes looked new and slightly uncomfortable.
As Jim watched, her teenaged companions wrestled a giant purple suitcase off of Sarasota Airport’s baggage claim conveyor belt, along with a smaller red-plaid one. The fairy princess already had a wheeled carry-on bag, so the two boys manhandled her larger ones as she pointed toward the restrooms and they all moved off in that direction.
It was then that Dunk came in from the sliding doors that led to the parking lot. The former SEAL chief was looking healthy and relaxed—his salt-and-pepper hair was longer than he’d ever worn it in the Teams, curling around his ears. His face was tanned and he kept his wraparound shades on. He wore a SEAL Team Two T-shirt over cargo shorts—one leg sinewy with a flip-flop on his foot, the other carbon fiber with a running blade at the end.
