Page 13 of Her Loving Hero

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Wyatt endedup at Cardiff well after dark. He had what he needed to build a campfire. There were others there near the volleyball nets and the bathrooms, but he hid out behind the rocks. The only other people anywhere near him were a couple huddled underneath a blanket and they were as intent as he was not to be noticed.

The first time he’d smelled the ocean was when the Navy had sent him to California. He and a bunch of other newly minted SEALs had gone to the beach, built a bonfire and gotten drunk of their asses. The memory was surrounded by the smell of woodsmoke and sea air. Wyatt scraped all of these scents together like precious gems. Always trying to drown out the odor of antiseptic, sickness and air freshener that filled his childhood home and forever lingered in the back of his mind.

I miss you Mom.

He stared into the fire until sparks snapped and brought him back to the present. He smiled as he thought of Emily. It was always a treat to find out what scented lotion she was wearing, his favorite was the vanilla. She had no idea how much that turned him on.

Wyatt threw another log on the fire, thinking about what his teammates had said. Like he really needed to crawl into Emily’s head. He might not have been there in person that night in Saudi Arabia, but he’d had a front row seat when he’d heard her anguish over the receiver.

Dalton pissed him off too. Wyatt picked up a handful of sand and started to sift it through his fingers but ended up flinging it sideways. He knew his friend was trying to be helpful, but he came off pretty damn condescending.

“Talk to Hunter about Aliana,” he’d said.

Like Wyatt didn’t have two functioning brain cells to rub together. He hadn’t thrown in Dalton’s face that he’d already talked to Aliana three months before meeting Emily when he’d dealing with the fallout with some vicious bullying at the ‘Y’. Wyatt had gone up to East L.A. and met with Hunter’s then fiancée at the school where she was Vice Principal. She had been very open in her past trauma with bullies throughout school and her resulting despair.

Then two weeks later he was hearing Emily’s screams coming through his link as his team members were killing the men who were raping her and getting her to safety.

Wyatt blinked hard. He didn’t try to tell himself that it was the smoke. He knew why his eyes were watering.

When he’d first decided to enter Em’s life, it was because he’d known that her mother had left back to Oman and Emily was making her first tentative steps back into society. The situation resonated with him, she said she didn’t feel abandoned, but really? Anyway, he figured she could use someone watching her six.

It was easy enough to start volunteering up at Lincoln Park. He didn’t feel guilty in the slightest that he had been keeping a cyber-eye out on her. He’d looped her in with the three others he was watching out for. Then he met her in person. Support and comradery, that was all he intended to provide for her, then he spent an hour in her presence.

He’d known he’d been lying to himself when he’d said it would only be friendship. She was so encouraging and compassionate with the kids. Couple that with the glimpses of smartass, strength and intelligence and he was a goner. Emily was everything he never knew he wanted in a woman.

From the get-go he’d been eager to plumb her depths. She fascinated him. He had to go slow, but other than the fact she never invited him into her home, he felt closer to her than anybody else in the world. She’d gutted him when she’d been in pain and angry. She was the last person on this earth that he would ever want to hurt, yet he had.

He had to fix this. He blinked again. Damned smoke.