Page 5 of Three Cranky SEALS and a Christmas Menace

Her words blindsided them, taking them by the balls with barbed wire and wrenching them so hard, they couldn’t see straight.

“Please leave,” she said, coming to face them after her failed attempts to get them to move. “My date is going to arrive at any minute now, and I don’t want you three ogres to scare him away. You can come back here on Christmas morning. I’ll be gone by then.”

What the fuck?

They’d watched the little menace grow up, but the last time they’d seen her, she’d been fifteen years old. She may be all grown up now, but clearly she was still a menace as far as they were concerned.

Mercedes had been the only person on the planet to blackmail them into having tea parties with her when she was five, and then ruining their chances of getting laid when she was ten.

“Go. Go. Go,” she said, and there she was, still bossing them around like she did before. “Look, I heard from Jeff that you’ve been working in some jungle or desert or something catching bad guys, and I know it must have been hard. But here, take this. It’s really nice champagne,” she said, picking up a bottle from the table where the assortment of snacks was laid out. “And this. Best cheese ever. Best chocolate ever,” she added, picking up a box of chocolates and adding it to the items in her arms. “And this. Oh my god. This candy is the best candy cane I’ve ever tasted. You can have it.”

She pushed the stuff into their hands, biting her lip, desperate for them to leave.

Wait.

The best candy cane ever was fucking edible panties? Did this girl just give them her edible panties as a bribe to leave?

Both Waylan and Myles glanced at Holden, holding up a string of candy in the shape of a tiny pair of panties.

“Please, please, please leave. You can’t be here. But if you stay, trust me, it’s going to be really, really, really awkward for you.”

Awkward for them? What the hell was this girl smoking?

Her words were punctuated by the crunch of a four-wheel drive on the snow.

“He’s here. You have to leave. Now. Please. Leave. I don’t want him to see you here. You can go out the kitchen door.” She maneuvered herself behind them, put her hands on the middle of Waylan’s and Myles’ backs, pushing at them, and then used her body against Holden to propel him forward as well.

They weren’t going anywhere.

They couldn’t wait to meet the bonehead.

In stealth mode, Myles grabbed a blanket off the back of a sofa. Without breaking his stride, he closed the distance between him and her.

“Wait. What are you doing?” She shrieked as she saw him coming toward her. And then there was only her muffled voice making incoherent noises that sounded like, “Are you crazy? What are you doing? Let me go right now.”

She struggled furiously under the blanket Myles secured her in from top to bottom, leaving none of her exposed before he effortlessly lifted her up and placed her on the other side of the open-plan cabin.

Waylan swung the door open, and standing at the threshold was an unknown man with a huge fucking smile on his face, an overnight bag in one hand, and a massive bouquet of chocolates and flowers in his other hand.

He appeared just under six feet, and despite wearing a very expensive, thick coat that was covered in a light dusting of snowflakes, he had the look of someone who worked out regularly at the gym.

This guy was her fucking rendezvous date. In two moves, he would no longer exist.

They’d been thrown together in enough life-or-death situations that they’d created a way to silently communicate with each other. It had saved their lives on more than one occasion, their ability to understand what the other was saying silently. Right now all Holden got from his SEALs brothers was a succinct,I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, but I’m doing it anyway.

Those words described their reaction to seeing her, discovering what she had planned, and then reacting to that. They needed their heads psychoanalyzed, but it was too late.

“Who are you?” the man asked, his smile falling off his face. “Mercedes?” he called louder, trying to peer over Waylan’s shoulder. He caught a glimpse of Myles, and what was clearly Mercedes, secured, full length, under a blanket, in his grasp.

“Jesus, Mercedes, what’s going on?” He shouted, panicked now. “Let her go,” he said, trying to step into the cabin. “You want money? I have plenty. Name your price and let her go.”

This dildo. Who the fuck did he think he was?

Mercedes increased her efforts to be released. It sounded as if she were calling himTodd. Todd their fucking asses.

They’d given the bastard ten seconds too much of their time. Waylan removed the bouquet from his hand and tossed it onto a nearby chair. Holden took his wrist and, twisting his arm around to his back, marched him out of the cabin into the blistering cold toward his car.

Fucking Todd protested and tried to fight back, but he was no match for Holden.

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