Page 20 of Kidnapped By a SEAL

She nodded, twisting off the cap of the bottled water and taking a sip. He watched as she sprinkled in the orange powder and then shook the bottle up, mixing it. “It’s weird to be coming home,” she said. “I was supposed to be TDY for a week. I mean—what happened to my condo while I was gone? I had bills to pay, food rotting in my fridge.”

“Didn’t you have anyone checking on your place?” he asked.

She shook her head, wincing slightly. Combatting emotions battled within him. Ryker didn’t like that she was in pain, but that long brown hair swishing around her face was sexy as hell. “I wasn’t supposed to be gone that long, remember?”

“Gotcha. I wish I had advice. I’m assuming State would handle that to some degree, right?”

She shrugged. “Hopefully. Stuff slips through the cracks though. Look at me. I thought for sure the military would come to my rescue as soon as I was kidnapped, but I ended up being gone for a month.”

Ryker frowned. “What’s wrong?” Emily asked, catching the expression on his face.

He cleared his throat. “We did come to your rescue—or we tried to at least. My team was there a month ago. We found the British soldier that had been killed, but you’d already been taken to another location.”

“You were—there?” she asked, her voice wavering. Tears smarted her eyes, and Ryker felt his gut clench.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s just I didn’t want you to think that we weren’t trying to find you. We were deployed immediately from my understanding.”

She nodded, swiping at her tears. A stray one slipped down her cheek, and unable to stop himself, Ryker thumbed it away before pulling his hand back. “That reminds me,” he said, his voice gruff. “I found your necklace.”

“My necklace?” she asked in surprise.

“A woman’s gold necklace. I assume it’s yours. We found it as we were moving out of that first camp. I almost stepped on it in our exit, and somehow it caught my eye, crazy as it sounds. I slid it into my pocket and then found it a month later. Craziest damn thing. Give me your address or something so I can send it to you. I left it at my apartment in Virginia Beach.”

She nodded, looking somewhat dazed. Ryker watched as she yawned, and then the turbulence of the plane jostled them again. “I should get some rest,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “I’m exhausted from all of this—”

“And I’m up here bothering you,” he said.

“I don’t mind the company,” Emily said. “This whole thing is surreal. I keep thinking I’ll wake up back in that damn camp, stuck in a room all by myself.” She shuddered and then set her MRE aside as she lay back down.

She glanced at the jacket she wore—his—and then back at him.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, standing. “You need it to stay warm. I’ll be back with the other guys. We’re here if you need something.”

She nodded, her eyes already beginning to drift shut again.

He watched her for a moment and then turned away, moving to the back of the plane where the rest of his SEAL team sat. Mason had on headphones, Hunter was leaning back with his eyes closed, and the other guys were talking and ribbing each other. Everything was the same as it always was on the way home from an op. So why did it feel like his entire world had shifted?

Chapter 9

Emily frowned as she looked in the small mirror. The large bump on her forehead was fading from deep purple to more muted tones and a sickly yellow. Her cut had mostly healed, but the apprehension she was feeling inside would take a lot longer to subside than her physical wounds.

She shoved her compact back into her suitcase.

Having her own things back, which had been held on base for a month, should’ve made her feel better. She was free from captivity. She was recovering from what had been only minor injuries. She knew it could have been so much worse. She could’ve been raped, beaten, and tortured.

The first time any of the men had really laid hands on her had been when she’d tried to escape.

She felt uneasy though—uncomfortable in her own skin. The exhaustion and adrenaline from the past several days didn’t exactly help. She felt like she’d gone from one extreme emotion to the next. Adrenaline as she and the teenager had tried to escape. Fear when they’d been found in the storage building. Jubilation when she realized she’d been rescued by the U.S military.

Everything was beginning to just blur together at this point. Being rescued. Waking up in a strange, makeshift hospital room back on base. Flying across the Atlantic with a Navy SEAL team on a C-17 cargo plane.

She glanced over to where the men were hanging out in the back of the plane. Supposedly it was quieter up here, so they’d given her some space to rest. At first, she’d been so exhausted, she’d slept for several hours.

But now?

She gotten little bit of food in her. She’d begin to feel less groggy. And she had nothing left to do but think.

One of the men rose from his seat and moved down the center of the plane toward her. He had stubble covering his jaw and a snake and anchor tattoo on his bicep, peeking out from beneath his tee shirt. He was as large and buff as any of the guys, and she knew Hunter was the leader of this SEAL team. The other group—team—of men who’d saved her had already flown back to the west coast.

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