Page 10 of The SEALs' Single Mom Baby Surprise

As a civilian. As a woman. They probably don’t have a lot of faith in my abilities to take this any further. But they’re wrong. I’ll find out what’s going on without their help.

I didn’t need them to begin with.

Why the hell did Warren call them?

“I know it’s frustrating, but I’d rather keep you safe above anything else. Okay?”

My anger finally breaks—just a little. He did always have my back, gave me the leeway I needed to deal with my ex, promoting me without my having to ask for it…

I sigh. “Fine.”

Warren pats my shoulder as he stands. “You’re my best worker, Montgomery. Just remember that.”

I give him a pity laugh, and he knows it, but he smiles anyway. “Bet your ass I am.”

“That’s what I want to hear.” Warren marches back to his office, and I grab my stack of papers, straightening them for my clipboard when one of the three new team members hovers nearby. He’s sitting at one of the empty desks, but none of them have left me alone since they got here.

Shouldn’t he be looking into whatever they thought this was?

When I’m a few feet into the warehouse, he’s coming through the door. So he is going to follow me around. Great. Stand back there while I solve this thing on my own.

It gnawed at me all night, numbers twisting in my dreams and crates opening up to bizarre contents—rubber missiles and candy guns. That last round of Candy Land with Reese played a heavy role in shaping the world, but the problem stemmed from right here.

Refocusing on the manifests in front of me, I check every serial number, climbing and descending the rolling ladder to be sure I can see each one with my own eyes. I won’t be going back to trusting others to do their work.

The entire time, I can see my tail lingering nearby. He’s looking through the inventory, too. What is he looking for, exactly? What can he see that I can’t? Did Warren print him off a list when I wasn’t looking?

Maybe he got everything he needed off my computer before I got in to work today.

When I hit solid ground again, Hastings—if I’m remembering correctly, because none of them are wearing name tags and none of them introduced themselves properly—sidles up behind me, peering over my shoulder to check my list as I’m almost to the bottom of the page.

I turn my head to glare at him, but he merely blends back into the shelves to continue doing whatever it is he’s doing.

It happens again as I near the end of my second page. Hastings is there, those dark eyes focused and intelligent as he purviews the marks I’ve made on the page without comment and goes back to the stacks.

It’s hard not to notice him the longer he lingers nearby. He’s not watching me directly, but when I reach the last two entries on my third page, he’s there again. He has to be paying much better attention than I give him credit for. Although the feeling of being watched is building slowly.

Like a frog in a pot of boiling water.

The heat of it’s getting to me.

Or maybe it’s the glossy black hair and day-old stubble darkening his tanned skin. The intelligence in his eyes when they meet mine. How his T-shirt spreads tight across his chest and shoulders or how he moves so silently. So stealthily. The fact that although he’s checking on me, he’s not getting in my way or peppering me with questions and comments like Shepard.

It means I’m not at all surprised when I find another mislabeled crate and Hastings is hovering at the bottom of my ladder by the time I descend.

“Found something,” I say uselessly. He already knows, of course, from my body language or some other thing. “We need the forklift to get it down and open it up.”

“Where are they?” Hastings’s voice is soft and melodic.

I point to the bay area. “I don’t usually drive them.”

I know how, in theory, but I rarely do so. The muscle is rusty from lack of practice. But I don’t need to explain. Hastings is already on his way to grab one.

While he does so, I go back to checking my list. After another fifteen minutes, he has the crate down and open. I can’t help but come see what the discrepancies have produced.

This box is listed as comms equipment—pretty basic, on the whole—and as Hastings cracks it open, we see a layer of hand radios and a few bigger, long-range satellite comms. The reveal deflates me a little until he pulls out that first layer.

Underneath, between the sleek black boxes are precision barrels, like the kind equipped on sniper rifles or Mk13s.

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