Danger Close (The Echo Platoon Series, Book 1) (5 page)

Tugging the wrinkles from his dress white uniform, he headed up the flagstone path toward the opulent Georgian-style mansion basking in the late summer sunset. Inviting lights shone from every window highlighting the green, manicured lawn. Why would Madison ever want to leave a place like this? She'd made it plain that she lived to make the world a better place; still, he couldn't fathom her reasons for wanting to give up all this to do so.

The strains of Frank Sinatra grew louder as Sam neared the double front doors under the watchful eye of a security guard. "Evening, Lieutenant," that man said, reading his rank correctly. With a flourish, he pulled open the door.

"Thanks." Sam stepped into a vaulted foyer, his eyes sliding up the double-wide staircase to the crystal chandelier overhead.

Maybe opulent wasn't the word to describe the Scott residence; decadent seemed a more apt description.

Leaving his white billed cap hanging on an empty hat rack, he passed a dining room filled with glittering guests and a table groaning under trays of delicacies. Sounds of lively conversation beckoned him toward the open room at the back of the house where fifty or more impeccably dressed guests milled about holding cocktails. He didn't know a single goddamn soul.

I'd rather freefall into enemy territory than join this party
, Sam thought. However, with a reminder of what he'd overcome—personal hardships followed by the most rigorous military training program in the world—he thrust aside his apprehension and stepped into the room with his head held high.

"You're late," said a husky voice that raised the hair on his nape.

He swung around to see Madison Scott pushing off the wall, a half-empty martini glass in hand. She wore a silk crimson cocktail dress that hugged her fabulous figure and imbued her honey-blond hair with tawny highlights. All he could think about as she stepped up to him was whether she wore underwear beneath that figure-hugging dress.

That punch-in-the-gut reaction he'd had the first time he'd clapped eyes on her—that had nothing to do with the environment, apparently. Back in Mexico, she'd reminded him of an exotic flower growing in a concrete jungle. Tonight she resembled a red hibiscus, right up to the decorative comb that kept her long hair coiled in a knot at the back of her head. Her equally thorough appraisal of him through blue-gray eyes left him feeling off-kilter.

"Madison," he said, managing to find his voice.

"Maddy," she corrected, thrusting her free hand at him. He took it automatically, registering just how slim and soft it felt in contrast to her firm grip. He hadn't held her hand the last time. Nor had she seemed so petite when he'd been wrestling with her on the mattress.

"Sam Sasseville," he reminded her.

Her lips quirked in that insubordinate smile he'd carried in his head for weeks now. "Yes, I remember," she drawled. Taking a leisurely sip of her martini, she eyed him over the rim of her glass. The slightly glazed quality of her lagoon-like eyes informed him that this was not her first drink.

"Sorry for my tardiness." It wasn't like him to be anything but exactly on-time. "Traffic was bad. Lots of thunderstorms."

"I figured you'd just chickened out," she needled with an innocent smile. "Can I get you a drink? There's an open bar at the end of the room."

"No, I'm fine. I have to drive back tonight."

She shrugged, drained her glass, and set it down on the nearest table. "Let's tell Daddy that you're here, then." With a familiarity that made him gulp, Maddy Scott looped her arm through his and drew him into the crowd.

Oh, yes, let's tell Daddy, who might well have invited him here to publically denounce him for mauling his daughter. The cotton T-shirt under Sam's uniform stuck to his suddenly sweaty back. Conversations dimmed as heads turned in their direction. He wished suddenly that he'd worn a tuxedo like everyone else.

Lyle Scott's tuxedo emphasized his broad shoulders and barrel chest. Standing at Sam's height, the CEO of Scott Oil struck Sam as larger than life as he kept a small crowd of people enthralled with whatever he was saying. His brown gaze shifted and brightened with recognition. He cut himself off, casting a smile at Sam that lit up the entire room.

"Lieutenant Sasseville," he declared, commanding the attention of everyone in the vicinity. He spread his arms wide then extended a hand in welcome. "We meet again."

A portion of Sam's tension eased as the tycoon pumped his hand with seeming pleasure and not a trace of a grudge. "Thank you for the invitation," Sam murmured.

"Well, of course. I could hardly overlook the man who saved my daughter's life. May I have your attention, everyone." Lyle Scott turned to address their growing audience. "I'd like to introduce our guest of honor. This is Lt. Sam Sasseville, a U.S. Navy SEAL."

Guest of honor?
Sam shot Maddy a startled look. Her sugary sweet smile assured him that this was her doing. What the hell kind of game was she playing with him?

"A toast," Lyle Scott continued, holding his scotch tumbler aloft, "to the man who saved my daughter from certain peril."

The crowd echoed his toast with "Hear, hear!"

Finding a champagne glass in his hand, Sam took a quick, bracing sip.
Shit, I never should have come here
.

Guests swarmed him, offering words of gratitude. He managed to keep one eye on Maddy as she retreated into the background. He fended off admirers while simmering inwardly. This party had to be her conception, too—a passive aggressive way of avenging him for his part in removing her from Matamoros. He got his back pounded and his hand wrung countless times.

An effusive, perfumed woman in her fifties kissed him lingeringly on the cheek. "We are
so
very grateful to you, Lieutenant," she professed, her eyes suggesting he should take advantage of her gratitude.

Men asked him questions that he wasn't supposed to answer. More than once, he heard himself offer the standard glib reply, "I could tell you, sir, but then I'd have to kill you."

He should have tossed the invitation in the trash the day he'd received it. But then he wouldn't have the vision of Maddy poured into a crimson gown to add to the X-rated images he caught himself enjoying whenever he let his guard down.

"Would you like to see the gardens?"

Suddenly, she was there at his elbow, intervening before the next guest could assault him. She threaded her slender arm through his and drew him out one of the French doors that opened out onto a broad veranda. Inclining his nose toward her neck, Sam caught a refreshing whiff of her light, flowery fragrance, and his resentment moved to the back burner.

With the storms safely gone, an orchestra had set up their stands and chairs outside. As they applied themselves to tuning their instruments, Maddy drew Sam down a set of stairs into a damp yard. Intermittent gas lamps threw puddles of light onto the lush, wet lawn and the elaborate flowerbeds. But for the most part, the yard stood dark and blessedly uninhabited.

"Sorry about that," she apologized, removing her hand from the crux of his arm as she started down a flagstone path ahead of him. The laughter in her voice assured him she was anything but sorry.

Sam stopped dead in his tracks, forcing her to turn back. She eyed him inquiringly, the light from the house making her eyes appear translucent. "That was your idea, wasn't it," he demanded, "to name me the guest of honor?"

Her mouth wobbled as she fought to keep a grin in check. "Actually, my father was the first to suggest it. Personally, I never wanted to lay eyes on you again." She propped a hand on one hip and sent him a sassy smile. "But then I pictured your discomfort, and I realized it might be fun watching you squirm. I bet there aren't many situations that make you this uncomfortable, are there, Lieutenant?"

He didn't know whether to be amused by her candidness or offended by it. He only knew he'd like to kiss that smirk off her pretty little face.

"You seemed to take it all in stride," she added, easing his annoyance. "I'm impressed."

"What comes next?" he demanded. "Are you going to accuse me of manhandling you?"

She arched one slender eyebrow over the other. "You think I'd really do that? Go crying to daddy because the big bad SEAL drugged me against my will?"

"Technically, Bronco drugged you," he hedged, not liking how she'd worded her question. "I just ordered him to do it."

"But you did the grappling," she pointed out.

Here it comes.
"You didn't give me much choice."

"No, I guess I didn't," she relented, taking the wind out of his sails. "How's your nose, by the way?"

Christ, he never knew what she'd say next. "It'll never be the same."

She sent him a hard smile, clearly cheered by that news. "Neither will the girls I left at that school," she reminded him. Turning her back on him, she stalked away.

"So, we're even then," he called, chasing after her even as his gaze slid helplessly to the sway of her curvy hips. He couldn't make out any panty lines beneath the smooth silk.

"Not by a long shot," she retorted.

Her reply kept him wary. Just when he thought Maddy wasn't as dangerous as she'd seemed, she said something to put him on his guard again. Plus, the alcohol she'd imbibed seemed to have made her feistier than he remembered.

"So, are you done avenging me, or is there more to your evil plan?" he demanded, wanting to know her intentions.

She cast him a droll look. "It's not evil," she assured him. "Come on. I want to show you something."

Trailing her to the end of the flagstone path, Sam found himself being drawn into the tree line. Anywhere else in the world, he would have balked at the possibility of wading into an ambush. The lamplight failed to extend this far, but the woods appeared tame with hardly any brush for cover.

Perhaps fearing he might stumble, Maddy grabbed his hand, causing his pulse to leap. Over the thudding of his heart and the strains of a violin playing back at the house, he detected the sound of trickling water.

What the hell was she up to, luring him out here? He hadn't pegged Maddy for the type to throw herself at a man, even if he was a Navy SEAL.

"I come out here all the time," she said in a conversational tone with no hint of seduction in it. "See the bridge?"

Through the tree trunks ahead, he could just make out a Japanese-style garden bridge arching over a shallow ravine. The water he'd thought he'd heard earlier had to be a brook wending its way through the expansive property.

"Nice," he said, still wary of a trap.

She started up across the bridge, drawing Sam behind her. At the top, she released his hand and clasped the railing, drawing a deep cleansing breath. Sam cautiously mirrored her movements, inhaling the scent of freshly cut grass and mature leaves.

"Whenever I stand right here," she said reflectively, "I like to close my eyes and imagine that I'm the water, racing to the Potomac and then to the Chesapeake Bay, flowing all the way to the ocean. It's the only way I can escape sometimes."

Her reflective comment drew a curious sidelong look from him. Why would she want to escape from a paradise like this? But her eyes remained closed, indicating this was not the time to ask.

"Try it," she invited in a coaxing voice.

Sam shut his eyes, but all he could focus on was the heat of Maddy's arm where it brushed his.

"What do you picture?" she asked him.

With a frown of concentration, he cleared his thoughts until an image formed in his mind. "I see a village springing up at the edge of a river in Nigeria." He'd been there recently on an op that had left some key insurgents extremely dead.

"Where there's water, there's life," she agreed, oblivious to his gory memories. She turned toward him causing his eyes to spring open and his pulse to leap. "Without food, clean water, sustainable crops, and access to health care, life is little more than a struggle for survival."

Sam hadn't envisioned their conversation taking this turn. Once again, she'd managed to surprise him, her words disturbingly portentous.

"Tell me you are not going overseas again," he exhorted.

"Actually, my father just got me a job with The Global Environment Facility. GEF is an international group that addresses environmental issues in developing countries. I'll be testing the impact of oil wells on the environment."

"Overseas?" he queried. The part about developing countries had tipped him off.

"Of course."

"You know, there are plenty of environmental issues right here in the United States," he pointed out. "You don't need to head overseas to make a difference."

She tossed her head. "That's like saying we have home-grown terrorists, so there's no need to chase after Al Qaeda," she countered sweetly.

Sam gripped the wooden railing until his knuckles ached. "Why do we argue every time we talk?" he wondered out loud. He would rather be finding out if she was wearing any underwear.

"I have no idea. Maybe it's because you think you have a right to tell me how to live my life."

His temples throbbed. She had to be goading him. "Obviously, you don't realize how small and defenseless you are," he concluded.