Mary Margret Daughtridge SEALed Bundle Read online

  Jax slung his duffle over his shoulder and tucked Tyler’s suitcase under one arm. “Take my hand, Tyler.”

  Tyler hadn’t let go of his sack of toys since his grandmother had left. He’d gone into the cottage, quietly collected all his cars, and tucked them into the red drawstring sack. The sack was hard and lumpy and so heavy the strings dug into the soft skin of his wrists, but he hadn’t put it down, not once.

  Now he tried to tuck it under one arm to give his father his hand, but it was too big and too heavy for one little arm. Tyler jerked his hand back to prevent the bag from slipping to the ground.

  “Give me the sack,” Jax said, “and take my hand.”

  Tyler shook his head emphatically, and pulled the sack closer to his chest.

  “You can’t carry it and walk. Come on, Tyler.”

  The hotel parking lot was crowded, and Tyler’s head wasn’t visible above the fenders of the cars. A driver could be right on Tyler before he saw him. Jax believed in picking his battles, but now was the moment to enforce obedience. One flick and Jax would have the bag out of Tyler’s arms and grab his hand.

  As if divining Jax’s intention, Tyler wheeled away and hunched his shoulders in a vain attempt to shield his sack.

  Tyler’s attempt to protect his toys was so desperate and so brave, respect and pride lumped together in Jax’s throat.

  “Okay, son,” Jax soothed, “okay.” He clasped Tyler by the shoulder, biting back a curse when he felt the tiny flinch. “Stay right with me, though.”

  In the paneled lobby, Tyler halted and looked around. He hefted his sack further up his chest. “What is this place?”

  Jax nudged him toward the desk. “A hotel.”

  “Why did we come here?”

  What kind of question was that? “To spend the night.”

  The lobby was crowded. People thronged at the desk two and three deep. An older man backed up without looking and stumbled over Tyler. He glanced down to see what he was tripping over and cursed, “Look out, kid!”

  Tyler yelped as he was knocked against his father. Jax stepped forward to protect Tyler with his legs, at the same time grabbing the man to keep him from falling.

  The man jerked himself away. “You need to keep that kid out from under foot!” he snapped, red-faced, straightening his shirt.

  Jax dropped the duffle and suitcase and picked up Tyler and his lumpy sack, which the kid had held onto throughout the altercation. “You okay, buddy?”

  Tyler was white around his lips but with a little shuddering breath, he nodded. “Why do we have to spend the night here?” He wiggled and pushed at Jax’s shoulders.

  “Be still, Tyler.” They had finally reached the front of the line. Jax shifted Tyler onto his hip to extract his wallet from his back pocket. To the desk clerk he said, “Reservation for Lt. Jackson Graham.”

  The clerk regarded him with the stony face of a woman who has already dealt with too many irate people to care about one more. “We stopped honoring reservations an hour ago.”

  “I made the reservation less than an hour ago.”

  The clerk rolled her eyes. “Whatever. It’s first come, first served now,” she said, “and you’re too late. We’re full.”

  FIVE

  Jax re-settled the squirming Tyler, and gave the clerk his most steely-eyed glare. “You mean you gave my reservation away? I drove past other hotels to get here.”

  “That’s right …” the woman looked into his face and added, “sir.”

  “What’s right?”

  “You could have stopped somewhere else. It happens all the time. In the meantime I would have turned people away.”

  “So instead, you let me drive all the way over here, missing out on other rooms I could have had.” Jax reined in his ire. “I don’t care, for myself, but I have a child with me.”

  The clerk’s brown face softened with contrition. “Really, sir, I am sorry. The high-rise hotels, the big chains, will be filling up, but the smaller, independent motels might still have rooms. We’re full mainly because of hurricane parties.”

  She had to be kidding. “Hurricane parties?”

  “Hurr’cane?” Tyler stiffened, suddenly paying attention to the exchange.

  “Yeah, it’s not supposed to get too bad. A lot of people are treating it like New Year’s Eve. They come here so they can party and then sleep through it.” Raucous laughter from the lounge area adjacent to the lobby lent credence to her explanation. The party apparently was already in full swing. “The smaller places don’t have bars, room service and stuff.”

  They also didn’t have interior corridors, game rooms, and continental breakfast. At a small motel, once the storm hit, he and Tyler would be trapped in one very small room until it blew itself out. He had some milk and cheese in the cooler, but he hadn’t brought things like cereal, thinking he’d return to the cottage in a day or two.

  “Here’s to Elvira,” a voice shouted from the lounge.

  “Yeah, bring that hurricane on.”

  Tyler’s head jerked. “The hurr’cane’s coming here?”

  “If I was you,” the desk clerk added, “I’d head inland. Two hours in any direction will get you all the rooms you want.”

  Tyler wiggled and patted his father’s shoulder for attention. “The hurr’cane’s coming here?”

  “Hush, Tyler. If I want to stay in Wilmington, what would you recommend?”

  “The Bide-A-Wee on Independence Boulevard. The rooms are clean, no hookers, and there won’t be drug deals going down in the parking lot—the way I guarantee there are in the hotels over on the interstate. Hang on. I’ll call them and see if they have anything.”

  Tyler bounced on Jax’s hip. “I don’t wanna stay here,” Tyler whined.

  “You get your wish, Tyler. We’re not staying.”

  Tyler bounced again. “Gan-gan said we gotta leave.”

  “Yes, sir.” The clerk hung up the phone. “They have a room and they will save it for you. But I suggest you don’t lose any time getting there.” She pointed to Tyler. “Does he have to go to the bathroom?”

  “Tyler, do you have to go to the bathroom?”

  “No! I want to leave.”

  Jax shouldered the luggage. “Okay, we’re going.”

  The Bide-A-Wee was as promised. The long, low cinderblock motel leftover from the fifties had recently been painted glistening white, the room doors dark green. Gay planters were spaced along the covered walkway that was all that separated the room doors from parking spaces.

  In the office a gray-haired man got up from a recliner stationed in front of a large-screen TV. It was apparent that the space beyond the counter was more someone’s living room than an office.

  “Old Elvira’s run you off the beach, has she?” The man ambled over to the counter. On the tube Hurricane Warning scrolled across the bottom of the screen, intermixed with lists of closings. “Twelve o’clock update says she might swing north a tad. We might not get more than a lot of rain. Just you and the boy?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but shoved a registration form in front of Jax. “I’ve got you a room with two double beds. That okay? The restaurant next door has good country food and they’ll be open for supper. I figured we’d lock down about eight, so if there’s anything you want, you tell us before then.” He dropped an old-fashioned metal key with a large plastic number on the counter. “I’ve sent the maids home, but I’ll get you towels and such like.”

  Jax pocketed the key with a nod of thanks. He placed his hand on Tyler’s shoulder. “Let’s go open the room and then I’ll get the bags.”

  Tyler looked up at him, a frown between his brows. “Why did we come here?”

  “Because the other place was full.”

  “No-o-o,” Tyler fussed. “I mean, why are we here?”

  “To spend the night, just like the other place.”

  “Why are we going to spend the night?”

  The question made no sense. Tyler knew why you spend the night, for crip
es sake. Jax shoved the key into the lock at number fourteen. A blast of stale, super-moist air hit them.

  Tyler wrinkled his nose. “What’s that smell?”

  All the air freshener in the world wouldn’t cover up the smell of cigarette smoke and accumulated mildew in a carpet that had to be twenty years old. However, the sheets were clean, the miniscule bathroom spotless.

  Tyler planted his sandaled feet on the threshold, a tiny figure silhouetted against the light. “I don’t like it here. I want to leave.”

  Jax found the remote and flicked on the TV. “Sorry, fellow, this is pretty much our last option. It’s clean and we have to make the best of it until the hurricane passes.”

  Tyler rubbed one leg against the other. He’d done that several times now. His brows came together. “Is the hurr’cane coming here, too?”

  “Yes, Tyler. A hurricane is big.”

  “I want to leave.” Tyler’s mouth turned down tragically. “I want to go home.”

  “Do you want me to take you to your grandmother’s house?” Jax would scrap his hopes and take him, if that’s what he wanted. Around his grandmother he’d seemed, if not happy exactly, content. Jax would somehow deal with Kohn’s demand that he spend thirty days with Tyler. Kohn meant his threats and he had the power to carry them out, but Tyler’s misery was unendurable.

  Tyler blinked as if the question bewildered him. His lower lip quivered. “No.”

  “Well, those are your choices. Stay with me or go to your grandmother’s.”

  Tyler rubbed one leg against the other, and scrubbed at his hairline with his fist, a gesture Jax recognized as his own. The gesture gave Jax the oddest little kick right underneath his heart. Tyler hadn’t been around him enough to be imitating him. He knew Tyler favored him, but Jax had never before seen himself in Tyler.

  Jax felt like rubbing at his hairline himself. Tyler was finally talking but all he would say was he wanted to leave—wanted to leave any place they were. It didn’t make any sense.

  Tyler’s chest heaved. “We got to leave! The hurr’cane will get my toys.”

  Lauren only said that to manipulate him. Jax didn’t bother to contain his disgust. “The hurricane’s not going to get your toys.”

  “You said the hurr’cane’s coming here.”

  “Yes, but we’ll be fine here.” Jax was out of patience. “Now come on in.”

  Tyler shook his head, a mulish expression twisting his lips. “It stinks in here.”

  “I’ll leave the door open for a while to let it air out.” Tyler tightened his hold on his sack, and stared in defiance. “Tyler,” Jax used his commanding voice, “come in right now, or I will carry you in.”

  Slowly, sandaled toes dragging, Tyler moved past the threshold. Just.

  “All the way in. I mean it.” Tyler dragged himself to the center of the room, taking care to stay out of Jax’s reach. Jax inhaled and counted to ten. “I’m going to bring our luggage in. You watch TV and I’ll leave the door open.”

  Jax glanced back at the forlorn little figure sitting on the end of the bed. Twenty-five more days of this. Since he arrived, they’d had exactly one good hour together, and only because of that woman, Pickett. She seemed to be able to decipher Tyler, to understand what would make him happy without his saying a word—a feat Jax couldn’t manage even if Tyler did talk.

  The knowledge that he was screwing up with Tyler—and that he had no idea how to fix it—dragged at him like undertow. He wished Pickett was here right now. Maybe she could figure out what Tyler wanted. Maybe once the hurricane passed he’d call her. Pickett was a woman he needed to stay away from, but if it was for Tyler, that was different.

  Looking back one more time to make sure Tyler was where he had left him, Jax pulled out his car keys. Too bad a pickup was parked in the space directly in front of their room. He pulled the luggage from the cargo compartment and headed back to the room. He’d need one more trip to carry in the cooler.

  Tyler kept his eyes on the TV when his father came back into the room. The local stations had gone to an all-news format to cover the storm. And since there wasn’t a lot to say after announcing the opening of shelters and reporting that Lowe’s had sold out of generators, the anchors filled the time between weather updates with inane chatter.

  A perky blonde on TV shuffled the papers in front of her. “Here’s a piece of trivia. Did you know Elvira is the name of the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz?” she asked the jowly man to her left.

  “I didn’t know she had a name.” The man turned a professional, and rather condescending, smile on his co-anchor.

  “Technically, it’s the name of the woman who turns into the witch once Dorothy is in Oz. Elvira Gulch is the woman riding the bicycle in the tornado.”

  A clip from the black-and-white portion of the movie showed the bad-tempered woman furiously pedaling through the tornado. Then a quick cut to the green-faced witch pointing a bony finger at Dorothy. “I’ll get you, my pretty—and your little dog, too!” Terrified, Dorothy clutched Toto to her breast, and the clip ended.

  “Well, let’s hope Elvira isn’t going to ‘get us’ with any tornadoes in addition to high winds and flooding,” the jowly man chuckled. “What do you think, Randi?”

  The picture changed to a young woman in front of a weather map. She cheerfully assured her audience that thunderstorms and tornadoes were indeed a possibility.

  “Shit,” said Jax under his breath. The local station was clearly so delighted to have some news of their own, they’d go to any lengths to dramatize it. “Here,” he handed Tyler the remote. “Why don’t you see if you can find some cartoons? I’m going to bring in the cooler. Be right back.”

  He was carrying the cooler and was halfway to the room when the pickup in the spot in front of their door backed away. Hot damn! He set down the cooler and raced back to the Cherokee. He could move his SUV before someone else took the space.

  After parking and retrieving the cooler, he hurried back to the motel room. The space at the end of the bed in front of the TV was empty. “Tyler,” he called, “where are you?”

  “Tyler!” He went to the tiny bathroom. “Are you in here?” His heart began to pound. He checked under the beds, jerked open the closet door. No Tyler.

  He looked out the door. “Tyler!” The pickup was pulling away. The driver could have looked in the room’s open door and seen a child sitting alone. Could have taken Tyler. The thought froze his heart.

  “Stop,” Jax could hear Kraskow’s laconic instructor-voice. “Assess the situation. If you don’t have time to assess, you don’t have time to do anything that’s going to make any difference.”

  Tyler hadn’t come by him. In the other direction, across a side street, was the restaurant the motel owner had mentioned. In front of the motel, across a narrow parking lot, was a six-lane street on which cars moved bumper to bumper. Tyler was a city kid. Surely he had more sense than to attempt to cross it. That meant he could only have gone toward the restaurant. Jax couldn’t see him but as he’d already noted, he was too short to be visible behind a car.

  And there were cars everywhere. The motel lot was full, the restaurant lot was full, and cars were parked all along the curb of the side street. He climbed the wrought-iron supports of the walkway’s cover as he would a ladder to the motel’s roof to gain a higher vantage point.

  A flash of blue caught his eye. How the hell had he gotten so far? He was on the other side of the restaurant’s parking lot and getting ready to cross another side street. This one, unfortunately, was a major thoroughfare. Fortunately, the red toy sack, now being dragged behind him, slowed him down.

  Jax sprinted the length of the motel roof, keeping Tyler in sight. He let himself down by clinging to a gutter and dropping the rest of the way.

  Once on the ground he could no longer see Tyler; he could only continue in the direction he’d last seen him. He vaulted a car parked at the curb. The shortest way to where he thought Tyler was, was thr
ough the bed of knobby, purple cactus planted in front of the restaurant. He took it. Spines, long as toothpicks and sharp as needles, ripped his shorts.

  He rounded the corner of the restaurant. There he was, on the curb, looking both ways. Thank god, someone had taught him that, but it hadn’t been him. He wanted to yell for Tyler to stop, but the sickening truth was that Tyler was as likely to get spooked and dash into traffic as he was to obey.

  Jax added another burst of speed.

  The light had changed and the street in front of Tyler was clearing. He looked both ways and stepped off the curb. Unfortunately he didn’t know to watch for turning cars.

  Jax saw the black Camry out of the corner of his eye.

  Slow down, you idiot driver.

  There’s a kid in front of you.

  Three more steps, that’s all he needed.

  And then everything happened at once. Brakes squealed, Jax swept up Tyler, his momentum carrying him into the next lane, the car stopped, horns blared.

  “Keep your kid out of the street!” the Camry driver screamed at Jax, before angrily peeling rubber as she sped away.

  He had him. In his arms. Safe. He had him.

  He felt one second of jelly-kneed relief. Then, the blood pounding hot in his scalp, the breath he couldn’t quite seem to catch, was all he knew.

  He pushed his face up against Tyler’s, determined to transmit his anger eyeball to eyeball. “What the hell were you doing? You were in the road! Shit! Were you fucking trying to get yourself fucking killed?”

  Jax was crossing the restaurant parking lot when the meaning of Tyler’s white, set face and dilated gray eyes penetrated his grinding fury. The narrow shoulders—the child’s whole body—was shaking.

  Oh shit! A thousand pounds of self-reproach landed on Jax’s chest. As if things weren’t bad enough between them, now he’d made Tyler afraid by reacting as he would have had one of his men done something so dangerously foolhardy.