She wasn’t in the mood to deal with Nate, especially not in his disapproving big-brother role.
No wait, she amended. Not in any role. She just wanted to go home, shower for about an hour and then fall into bed and sleep for a week.
“Thanks, Paige, I owe you,” she said quietly, and walked stiffly from the room.
“Yes, you do, Francis Abigail,” Paige said, popping her head into the passage. “And I plan to collect...in the form of an explanation. About sea mammals.”
“Sure,” Frankie said agreeably. “I know a lot about whales and dolphins.” She smirked when Paige sighed loudly, but no way was she sharing her humiliation at the hands of Nathan Oliver. She’d never told a living soul about what had really happened that night and had no intention of discussing it now.
Or ever. Even with her best friend.
LIEUTENANT COMMANDER NATHAN OLIVER leaned against the wall in the dark and drank from a disposable cup. He hadn’t wanted the sweet, black coffee but it was warming his hands and keeping him awake while he waited for the one woman on the face of the planet with the ability to drive him completely nuts.
Nate hunched into his wet-weather Coast Guard jacket and blinked his gritty eyes. He was cold, wet and exhausted after a thirty-hour shift and wasn’t in any kind of mood to deal with Frankie. But it needed to be done before her stupid recklessness got her killed. Besides, being cold, wet and exhausted was nothing compared to what he’d survived in the teams. Nothing compared to what could have happened up in the mountains.
But last night wasn’t what he wanted to think about; he got icy chills just recalling the expression of horror on Frankie’s face as she’d risen to her feet and launched herself at him in that split second before he’d gone over.
From experience, he knew the memory would be replaying in an endless loop for weeks, if not months, to come. His belly cramped into a tight ball and he felt a dull pain in his chest—right next to his heart. Massaging the ache, he reminded himself that he wasn’t having a coronary.
It was probably just indigestion from having to drink hospital coffee.
And since it was her fault he was drinking the swill, he added it to her already lengthy list of transgressions. Transgressions that included keeping him from his warm bed, acting without thinking and...and being all grown up and too damn beautiful for her own good.
Okay, and maybe for his good too, but no way would he ever admit that out loud...or go there. Not with her. Not after he’d promised Jack that he’d look out for his wild and willful kid sister if anything happened to him. Only Frankie was no longer a kid; something he’d been forcibly reminded of when he’d walked into that ER room.
Nate sucked in a breath at the memory of her sitting there, her back a patchwork of bruises, scrapes and lacerations. Injuries she’d sustained when she’d gone all Queen of the Jungle and saved his ass.
In that moment he’d wanted to grab her and shake some sense into her but the sight of her had hit him like a bullet to the chest. Gone was the wild skinny tomboy...in her place was a tall, stunning beauty with lush curves in all the right places.
Frankie was all grown up.
But the last thing he wanted to notice was...that. Besides, she’d been like a sister to him. And then there was the blood oath he and Jack had made the day they’d left to join the armed forces.
He was going to honor that promise, preferably from afar, but right now he needed to make her see that her actions had been reckless, thoughtless and dangerous.
He’d had every intention of doing it last night but they’d been surrounded by people and she’d been playing “evade and escape” since touching down on the hospital helipad. It was a game they’d been playing since his return to Port St. John’s. A game he was beginning to tire of.
Granted, after that first week when he’d surprised Frankie chatting with his mother and sister in their kitchen, he’d deliberately kept his distance, needing to deal with being back in Port St. John’s and his new MSRT commission. He’d also had his hands full, helping his mother cope after a climbing accident had left his sister, Terri, a paraplegic.
He’d never admit it, but he’d also been having nightmares about the last SEAL mission that had taken the lives of several teammates. Bleeding from his own injuries, he’d tried to rescue his fallen buddies but he’d been pinned down. Waiting for air support, all Nate had been able to think about had been the wild grief in Frankie’s eyes at Jack’s funeral and wondering if she would grieve for him if he was killed in action.
The wild jumble of emotions had terrified him and he’d done what any man did when dealing with stuff he didn’t know how to handle. He’d shoved everything deep and stayed away. Partly because she would have prodded and poked until he’d told her all his dark secrets and revealed his pain and feelings of failure. But mostly because, well...he didn’t trust himself around her because she drew him in as no other woman did.
His mother swore Frankie had changed since her wild adolescence days but Nate wasn’t so sure. That crazy stunt was exactly what the wild child would have done in the past. And damn the consequences.
His jaw clenched when he imagined what those consequences would have been if she hadn’t been hooked to a lifeline. She would have plummeted to her death with him.
What kind of reckless fool did that?
But even as the thought occurred, he knew. It was the kind that put someone else’s life ahead of their own. The fiercely loyal kind that had your back; no questions asked—no matter what. The kind he’d known only in his best friends Jack and Ty, and then his buddies in the teams.
Yet, without hesitation, she’d dived off a slippery ledge to save him. In spite of everything he’d done to push her away.
Scowling down at the rapidly cooling contents of his cup, Nate wondered if he was punishing Frankie for all his confusing emotions. A prickle of warning tightened the back of his skull and his head came up just as the very woman he’d been thinking about sauntered through the automatic doors. Francis Abigail Bryce. His best buddy’s sister. The wild, exuberant girl he’d watched over for too many years while growing up—and had spent a further twelve trying to forget.
Sucking in a slow deliberate breath, Nate pushed away from the wall and willed his body to relax, his mind to calm. It was a trick he’d learned in the teams. A trick that helped him focus only on the mission ahead while ignoring everything else.
Dealing with Frankie was guaranteed to be as dangerous, as unpredictable and explosive as any of the classified missions he’d survived.
Without taking his eyes off her artfully messy red-gold hair, he threw the rest of his coffee into the bushes and tossed the cup in the nearest trash bin.
He was about to head after her when the door burst open and a young medic ran out, only to stop abruptly when she saw him. “Nate,” Paige said breathlessly. “Th-thank God.”
Despite his impatience, Nate paused and eyed his best friend’s fiancée. “Problem, Doc?”
“Yes,” she huffed worriedly, craning her neck and squinting into the darkness. “She shouldn’t be driving. I was just about to go wrestle her into my car so she didn’t have to drive home but I’m on duty.”
“What I wouldn’t give to see that?” he drawled, leaning forward to plant a quick kiss on her forehead. “Don’t worry, Paige. I’ve got this.”
“Are you sure, Nate? Because Frankie is—”
“I’m sure, Doc,” he interrupted gently. “Don’t worry, I’ll get our girl home safely.” And with