Page 54 of Rescue Me (Tempting SEALs 6.10)

Silence.

The kind of silence that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. She saw by the expression on King’s face that he knew something vital.

He stood, stretching to his full six-plus feet and cocked his head. “You didn’t hear?”

“Hear what?”

He gave her a hard, troubled look. “Joey Devine is dead. Knifed in the prison yard yesterday.”

“Jesus,” she said, stunned.

He pushed out a grim grunt. “I doubt very much that Jesus was in play on that deal.”

Man, Elena thought. Joey Devine was dead. Despite the furnace blast of heat welling up from the interior walls of the canyon, a chill whipped through her. It wasn’t that she felt remorse over Joey Devine’s death. He was a murderer and a drug lord; the world was a better, safer place without him. But she couldn’t help but replay Clyde Devine’s whispered threat as she left the courtroom after Joey’s conviction.

“You’ll pay, bitch. For taking my son from me, I promise, you will pay. And you’d better hope nothing happens to him in stir or when I come after you, I’ll make you wish you’d never been born.”

“Hey—you okay?”

She glanced at Seth. Realized his eyes were full of concern. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay,” she said with an absent nod.

But she wasn’t okay. She was shaken. She’d never told anyone about Clyde Devine’s threat. Figured it was just gang-mentality bravado. Now though … now that Joey was dead—another shiver rippled through her. Well, now that Joey Devine was dead, she was going to have to watch her back when they got back to Flagstaff.

Head down, focused on the trail, she tried to push thoughts of Devine from her mind as she followed Seth down the rough pass.

She never noticed the glint of sunlight bouncing off a pair of binoculars from the ridge of a switchback above them.

TWO

SHE WAS TOUGHER THAN he’d thought she’d be, Seth admitted around nine A.M. Who knew that hidden beneath the boring, mannishly tailored power suits she wore to court, interviews and depositions, that pretty, prickly Elena Martinez had an athlete’s body. A curvy athlete’s body to boot.

Despite the fact that they often butted heads over the way Flagstaff’s newest assistant district attorney prosecuted his cases, Seth had often wondered about her hidden assets. Well, he didn’t have to wonder anymore. She’d started out the cool morning with a long-sleeved red jersey shirt and long pants tucked into her hiking boots. Hadn’t taken long for the sun to warm the canyon walls and she’d zipped the le

gs off the pants to make shorts and packed the shirt away in favor of a sweet, yellow tank top.

Thank you, sun.

Her arms and legs were a sexy honey-colored hue, slim yet surprisingly well-toned. The lady apparently lifted something other than stacks of legal briefs. The lady had also been carrying concealed. Nice rack. Sweet little ass. While that heavy mass of chestnut hair was still twisted up in a snug, prim knot on top of her head, he had a feeling that when she let her hair down—if she ever let her hair down—it’d be silky and sleek and sexy as all hell.

A vivid image of that thick, lush hair trailing over his belly played through his mind like a wet dream.

“You’re a dirtbag, King,” he muttered under his breath as he rounded yet another switchback and maneuvered over some dead fall. She already thought he was a pig. If she knew what he was thinking, she’d shove him off a cliff. Lord knew she’d have plenty of opportunities before this scavenger hunt in the canyon’s desert terrain was over.

The trouble with Elena was she was too smart and too stubborn. He generally preferred a woman who wouldn’t be such a challenge, although, on too many occasions, he’d wondered how she’d be in the sack.

The truth was, he grudgingly admired the hell out of her professionalism—as well as the package it was wrapped in. She just pissed him off sometimes was all—especially when she pulled something like she had in the Devine case. As far as he was concerned, the DA’s office made too many plea bargains and let too many scumbags back on the streets. He’d seen one too many murderers find a way out of prison only to kill again. That’s why he was determined to make it difficult for the DA to do it with his cases—even if the DA, or in this case, an assistant DA, tripped the kind of triggers Elena Martinez did.

“Let’s take a breather,” he said when he rounded the next switchback and discovered an overhanging ledge that would provide them with a nice little pocket of shade. “You need to rehydrate and we could both use some salt and protein.”

Without a word, she ducked under the ledge, found a “comfy” rock to perch on and shrugged her pack off her back.

“So—what made you decide to enter this year’s charity event?” Seth asked as Elena worked her shoulders free of the stiffness he knew she had to feel. He was feeling it too. “It’s not exactly for the faint of heart.”

She smiled to herself as she dug into her pack then opened a bag of trail mix. “I ever give you any reason to believe I was faint of heart?”

He couldn’t help but grin as he tugged off his cap, wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his forearm and resettled the cap. No. She never had. In the cases the two of them had been involved with, she’d proven to be a tough prosecutor; she was thorough, accurate and didn’t back down to even the most experienced defense attorneys. She didn’t back down to him, either, when she took a tack that pissed him off. Like with the Devine case.

Faint of heart? Not this woman—emphasis on woman.

---