Protecting Caroline (SEAL of Protection Book 1) (2 page)

Caroline shifted
uncomfortably in her seat. She hated flying. She hadn’t flown much and there
were just too many people, too close together. She tried to ignore the people
walking down the aisle to their seats. At least she’d gotten an aisle seat
close to the front of the plane. Caroline watched the shoes of the people
passing her. She felt too awkward to look into people’s eyes as they lumbered
past. The boarding process was one of the parts of flying Caroline hated the
most…waiting to see who’d be in the seat next to her. Looking out the corner of
her eye at the man sitting in the window seat, she noticed he was already
settled in, reading a newspaper; not paying any attention to the rest of the
passengers as they shuffled by their row.

Sneakers, flip
flops, sneakers, loafers, sandals, boots….the boots didn’t pass. She looked up
and saw a man had stopped next to her seat.

“I guess I’m in
the middle then,” he said in a deep voice that sent shivers straight through
her.

Caroline nodded
and stood up to let him pass. Brushing against her as he moved past, he settled
himself into the seat next to her. The dreaded middle seat. The man wasn’t
overweight, far from it, but he certainly wasn’t small. It was a cozy fit. Caroline’s
shoulders literally rubbed against his when she sat back down—she wouldn’t be
using the armrest for the flight.

He was one hell
of a man that was sure. He was tall, when she’d stood up to let him into the
row she’d barely came to his shoulder. And holy hell, he was muscular. She
wondered for a moment if he was a body builder. If she wrapped both hands
around his bicep, Caroline didn’t think her hands would touch. The man was
wearing long sleeves, but she could see the fabric straining over his biceps.
He was sporting a pair of cargo pants, the kind with the multitude of pockets.
As they sat, Caroline could see his legs were just as muscular as the rest of
him. She blushed a bit and tore her eyes away. Woah. He could be a model and
would probably make a killing. She knew he probably wasn’t though. He was too
rugged, too masculine, too…well…manly to be any kind of model, no matter what
he’d make at doing it.

The man next to
her shifted a bit and laid his head back on the head rest and closed his eyes.

Caroline fought
with her conscience. She hated the middle seat. She really did, but there was
no way this man would last the entire four hour flight squished in between her
and the other man the way he was. With his knees hitting the chair in front of
him, he looked scrunched. His muscular body sure didn’t leave any extra room in
the small cramped airline seat. He looked miserable. Caroline sighed, knowing
what she had to do.

* * *

Wolf sat
uncomfortably in the airplane seat. Outwardly he looked relaxed, but he was
anything but. With eyes closed, Wolf processed the sounds around him. The
passengers walking past his row to their seats, the sounds of the overhead bins
filling up, the rustle of the newspaper from the man to his right, and the
quiet sigh of the woman sitting to his left.

Flying commercial
from San Diego to the base in Norfolk, Wolf, Mozart, and Abe were technically
off duty at the moment, and were flying in civilian clothes. They’d booked this
flight last minute, thus leaving him the middle seat and the others spread out
in the plane. Wolf wanted to hop on a MAC flight, the free flight service
offered by the military to members and spouses, but he knew there was no
guarantee they’d get a space on the flight and the three of them wanted to get
to Virginia to see Tex sooner rather than later. They talked to Tex all the
time since he helped them get information when they needed it, but talking to him
in an official capacity was way different than being able to sit down around a
table, drink a beer, and talk about anything other than work.

Wolf, Abe, and
Mozart were supposed to be on leave before their next mission started. They
were leaving from Norfolk in two weeks, and the thought of being able to shut
down and actually enjoy being around friends was a welcome one. They all spent
way too much time hyped up and in danger. Spending two weeks before they had to
risk their lives on another mission was just too tempting to turn down.  

None of them had
a lot of time off recently and Wolf, Abe, and Mozart were happy to get to
pretend to be normal for a few weeks before they had to leave again. Wolf had
been a SEAL for ten years, working with Mozart and Abe for the last eight. They
hadn’t been in BUD/S together, but that didn’t matter. Bonded over firefights,
scuba dives, and life threatening situations, they’d each saved each other’s
lives a few times and their connection was tighter than most siblings.

Wolf would’ve
preferred to sit in the same row with his friends, but because they’d made
their flight arrangements so late, they didn’t have a choice and had to take
seats that were available. Mozart offered to flirt with the airline employee in
the hopes they’d be able to get upgraded, or at least be seated together, but
they’d agreed to suck it up and sit where they were assigned. They all knew
they wouldn’t fit in the seats if they all sat in the same row anyway. Their
shoulders were just too broad to fit comfortably side-by-side in a crunched
airline row. Wolf knew his friends felt the same way he did—they didn’t flaunt
their SEAL status to receive preferential treatment. It was bad enough women
hit on them back home in San Diego in the bars just because they were SEALs.

Wolf hated to
admit it, but he’d gotten bored with the bar scene. He was picky in the first
place, and he’d found too many women just wanted to sleep with a SEAL, it
didn’t matter
who
the SEAL was, just that they could brag later to their
friends they’d done it with a legendary SEAL. The sadder part was that too many
SEALs took advantage of it. Wolf could admit to himself that once upon a time
he’d done that exact thing, but time and experience had shown him the
encounters left him feeling dissatisfied and used. If someone had asked him
right after he’d graduated from BUD/S if he’d ever feel used by a woman who
wanted to sleep with him, he would’ve laughed himself silly.

Wolf knew what
love looked like. His parents had been together for almost forty years. They
were still as madly in love now as they were when they got married. It used to
embarrass him, but lately it made him feel wistful. They’d still go on dates
and hold hands wherever they went. His dad surprised his mom with romantic
gifts and, every now and then, a special trip. Wolf wanted what his parents
had. He wanted someone he could be himself with. He wanted someone to need him.
He wanted to need someone. Wolf supposed it wasn’t manly to admit any of those
things, but it was what it was.

Wolf had no idea
how to go about finding that special woman though, except he knew he wouldn’t
find her in a bar. The other issue was that he was a SEAL. He was sent off to
crappy little countries to kill people and to keep the peace. Every now and
then they were sent off on a rescue mission. He wasn’t allowed to talk about
the specifics of what he did with anyone. He had no idea how that would work in
a marriage. He’d seen too many of his SEAL friends get married and then
divorced because their wives just couldn’t handle the secrecy and the
uncertainty of when their husbands would be coming home, or even where they
were going in the first place.

To be fair, not
all of the marriages ended because of the secrecy and danger inherent in being
a SEAL. Some ended because one of the people in the marriage cheated on the
other. Sometimes it was the wife who cheated, and other times it was the
husband. Wolf shrugged. There wasn’t any use in obsessing about it. Hopefully
he’d someday find someone to settle down with. If it didn’t happen during his
military career, perhaps it would once he was retired. There was no rule that
said someone in their forties couldn’t find true love and get married.

After drifting
off and thinking about his lack of a love life, Wolf flinched when he felt a
hand on his arm. He hadn’t been paying attention and was actually startled. His
team would get a kick out of that. Wolf was known to always be one step ahead of
the enemy and to be able to have a good idea what they were going do before
they did it. Now here he was letting a civilian take him by surprise.

He opened his
eyes to look at the woman sitting in the aisle seat next to him. She was
ordinary. He took in her jeans, sneakers, and long sleeve T-shirt at a glance.
Her brown hair was pulled up into a messy knot at the back of her head. She
looked to be in her early thirties. She wore no rings; had very little makeup
on, her nails weren’t polished; she had little gold studs in each ear and was
looking at him expectantly. He inwardly sighed. When he was younger Wolf loved
when women hit on him, now it had gotten old. Granted, this woman didn’t look
like she was the type to throw herself at a man, but he’d learned that looks
were deceiving when it came to what women wanted.

Glancing in her
direction, Wolf thought the woman appeared to be mulling over telling him
something. This in itself was fascinating, since in his experience, women
tended to get right to the point of what they wanted to say. Her hesitation
made him more interested in hearing what she had to say to him and he waited,
patiently, as she gathered her thoughts.  

Caroline was
nervous. She wanted to talk to the over-the-top masculine man sitting next to
her, but she didn’t want him to look through her as most men did. Caroline had
faded into the woodwork most of her life. No boyfriend in high school, she hadn’t
gone to any of the school dances, not even prom.

One guy had the
nerve to tell her that she wasn’t “girlfriend material.” Thinking back to that
comment, made without thought, still hurt her today. Caroline knew she wasn’t
model beautiful, but she didn’t think she was a troll either. She wasn’t tall
like men seemed to want in a woman, but she wasn’t short and cute either. Caroline
was average from the top of her brown-haired head to the bottom of her normal
sized feet.

She’d always
been the “friend” growing up. All the boys liked to talk to her, but only to
get Caroline’s opinion on the other girls and if they liked them. It was
depressing as hell, but she’d gotten used to it. When she got old enough to really
care and actually want to go to dances and dates, Caroline was firmly in the “friend”
category and she’d sat at home while everyone else went out and had a good
time.

The media’s
portrayals of the “perfect woman” didn’t only affect women and girls, but it
did the same with men. Men all seemed to want the skinny, perky, bubbly, woman
they’d seen on television and in magazines all their lives. From reality shows
to news casters and even to sit-coms, today’s world was bombarded with flawless
women, beautiful from sun-up to sun-down.

That just wasn’t
Caroline. She wasn’t a genius, but she also wasn’t dumb. She worked hard at her
job and did her part to make the world go-‘round. But she often wished, when
she was lying in bed late at night, that she could find a man that would
see
her. See the real her.

Caroline’s
parents had her late in their life, and had recently passed away. She missed
them. They’d been her staunchest supporters. Whatever she wanted to do, they’d
encouraged her and told her she could do it. Without her parents and no close
friends to keep her there, California didn’t have the appeal to Caroline that
it used to.

Caroline thought
about the man sitting next to her. He probably had a lot of close friends. He
looked trustworthy. Caroline almost snorted at her own thoughts. How the hell
could someone “look” trustworthy? It was ridiculous. Didn’t all the crime shows
talk about how the killer always looked like the “guy next door?”

Caroline shook
herself. She had to stop her line of thought or she’d depress herself even more
than she already was. Who cared if this guy didn’t “see” her? She’d only be
sitting next to him for a couple of hours, and then they’d go their separate
ways once they landed in Virginia. Hell, she knew he didn’t really take note of
her. He’d already met her, and when he’d sat down he’d looked right through her
as if he’d never seen her before. It happened to her all the time, over and
over. She should be used to it, but it seemed to hurt more this time.

Caroline had hesitated
to touch him. She didn’t really want to disturb the man, but it wasn’t in her
nature to let him suffer in that middle seat. Because he certainly was
suffering. He looked jammed into the seat. Caroline knew he’d be stiff and
uncomfortable by the time they landed in Virginia if he sat there the entire
flight.

Caroline jerked
her hand away after he flinched. She didn’t mean to startle him, and for a
second thought that if he decided he wanted to strike out at her, he could
really hurt her. Not that she thought he would, but anyone that reacted that
quickly and suddenly certainly wasn’t used to being surprised.

Now he was
looking at her expectantly. She’d gotten his attention and Caroline needed to
follow through. She steeled herself and gave herself a quick pep talk. She just
had to say it quickly before she lost her nerve.

“Um…Do you want
to switch seats?” 

He didn’t
answer, but raised his eyebrows as if to ask why she was offering.

Geez, even his
eyebrow lift was sexy. “You don’t look comfortable,” Caroline told him bluntly
and honestly. “I’ll switch with you, that way you can at least have a little
bit more leg room here in the aisle.”

Wolf stared at
the woman. Why was she offering? He wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t an idiot, he wasn’t
going to turn down her offer. He was miserable. If she made a move on him later
in the flight he’d just have to politely rebuff her. Jesus, he was cocky and
conceited. He decided to think that the nondescript woman sitting next to
simply wanted to do something nice for a stranger. He’d believe that until he
was proved wrong. If he
was
proven wrong, he’d figure out a game plan
then. Arriving at his decision, he nodded once and told her simply, “Thanks.”

Standing up and
allowing the man to move out of the row, Caroline scooted past him and into the
middle seat. There was something very intimate about sitting in the seat while
it was still warm from his body. Especially when she thought about
what
body part had just been there. Caroline tried to put that out of her mind.
Sheesh.
Get your mind out of the gutter!
Caroline admonished herself.

Caroline knew he
didn’t need her slobbering all over him. She figured he had women throwing
themselves at him all the time. After throwing out the “body builder” thought
she’d had earlier, she guessed he was probably in the military. She hadn’t met
one “normal” man who looked him that wasn’t in the military. Especially
considering they were flying from San Diego, home of the one of the biggest
Naval bases in the United States.

When the man
leaned down to grab his backpack he’d stowed under the middle seat, Caroline
stopped him.

“It’s okay, just
leave it. It’ll give you more room for your legs.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course. Your
bag isn’t even really blocking my legs at all, I’m short.” She chuckled at
herself.