SEALs of Honor: Shadow by Dale Mayer Page A

chest.
    Cooper coughed several times.
    Arianna rounded on Shadow. “What was that for?” she cried. “We were just having a nice conversation.”
    He glared at her. But never said a word.
    “See, you’re just being mean again.”
    The men in the truck were all trying to suppress chuckles. Cooper the most of all. She studied him suspiciously. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
    “Just my feelings,” Cooper managed in a deadpan tone of voice.
    “Oh, I’m so sorry. Shadow is like that,” she explained to the captive audience. “He rarely explains himself. He probably just didn’t want you to give the wrong answer and be embarrassed.” She rounded on Shadow who was staring at her in apparent fascination. “If you’d explain yourself a little more it would be easier on everyone. Use those words I know you have inside,” she said nicely. “It really will get easier over time.”
    “You talk too much,” he snapped.
    Her lower lip trembled.
    An odd silence sounded in the truck.
    Cooper nudged Shadow. “Fix it.”
    “It’s okay,” she said in a low voice. “It’s not the first time he’s told me that.”
    And she was jerked forward and kissed hard.
    Eagerly she threw her arms around him and kissed him back only he suddenly pushed her back and jammed her up against his chest.
    Happily she snuggled in close. “I’m sorry for calling you mean. You’re really a pussycat inside.”
    *
    Shadow sighed. What the hell was he going to do with her? Calling him a pussycat. Hell, he was a fucking panther in the dark.
    “Isn’t that nice,” Hawk murmured from the other side. “I’m happy we have a pussycat in the truck.”
    The group sniggered.
    Mason, who was driving, came to Shadow’s rescue. “But as I recall we’ve all had similar scenarios happen to us.”
    “So damn glad that’s over,” Dane said with feeling. “What a confounding stage of life that was.”
    Confounding. Yeah, that was the word for it. Shadow stared down at the woman snuggled up against his chest. How could she be such a powder puff right now and yet be the same woman who’d signaled for help in the cabin window and crawled from tree to tree to knock an attacker down because he was hunting her brother? And that was without mentioning the three men she shot to death.
    Now she was curled up like a baby as innocent as could be.
    Yeah, he was confounded. Not only by her behavior but her thought processes. She seemed to think he was… Hell, he didn’t know what she thought. He’d say wonderful but that was ridiculous. Yet by body language alone, he had to consider it. She didn’t go to any of the other men on her own.
    “Next time,” Cooper announced, “there’s a beautiful woman who needs rescuing, I get the job.”
    Several of the guys chuckled. But everyone in the truck knew what he meant.
    Shadow wondered if fate played a hand in picking the rescuers. Then again, he’d rescued dozens of people and outside of normal gratitude they never seemed to show any interest in him. Yet every time lately they’d been on a mission and a woman had been in trouble, she’d hooked up with one of his teammates. And he might have had a hand in that last time too. He’d known Swede had been sweet on Eva for years. But she was – in his head – forbidden. Shadow had even helped send him to her rescue, hoping it would be enough to change things for his friend. And it had.
    More than anyone had expected.
    That wasn’t the same thing right now. He’d never met Arianna before.
    And there’d been more than just him involved in this rescue, but Arianna had apparently picked him. Shadow just didn’t know to what extent she was favoring him.
    But he wanted to.
    He leaned back and closed his eyes. It was going to be a long trip. All the more so the way she slumbered. His body was more than aware of the feminine body on his lap. It didn’t need any more incentive to wake up and pay attention.
    Arianna shuffled slightly and moaned.
    He groaned as