SEALs Of Honor: Mason Part 15

IN FACT, SHE dominated it. Dressed in midnight navy with a hint of glitter, the fabric s.h.i.+mmered with every step she took. Her hair was in a deceptively simple coil on the back of her head with a long pin sticking out of one side with a matching navy jewel at the top end. She wore the same simple cross she'd had on since he'd first seen her. That was it. Cla.s.sy, elegant. Money. More than that, she had presence.

He was on duty, his job to keep her safe. Not one of the guys would fault him for wanting her as his date for the evening.

She was stunning. She moved easily through the throng, deflecting questions and doing the social scene as if bred to it. And maybe she had been. Between her father and Harry, she had to have been exposed to a certain number of ceremonies. Not that they had the same social level as this big do did.

And the presentation...wow. If she was nervous she didn't show it. She spoke with calm organized thoughts, her voice easily modulating to affect the flow of information. She caught everyone's interest from her opening sentence, "I lost my brother to a land mine. I don't want to see another of our men go down from the same cause. Not when I can do something about it."

After that she had them eating out of her hands.

He was proud of her.

When she left the podium to a standing ovation, she beamed. And the world beamed back.

After that the hours pa.s.sed in a mess of smiles and handshakes. They walked as a pair, his hand on her back or her arm hooked into his. And they felt like a pair. By the time the evening wound down, he realized they'd been holding hands for several hours.

It felt natural. Special.

Just like her.

Chapter 20.

TESLA'S MOUTH HURT from smiling, her feet were throbbing from her killer heels and the d.a.m.n scratches on her arms were driving her nuts. What had seemed like super-soft material at the beginning of the evening was now aggravating the problem with every movement. The dress needed to go and the shoes had to go now.

"Can we leave?" she asked in a low tone. She was dancing a slow waltz in his arms, loving the romance of the moment but forcing herself to remember it wasn't real. It might become real but it wasn't yet.

And he wasn't hers. Although he should be as far as her heart was concerned. Somehow he'd become very much a part of her life.

She watched as he glanced around, motioned to someone out of sight before he glanced down at her and said, "Yes, we can leave."

"Good," she whispered. "I can barely stand anymore."

"Your feet?" he asked in a harsh whisper ladened with concern.

She loved that protector part of him. "Yes, but more from the heels than the old injuries."

"The combination can't be good." He led her off the dance floor and through the dwindling crowd.

She was so tired, she barely managed all the good-byes and thank yous as he led her outside. She waited at the doorway while the car came around, Mason standing in front of her. Then he walked her to the pa.s.senger side and helped her into the back seat. Inside she saw Swede in the front riding shotgun. She gave him a tired smile.

"I think I'd have rather had your job this evening," she said quietly. "My feet are killing me."

He grinned. "My size fourteens aren't made for high heels."

That was what she missed this last week. The teasing. The laughter. The sense of camaraderie.

"I think we might be able to find you a pair," Mason said, with a grin. "Cross-dressing has become much more popular."

Swede glared at him.

"When's your birthday?" she asked him in a teasing voice. At his horrified look, she laughed. "No worries. No high heels as gifts."

"d.a.m.n right," he muttered.

They pulled up to her house, and Swede hopped out and opened the door for her. Mason got out and came around to offer her a hand out.

"Thank you," she said to Swede and let Mason lead her into the house. She needed sleep. Tomorrow was big. As in national security big. But she had to get through tonight. She knew it was going to be a long one. She was physically and emotionally exhausted but too keyed up mentally to sleep. And she wanted to run through her program again.

There were a few things that had been bugging her in the back of her mind. She couldn't take the chance of there being a problem at this late hour.

"Bed," he said and walked her up the stairs to her room, searched the closet and bathroom then dropped to the floor to check under the bed.

He turned back to face her. "It's all clear."

She kicked off her high heels and stood for a moment in joy as her feet sank into the plush carpet. Her arches were trying to adapt to the change in position.

"So d.a.m.n good," she moaned.

He laughed. "If it's so bad why do women wear them?"

"'Cause they make our legs look miles long," she said saucily. "And men love the look."

He walked closer and tugged her into his arms. "I can't argue that. You knocked them dead tonight."

She chuckled. "You mean I'm dead tonight."

"After the day you've had, that you managed to go at all and then ended up doing so well is fantastic. Now you need sleep."

"Are you staying here," she asked, desperately trying to keep her voice neutral.

"I am. The door will stay open and I will be on guard outside."

She nodded. Of course he was. He was on duty. She was in danger and they had to keep her safe. Feeling let down but knowing she needed to sleep alone, for everyone's sake, she turned and tilted her head forward. "Please undo the zipper. I'm not up to any fancy contortions tonight."

He slid the clasp down then stepped back. "I'll be outside if you need me."

And he walked out.

Resigned to being alone again, she watched him retreat until he was out of sight. Turning back to her closet, she slipped off her dress, hung it up then stripped down to her skin and grabbed her boy shorts tank top pajamas. It took a moment longer to take off her makeup, her arm feeling heavy and unwieldy as she finished. So d.a.m.n tired.

Crossing to her bed, she pulled back the covers and crawled in. Sleep hit at the same time her head hit the pillow. She could feel her body sinking deep into the bedding. And she was out.

She woke up several hours later and rolled over. Her body ached with each s.h.i.+ft. Why? She opened her eyes, remembering the hours of being tied up in the SUV and the panicked run through the woods. She was so d.a.m.n grateful to be safe and home again. Well, maybe not home but here in a soft bed knowing she had people looking out for her. She just needed to get through tomorrow. She checked her phone. It was three in the morning.

And she hadn't gone over those few lines of code that were bugging her.

She slipped out of bed then realized her work was downstairs. She grabbed her silk robe and tied it around her waist as she walked to the door.

"Where do you think you're going?" Mason asked from the shadows.

"Earlier, something bugged me in the program. I can't sleep worrying that it might be more than a small error and need to check it out."

"You can't leave it until morning?" he asked, his voice gritty from lack of sleep. She studied him.

"How are you supposed to look after me if you're not rested?"

"I'm rested. Just waking up again. I relieved Hawk. He's sleeping downstairs. If we go down he won't get any rest."

She hesitated then shook her head. "I'll be quiet but I need to check this over."

He nodded and fell into step beside her.

Hawk was crashed on the couch, but she detoured into her office. "If it's nothing, I won't need but a moment." She hooked up a keyboard to the set of monitors.

"They took your laptop, didn't they? We never did recover it."

"Yeah, but I don't need it."

She pulled out her hard drive and booted up.

The screen lit up as they watched. She logged onto the one database she needed to check and scanned through the lines of code. Not seeing what she was looking for, she did a search. Empty. Feeling better, she went to the log to see the activity over night. Nothing.

She sighed happily.

"It's all good?" Mason asked.

"It's all good. I just need to look at one more place..."

She brought up the security files and gasped. "Except someone is trying to hack into the program."

"What? When?"

"Right now and has been for the last forty minutes." She refreshed the log. "But he stopped once I logged in."

"That makes no sense. If he's trying to log in he wouldn't know if you are logged in." He pulled up a chair and sat down beside her. "Right?"

She clicked a few keys, her mind storming through the possibilities. "Unless..."

"Unless what?"

"Did anyone contact Robert and Jordan," she asked. "I've sent them a message to let them know I'm okay. But has anyone checked in to make sure they are as well."

"I don't know." He had his phone out. "I can find out. I believe they were both contacted last night."

"Yeah, but has anything changed now, is the question."

"Why?"

"Because it looks like my employee Robert is online and can see that I'm online, that might account for the constant logging in and failing on my server and would account for them stopping as soon as they saw me online."

"But why would he stop then?"

"Because he's trying to use my log in to get on."

"And it's not working?"

"No," she said absentmindedly. "I changed it all yesterday morning before I was kidnapped."

He froze. "You changed it? Why?"

"I do as a matter of course change it every night, but yesterday morning I just wanted the extra precaution. The program was in theory done and no one needed to be working on it at all. So I locked everyone out then and moved it."

"And could they see that you'd moved it."

She frowned. "Yes, but I doubt this is a problem."

"Why, because you've worked with these people for months?"

"Years actually. Robert came on when I started this program. He was instrumental at helping me solve some bigger issues at the beginning."

"Is Robert getting paid for this?"

"Of course he is." She turned to him, her glare narrowing on his suspicious face. "What are you getting at?"

"You're set to make a substantial amount of money on this deal if it goes through, correct?"

"Yes." she nodded. "I am. So are they. I pay out bonuses and I give a lot away to charity. I always do. But we keep a year's worth of salaries in reserve to make sure we know we all have jobs."

"But this is the biggest contract ever, so in theory way more money in reserve and potentially more could have been paid out in bonuses?"

"Meaning that they are feeling hard done by. And want more?"

"Everyone wants more." He studied her face. "And what's the chance that you could have sold it for a lot more but chose not too. Which in theory means he could feel cheated."

She sat back. "It's possible. I'm not sure. There are a lot of people depending on me for their jobs. I hadn't considered that they might be looking at me as a bigger payout. Because I'm not," she admitted. "In leaner times, I took only my utilities and rent so I knew they had their wages."

"And I'm sure they appreciated that but consider that you're set to become a very wealthy woman now, and they may want a bigger slice of the pie."

She rubbed her forehead. "It's always possible. Robert wanted me to sell the program a year ago. He wasn't impressed when I refused."

"Why did you refuse?"

She drew circles aimlessly on the table top. "I wasn't going to sell it to the enemy."