Chapter 5
MITCH MANAGED to avoid Derek throughout the day, but now that the ceremony was over, and the guests mingled about the pool deck, it might be a little more difficult. The sun floated over the evening sky, casting its rays of deep orange, yellow, and speckles of pink.
“When do you go back to the base?” Riggs asked as he sipped his beer, his free arm draped over the back of Ashley’s chair.
When she’d walked down the sandy aisle in her crimson sundress and her dark hair with its bouncy curls flowing over her bare shoulders, he went weak in the knees, and his breath hitched. To say she was stunning would be the biggest understatement. During the entire ceremony, he couldn’t keep his eyes off her and when she slid her fingers over his forearm as they followed the happy couple, his chest puffed out in pride.
“My flight leaves late tomorrow.”
“So does Ashley’s. Perhaps you’re on the same flight,” Riggs said with a smile.
“Dad, I already told you we’re going to the airport together.” Ashley let out a small laugh as she crossed her legs.
A few hours ago, those same legs were wrapped around his body.
“I wish I could stay longer, but you know your mother. She likes me home for Sunday supper.”
“Because now that you’re teaching at West Point, she can actually cook you your favorite meals.”
Riggs patted his stomach. “And my growing waistline appreciates it.”
“Sir, mind if I ask you a question?” Mitch asked.
“As long as you stop with the sir shit, go ahead.”
Mitch shifted, leaning in toward the table, trying to keep his hand from landing on Ashley’s leg. Having her sit between them had turned out to be a bit of a distraction and a test of his restraint. “How was it going from active duty to teaching?”
“It was an adjustment, but one this old man needed to make, why?”
This had been Mitch’s weekend to relax and think about what he should do with the next phase of his life, and he found himself wondering if there was a place with Ashley in his future.
“I can’t go back to being a SEAL, and I’ve been offered two positions. One would be at the Naval Training Center heading up the selection process.” Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Ashley shift in her seat. Probably meant nothing. “Higher pay grade and it’s a management position, but—”
“You’d be at a desk,” Riggs said as he folded his arms on the table. “What’s option two?”
“Training Rescue Swimmers in Jacksonville.”
“That could be tough on your knee, causing more problems, especially if they are pulling you off active—”
“Ashley,” her father interrupted. “Now is not the time to offer advice.”
She narrowed her eyes and snapped her mouth shut, not looking too happy to be shushed by her father.
What grown woman would?
“I would think training is more up your alley, but recruitment into a program like the SEALs is an important job. Is there anything keeping you in Jacksonville?”
Mitch stole a glance at Ashley, who diverted her gaze to her fingers as she picked at her nail polish. The question on his mind, was she trying to act as if she didn’t care if he stayed or if he left. “My team has been stationed out of there for three years, the longest I’ve lived anywhere, even when I’d been deployed more than half that time.”
“I’ll be totally honest with you,” Riggs said. “I took the West Point assignment to bring my wife closer to her hometown There were other placement opportunities, but my wife stood by me all these years, I owed her a little peace and quiet.”
Ashley patted her father’s leg. “You took the post because Mom threatened to adopt a few more children because she was getting so bored now that we are all out of the house.”
“I let your mother think that,” Riggs said.
“On that note, I’m going to use the little girls’ room. Anyone want anything while I’m gone?”
“I’ll take another beer,” Riggs said.
“Me too.” Mitch watched as she walked away, her hips swaying in the breeze.
Riggs cleared his throat. “Young man?” he questioned with a deep growl.
“Sorry, sir.”
Riggs laughed. “She’s just like her mother in every way. Looks like her. Acts like her. Neither of them have any clue as to the extent of their beauty or the effect they have on any breathing man.”
Mitch cleared his throat, unsure of how to respond. He felt like he knew Ashley as if they’d been long-time friends.
But she’d been his therapist, always keeping him an arm’s length away.
Now that they’d been intimate, he felt unsure of himself which is a concept he didn’t welcome. Not with women.
Not with anything.
He looked across the room, trying to find the appropriate words, but Derek, who headed in his direction, soured his mood. “Fuck,” he muttered.
“What?”
“Sorry to use such language, but Derek is headed this way.”
“He’s got a lot of nerve.”
“You can say that again.” Mitch rolled his neck and shook out his hands, ready to fight. Not with his fists, but he could have a laser sharp tongue when he needed it. When Derek bragged about his girl back home, it seemed like harmless talk at first, but when he started sharing details of their sex life and then the pictures, Mitch was surprised the commander hadn’t done more damage.
But the fight Mitch had been called to report on had to do with insubordination. He hadn’t known Derek’s girlfriend was the commander’s daughter until after they’d returned home.
“He’s the sole reason she quit working on an Army base, my Army base. She thinks she embarrassed me. Well, she did no such thing, but that little weasel on the other hand—”
“Sir, do I need to worry about you hauling off and hitting him again?”
“Probably,” Riggs said.
“Good to know.”
“Excuse me,” Derek said as he hovered over the table. “Do you mind if I have a word with the commander alone?”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for the two of us to be left alone.” Riggs took the last swig of his beer, shoving it across the table. “He stays.”
“I wouldn’t ask, but it’s important,” Derek said in a polite, yet aggressive tone. “You’re going to want to hear what I have to say.”
“Whatever it is, you can say it in front of my daughter’s boyfriend.” Riggs folded his arms, smiling like a kid in a candy store.
Mitch swallowed his cough. He wouldn’t mind being Ashley’s love interest, but hearing it roll off her father’s tongue like it were a statement of fact, sent his heart racing in a panic.
He hadn’t caught her.
Yet.
Derek glanced over his shoulder before pulling an envelope out of his back pocket. “You should read this in the privacy of your own room if you’re not going to take a few moments to—”
“Cut to the chase and tell me what’s inside. I can’t stand this kind of bullshit game.” Riggs kept his hands in his lap, glaring at Derek. “Or have you forgotten?”
“If you want to have a confidential conversation about the contents, I’m happy to oblige but not in present company,” Derek said.
“You have a problem with me?” Mitch knew he should have kept his mouth shut, but he couldn’t help himself. Derek was a class A asshole, and Mitch would enjoy putting him in place.
Or watching Ashley’s father do it.
Either would suffice.
“I’m not going to waste my breath on you.” Derek didn’t even bother to look at Mitch, keeping his eyes locked on the commander.
Mitch shifted his gaze back and forth, waiting to jump in the middle.
“And I don’t have time for your rhetoric,” the commander said, his arms raised to the side in an act of aggression. “So, if you don’t have anything substantial to say, then my friend and I would like to go back to our conversation.”
“This is important.” Derek stressed the last word, inching closer. “Trust me, Riggs. You need to hear this.”
“That’s Sir, or Commander to you,” Riggs said with a real bite to his tone.
“You’re not my commander anymore and after how you tried to ruin my career—”
“I’d watch your mouth.” Riggs dropped the envelope on the table before pushing back his chair. He stood well over six feet, his body still a solid mass of muscle. “You’re lucky all you got was a slap on the wrist after what you did.”
Mitch rose, just in case he needed to insert himself between the two men, only he worried how he might react if Derek did anything stupid. If Mitch disliked him back then, he loathed him right now.
“What I did? All I did was defend myself. You—”
“I’m done with this conversation. Leave before my daughter gets back,” Riggs said, easing his stance, making Mitch feel a little better about the situation.
But not much.
Derek shook his head. “Please. Read the information. It’s important to Ashley’s safety as well as your own.”
“Are you threatening me?” Riggs stepped forward. “My daughter?”
Mitch pushed his arm out in front of the commander. Not so much to stop him, but if Derek was going to keep this going, Mitch would be the first to swing. “Let’s keep things civil.”
Derek leaned back, tossing his hands in the air. “This isn’t a threat, and I’m not the person you should be concerned with. If anyone is a danger to you or your daughter, it’s this guy.”
Mitch fisted his hand, itching to have his knuckles connect with Derek’s already messed up nose. “I don’t know what your game is, but back off before I become a danger to you.”
“I warned you.” Derek pointed to the commander before wandering away as if he were taking a leisurely stroll in the park.
“I’ve never hated a man that I didn’t know before,” Mitch said, shaking out his hands. “I didn’t like him the second I met him during Operation Hondor, I didn’t respect him after I heard him talking about Ashley, and now I just want to pounce on the mother fucker.”
“Why don’t you tell me how you really feel?” Riggs asked, as he lowered himself back in the chair. The sarcasm might have eased the thick tension ready to explode, but based on Riggs’s rigid demeanor, things were still volatile.
Mitch stared at the envelope. It wasn’t his place to ask Riggs to look inside. “He’s a nutjob.” He tried to ignore the hair sticking up on the back of his head and the sinking feeling that whatever information laid behind the sealed document, had something to do with him.