Hot SEALs: Protecting Julie (Kindle Worlds) (SEAL of Protection Book 0) by Susan Stoker Read Free Book Online Page B

graces, but he didn’t think that was what Julie really wanted. She knew she’d never be best friends with the SEALs who rescued her. She only wanted a chance to apologize and to thank them.
    Suddenly Patrick really wanted her to have that shot.
    “I talked to Julie before the girls ran into her,” he admitted.
    “What?” Wolf questioned sharply.
    “What the hell, Hurt?” Cookie exclaimed at the same time.
    “Are you fucking shitting me?”
    The last was from Dude, arguably the most intense of the SEALs on the team. Patrick held up his hand. “Hear me out.”
    When the men nodded, he continued. “Tex gave her my number. She called wanting to see if she could find out who the SEALs were who rescued her so she could thank them, and apologize.”
    “A day late and a dollar short,” Dude grumbled.
    “She knows it,” Patrick confirmed. “She knows she fucked up and she wanted to make it right. I’m surprised Tex gave her my office number, but she never would’ve found out anything about you or how to get hold of you without Tex. Luckily he let me be the middle-man between you and her. She made a good case on the phone for wanting to apologize to you, so I went and met with her. I think she’s sincere.”
    “It wasn’t cool of her to talk to the girls,” Cookie complained, knowing he was being unreasonable. It wasn’t as if Julie planned for Fiona and the other women to go into her store.
    “I think that was purely by chance. At no time did she mention to me about wanting to see Fiona, Cookie. She was sorry about what she did, but she didn’t talk about tracking her down at all. I don’t think she even knows you guys are married. Think about it, Julie owns a secondhand shop that carries high-end designer clothing. Of course your women are gonna find out about it and make their way there. It was only a matter of time before they ran into each other. And neither Julie nor Fiona are dumb. I’m sure they recognized each other immediately.”
    No one said anything for a moment.
    “And just so we can get it all out on the table here…full disclosure and all that…I asked her out.”
    “You what ? Jesus, Hurt, you can’t do that!” Cookie exclaimed and stood up sharply, leaning toward his Commander with his body braced on the table with his hands.
    Patrick ignored Cookie’s outburst. “I can and I did, but you’ll probably be happy to know she stood me up.”
    At his Commander’s words, Cookie sat back down and ran his hand over his head. “She did?” he asked in a calmer voice.
    “Yeah. We were supposed to go to dinner Saturday night.”
    “The girls ran into her on Friday,” Cookie said solemnly.
    “I know that now, I didn’t then. I’m thinking after meeting them, she went over in her head whatever was said between them and she figured she might as well give up on the idea of seeing you guys.”
    “I think, Cookie,” Wolf said carefully, “it might do you some good to meet with her. To hear what she has to say.”
    “I don’t know, guys. You weren’t there. You didn’t hear how horrible she was when Fee was counting backwards to take her mind off of the fact she was going through withdrawal from the shit they’d been feeding into her veins. You weren’t there when she bitched that all I had to give her to eat was granola bars. You didn’t see the guilt in Fiona’s eyes when she didn’t think there was enough food to eat.” Cookie shook his head and repeated, “I just don’t know.”
    “Well, I think you’ll have some time to think about it,” Patrick told him. “I’m fairly certain I have my work cut out for me if I want to get her to agree to go out with me again.”
    “You really liked her that much?” Dude questioned.
    “Yeah. There’s just something about her. It’s like she’s a ten-pound terrier standing up to an eighty-pound pit bull. She’s scared out of her mind, but acts like it’s no big deal and that she can’t be hurt by anything.”
    “So you feel