Rogue (SEAL Team: Disavowed Book 1) by Laura Marie Altom Read Free Book Online Page A

babies. But then she’d dumped him, because she’d never wanted to be a military spouse. Her dad met her mom while he’d been stationed at Mayport, near Jacksonville, Florida. Nash’s dad had been stationed there, too. The difference was that his father had been a loyal, loving husband up until three years ago when he’d passed of a heart attack. Maisey’s dad was still alive and well and—Nash assumed—sleeping with a different woman every night. Maisey had been an accident, and he’d married her mom, but only stayed around long enough for her to get out of diapers. When Nash and Maisey had been kids, he remembered her dad showing up for birthdays and Christmases, but that was about it. Her mother never divorced him, and as far as Nash knew, had never been with another man. The whole thing was tragic, which made the mess that had become of Maisey’s life that much tougher to bear.
    Maybe Nash could help her adjust to her new routine? Clearly, they’d never again be lovers, but at least friends.
    He used a machete to hack his way out of a particularly nasty mangrove patch, then five minutes later exited from the foliage to reach their temporary camp.
    “Mais?” Nash rounded the tree he’d instructed her to stay beside, only to have his heart catch in his throat.
    This couldn’t be.
    Was he in the wrong place?
    He swung around to check for landmarks. The fire still burned. The gator still hung on the spit. His CamelBak hung from a low branch, but the spot where he’d told Maisey to stay put was now empty.
    Where the hell had she gone?
    Pulse hammering, Nash struggled to find her trail, then he made a sick discovery. He picked up her trail easy enough, then followed it to a place where the muddied ground and flattened brush showed evidence of a struggle. Nash’s heart fell as he made out four sets of tracks moving away—clearly not Maisey’s. She wasn’t walking, because she was being carried by Vicente or one of his men.
     
     

10

     
     
    A TWIG SNAPPED.
    Not long after Nash left, the sound jolted Maisey from a deep sleep.
    Her gaze darted about their latest encampment, but when she saw nothing out of sorts, she drifted off again.
    Beneath closed eyes, sunlight played through the branches high above her head, forming a lacy pattern that made it easy to believe she was back home with all of this behind her. Shots hadn’t been fired, and she was no longer in a swamp, but in the park.
    Dreaming of a picnic.
    Of lying on a blanket spread over tall, swaying grass. Her baby boy rested beside her, giggling while she tickled his tiny nose with a dandelion. Nash was there, too. Not sharing her blanket, but standing watch. He carried a menacing gun and wore all black—cargo pants, T-shirt, boots, and gear. He hadn’t said a word. Just stared at her in that intense way he had back when they’d still been in high school, and she’d told him she’d never marry him
    His eyes were dark, expression unreadable.
    Her heart ached from the loss of not only her lover, but her best friend.
    Maisey woke again.
    The dream left her with an uneasy yearning for the way things used to be. She and Nash had finished each other’s sentences and laughed over jokes no one found funny but them. She’d never quite understood how things had gone so wrong, so fast . . .
    On a blistering May afternoon at their neighborhood pool—a week from graduation—Maisey and Nash shared a cherry snow cone on lounge chairs crammed together near the diving board. He leaned forward, licking syrup from her chin. “Marry me.”
    “What?” She couldn’t help but laugh. Not only was his question silly, but his tongue tickled.
    “You heard me.”
    “I thought you were joking?”
    “I’m not.”
    “What about college?”
    He frowned. “I can’t go. Mom said we don’t have the money. I signed up for the Navy and leave for basic a couple weeks after graduation.” He looked down, probably because he knew if he met her gaze, he’d find