Way of the Warrior (Troubleshooters #17.5)(115)
Brianna raised her hand, and Jay called on her again as, heads together, the two women spoke. “I can think of an op where the CO would want an entire SEAL Team of hospital corpsmen,” she said. “If there was an earthquake, and a hospital got destroyed…?”
“For humanitarian efforts, yes. Good one.” From the corner of his eyes, Jay saw both Carol and the other woman turn and look directly at him.
Something was definitely up. “I’m guessing I shouldn’t have set my phone on silent,” he said as he balanced on his crutches to pull it out of his pocket. He flicked it on and…
Holy crap. Twenty missed calls, and a whole slew of texts that said…Danny’s wife Jenn had gone into labor, where?
“I’m sorry,” he said, already hobbling his way toward the door. “I have to run.”
But the look on little Brianna’s face made him realize that he’d frightened her. She’d leapt to the conclusion that if a SEAL with an injured knee was being called in, something terrible had happened to the SEALs—like her father—who were already out in the world.
“Everything’s fine,” he told her, told the whole class. “But a bunch of my friends are overseas on an op with Bree’s dad, and another of my friends is going to have a baby—right now. And I need to go help her, because her car broke down out in the desert, about an hour outside of town.”
As the words left his lips, Jay realized that he didn’t actually have any way to help Jenn. Because of his knee, he wasn’t driving his car. He’d gotten dropped off at the school by his teammate Tony V’s fiancé, Adam, who was an actor. Adam was currently filming an indie movie down by the Del, on the beach in Coronado, and he wasn’t going to be able to swing by to pick Jay up until after four. At the earliest. Jay’s plan had been to hang at the nearby library until Adam returned.
Now, Jay looked at Carol Redmond. “I don’t suppose you have a car that I can borrow. Maybe…?” His teammate Izzy Zanella had a song for every occasion, and the irreverent SEAL’s voice echoed in Jay’s head. Hey, I just met you. And this is crazy…
Carol laughed her surprise. “Can you even drive? I mean, with the…” She gestured to his brace.
He nodded. “I’ll take it off.”
“Won’t that hurt?”
Yes, but at least he’d be able to help Jenn. “I’ll be fine. I’m sorry to ask, I know you don’t really know me, but—”
“No, it’s okay.” Carol hurried to the big desk positioned at the front of the room, pulling an enormous, slouchy bag from the bottom drawer. She put it over her shoulder as she began sifting through it, hopefully searching for her car keys.
“Brianna’s dad, Hugh Bickles, called the office, hoping to reach you,” the older woman said. “Apparently there’s been a major accident north of Borrego Springs, and all emergency vehicles are tied up.”
“Dawn, this is Chief Jay Lopez. Jay, Dawn—Mrs. Breckenridge—is the school principal.” Carol threw out a quick introduction as she pulled out her keys. But she clearly was hesitating to just hand them over to Jay, instead looking at the other woman. “I don’t have bus duty today,” she started.
The principal nodded. “Go ahead. Drive the chief where he needs to go. The bell’s going to ring in a few minutes. I’ve got your class until then.”
“Thank you, Mrs. B.,” Carol said, and Jay echoed her.
She led the way out of the room, and broke into a run in the empty corridor. “Follow me out this door,” she called, pointing ahead of her. “I’ll get the car, pull it around!”
Carol was kind, beautiful, and a quick-thinker while under pressure. If Jay hadn’t already fallen hard for her, he’d now be total toast.
CHAPTER 6
Eden
“First-time mothers are always late. There’s no way this baby’s ready to make the scene. Certainly not today.” That’s what Jenn had told Eden, in order to let her ride shotgun on this mission of misery.
Freakin’ Greg. Eden’s stepfather was still making life hard for her, even from beyond the grave.
Late last night, when she’d gotten the call from her too-pathetic mother telling her that Greg was dead, Eden’s friend Tracy had immediately volunteered to go with. But that was before Tracy had a three a.m. visit from the Food Poisoning Fairy, and spent the wee hours of the morning sharing intimate secrets with her new porcelain BFF. And shortly after that was when Jenn proclaimed that she, instead, would keep Eden company, because always, no way, certainly not today…
Famous last words, Alex, for three hundred.
“Right about now I’m regretting not letting Ben come with us,” Eden said to Jenn as she helped her into the backseat of the car. Her little brother had gone pale at the news of nasty Greg’s passing, and yet he’d asked to come along. But only one of the Gillman siblings was needed for this unpleasant task, and since Danny was out of the country with SEAL Team Sixteen, it had fallen on Eden’s shoulders.
“Believe me,” she’d told Ben when she and Jenn had dropped him at the high school, “if Danny were home, I’d skip this magic show, too.”
“I was just thinking thank God he’s not here,” Jenn admitted, soggy and sweating and out of breath from that contraction.