Finding Carly (SEAL Team Hawaii #5)(97)

Jag closed his eyes and did his best to get a handle on his emotions. He shouldn’t be surprised how well she was taking what had happened. That she didn’t blame him, the detective, or his SEAL team. They’d all let her down, and yet by some miracle, she still didn’t blame them.

His eyes opened, and he pulled her against him once more. She went willingly and snuggled close.

“Marry me,” he whispered.

“Of course,” she whispered back.

Jag wanted to laugh. She didn’t sound surprised, didn’t get all giddy and excited. She accepted his proposal calmly, as if it was a foregone conclusion that he’d ask and she’d say yes.

“I don’t have a ring, but I’ll get one,” he told her.

“Don’t care,” was her response.

“We can have any kind of wedding you want.”

“Duke’s,” she said without lifting her head from his shoulder. “I want to get married on the beach at Duke’s. Anyone who’s there for a meal can attend. Hell, anyone on the beach can come too. I want hula pie for our cake, and I want Paulo to officiate. He’s already got the license and everything, I heard him talking about it once. He’ll be hilarious…and that’s what I want. For everyone to laugh and have a good time.”

“Done,” Jag said.

“I want to wipe out any lingering bad energy from that beach after what Shawn did. I want to rub it in his face, wherever he is, that he didn’t win. In fact, that he lost spectacularly. He didn’t break me. Didn’t break Kenna. Instead, because of what he did, he brought me to you, and now I’m happier than I can ever imagine being.”

God, Jag loved this woman.

“Can I ask something?”

“Of course. Anything,” Jag said.

“Will you tell me about Gideon? I know you must’ve talked to Detective Lee. Will you tell me what you found out about everything he did? How he managed to trick everyone?”

Jag didn’t want to. He wanted to lie there and never think of that fucking asshole ever again, but Carly deserved to have her questions answered.

“The cops haven’t found a suicide note or anything yet. I’m guessing he didn’t leave one. Based on the security footage, he provoked the lions, teasing them with their morning meal, not giving it to them. They were extremely agitated when he walked into that enclosure. It didn’t help that he was holding the raw meat they received in the mornings. He didn’t die fast.” Jag was extremely happy when he heard that last bit from the police.

“I have to admit that I feel a little bitter, knowing I won’t get to face him. Don’t get to show him that he didn’t break me. But he got what he deserved.”

Jag wasn’t so sure about that, but he let it go. “Apparently he borrowed the boat from one of his coworkers at the zoo. The man thought Sparks was into fishing, never thought twice about letting him take the boat out whenever he wanted. It wasn’t moored at a marina or anything, which was why Baker couldn’t find security video of him at any marinas. It was simply tied up in a private inlet near the man’s house, and Sparks could come and go without anyone seeing him or being suspicious.

“A woman came forward after she saw the news about what happened. She was the one who got the restraining order against him. She was very young at the time, on the verge of losing her apartment and flat broke. Sparks played on that, most likely with Keyes’s encouragement. He helped her out, she let down her guard. Then he changed, began to manipulate her. Belittle her.”

“Like Shawn did to me,” Carly said quietly.

“Yeah. We think Shawn got some kind of sick thrill out of teaching a socially awkward loner like Gideon how to fuck with women’s heads. We can only speculate at this point, but I assume Gideon was more than willing to help with the plan, to thank Keyes for his mentoring. Especially after you took out the restraining order, just like the girl he’d dated. And when Shawn died…he probably just cracked. Couldn’t handle it. All his dreams of having a woman of his own had gone down the drain because he needed Shawn to help him manipulate others. You were the only person he could blame.”

Jag stopped speaking and held his breath as he waited for Carly’s reaction.

“That’s…so sad,” she said after a moment.

It was sad. Pathetic, tragic, and fucked-up, but sad.

“And the island I managed to wash up on really is called Bird Shit Island?” she asked.

“Apparently. Its real name is Mōkōlea Rock. But locals call it Bird Shit Island because, well…you know.”

Carly snorted. “I know.” Then she tentatively asked, “So…it’s really over?”

Jag’s arms tightened, and he had to force himself to relax. “It’s over,” he reassured her.

He felt her sigh in relief against him, her warm breath caressing his neck.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Jag asked, wanting to make sure she wasn’t just humoring him.

“Yeah. I want to put Shawn, and Gideon, and everything about that damn relationship behind me. I want to move on. To marry you, to get back to the person I was before all this happened. I made some mistakes, but I didn’t deserve what happened to me.”

“No, you didn’t,” Jag agreed.

She tilted her head back. “Are you and the others going to be headed out on a mission soon?”