Night Watch. Suzanne Brockmann

wasn’t that disconcerting. Weakly, she raised her wineglass in a salute.

      Wes was grinning at her. What had he told them about her?

      He gestured to her and although she couldn’t hear him, she could read his lips. Come here, baby.

      Baby?

      Those Irish eyes were positively dancing with mischief. Come on, honey. Don’t be shy.

      Honey, huh?

      What was it Han Solo always said to Chewbacca? I have a bad feeling about this.

      But shy wasn’t a word she’d ever used to describe herself. Curious, however, was.

      Britt pushed herself up off the wall. As she approached, the crowd parted for her, as if she were some kind of queen.

      “Hey, babe,” Wes said when she got closer. “I was just telling everyone—everyone this is Brittany, Britt this is everyone.”

      “Hello, everyone,” she said, trying not to be overwhelmed by the famous faces she spotted among them. Was that George Clooney standing at the edge of the crowd? If it wasn’t, it was his even better-looking clone. He nodded to her, his dark eyes nearly as warm as his smile.

      “I was telling the old story of how you nursed me back to health after I was injured, you know, when my squad was ambushed by al Qaeda forces.” Wes managed to capture her complete attention.

      “Oh, you were, were you? And when was this?”

      “Not the first time,” he said. He looked at the crowd and closed his eyes briefly, shaking his head in mock exasperation. “There were actually two times and she always gets them confused—”

      “Where will you be honeymooning?” the woman with the belly button and the cigarette interrupted to ask.

      What an…interesting question. Brittany looked at Wes, eyebrows raised. Apparently there were parts of that “old” story that she needed to be filled in on with just a little more detail.

      “I told them about the second time we were ambushed,” he told her. “You know, when the doctors were so sure I was going to die, only I opened my eyes and I saw you, and since the choice was between going to you or going to the light, I of course picked you.”

      “Of course,” she echoed. She had to bite the insides of her cheeks to keep from laughing aloud. And Wes knew it, the devil. “Where will we be honeymooning, Lambikins? Last time we discussed it, it was a toss-up between Algeria and Bosnia.” As Wes choked back a laugh, she turned to the crowd. “I’m afraid poor Wesley needs that little extra rush of adrenaline that comes from vacationing in countries with a high incidence of terrorism—to keep him revved up. You know how some men are. And so unwilling to ask the doctor for a simple Viagra prescription. I’d be happy with Hawaii, but, no.”

      Wes put his arm around her, pulling her so that she was pressed up against him. He kissed her, right next to her ear. “Thanks so much,” he murmured.

      She gave him a big smile. “Any time. Sweetie honey pumpkin pie.”

      “How do you handle it when he goes off to fight?” a woman with dark glasses asked. Brittany wasn’t positive, but she thought she’d seen her a time or two on daytime TV, while on break at the hospital.

      “Faith,” Britt said. She’d asked the same question of her sister, and Melody had given that exact answer.

      “Aren’t you afraid he’s going to, like, attack you in the night?”

      What? “Since I’m not a terrorist,” Brittany said, “no.”

      Wes apparently liked her answer. He gave her a squeeze.

      He still had his arm around her, and her entire left side was pressed against him. She could feel the muscles in his thigh, the solidness of his chest. That-Jerk-Quentin, her ex-husband, had been both taller and wider, but nowhere near as well endowed. Muscularly, that was, of course.

      “Is it true that in order to marry a SEAL—which stands for Sea, Air and Land, right?—you have to get it on in all of those places?”

      Good God. Brittany doubted it, but she honestly didn’t know. Was there some secret club she didn’t know about? Her sister had managed to get pregnant at thirty thousand feet, but at the time Melody had had no intention of getting married. As for sea and land, well, land was easy enough, and most SEALs had access to a boat. Unless…

      “By sea do you mean underwater or on top of the water?” she asked. It was such a ridiculous question, she started to laugh. She turned to Wes. “Because, honey, we’ve done underwater a few times, haven’t we? Once when we were scuba diving off the coast of Thailand, and once in the Bering Strait?”

      Wes was making that odd, choking sound again.

      “I’m so sorry,” Britt said. “But my dearest darling needs some air. War wounds, you know, acting up. Excuse us.”

      The crowd parted like magic, and she was able to lead Wes into Amber’s house, through a kitchen that was twice the size of Brittany’s entire apartment, and down a long marble-tiled hallway.

      Most of the guests were outside, and once they were alone, Wes leaned back against the wall and laughed until his eyes watered. “The Bering Strait?” he gasped. “Do you know the average water temperature in the Bering Strait?”

      Well, considering it was up by Alaska…“Cold?”

      “Very cold, my dearest darling. No one’s doing anything raunchier than Eskimo kisses underwater up there. Believe me. You go into that water, and you’re in a dry suit. Which is even more cumbersome than a wet suit. And then, even within the dry suit, there’s the small matter of the effect of freezing temperatures on male anatomy. Pun intended.”

      Brittany grinned at him. “Men are such fragile, delicate creatures.”

      “Tell me about it.” He grinned back at her. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t ask you to marry me before introducing you as my fiancée, but some of those women were starting to circle like sharks. It was just a matter of time before they attacked.”

      “And you really don’t want that?” Brittany had to ask him, suddenly serious. “I would never say this in front of Andy, and if you repeat it to him, I’ll deny having said it, but it’s not as if these women are looking for a lifetime commitment right from the start. And you…You can’t exactly have Lana, right? I certainly won’t think less of you if you—”

      “Thanks, but no thanks,” he said. “Unless you decide to join the circling sharks.” He was only teasing. He wiggled his eyebrows at her as he leaned closer. “I’ll be your bait any day, babydoll. Have I mentioned how much I love that dress?”

      “Repeatedly,” she told him. “Wes, come on. Seriously. Who knows? Maybe one of these girls actually has a soul. Maybe you’ll meet her and forget all about Lana. You’ll never know if it’s even possible if you don’t let yourself get close to anyone else.”

      He sighed. “Britt, these women don’t want to discuss philosophy with me. They want to jump me in their car.”

      “Gee, what’s that enormous blob blocking out the sun? Oh, my God, is it your ego?”

      Wes laughed. “Yeah, no, I said it wrong. They don’t want to jump me, they want to jump a SEAL. Any SEAL. It has nothing to do with me. They just want to be able to tell their friends that they got it on with a SEAL. You know, add that to their sexual resume.”

      Ew. “Really?”

      “Yeah. SEALs get laid simply by being SEALs. Anywhere, any time. It doesn’t matter what we look like, doesn’t matter who we are. And yeah, I’ve taken advantage of that more than I like to admit and…I don’t know. Right now I’m tired of it. I’m going through this phase, I guess, where I want the woman I’m in bed with to like me for me—at least a little bit.”