“Yeah, that won’t look suspicious or desperate. Maybe I’ll see him on the beach again sometime. Ugh. I should’ve just given him my number. Now he’ll think I’m blowing him off.”
“What else do you know about him?”
“He’s a SEAL. He has sisters. I don’t even know his last name, so it’s not like I can look him up. Besides, it’s not like Naval Amphibious Base Coronado has a directory of Navy SEAL teams available to the public. Gah. I’m so mad at myself. Here I was stressing about it for the past few days, and it doesn’t even matter.”
“We’ll find him,” Harper assured her. “Just leave it to me.”
“God. No. I wouldn’t leave anything to you,” Caitlyn joked. “You’ll probably find him and embarrass the hell out of me.”
“What did you tell him about yourself? Maybe he’ll look you up.”
Caitlyn frowned, regret washing over her. He might’ve looked her up—if she’d told the man her name. She’d been so freaked about getting hurt again, she hadn’t even given him a chance. “He knows next to nothing about me,” she admitted. “He knows I’m an event planner and that I was at the beach meeting with a bride. But I didn’t even tell him my name.”
“Well damn.”
“He wanted my number. And my name. I just got a little frazzled and didn’t know what to say. I told you that the other night.”
“Well, it looks like we’ll be spending a little time at the beach to find your mystery man,” Harper said with a grin.
“In this cast?” Caitlyn asked doubtfully.
“You’re getting it off next week,” she said smugly. “Problem solved.”
Caitlyn shook her head, taking a sip of her steaming coffee. “That would be my luck. He’s probably a decent guy, and now I’ll never see him again.”
Harper poured herself a cup of coffee as well, sinking down into one of the chairs by Caitlyn’s desk. “At least you don’t usually have to deal with flakey brides. That was my morning meeting. I was supposed to open up my bakery early, and she just called and rescheduled for Saturday. I lost out on all my beauty sleep for nothing.”
“Well, I’ve got a bunch of calls to make, but you can hang out here if you want.” She winked, since her best friend had already made herself at home.
“Just ignore me,” Harper said, sipping her coffee and pulling a tablet out from her purse.
Caitlyn got to work herself, looking through all the business emails she had—contracts with florists, caterers, clients, and more. She had a zillion things to do, and tracking down a Navy guy wasn’t one of them.
Chapter 4
Troy grunted as he strode down the ramp of the cargo plane a week later, the California breeze soothing his soul. It had been a grueling week in east Africa, hunting down the HVT the Pentagon had sent them after. He was dirty and tired, and he wanted to sleep for about twelve hours straight.
“I bet she called you,” Logan said from behind him, smirking as Troy shot him a look.
Hell. He felt like a teenager waiting for the girl he had a crush on to agree to go out with him. Except he wouldn’t run into her at football practice because he wasn’t in high school. And he couldn’t call her up and ask her out because he didn’t even know the woman’s name or number. “I hope so,” he said. “It’s not like I can look her up unless I start tracking down event planners across San Diego.”
“You’ve got it bad,” Grayson chuckled. He scrubbed a hand across the stubble on his jaw. “It was tough leaving Hailey when we flew home from Germany, but at least I knew her name and that we’d be in touch. I talked to her every night when she got back to Virginia.”
“Thanks Ghost, that’s real helpful.”
“Think she told you her name when she called?” Ethan asked. “That’d be a bummer if you had a garbled voicemail from a random woman and deleted it because you didn’t know it was your mystery girl.”
Logan guffawed. “Hell. It could be that chick that ditched him when his sister had a flat tire. Maybe she got over her bitchy mood and wanted T-Rex to take her out again.”
“Yeah, except I know that woman’s name,” Troy said, rolling his eyes. “Amber. Actually, I deleted her contact info. If I was smart, I would’ve blocked her number as well.”
“No big loss,” Ethan chuckled.
Troy shook his head. Damn, his teammates were exasperating sometimes. Living in close quarters with them for a week wasn’t exactly ideal. They were all tired, dirty, and in need of a hot shower. Not to mention a good meal. The MREs they lived on gave them calories but weren’t exactly gourmet. He was looking forward to showering, sleeping, and then eating a massive meal the next morning. At the moment, he was too tired to fix himself anything decent.
Blake came up next to them, grinning. “The second we get inside, I’m calling Clarissa. She’s got a crazy long winter break since she’s a college professor, which means she doesn’t have a lecture to give this evening.”
“Planning to get lucky tonight?” Logan joked.
“Well, they live together, asshole,” Troy said. “Isn’t that guaranteed?”
Good God. Usually, he didn’t mind joking around with his teammates, but at the moment, his patience was running thin. Probably because he’d been the cause of their ribbing on most of the flight back. They’d been all business in Somalia, moving as one unit to capture the HVT, but the long flight home had involved catching some shut-eye and shooting the shit. Since everyone but Logan and Troy were now in serious relationships, he’d been the one they were kidding around with.
“Too bad
