The SEAL's Valentine. Laura Marie Altom

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      Brynn reached for him, trying to grab the red T-shirt that had been so thoughtfully provided in return for the Mud Bug’s fifty-dollar tryout fee, but he was too fast. He took off across a weed-choked field.

      She started after him, but a male voice behind her called, “Let him go. He’ll be all right.”

      Brynn turned to find the man she’d seen earlier in the outfield. Up close and personal, he was as intimidating as he was impressive. He’d also inserted himself smack in the middle of an intensely personal conversation to which he hadn’t been invited. “If you don’t mind, I’ll be the judge of what’s best for my son.”

      “By all means.” The stranger held up his hands. Hyper kids and their parents made their way to their cars. An audience compounded the awkward factor. “Sorry. Last thing I want is to get into your family business, but I remember the sting of being cut from my grade-school team. Only by my senior year, I’d filled out a little and we went on to win the AA State Championship.”

      Mack had been on that team. Had this man known her husband?

      “Anyway,” he went on to say, “your boy might think this is the end of his world, but he’ll turn out okay.”

      With everything in her, Brynn fought a flippant comeback. This stranger had no idea what Cayden had already been through—not to mention the baseball legend he’d had for a father. It was a cruel twist of fate that a sporting talent that should’ve come to the boy as naturally as breathing had escaped him.

      “Thanks for your insight,” Brynn muttered, “but instead of letting my six-year-old run away, I’d rather handle this loss by the traditional mom method—with plenty of ice cream and hugs.”

      “Sure.” Hands tucked in his jeans pockets, the guy backed off. “And for the record—I never said either of those things were bad.” Then as abruptly as he’d appeared, the stranger melded into the crowd.

      Brynn was again alone, worrying about her son, only she now carried the additional burden of being embarrassed by her snippy attitude toward someone who was undoubtedly a friend of a friend and had meant well. She never used to be this angry, bitter shell of a woman, but then Cayden never used to run off crying, either.

      Glad she’d worn jeans with sneakers, Brynn chased after her son as quickly as her pregnant belly allowed. “Cayden! Come here, sweetie!”

      “Leave me alone!”

      The closer she got, the deeper into the boggy woods he ran.

      With sunlight fading, Brynn’s stomach knotted. Not only were the woods home to whining mosquitoes, ticks and other biting bugs, but poisonous snakes and gators. “Cayden, sweetie, I know you’re upset, but this is getting dangerous.”

      “Go away! I wanna be alone!”

      Brynn wasn’t especially prone to panic, but she honestly was at a loss as to what to do. Hands to her temples, she urged her mind to think and her pulse to slow. Her single-parenting books frowned on rewarding a child’s poor behavior, but it wasn’t as if Cayden had run off with malice in his heart. He was understandably hurt that his friends had the God-given skills to play baseball and not him.

      The ground squished beneath her rubber soles and the air smelled dank. Darkness was closing in, accompanied by a cacophony of foreign sounds. Though the ballpark wasn’t that far behind them, they might as well have been in a different world.

      “Cayden, please, come here!” she called. “This isn’t funny!”

      When he failed to answer, her blood ran cold.

      Anything could’ve happened.

      Brynn now trekked through sloppy mud, making her footing treacherous. The vegetation was dense, choked with brambles and vines.

      “Cayden! Answer me!”

      Still nothing.

      If something happened to her son, Brynn wasn’t sure how she’d survive. Aside from a smattering of friends, she had no one. Prescandal, at the height of his fame, it’d seemed she and Mack were never alone. They’d been the golden couple everyone wanted to be with. Postscandal, she’d become a pariah. Assets frozen and beyond broke. If it hadn’t been for Mack outright owning his old family home, Brynn and Cayden wouldn’t even have a roof over their heads.

      “Cayden!” Deeper and deeper into the now dark woods Brynn crept.

      “Mommy...” His voice barely carried.

      “Sweetie, call me again so I can find you!”

      She heard her son, but also a low, guttural grunt.

      Panic set in and the faster she tried reaching her son, the tougher time she had finding solid footing. Her feet and the hems of her maternity jeans were cold-soaked, yet her upper body was sticky with sweat. The stench of rotting leaves turned her stomach. The humidity was as unbearable as her storming pulse.

      “I’m scared...”

      “I know, angel.” She trudged forward. “Do I sound closer?”

      “I don’t know.”

      Foliage clawed at Brynn, making her every move torture. The grunt came again, filling her mind’s eye with horrific images of her baby boy clamped between an alligator’s jaws.

      “Mommy, please hurry! It’s gonna eat me!”

      Panic surged through Brynn, making her strong but stupid, chasing after her boy without a clue where to find him.

      * * *

      “THANKS FOR HELPING ME OUT.”

      “Anytime, man. Looks like you’re going to have a great team.” Tristan Bartoni shook Jason’s hand. They’d been friends since Mrs. Fleck sat them next to each other in the second grade. A week later, he remembered with a chuckle, she’d separated them for talking too much.

      “What’s caught your funny bone?” Jason hefted the last of the equipment into his truck bed. The vehicle had come along with his recent election win as Ruin Bayou Chief of Police. Not only was the rig equipped with flashing lights and a siren, but tires that could handle damn near any terrain—a good thing considering the whole town was practically a swamp. His wife and toddler son had already long since gone home.

      “Just thinking how much trouble we used to get in. Hard to believe where we are now.”

      Jason snorted. “Yeah. Back when we used to sit in detention every afternoon, who’d have thought we’d now be in charge?” He elbowed Tristan. “Well, me anyway. I don’t know what you fancy navy SEALs do.”

      “Yeah, yeah.” Tristan took out the keys to his own more modest black Ford pickup. “Just keep tellin’ yourself that. You might keep Ruin Bayou safe, but my jurisdiction’s the world.”

      “Modest much?” Jason had climbed behind his wheel.

      “Nah.” Tristan slipped his key into the ignition when he noticed the SUV the crabby pregnant woman had stood alongside was still parked at the far end of the lot, only with СКАЧАТЬ