The SEAL's Surprise Son (The Admiral's Seals, #1) - Leslie North Page 0,38

yellow caution tape as he went.

Carolyn kept busy throughout the day checking on her employees, answering questions for a police investigator, and sifting through the rubble until her hands were covered in ash. Frustration set in at the hopelessness of it all. She was getting nowhere, and whoever was targeting her had scored a hit—a bull’s-eye.

She had to put a stop to this, take action in some way, despite her promise to Zach the night before. How could she stay out of it when she was ankle deep in the remains of her family’s business? She considered her options, the information she possessed. Something in her still felt her mother’s former business partner was involved. The woman was dead, but a plot to take revenge on All That Sparkles might have been put in place long ago.

Zach would think her reasoning faulty. And he might be right, but she had one lead she could follow: Marta Huntly’s last known address. She’d found it before she found the obituary, and she’d plugged it into Google Maps. It was in a run-down neighborhood on the other side of the city, a matter of a few miles. She could just take a swing by for the sake of curiosity and see if the woman’s son still lived there—if the house was still standing. Some of those areas were being bulldozed to get rid of urban blight. But if he was there and she could speak with him, maybe she could put her suspicions to rest and see for herself that the Huntly family had nothing to do with her troubles.

She left the store and walked down the block to where she’d parked her car. She worried about leaving the structure unprotected, but what could she do? Plywood had been put up in the morning to cover the gaping holes where windows and the door had been, but the store was far from secure.

Once in her car and headed across town, she had second thoughts about going against Zach’s wishes. He’d asked for time to get a team together. To assuage her guilt, she picked up her phone. She’d call him and ask him to meet her at the address. But her call was forwarded to his employer’s home office, where an efficient-sounding woman informed her that, unless this was an emergency, Zach Vale was unavailable due to his current assignment. It wasn’t an emergency, and she wouldn’t make that claim, so she hung up without leaving a message.

Her rational brain reminded her that Zach’s employer could expect his dedication. It was his job. But a nagging voice in her head whispered that history was repeating himself. Zach would be perpetually unreachable—off on a mission, likely dangerous—and she’d be left waiting for him and worrying about what might happen. She, and now Austin, would always be left behind, abandoned as she had been by her father and Zach when he left on his final SEAL mission.

She continued negotiating the maze of streets taking her to the grittier side of the city. Her thoughts were deteriorating as rapidly as the buildings out her windshield. What if Zach was only with her because of the danger? He might view protecting her and Austin as an assignment. Once they were safe, what was his motivation for sticking around? He’d become tired of the routine of family life and seek the next adventure. That’s why he’d stayed in the SEALs past the time when most of his buddies were getting out. God, she couldn’t go through losing him again, and she wouldn’t put Austin through it either.

She tried to pull herself together. The man who’d made love to her the night before hadn’t seemed like he wanted to run from her. If anything, of late he’d insisted he was staying. The niggling doubt, though, had taken root in her brain.

Later. She’d deal with it later, she told herself, as she made the final turn onto a street containing row houses. They had probably been built a hundred years before to house the workers for the industrial part of Sheridan Falls. Most were dilapidated, showing signs of long-term neglect. They seemed deserted, with no signs of life. She pulled to the curb across the street from the house number she remembered from her research.

From her car, she studied the house. Nothing about it suggested someone lived there, except an envelope sticking out of the mailbox. The shutters were falling off, the paint was reduced to a dull gray, and