Page 18 of Her Loving Hero

She frowned. “Didn’t you join the Navy right out of high school?”

“Yes. I’d been working towards an associate degree, on the eight-year plan, but after my injury I started to speed things up. I began taking on-line courses so that I can get Bachelors of Science in Information Technology.”

Emily’s eyes got wide. Wyatt started rubbing the back of his neck as it stiffened up. Ah dammit, he really hadn’t told her anything. He waited for the shitstorm.

She opened the door even wider and grabbed his forearm. “Come inside.”

What the hell? Entrance to the inner sanctum?

Her apartment was drab and dreary. She must have seen his look. “It came furnished,” she explained.

His heart skipped a beat. Emily was still keeping herself boxed in a shell. She needed to punch her way out. This was no way to live. She took him to a corner where a tiny desk was set up and her laptop was open. She bent over and keyed in her password.

“Sit down,” she said as she practically pushed him into the dining chair that she used as her office chair. Wyatt realized he was looking at a closed chat group. He scrolled through the posts, almost all of them were in English, but some were in Arabic. He could read some words in Arabic, but mostly he could only speak it.

“So, your handle is TeachThat?” he asked as he continued to scroll through the chats.

“Yeah, I thought it was cute back when I was eighteen.”

“It’s still cute now that you’re twenty-three,” Wyatt grinned up at her. He clicked on one of the posts about a student gathering in Muscat that had been dispersed by authorities three weeks ago. As he dug in, it steered the conversation over to a private chat.

“Shit,” he said.

“Exactly,” Emily agreed. “That’s why I wanted you to come in. My sister Carly called. She’s hearing some gossip at the private school she attends over at the capital city. It’s filled with kids of embassy personnel, oil, pharmaceutical and airline execs. Seriously, while I was there it was a hotbed of information.”

“What are they saying?”

“That some of the unrest going on in Yemen is finally going to spill over into Oman. She’s worried. That’s why I came over to this chatroom.”

Wyatt’s fingers flew over the keyboard trying a myriad of ways to bypass the security that they were using to block the private chat. It was killer.

“What are you doing?” she asked as she bent closer to see the screen. Today she smelled of cinnamon and vanilla. Her warm breath tickled his ear.

“Somebody really doesn’t want us to find out what they’re talking about,” he said as he typed faster.

“Motherfucker!” Wyatt watched in amazement as Emily’s screen was covered in tiny little pictures of the middle finger spiraling around in one big coiled snake. Then it went black.

Her hands gripped his shoulders as she cried out. “What just happened?”

“We’ve been owned,” Wyatt slapped his hands down on either side of the keyboard, causing the flimsy particle board desk to rock.

“Huh?”

“I’m pretty sure your hard-drive has just been screwed over, totally wiped clean if I had to guess. I’ll see what I can do, but these assholes probably killed you.” He turned around to look at her. “Goddamn, I’m so damned sorry Em. I should have been more careful.”

She bit her lip. “Does this happen a lot? I mean, how often has it happened to you?”

“It doesn’t happen to me. I’m secured up the ass.” He jerked out of the chair, then caught it when it started to tip over. He grasped her shoulders. “I’m so sorry. I’ll buy you a new laptop. Do you back this up?”

She looked at him like he was a backward five-year-old. “I’ll take that as a yes,” he smiled wryly.

“Good thinking. Now why do you think there was such intense security on a chat?”

“Smart, beautiful, and you’re willing to smack me upside the head. You know, I could easily fall in love with you, right?”

He waited with bated breath to see how she would respond to that.

“Stand in line Navy Boy.” Her smile was brilliant. He let out a silent sigh of relief.

Could he push for a hug? He looked in her eyes and decided to leave it alone for now.

“Let’s go grab dinner at the diner like we planned. We can discuss what you know about Oman and give me more info about the regular chat room, and then I’ll discuss it with Dex. I should know more when I bring by your new laptop.”

“You are not buying me a new laptop,” she said firmly.

“Grab your sweater.”

“Wyatt, are you listening to me?”

“Absolutely.”

“Are you going to obey me?” she asked as he draped the sweater over her shoulders.

“Not a chance in hell.”