Hot SEALs: SEAL's Ultimate Challenge by Elle James

pistol tucked inside and made a thorough perusal of the parking lot before she walked to her Jeep. One circle around her poor, damaged Jeep reassured her nothing had been tampered with since the incident the night before. By the time she slid behind the wheel and locked the doors, she was convinced she was overreacting to a random act of thuggery.
    Morning rush hour was particularly insane on her way to work, with people pulling out in front of her vehicle and nearly sideswiping her. She reached the rehab center with no incident, but her nerves were frayed and her lack of sleep topped with a heavy dose of caffeine weren’t helping.
    “You look like hell,” Eric greeted her in the break room.
    “Thanks,” she snarled. “I love you, too.”
    “What’s got your scrubs in a twist?”
    “Nothing.” Everything. One SEAL in particular.
    Eric checked the schedule. “You have a pretty full day, but one of your guys cancelled. Mind if I give you one of mine?”
    “I don’t mind. Who cancelled?”
    “Nipton.”
    Her heart skipped several beats and then raced on. “Oh, yeah?”
    “Yeah. Called first thing this morning and said he had an appointment he couldn’t miss at the same time this afternoon.”
    Perhaps he’d had an attack of guilt. After all, he had a fiancée deployed to Afghanistan.
    “About Nipton—”
    “Did you hear, Pendley handed in his resignation? He’s taken a job in Richmond as head of a small physical therapy clinic. That’s going to leave us really shorthanded until we can hire in a couple more therapists.” Eric glanced up. “What about Nipton?”
    “Nothing.” She checked her schedule and headed out onto the floor in search of her first patient. She couldn’t pass Reaper to anyone else when the staff were already shorthanded. Besides, what excuse would she give? I kissed a patient and want to go to bed with him. Is there a problem?
    Her career as a therapist would be over practically before it got started. She would have failed at two careers, and she hadn’t even hit thirty. No. She had to get a grip on her feelings, squelch her desire, and keep marching. Changing careers now wasn’t an option, and her stint here was too short to job hop to another clinic. She didn’t have enough experience on her resume to attract any other offers.
    As she worked through the day, she wondered what appointment Reaper had that was so important he couldn’t complete his session. Or if there really was an appointment. At lunch, she got on the phone with Caitlynn Tate, the prosecuting attorney she’d dealt with during her stint as an officer of the DCPD.
    Her secretary patched the call through.
    “Officer Fields, what can I do for you?” Caitlynn answered.
    “First off, I’m not an officer anymore.”
    “I’m sorry to hear that. I was really hoping you’d recover sufficiently to go back to work for the department.”
    “It wasn’t to be. But I’m okay and working with disabled vets in Bethesda.”
    “I bet the work’s a lot more rewarding than street cleaning in the capital.”
    “It is.” Leigha realized for the first time that it really was. Her colleagues weren’t badgering her about being the smallest cop on the force, and the patients were, for the most part, grateful for her assistance, not trying to shoot at her. For a woman who, at one time, could only see herself as a cop, she’d not only reimagined her life, she was living it and that made her feel pretty damn good. And the fact someone had tried to take away her newfound confidence by ramming into the back of her Jeep pissed her off. “I have a favor to ask.”
    “Anything,” Caitlynn responded.
    “Is it possible to find out if any of the criminals I’ve arrested, who were subsequently sentenced to prison, have come up for parole?”
    “We have a database that collects that information. I’ll have my secretary run a query.”
    “I’d appreciate anything you can give me.” If the attack the night before was