Free Outcast (SEAL Team: Disavowed Book 2) by Laura Marie Altom Page A

enough—no phone.
    “What’d you do with the phone, Dane?” Jasper strode back to the kitchen.
    “Pardon?”
    “Don’t play dumb.” Jasper wanted to charge him. He wanted to punch his stupid, smiley lights out. Out of respect for Eden, he didn’t. But it was hardly a secret that she was pissed by his continued distrust of Daddy Dane. “See this?” He waved the note in Dane’s now expressionless face. “Roger says he left a sat phone on the table. Have you seen a phone?”
    “No. And I resent the fact that you’re blaming me for an act I had no part in. You’ve been with me since we all set foot in the station. When would I have even had time to take it?”
    “I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation.” Of course, Eden jumped to Dane’s defense. Maybe that was Dane’s game, to turn her against the one man she could actually trust. But was that entirely true? She’d asked him to respect her wishes in the most sacred manner of allowing her to make decisions regarding her own body, and he’d not only refused, but actively plotted all the ways he’d work to find her a cure the second they returned to civilization. There was no way he’d let her die.
    “Like what?” Jasper waved his hands. “Did it up and decide to spend the day hot air ballooning?”
    “You’re losing it.” Tears shining in her eyes, Eden shook her head. “I used to think of you as my rock, but now you’ve become a cold, cynical man. For the last time, Dane is one of my, and my father’s, dearest friends. Respect that relationship or walk to McMurdo.
    Jasper balled his hands into fists.
    Stepping between him and Dane, she reached out to skim both of their arms. “Nothing would make me happier than for the two of you to be friends.”
    “Is that your missing phone?” Dane pointed to the last row of tables. “On the floor next to that sweatshirt?”
    Jasper hadn’t been able to spot it from his initial point of view, but from his current angle, the phone was in plain sight.
    “You owe Dane an apology,” Eden said.
    The hell I do . How had the phone gotten from the table to the floor? Santa and his elves hung out at the North Pole—not the south. One time too many, he’d taken a man at his word—a friend—and it had ended up bad. His sister-in-law, Mariah, hadn’t just been his brother’s wife, but Jasper’s confidant and friend. The fact that she’d died because of his asinine stupidity had driven the entire course of his adult life. After her funeral, he’d joined the Navy because his family wanted nothing to do with him. Ever since, everything he’d ever done had been with the sole hope of making them proud. Making them love him again. His fling with Eden was never supposed to have gone further. But it had. And now, in some mixed-up, impossible to understand way, she’d become a second Mariah. A woman he loved and respected and above all, needed to protect.
    Because of his blind hatred for his old pal who’d long ago duped him, could he be distrusting Dane for no better reason than a ten-year-old grudge against a guy who’d long since been locked away for dealing?
    “Jasper? The burgers are ready. Come eat.”
    He jolted at the sudden warmth of Eden’s hand on his back.
    “Where were you? You seemed lost in another world.”
    “I was.” But I’m here now . The past is in the past—where it needs to stay, and if any of them were going to get out of this alive, he had to set his mind to answering at least a few of the far too many questions surrounding this supposed treasure.
    “Figures.” She’d picked up the phone and tried calling Roger’s number. “No signal.” She set it on the legal pad. “We’ll try again after lunch.”
    Lunch. What was he going to do? His every instinct screamed at him to pitch Dane’s meal straight into the nearest round file, but Eden would freak. On the flip side, what if she ate it, and then dropped dead?
    “O-M-G.” She groaned after her first bite.