Dark Ops Novel 3:
RENEGADE
By Catherine Mann

Chapter One

Present Day: Tonopah Test Range, Nevada:

For Tech Sergeant Mason “Smooth” Randolph a great flight was a lot like great sex.

Both brought the same rush, sense of soaring and driving need to make it last as long as absolutely possible. On the flipside, a bad flight was every bit as crappy as bad sex. Both could quickly become awkward, embarrassing, and downright dangerous.

As Mason planted his boots on the vibrating deck of an experimental cargo plane, his adrenaline-saturated gut told him that today’s ultra secret mission had the potential to rank up there with the worst sex ever.

The top notch engines whispered a seductive tune, mingling with the blast of wind gusting through the cargo door cranking open. Whoever came up with dropping supplies out of the back of a fast moving aircraft must not have stood where he was standing now. Of course for that matter, nobody had stood in his boots on this sort of flight. That was the whole purpose of his job in an Air Force’s highly classified test squadron.

He did things no one had tried before.

On today’s mission, he would offload packed pallets from a test model hypersonic cargo jet, a jet that could go Mach 6, far outpacing the mere supersonic speed of Mach 1. The deck of this new baby gleamed high tech and totally pristine without the oil and musty smell that accumulated with the history of many successful missions.

The metal warmed beneath his boots as the craft ate up miles faster than the pilot up front – Vapor – could plow through a buffet. If the plane completed testing as hoped, future fliers could travel from the U.S. to any point on earth in under four hours. Entire deployments could be set up in a matter of a single day, ready to roll, rather than the weeks-long build ups of the past.

No doubt, the price tag on this sleek winged sucker was huge, but for forward thinking strategists, it saved many times over that much by shortening deployments. Of course money had never meant dick to him.

He did care about all those marriages collapsing under the strain of long separations.

Radio talk from the two pilots up front echoed in his headset as he checked his safety belt one last time, then raised his hand to hover over the control panel. His empty ring finger itched inside his glove. Yeah, this test in particular struck a personal note for him. It was too late for him since his own marriage had already gone down the tubes, but maybe he could save some of his military brethren from suffering the same kick in the ass he’d endured six years ago.

Without slowing, the cargo door cranked the rest of the way open, settling into place with an ominous thunk. Wind swirled inside, the suction increasing with the yawning gape. No more time to consider how the drop shouldn’t even be possible. Not too long ago, going to the moon hadn’t seemed possible. It took test pilots, pioneers. All the same, this was going to be sporty.

Mason tightened his parachute straps just in case and keyed his microphone in his oxygen mask to speak to the pilots in the cockpit. “Doors opened, ramp clear.”

“Copy.” From the flight deck, pilot Vince “Vapor” Deluca acknowledged. “Thirty seconds to release.”

Mason scanned the cargo pallets resting on rollers built into the floor. Everything appeared just as he’d prepped for this final run before next week’s big show for select military leaders from ally nations around the world. Pallets were packed, evenly balanced, and lined up, ready to roll straight out over the Nevada desert. Muscles contracted inside him as the pilot continued the countdown over headset.

“Jester two-one,” Vapor continued, “is fifteen seconds from release.”

Mason focused on the bundle at the front of the pallet. A void of dark sky waited beyond the back ramp only a few feet away, ready to suck up the offload. He mentally reviewed the steps as if he could somehow secure the outcome. A small parachute would rifle forward, air speed filling it with enough power to drag out the pallet. That chute would tear away, sending the pallet into a free fall until the larger parachute deployed.

“Five,” Vapor counted down, “four-three-two-one.”

A green light flashed over the door.

The bundle shot its mini-chute into the air behind the door. As it caught the hypersonic air the first pallet began to move, rolling, rolling and out. One gone. The second rattled down the tracks, picture perfect, and then the next in synchronized magnificence as the mammoth load whipped out at a blurring speed.

Mason’s gut started to ease. Next week’s shindig for their visiting military dignitaries could be a huge win for the home team and moving this plane into the inventory. A flop, however, could mean death to their government funding, an abrupt end to the whole project. He keyed up his mic–

The last pallet bucked off the tracks.

Oh shit. The load slammed onto its side with hundreds, maybe thousands of pounds of force. The cargo net ripped, flapping and snapping through the air. Gear exploded loose, catapulting every-fucking-where.

He ducked as a piece of shattered pallet flew over his head.

“Smooth?” Vapor’s voice filled the headset. “Report up.”

Mason grappled for the button to respond while sidestepping a loose crate cartwheeling his way. The mesh net whipped around his leg and jerked him toward the open back. His feet shot out from under him.

“Smooth, damn it, radio up–”

His mic went silent. The cord rattled useless and unplugged. His helmeted head whacked the deck, sparking a fresh batch of stars to his view of the night sky.

He slapped his hands along the metal grating, grappling for something, anything to slow the drag toward the back. Would his safety harness hooked to the wall hold? Under normal circumstances, sure. These weren’t normal circumstances. Everything was a first ever test at unheard of speed.

He vise-gripped the edge of a seat. The pallet dragged at his leg. He kept his eyes focused ahead, squeezing down panic, hoping, praying Vapor or Hotwire would come back to check. His arms screamed in the socket and his legs burned from being stretched by the weight of the pallet teetering on the edge of the back hatch.

Don’t give up. Hang on.

The bulkhead opening filled with a shadow. Thank God. The copilot – Hotwire – roared into view, his mouth moving as he shouted words swallowed up by the vortex of wind.

Mason’s fingers slipped. The weight, the force, the speed, it was all too much. “Oh, shit.”

He pulled his arms in tight as the pallet raked him along the metal floor like a hunk of cheddar against a grater. Ah damn, what about his safety harness? The strap around his waist pulled taut. An image of his body ripped in half came to mind, a snapshot that would forever stay in safety manuals to warn others of the hazards of fucking up. Not that he knew what he’d done wrong. That would be for others to decide after they buried the two halves of him in a wooden box.

Hotwire hooked his own safety belt on the run and reached. So close. Not close enough.

Mason’s harness popped free from around his waist. Whoomp. The air sucked at him like a vacuum. He flew out of the back of the plane at hypersonic speed only to stop short when he slammed against the pallet, his leg still lashed by mesh. Pain detonated throughout him. Then his stomach plummeted faster than his body.

Happy Fucking New Year.

Instincts on overdrive, he wrapped his arms around the pallet. The pressure on his body eased as the pallet continued a freefall downward into the inky night. His flight suit whipped against him. Images of his ex-wife flashed though his head along with regret. A shiver iced through his veins. Was he dying?

No. The wind and altitude caused the cold. Think, damn it. Don’t surrender to the whole life review death march.

Either he could do nothing and pray that when the larger chute opened it didn’t batter him to death against the pallet. Or he could free his leg from the netting, kick away from the pallet and use his own parachute, provided it hadn’t been damaged during the haul out the back of the plane.

His options sucked ass, but at least he was still alive to fight. Getting clear of the damaged pallet seemed wisest. Determination fueled his freezing limbs. Vertigo threatened to overtake him as he kicked to untangle his boot from the netting. He jerked, pulled, and strained until yes, his leg came free.

“Argh!” Mason grunted, muscles burning.

He shoved away just as the large chute deployed. His body plummeted, pin-wheeling. The pallet was jerked to a stall by the chute, tearing apart in a shower of wood and supplies. Good God, he would have been drawn and quartered.

He reined himself in, struggling to control the fall while gauging his surroundings but the solitary void combined with an eerie silence. How much further until he landed? If he pulled the cord too soon, he could float forever with no sense of direction, ending up lost deep in the desert.

Screw it. Better too early than waiting too long and shattering every bone in his body by not using his parachute soon enough. He reached down, feeling along his waist until he found the handle.

He yanked. Cords whistled past and overhead. Nylon rippled upward until… whoomp.

Air filled the chute and pulled him. Hard. The rapid stall knocked the wind out of him and damn it to hell, crushed his left nut under the leg strap.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts, no time to piss and moan. He grabbed a riser and hefted into a one arm pull up to ease pressure on the strap. Ahhh, better, much better. Pain eased. His brain revved.

Now, how did that “You just fucked up bad and are now floating towards the earth” checklist go?

Canopy. His eyes adjusting to the dark, he checked the canopy and no rips, no tears, not even the dreaded “Mae West” where a line looped over the chute for a double bubble effect.

Visor. Little chance of landing in a tree here so he pulled the visor up.

Mask. He stripped his oxygen mask off his face, unhooked the connectors on his chest and pitched it away into the abyss.

Seat kit. Strapped to his butt, it contained a raft. Not much call for that in the desert. He opened the connector and ditched the raft too.

LPUs. Life preserver units. He thumbed the horse collar LPU around his neck and down his chest, pulled the inflate tabs and another high pressure bottle inflated the floatie. It might cushion the landing and save a few broken ribs. Although no telling what he might have already busted back in the plane. Thank goodness for the adrenaline numbing his system.

What next? Oh yeah. Steer. Damn, he was punch drunk. He reached up for the risers and grappled until he wrapped his fingers around the steering handles.

The next step? Prepare. Yeah, he was so prepared to smack into the ground he could barely see. He scanned below as best he could, checking out the sand, sand, sand, occasional bundle of desert scrub staying clear of the distant mountains. Okay, dude. Final step.

Land. He put his eyes on the horizon and bent his knees slightly, ready to perform the perfect PLF, parachute landing fall. The ground roared up to meet him. He prepped for… the… impact.

Balls of the feet.

Side of the leg and butt.

Side of the arm and shoulder.

Complete.

Mason lay on the gritty sand, stunned. No harm in lying still for a few and rejoicing in the fact he would live to fly and make love again. There wasn’t any need to rush out of here just yet. He wasn’t in enemy territory.

Although he didn’t have a clue exactly what piece of the Nevada desert he currently occupied. His tracking device would bring help though. Rescue would show up in an hour or so. Maybe by then he could stand up without whimpering like a baby.

He shrugged free of his parachute and LPU one miserable groan at a time. Already he could feel the bruises rising to the surface. He would probably resemble a Smurf by morning, but at least he still had all his limbs, and no bones rattled around inside him that he could tell.

His teeth chattered, though. From the freezing cold of a winter desert night, or from shock? Either way he needed to get moving. He pushed to his feet, stumbling for a second before the horizon stopped bobbling.

A siren wailed in the distance.

Already? Perhaps this flight experience wouldn’t suck so much after all. Even bad sex could be rescued with a satisfying ending.

He blinked to clear his eyesight. Twin beams of light stretched ahead of a Ford F-150, blinding him the closer the vehicle approached. He shielded his eyes with one hand and waved his other arm. Ouch. Fuck.

A loudspeaker squeaked and crackled to life. “Get back down on the ground. Lay flat on your stomach,” a tinny voice ordered. “If you move at all, you will be shot.”

Shot? What the hell? Had he landed in some survivalist kook’s farm?

But that wouldn’t explain the siren. He must have drifted into restricted territory, not surprising since they flew many of their secret test missions in secured areas. The truck screeched to halt and someone wearing cammo stepped out. A flashlight held at shoulder level kept him from seeing the face, but he could discern an M4 carbine at hip level well enough.

He shouted, “Don’t shoot. I’m not armed, and I’m not resisting.”

“Stay on the ground,” the voice behind the light barked.

A female voice?

Okay, so much for his PC rating today. He’d assumed the security cop was a male, not that it made any difference one way or the other. He respected the power of that M4.

Mason flattened his belly to the desert floor, arms extended over his head. A knee plowed deep in the small of his back. If he didn’t have a bruised kidney before, he sure did now.

A cold muzzle pressed against his skull. All right, then. The knee didn’t hurt so much after all.

“Hands behind you, nice and slow.” The lady cop’s husky voice heated his neck. “So, flyboy, do you want to tell me what you’re doing out here in Area 51?”

Honduras – Present Day

Major Vince “Vapor” Deluca didn’t need to ask if there were Harleys in heaven. For him, hogs and planes both transported him from this world to brush paradise.

Not to mention both had saved his hell-bound ass on more than one occasion. And right now, he needed some of that heavenly salvation – on wings rather than wheels – in a serious way if he expected to pull off this potentially explosive mission.

Flying his AC-130 gunship at twenty-five thousand feet, Vince peered into a monitor at the increasingly restless crowd below in the rural Honduran town. With the help of his twelve crew members, he monitored citizens pouring out of the hills to cast their votes in the special election. An election that could turn volatile in a heartbeat, the politics of this country precarious with warlords determined to stop the process. Local government officials had requested U.S. help with crowd control.

Using any means possible to keep the peace.

Vince cranked the yoke into a tight turn, flying over the voting place, a white wooden church. The sensors bristled along the side of the aircraft to scan the snaking crowd lining up. His sensors were so good the guys in back were able to study faces, gestures – and guns worn like fashion accessories.

He knew too well how mob mentality could unleash an atomic Lord of the Flies destructive force.

His fists clenched around the yoke. “Okay, crew, eyeballs out. Let’s score one for democracy.”

“Vapor,” the fire control officer, David “Ice” Berg, droned from the back, as cool and calm as his last name implied, “take a look at this dude in the camera. I think he’s the ring leader.”

Vince checked the screen, and yeah, that guy had whacko written all over him. “He seems like a hardcore cheerleader yelling and flapping his arms around.”

Co-pilot Jimmy Gage thumbed his interphone. “Those gymnastics of his are working.” Jimmy’s fists clenched and unclenched as if ready to break up the brawl mano-a-mano. He’d earned his call sign “Hotwire” honestly. Vince’s best bud, they’d often been dubbed in bars the Hotwire and the Hotshot. “The crowd’s getting riled up down there. Hey, Berg, do things look any better from your bird’s eye view?”

“Give me a C for Chaos,” Berg answered, dry as ever.

Vince worked his combat boots over the rudders while keeping his eyes locked on the screen scrolling an up-close look at the ground. “Roger that. All Cheerleader Barbie needs is a ponytail and a pair of pompoms instead of that big ass gun slung over his shoulder.” A riot seemed increasingly inevitable. Not surprising since human intel had already uncovered countless attempts to terrorize voters into staying home. “Barbie definitely bears watching, especially with those ankle biters around.”

He monitored the group of children playing on swings nearby while adults waited to vote. Conventional crowd control techniques could sometimes escalate the frenzy. This mission called for something different, something new. Something right up his alley as a member of the Air Force’s elite dark ops testing unit. In emergency situations they were called upon to pull a trick or two from their developmental arsenal.

And pray it worked as advertised since failure could spark an international incident. Or worse yet, harm a kid.

Today, he and his dark ops crew were flying the latest brainchild of the non-lethal weapons crowd. A flat microwave antenna protruded from the side of the lumbering aircraft. The ADS – Active Denial System – had the power to scorch people without leaving marks. Testing showed that as it heated up the insides, people scattered like ants from a hill after a swift kick.

Uncomfortable, but preferable to a lethal bullet.

Jimmy made a notation in his flight log. “Careful with your bank there, Vapor. Getting a little shallow.” Once his pencil slowed, he glanced over at Vince. “Barbie might be providing a distraction for someone else to make a move.”

Valid point. He increased the bank and smoothed the action with a touch of rudder. “Good thing there are thirteen of us to scan the mob because we’re going to need all eyes out.”

A string of acknowledgments echoed over Vince’s headset just as Barbie grabbed the butt of his rifle and slam – the past merged with the present.

A group of misfit teens festering with discontent. Four hands hauling him from his Kawasaki rat bike. Screaming. Gunshots.

A girl in the way.

Sweat stinging his eyes now as well as then, Vince reached up to adjust his air vents for like the nine hundredth time since takeoff. How could they make this airplane so high tech and not get the damn air conditioning to work?

“Time’s run out for Barbie.” The rattling plane vibrated through his boots all the way up to his teeth. “Crank it, Berg.”

“Concur,” the fire control officer drawled from the back, “Let’s light him up.”

“I’m in parameters, aircraft stable, cleared to engage.” Vince monitored as a crosshair tuned in on the infra-red screen in front of him and centered on the troublemaker. He hoped this would work, prayed this guy was a low level troublemaker and not one of the area’s ruthless mercenaries. He didn’t relish the thought of the situation escalating into a need for the more conventional guns aft of the non-lethal ADS.

That wouldn’t go well for the “get out the vote” effort.

“Ready,” Berg called.

“Cleared to fire,” answered Vapor.

“Firing…”

No special sounds or even so much as a vibration went through the craft. The only way to measure success was to watch and wait and…

Bingo.

Barbie started hopping around like he’d been stung by a swarm of bees. His AK-47 dropped from his hand onto the dusty ground. The crowd stilled at the dude’s strange behavior, all heads turning toward him as if looking for an explanation.

Jimmy twitched in his seat. “I halfway wanna laugh at the poor bastard except I know how bad the ADS stings.”

“Amen, brother.” Before integrating the ADS onto the airplane they’d tested it on themselves. It was disorienting and unpleasant to say the least, but not damaging.

He was willing to take that searing discomfort and more to power through developing this particular brainchild, a personal quest to him. He could have been on the side of the evil cheerleader today if not for one person. A half-crazy old war vet who took on screwed up teens that most good citizens avoided on the street. Don Bassett had never asked for anything in return.

Until this morning.

Vince relegated that BlackBerry e-mail he’d received minutes before takeoff to the back of his mind. “No time to get complacent, everybody. Keep looking. I can’t imagine our activist with the automatic weapon is alone.”

The system had the capability to sweep the whole group with a broader band. But he hoped that wouldn’t be necessary as it would likely shut down voting altogether.

Bad-Ass Barbie shook his head quickly, looked around – then leapt toward his AK-47 lying in the dust.

Berg centered the crosshairs again and said, “I think he needs another taste.”

Vapor replied, “Roger. Cleared to fire.”

“Firing…”

The rabble rouser again launched into some kind of erratic pep rally routine.

“Stay on him,” Vince eyed the monitor, heart drumming in time with the roaring engines, “run him away from the crowd.”

Berg kept the crosshairs planted on the troublemaker as he attempted to escape the heat. The wiry man sidled away. Faster. Faster again, until he gave up and broke into a sprint, disappearing around a corner of the building.

Hell, yeah.

Vince continued banking left over the village so the cameras could monitor the horde. As hoped, the crowd seemed to chat among themselves for a while, some looking up at the plane, discussing, then slowly reforming a line to the church.

Cheers from the crew zipped through the headset for one full circle around the now peaceful gathering. Things could still stir up in a heartbeat, but the pop from the ADS had definitely increased odds for the good guys.

God, he loved it when a plan came together. “Crew, let’s get an oxygen check and get back in the game.”

His crew called in one by one in the same order as specified in the aircraft technical order ending with him.

Vince monitored his oxygen panel and called out, “Pilot check complete.”

With luck, the rest of the election would go as smoothly and they would be back in the good ole U.S. of A. tomorrow night.

Five peaceful hours later, Vince cranked the yoke, guiding the AC-130 into a rollout, heading for base where he would debrief this mission and lay out plans for their return home.

And contact Don Bassett.

Vince finally let the message flood his mind. He couldn’t simply ignore the note stored on his BlackBerry. The e-mail scrolled through his head faster than data on his control panel.

I need your help. My daughter’s in danger.

That in and of itself wasn’t a surprise. Bassett’s only daughter had been flirting with death before she even got her braces off. Her parents kept bailing out Shay’s ungrateful butt. What did surprise him, however, was Don asking for help. The dude was a giver, not a taker. Which meant that for whatever reason he must be desperate.

Not that the reason even mattered. Whatever the old guy wanted, he could have. If not for Don Bassett’s intervention seventeen years ago, Vince wouldn’t need a motorcycle or airplane to transport him from his fucked up world.

Because seventeen years ago, he’d led the riots.

Seventeen years ago, one of his fellow gang members had been gunned down by cops just doing their jobs.

Seventeen years ago, he could have been looking at 25-to-life.

Cleveland, Ohio – two days later

“Suicide hotline. This is Shay.” Shay Bassett wheeled her office chair closer to her desk. Tucking the phone under her chin, she shoved aside the steaming cup of java she craved more than air.

“I need help,” a husky voice whispered.

Shay snagged a pencil and began jotting notes about the person in crisis on the other end of the line.

Male.

Teen?

“I’m here to listen. Could you give me a name to call you by?” Something, anything to thread a personal connection through the phone line.

“John, I’m John, and I hurt so much. If I don’t get relief soon, I’ll kill myself.”

His words clamped a corpse cold fist around her heart. She understood the pain of these callers, too much so, until sometimes she struggled for objectivity.

Shay zoned out everything but the voice and her notes.

Voice stronger, deeper.

Older teen.

Background noise, soft music.

Bedroom or dorm?

She scribbled furiously, her elbow anchoring the community center notepad so the window fan wouldn’t ruffle the pages. “John, have you done anything to harm yourself?”

“Not yet.”

“I’m really glad to hear that.” Still, she didn’t relax back into the creaky old chair in spite of killer exhaustion from pulling a ten hour shift at the community center’s small health clinic on top of volunteering to man the hotline this evening. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

His breathing grew heavier, faster. “The line for one nine hundred do-me-now is busy, and if I don’t get some phone sex soon, I’m gonna explode.” Laughter echoed in the background, no doubt a bunch of wasted frat boys listening in on speaker phone. “How about give me some more of those husky tones, baby, so I can–”

“Goodbye, John.” She thumbed the off button.

What an ass. Not to mention a waste of her precious time and resources. She pitched her pencil onto a stack of HIV awareness brochures.

The small community center in downtown Cleveland was already understaffed and underpaid, at the mercy of fickle government grants and the sporadic largesse of benefactors. Different from bigger free clinics, they targeted their services toward teens. Doctors volunteered when they could, but the place operated primarily on the backs of her skills as a nurse, along with social worker Angeline and youth activities director Eli.

Bouncing a basketball on the cracked tile, Eli spun his chair to face her, his blonde dreadlocks fanning along his back. “Another call for a free pizza?”

“A request for phone sex.” She pulled three sugar packs from her desk drawer.

“Ewww.” Angeline levied her hip against her desk, working a juggling act with her purse, files and cane.

Only in her fifties, Angeline already suffered from arthritis aggravated by the bitter winters blowing in off Lake Erie . Of course that was Cleveland for you, frigid in the winter and a furnace in the summer.

Forecast for today? Furnace season. The fan sucked muggy night air through the window.

“I apologize for my gender.” Eli kept smacking the ball, thumping steady as a ticking clock.

“Who said it was a guy?” Shay tapped a sugar pack, then ripped it open.

Angeline jabbed her parrot-head cane toward Shay. “You called the person John.”

“Busted.” She poured the last of the three sugars into the coffee, her supper since she’d missed eating with her dad. No surprise. They cancelled more plans than they kept.

Angeline hitched her bag the size of the Grand Canyon onto her shoulder. “Always testing the boundaries, aren’t ya, kiddo?”

Not so much anymore. “Calls like that just piss me off. What if someone in a serious crisis was trying to get through and had to be re-routed? That brief delay, any hint of a rejection could be enough to push a person over the edge.”

“You’re preaching to the choir here.” Angeline’s cell phone sang from inside the depths of China with the bluesy tones of “Let’s Get It On.” “Shit. I forgot to call Carl back.”

Eli tied back two dreads to secure the rest of the blonde mass. “Apparently we’re in the phone sex business after all.”

“Don’t be a smartass.” Angeline stuffed another file into her bag that likely now weighed more than the wiry woman.

“Nice talk. Why don’t I walk you to your car?” He slid the neon yellow purse from her shoulder and hooked it on his own.

“You can escort me out, but Carl’ll kick your lily white ass if you hit on me.”

“If I thought I stood a chance with you…”

Shaking her head, Angeline glanced back at Shay. “Make sure the guard walks you all the way to your car.”

“Of course. I even have my trusty can of mace.”

And a handgun.

She wasn’t an idiot. The crime rate in this corner of Cleveland upped daily. Places like L.A. or New York were still considered the primary seats of gang crime. Money and protection followed that paradigm, which sent emergent gangs looking for new – unexpected – feeding grounds. Like Cleveland .

Hopefully, her testimony at the congressional hearing this week would help bring about increased awareness, help and most of all funds.

“Tell Carl I said hello.” With a final wave, Shay turned her attention to the stack of medical charts of teenage girls who’d received HPV vaccines. At least she had all evening to catch up – a plus side to having no social life.

She sipped her now lukewarm coffee.

The phone jangled by her elbow, startling her.

She snagged the cordless receiver. “Suicide hotline. This is Shay.”

“I’m scared.”

Something in that young male voice made her sit up straighter, her fingers playing along the desk for her pencil.

Boy.

Local accent.

Definitely teen.

Frightened as hell.

Too many heartbreaking hours volunteering told her this kid didn’t want phone sex or a pizza.

“I’m sorry you’re afraid, but I’m glad you called.” She waited for a heartbeat – not that long given her jackhammer pulse rate – but enough for the boy to speak. When he didn’t, she continued, “I want to help. Could you give me a name to call you by?”

“No name. I’m nobody.”

His words echoed with a hollow finality.

“You called this line.” She kept her voice even. “That’s a good and brave thing you did.”

“You’re wrong. I’m not brave at all. I’m going to die, but I don’t want it to hurt. That makes me a total pussy.”

No pain?

No cutting or shooting.

“Have you taken anything?” Alcohol? Drugs? Poison? Last month a pregnant caller swallowed drain cleaner.

“Just my meds for the day.”

On medication.

Illness?

Physical or Psych?

“So you have a regular doctor?”

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

She knew when to back off in order to keep the person chatting. “What would you like to discuss?”

“Nothing,” his voice grew more agitated, angry even as it cracked an octave. “This is stupid. I shouldn’t have called.”

She rushed to speak before he could hang up, “Why are you scared?”

Voice changing.

14-15 years old?

“I told you already. I’m scared of the pain. It hurts if I live and it’s gonna hurt to die. I’m fucked no matter what.”

She tried to keep professional distance during these calls, but sometimes somebody said something that just reached back more than a decade to the old Shay. The new Shay, however, shuttled old Shay to the time-out corner of her brain.

“You called this number, so somewhere inside you must believe there’s a third option.”

The phone echoed back at her with nothing more than labored breathing and the faint whine of a police siren.

“Who or what makes you hurt?”

Still no answer.

“Hello?”

“Goodbye.”

The line went dead.

“No! No, no, no, damn it.” She thumbed the off button once. Twice. Three freaking frustrated times before slamming the phone against the battered gunmetal gray desk.

She sucked in humid hot-as-hell air to haul back her professionalism. She had to finish her notes in case the boy called again. Please, God, she hoped he would call, that he wasn’t already as dead as the phone line.

Shay glanced at her watch. A four minute conversation. Would that kid be alive to see the next hour?

She scrubbed her hand over her gritty eyes until the folder holding the rough draft of her upcoming congressional report came back into focus. It was a good thing after all her dinner plans fell through. She was in no shape to exchange trivial chitchat with her father she barely knew and who knew even less about her. The report would make for better company anyway.

Each cup of coffee bolstered her to keep plugging away on fine tuning her stats and wording. Maybe she really could find a ray of hope through political channels rather than picking away one shift at a time. She just had to hang on for four more days until her congressional testimony at Case Western Reserve University.

The old Shay ditched the time out corner to remind her that ten days was an eternity when every sixteen minutes someone succeeded in committing suicide. Thinking of how many people that could be by the end of four days… The math made her nauseous.

Flipping to the next page, she spun her watch strap around and around over the faded scar on her wrist that still managed to throb with a phantom pain even after seventeen years…

Phoebe Slater brought a baby to the millionaire military hero’s seaside welcome-home gala.

Undoubtedly most of the guests plucking canapés and champagne from silver trays at this high-profile affair could afford nannies. Of course the Hilton Head Island wealthy could also afford tailored tuxedos and sequined high-end dresses as they mingled the evening away in the country club gardens by the shore. Her basic little black dress had been bought at a consignment store to wear to the few mandatory cocktail parties related to her position as a history professor at the University of South Carolina.

Of course she usually didn’t accessorize with baby drool dotting her shoulder.

Phoebe jostled the fractious five-month-old infant on her hip, smoothing down the pink smocked dress. “Hang on, sweetie. Just a few more minutes and I can feed you before bedtime.”

As waves crashed in the distance, a live band played oldies rock, enticing guests to the dance floor with a Billy Joel classic. Even South Carolina’s governor was dancing under the silver silk canopy with his wife. Darn near gawking, Phoebe stumbled on the edge of the flagstone walkway.

Definitely this was a party for the movers and shakers in the political world—as well as on the polished wood dance floor planked over the sandy lawn. She untangled her low heel from between two decorative rocks. She wasn’t here to socialize tonight. She’d come to find little Nina’s father.

If only she had a better idea of what he looked like.

Her longtime friend and old sorority sister— Nina’s biological mother—had told Phoebe that Kyle Landis was the baby’s daddy a couple of months ago when she’d asked for “just a little help” with Nina while she went on an audition for a dinner-theater production in Florida. Bianca had been so excited to get her prebaby body back, insisting this was her chance to provide a better life for her daughter.

Who could have known Bianca wouldn’t return?

Phoebe hugged Nina closer, all the more determined to make sure this precious baby had a stable life. Which meant finding Kyle Landis, a man she’d never met in the flesh. She’d hoped to ID him by his Air Force uniform, but the place was packed with tall, dark-haired guys decked out in formal military gear. Medals gleamed in the moonlight.

Cupping the back of Nina’s bonnet-covered head as the little one finally dozed off, Phoebe scanned the sea of faces, their profiles shadowy with only the illumination of moon, stars and pewter tiki torches. She only had an older photo to go by, a picture tucked deep in the bottom of the flowered diaper bag slung over her clean shoulder. No way was she going to disturb Nina by looking, not now that the baby was nearly out for the count.

He used to appear in the newspapers frequently when his late father had been a senator. Then his mother and brother had stepped into the political spotlight, too. But the family kept Kyle out of the media’s scrutiny as much as possible for safety’s sake because of his tours of duty in war zones.

The crush of people grew thicker, faces tougher to see. As much as she hated to draw attention to herself, she was going to have to ask for help finding—

“Can I get you something?”

The deep voice rumbled from behind her as if in answer to her very thoughts, jolting her with a clear shot of sexy bass on the salty ocean breeze. Lordy, the waiter must rack up tips with that bedroom voice of his. She glanced over her shoulder to ask for a napkin—she’d forgotten the burp rag again, damn it.

Her smile froze.

Captain Kyle Landis—in the flesh, all right.

His dark brown hair was trimmed military short, mellow blue eyes creased at the corners from a deep tan she knew he’d earned in a Middle Eastern desert. A broad forehead and strong jawline gave him a masculine appeal just shy of harsh.

She should have realized the guy would be even better looking in person. He was a lucky son of a gun from an established old Southern family—handsome and rich, with a smoky voice to boot. He’d even reportedly survived a crash unscathed. His muscled chest in a blue uniform jacket sported at least double the medals of most here, perhaps only outdone by his stepfather, a general.

What were the odds of Kyle finding her tonight, instead of the other way around? But then, as the guest of honor, maybe he felt obligated to make sure everyone else was having a good time.

“Can I get you something?” he repeated, a cut-crystal whiskey glass cradled in his hand.

An older woman angled past, whipping a full, ruffled train against Phoebe’s leg. The scent of strong perfume made Nina sneeze. She readjusted the baby, wishing they were at home in her bentwood rocker rather than here with this man. “I actually don’t need help anymore, since I was looking for you.”

A dimple dug into his cheek with his one-sided smile. “I’m sorry, if we’ve met before, I’m not remembering.”

That dimple would have been charming if she hadn’t already heard from Bianca to be wary of his prep-school-polished sense of humor. She might be out of her financial league here, but she was a smart, determined woman.

Phoebe forged ahead, needing to say something before he turned her over to a bouncer. “I’m not here for myself.”

He glanced behind her quickly, then focused his full, deep-blue-eyed attention on her face again. “Which one of my pals are you with? We don’t get many chances to meet the wives.”

“I’m not married.” But she had been. She shoved away even the thought of Roger before the inevitable stab of pain could steal her focus.

Kyle’s gaze flicked briefly to Nina, then away. So much for him recognizing his child on sight.

To be fair, he didn’t even know about Nina’s existence. Bianca had insisted early in the pregnancy that, while she wasn’t sure if she wanted to keep the baby, she would inform the baby’s father. Then later said she’d chickened out, then couldn’t find him and certainly didn’t want to send this kind of news to him overseas through his family.

As if Bianca would’ve even gotten past personal assistants to talk to anyone in his famous family. It had been a major challenge to gate-crash this shindig, but no security could outdo her determination.

That drive—along with channeling some acting tips she’d picked up from Bianca—and Phoebe had convinced them all she was the caterer’s assistant’s wife. Easy enough to do, since she was more the friend-next-door than the flashy-leading-lady.

Nothing could stop her, not now that Kyle had come home. Somebody had to tell him about his new “little” responsibility and since Bianca was MIA, that left it up to her.

Might as well get this over with. “Is there somewhere we can step aside to talk?”

“I’m sorry, but my mother would haul me back in by my ear if I tried to duck out of my own welcome-home party.” He angled closer, the fresh scent of his aftershave teasing her nose. “Maybe later, though?”

Undeniable interest flared in his cobalt-blue eyes, his full attention fixed on her.

Holy crap. Could he actually be hitting on her? She’d prepared herself for any possible reaction from him—except that.

She jolted back a step, holding up one hand. “Wait, that’s not what I meant.”

And even if he were interested enough to actually contact her, what if it took him a week to call? She didn’t have another week to waste waiting for him to phone her back.

Nina didn’t have a week.

Phoebe patted between the baby’s shoulders, praying she would stay asleep. The last thing she needed was a colicky nuclear meltdown. “I have to speak with you for five minutes out of earshot of everyone else. …”

Chapter One

His hands roved her bare body, melting her with the warm heat of his strong caress.

Bella Hudson bit her lip to hold back an embarrassing groan. Barely. She called upon all her training as a Hollywood actress to stay silent while Henri worked his magic on her oiled up body.

Muscles melting, she buried her forehead deeper in the massage table’s face cradle. The scent of aromatherapy candles soothed her nose while Christmas carols sung in French mixed with ocean sounds to caress her ears.

Pure bittersweet pleasure. Very bittersweet.

Sixty-two year old masseur Henri was likely to be the only man touching her for quite some time since her jerk of an actor boyfriend stomped her heart just last week. And wow, that thought sure kinked up her neck again, encroaching on her peaceful retreat.

She and her precious dog – Muffin – had escaped to France for some much needed soul soothing at the seaside Garrison Grande Marseille. Garrison hotels always provided the best in pampering, peace and privacy.

And crossing the Atlantic guaranteed she wouldn’t risk accidentally running into Ridley or worse yet, Uncle David.

Men. They were all rats. Well, except for Henri, who was too old for her and married, but oh my, he worked wonders with heated river stones along her lower back.

“Henri, are you and your wife happy?” She stared through the face cradle at Henri’s gym shoes as he swapped out the stones beside her treasured little Muffin snoozing away in her pink doggie carrier.

“Oui, Mademoiselle Hudson. Monique and I are very ‘appy. Four-tee years, three children and ten grandchildren later. My Monique is still beautiful.”

He continued to laud his wife and family, his adoration so thick it threatened to smother her.

Or make her gag.

She’d really thought Ridley loved her, only to have him say he’d been too caught up in the romance of their starring roles in the movie about her grandparents’ WWII romance. She’d really thought her parents loved each other too.

Wrong. And wrong again.

Her mother had cheated. She’d slept with her own brother-in-law and now Bella’s Uncle David was actually Daddy David. Her two cousins were actually her half-siblings. Good God, her family was ripe to be featured on an episode of Jerry Springer.

Even river stones couldn’t ease that ache.

A low sounding beep echoed through the room. A series of clicks sounded. Had the whale sounds traded up to dolphin calls?

Henri yanked the sheet up to her shoulders. “M’selle Hudson , quick, get up.”

“What?” she asked, not quite tracking yet.

Her eyes snapped open. She blinked to adjust in the dim light and found Henri blocking someone trying to push through the door.

Someone with a camera.

Crap. Crap. Totally tracking now, Bella bolted off the table and to the floor. Her feet tangled in the sheet and she pitched forward.

“Paparazzi. Run,” Henri barked as Bella struggled to regain her footing. “Run. M’sieur Garrison prides himself on protecting the privacy of his clients. He will fire me. Then my wife, she will keel me. She is crazy mean when she gets angry.”

So much for Henri and Monique’s happy marriage.

“Where the hell am I supposed to run to?” Bella spun away from the door – and the camera – making sure to anchor the sheet over her backside. She dashed to Muffin’s quilted pink carrier and grasped the handle.

She couldn’t wedge past Henri and the photographer struggling to raise his camera over Henri’s head.

“The screen,” Henri gasped, “move the screen. There’s another door behind. I will hold off this piece of garbage, M’selle Bella.”

Henri might have strong hands, but he appeared to be fighting a losing battle. Time was shorter than this oil spotted sheet.

Clutching the Egyptian cotton in one hand and the rhinestone studded carrier in her other, Bella raced to the antique screen painted with Monet-style murals. Sure enough, she found a narrow exit decorated with a large red bow. She butt-bumped the bar, creaked the door open and peeked out.

She looked left and right down an empty corridor, less ornate than the rest of the hotel. Labeled office doors bedecked with simple holiday wreaths. There might be some after-hours workers around, but running into them beat the hell out of sprinting through the wide open, high ceiling lobby with crystal chandeliers spotlighting her mad dash toward the elevator.

“Okay, Muffin, cross your paws, ‘cause here we go.”

Her sweet little fur baby yawned.

Bella tucked into the dimly lit hall, empty but for ornately carved antiques. Her bare feet pounded along the thick Persian carpet on her way past a lush green tree, tiny lights winking encouragement. She paused at the first office.

Locked. Damn.

She ran her hands along door after door on her way down. All locked. Double damn.

An echo sounded behind her. The sound of someone running. She glanced over her shoulder and…

Click. Click. Click.

She recognized the sound of a camera in action too well. The short but bulky photographer had overpowered Henri.

Bella ran faster, Muffin’s cloth cage bumping against her leg. She wasn’t a novice in ditching the press. She’d been aware of the media attention on her family since she was born twenty-five years ago.

Gilded framed photos of employees stared at her in a weird pseudo voyeurism. She rounded the corner and yes, yes, yes, found a mahogany door slightly ajar. No lights on. Likely empty. She would lock herself inside and call for help.

Panting, she raced the last few steps, slid through the part in the door.

And slammed into a hard male chest.

One without a camera slung over his shoulder, thank heaven, but still a warm bodied – big bodied – man. She looked up into his cool gray eyes. She didn’t need to check the formal photo by the door to confirm the identity of this dark haired, billionaire bachelor. At only thirty-four, he’d already been featured in plenty of “most eligible” lists. This expatriate bad boy had broken hearts from the Mediterranean to South Beach .

She’d fallen into the arms of hotel magnate Sam Garrison…

CHAPTER ONE

Mediterranean Sea – Present Day

Sixty seconds ago piloting this flight had been all gumdrops and rainbows. In an exploding flash, Captain Jimmy Gage’s day turned to dog shit.

His cutting edge new CV-22 was still tooling through the late afternoon sky just fine. The folks speed boating along the Mediterranean Sea , however? Not so good.

“What the hell?” He braced his hand against the control panel while aftershocks from the detonation below reverberated upward. This day may have turned to dog shit, but God willing, not nearly as bad as three years ago.

He needed to get his head out of his ass and focus on the radio in his helmet squawked to life. A crap-ton of voices crowded the airwaves until even his flight trained ears threatened to go on overload.

He peered through the windscreen, stick shuddering in his grip. Dots still danced in front of his eyes from the blast. Blue water stretched ahead to the distant Turkish coastline. The small boat of USO performers they’d been escorting to a naval aircraft carrier stalled behind…

In flames.

Training overrode questions. Time to get his butt in gear.
There were three pilots up front and only one flight engineer in the cargo hold at the moment. Smooth would have his hands full scooping survivors from the ocean in back.

Jimmy switched his headset to hot mic so he could hear everything and respond, while keeping his hands free to work. “Vapor, swap seats with me. I’m heading back to help out Smooth.”

“Roger that,” Vince “Vapor” Deluca jockeyed by and into the copilot’s seat beside the aircraft commander. “Holy shit, what a mess down there. Coming left.”

Jimmy charged past the bulkhead, already channeled into his new role. He was a test pilot these days, and being able to fly any plane, any crew position, anytime had been a requisite for graduation. Thanks to his new job in a black ops test squadron, he could do his damned level best to ensure technology became an ally rather than an enemy as it had three years ago.

A personal mission he now lived every minute in tribute to Socrates. A mission that carried extra weight today.

This should have been a shadowy slip across international waters under the guise of escorting a handful of new USO performers to an aircraft carrier off the coast of Turkey . The flight had provided the perfect cover for them to slip into Incirlik Air Base and meet up with CIA and NSA agents already in place. All focused on locating and rescuing Chuck Tanaka, a member of their test squadron who had been kidnapped in the region a week ago by God only knew what kind of monster.

Chuck wasn’t the only service member to have gone missing in the region. But he was the only one with an experimental tracking device embedded under his skin.

No way in hell was Jimmy leaving behind another brother-in-arms.

“Hotwire?” the commander’s voice barked. “Smooth? Can either of you give us more on what’s happening?”

Jimmy leaned out the open side hatch, wind roaring around him. Acrid gusts from the flames stung his nose, his eyes. He blinked his vision clear. The explosion hadn’t taken out the entire speedboat, a good sign.

Except a hole gaped in the bow of the Navy boat, sucking in water fast. An accident or deliberate?

He’d faced plenty of hairy situations during combat and test pilot school – not to mention his four month stint as a POW punching bag – but tossing in the wildcard of panicked civilians added an element of unpredictability to any situation that had nothing to do with gauging the odds of technology. Normally he thrived on the charge of an intense assignment, even a good old head-cracking, chair-smacking bar fight to let off steam that had never quite emptied out of him even three years after Socrates’s murder.

Jimmy tore his eyes from the mesmerizing flames licking up from damaged boat hull and studied the survivors bobbing in the waves. “The boat’s listing, gonna submerge soon. People are jumping overboard left and right trying to get to the life raft, Colonel.”

Their squadron commander, Lieutenant Colonel Scanlon, had come along due to the sensitivity of their real mission. The delay this explosion caused could very well steal precious minutes that ended up costing Chuck or one of the other missing servicemen his life. From his own captivity, Jimmy knew the inhumane lengths some twisted souls would go to extract sensitive information from military targets – and back then he hadn’t even been part of the dark ops test squadron with its all the more explosive information to protect.

But he couldn’t think of his friend now or the international ramifications of the top secret data stored in his brain.

“Bringing it around,” their colonel drawled over the airwaves. “How many are in the water?”

The CV-22 banked hard and fast, the tilt rotor tackling the tight turn with ease. Built to replace the MH-53 helicopter, the CV-22 hovered with blades on the wings overhead and could shift the rotors forward to fly like a plane at twice the speed of its predecessor. They needed every ounce of that agility today.

Jimmy gripped the side of the hatch, hooking a gunner’s belt around his waist for safety although his balance was sure after ten years of flying. Smoke from the explosion snaked inside reminding him of another time, a crash best scrapped from his mind right now.

Already jam-packed with top-secret intelligence gear to trace their lead in Turkey , the cargo hold would be crammed to the gills fast once they pulled everyone from the water.

“I count nine swimming toward the deployed life raft, sir.”

Lucky for them they couldn’t see the sharks.

Jimmy, however, had a bird’s eye view of the too many black shadows slithering just beneath the surface.

“Nine? Hell, if there are more, we’ll be hard pressed to take them on. Vapor, are there any ships close enough to get over here and help pick these people up?”

“Negative contacts on the radar,” Vapor answered. “We’ll have to pluck them out ourselves. Shit, is that a shark?”

“Okay, then,” the commander drawled through the airwaves. “Let’s move out about three hundred yards and get turned around. Hotwire, prepare to work your ass off.”

“Roger that, sir.” He made tracks around equipment strapped to the deck, his boots clanking metal on his way toward the lowering back ramp.

“Copy all, boss man,” Vapor responded. “Sierra Four, Sierra Four, this is Prey Two-One. We have a boat on fire and sinking fifty-four miles due north of your position. We estimate nine in the water, but there could be more. Can you get a helo heading this way?”

Chatter from the aircraft carrier buzzed in the background while Jimmy worked with Smooth to rig the rescue hoist for deployment. The CV-22 downshifted into a hover over the burning boat.

There had been talk initially of flying the performers. The local coordinator, however, had decided the speedboat had more of a “Navy” feel and chose to go with the small boat for a prima donna theatrical effect.

Damned bad luck choice for the people in the ocean. But worse for Chuck if these people’s need for drama ended up costing him even one extra minute of pain.
Jimmy kept his voice as steady as his hands. “Colonel, waters are beyond choppy. That life raft could capsize at any second.”

“Alright boys, let’s get some people out of the ocean.”

The hovering aircraft descended, closer to the rocking raft, nearer still. Jimmy stared out the cavernous back hatch as the nine people waving wildly became clearer, the sharks tougher to monitor even with Smooth’s help.

Smooth swiped spray from his face. “How about you work the winch and I’ll monitor them coming up to the ramp?”

“Got your back.” Jimmy deployed the winch outward, a three person rescue hook like the forest penetrator used in helicopters. “Colonel, ease up on the raft anytime.”

“Roger. Don’t let me get too close before you lower the sling into the water. We don’t need to be shocking these folks with the static electricity in that line.”

A burst of wind growled louder than the engines. The tilt-rotor nudged so low spray speckled his flight suit.

Jimmy played the cable toward the water, the whump, whump, whump of the rotors overhead sweeping foamy ripples. “Line is on the way down. Twenty feet… Ten.” The hoist slapped the surface by the orange rubber life raft. “Contact with the water. Ready to move in.”

“Roger, Hotwire,” the Colonel replied, “easing up. Keep a good eye on all of them and make sure the rotor wash doesn’t push anyone under.”

“We’re watching,” Jimmy affirmed. “Keep coming forward. Forward. Ten feet more. Good, hold it right there.”

A man slid from the raft, the boat captain from the looks of his Navy uniform. He grabbed the rescue hook and shouted back to the others. A woman in a glittery costume detached herself from the side. With the help of the Navy dude, she pulled the horse collar over her head and under one arm like a sash. The guy seemed to have things in hand below, so Jimmy held his position by the winch. Two more women joined her, facing each other on the three-seater apparatus.

So far so good.

“I have three in place. Bringing them up.” Jimmy set the winching mechanism into humming motion. Easy. Easy. Eyes glued to the trio to be sure all arms and legs were clear of the line. The whir of the winding cable blended with the roar of wind and rotors. “Survivors clear of the water.”

Destroyed boat parts swirled below with jagged edges that could graze anyone trying to secure themselves in the hoist. Blood in the water would draw the sharks in a snap.

Urgency pumped through him, prodding him to speed this up, but his training insisted on routine. Eyes on the line. As they neared the side door, he passed over the controls to Smooth and grabbed for the cable.

“Slack…” Jimmy called the order to slow the cable. He clamped the first woman’s hand as she clambered up the ramp. “Slack, slack.” He hauled the second, then third inside. “Stop slack. Survivors on the deck.”

He reached to steady the stumbling brunette who had to be a performer given her gold sequined dress. Sopping wet and gasping, she shoved a hank of hair from her face, mascara streaking her cheeks.

Smooth’s mega-watt smile that shouted high priced orthodontics. “Damn, she looks famous.”

“Save the autograph hounding for later and let’s rustle up some blankets. We’ve got six more men and women to bring on board.” Jimmy handed the pop diva over to his panty-peeler crew mate.

In quick succession, he scooped the remaining six in two runs, four of the people wearing costumes and two men in Navy uniforms. Jimmy started to breathe easier as the last collapsed into the CV-22’s belly.

“Colonel, we’ve got them all loaded and secured. No injuries. No sign of casualties. A quick head count and we’ll be ready to bounce.” Good thing for Chuck and the other unaccounted for soldiers this had gone quickly. They should be back on track to reach Turkey for their NSA briefing by nightfall.

A collective exhale echoed, before the Colonel whistled low and long, “Thank God. Bob Hope would be so pissed.”

Smooth grinned, although his eyes didn’t stray from the barely legal diva, no surprise since the guy never let a female pass without falling for her. “Your age is showing, Colonel. Bob Hope would be over a hundred.”

Lieutenant Colonel Scanlon growled. “Hope’s the father of the USO. Stop blaspheming a legend or I’ll turn Vapor loose on you. You don’t want him rewiring your car so the horn honks every time you put on the turn signal.”

Jimmy allowed himself a laugh now that the crisis had passed without so much as a shark nibble. Humor carried them through hell in this job, one of many reasons he preferred to crew with the squadron-renowned joker.

Maybe this day wouldn’t turn into dog shit after all. They would make a quick landing on the aircraft carrier, drop off their extra cargo and be on their way, closer to finding Chuck.

His laughter faded. Back to business. “Sir, still running a visual and I don’t see any more in the water. Smooth’s asking the survivors just to be sure.”

Smooth straightened, spinning fast back to Jimmy and holding up one finger. “We’re missing one. A woman.”

Damn it. Jimmy peered into the mist of sea spray below. Any of those curling waves could be shielding her – if she hadn’t already drowned or met up with a shark.

“Okay, everybody,” the Colonel ordered, “eyeballs out. Let’s find her. Vapor, work the infrared and see if you can spot a heat source. I’m gonna start a slow circle around what’s left of the boat.”

Jimmy braced a hand and planted his feet as the aircraft banked. Half the speedboat stuck from the water, smoke billowing, stealing what little visibility he had left. A crack cut through the air a second before…

The damaged boat exploded into a watery bonfire.

The CV-22 shuddered. Their new passengers shrieked. He zeroed in on the vision below. Flames flicked upward like a demonic hand shooting a fiery bird at the heavens. The orange-red glow domed out over the water.

And illuminated a small figure struggling to stay afloat.
Bare arms smacked the water, long hair trailing behind the woman. Smoldering scraps of metal showered down around her.

A deadly shadow undulated below the surface a few feet away.

His focus narrowed, frustration at the possible cost of this delay taking a back seat to the life-threatening emergency at hand. “Got a visual. There is someone down there, alive.” Her head and shoulders bobbed then disappeared from sight, her hair swooping after her. “Crap, she just went under. Colonel, come twenty degrees right and you should see her.”

“Copy all.” The craft cranked hard and fast, the Colonel’s drawl growing thicker. “I saw her for a second before a wave hit her. Anyone else got another visual? Smooth? Hotwire?”

“I keep catching glimpses. She isn’t gonna make it unless…” Focus gelled into determination.
Jimmy patted the flattened LPU – life preserver unit – draped over him. He would inflate it once he reached her. “I’m going in. Smooth, get ready to haul us up.”

He stared out the yawning opening at the thirty-foot jump. Not much of a drop except… Hell. He hated heights even more than he hated sharks. Some might think that strange for a flier, but he’d learned from his dead sister to meet fears head-on, fists flying even to the end.

Jimmy took three steps back, keeping his eyes locked on the speck of humanity bobbing in the ocean below. He gasped in air tinged with the scent of hydraulic fluid. And sprinted toward the load ramp. His combat boots pounded metal then air. No kicking free shoes for a nice little dip. Warriors went into the water in full out gear.

“Ahhhhh…” He hurtled through the battering wind and sea spray. “Fuck.”

She’d damn well better still be alive.
* * *
Chloe Nelson refused to die. The Mediterranean Sea , however, seemed determined to override her wishes.

She grappled through the wall of water slamming over her. A week of swimming lessons at the YMCA as a kid hadn’t prepared her for the open high seas. Her head breaking free, she gasped for air, her eyes stinging. She choked on a salty gulp and prayed hard, really hard that those rescue folks in the hovering aircraft wouldn’t abandon her while she worked her way clear of the debris.

The whump, whump, whump of the blades overhead churned waves faster around her, making it impossible to grab the harness they’d lowered for the rest of her group. Now she couldn’t see the thing, much less strap herself inside.

Could this be some kind of twisted justice for stepping so far outside her comfort zone as a classical musician? Never had she expected years of nose-to-the-grindstone training would result in a gig as a back up singer wearing sequins, fringe and do-me-sailor pumps.

Rhinestone studded shoes currently spiraling their way to the bottom of the Mediterranean . Chloe pedaled her bare feet faster underwater, determined to get out of here before she drowned or a shark made her his Happy Meal.

Something grazed her upper thigh…

Hilton Head, S.C. – 2 Months Ago:

Sebastian Landis had been in courthouses more times than any hardened criminal. He was one of South Carolina ’s most successful lawyers, after all. But today, he’d landed a front row seat for how it felt having attorneys hold complete power over his life.

He didn’t like it one damned bit.

Of course getting divorced ranked dead last on his “things I like to do” list. He just wanted to plow through all the paperwork and litigation so the judge could make it official.

Gathering files off the table in one of the courthouse’s conference rooms, he barely registered his goodbyes to his attorney, his polite handshakes with Marianna’s counsel. Power ahead. Eyes on the finish line. Clipping his BlackBerry to his belt again, he kept his eyes off his wife, the only woman who’d ever been able to rattle his cool – his calm under fire being a renowned trait of his around courthouse circles.

At least they’d completed the bulk of the paperwork with their lawyers on this overcast summer day, leaving only the final court date. The settlement was fair, no easy feat given his family’s fortune and her thriving interior decorator career. They hadn’t even fought over the dissolution of their multi-million dollar assets – probably the first time they hadn’t argued.

The only wrinkle had come in deciding what to do with their two dogs. Neither wanted to lose Buddy and Holly, or split the sibling pups up. Ultimately, though, they had each taken one of the Boston terrier/pug/mystery parent mutts they’d rescued from the shelter.

What would they have done if he and Marianna actually had children?

He backed the hell away from that open wound fast. Not going there today, no way, no how, because even a brief detour down that path kicked a hole in his restraint on one helluva crap day.

Which left him checking on Marianna in spite of his better judgment.

She rose from the leather chair, too damn beautiful for her own good, but then she always had been. With dark eyes and even darker long hair, she’d been every guy’s exotic fantasy when they’d met on a graduation cruise to the Caribbean .

Thinking about that sex-slicked summer would only pitch him into a world of distraction. Scooping up his briefcase, he put his mind on what he could accomplish back at his office with the remainder of the afternoon. Of course he could also work into the evening. It wasn’t like he had anything to go home to now, living in a suite at his family’s compound. He reached the exit right in step with Marianna.

He held the door open, her Chanel perfume tempting his nose. Yeah, he knew a lot about his soon-to-be ex, like what scents she chose. Her favorite morning-after foods. Her preferred lingerie labels. He knew everything.

Except how to make her happy.

“Thank you, Sebastian.” She didn’t even meet his gaze, her lightweight suit skirt barely brushing against him as she strode past and away.

That was it? Just a thank you?

Apparently he could still feel something besides attraction for her after all, because right now he was torqued off. He didn’t expect they would celebrate with a champagne dinner, but for heaven’s sake, they should at least be able to exchange a civil farewell. Not that civility had ever been one of his volatile wife’s strong points. She’d never been one to run from a potentially contentious moment.

So why was she making tracks to the elevator, her designer pumps clicking a sprinter’s pace? God, she made heels look good with her mile-long legs. She’d always been a shoe hound, not that he’d minded since she modeled her purchases for him.

Naked.

Damn it all, how long would it take for the flashes of life with Marianna to leave his head? He wanted his polite goodbye. He needed to end on a composed note. Needed to end this marriage. Period.

Sebastian made it to the elevator just before it slid closed. He hammered both hands against the part in the doors until they rebounded open. Marianna’s eyes went wide for an instant and he thought, oh yeah, now she’ll snap back. Toss a few heated words around and maybe even her leather portfolio gripped against her chest.

Then boom. Her gaze shot straight down and away, looking anywhere but at him.

He tucked into place beside her, the two of them alone in the elevator chiming down floors. “How’s Buddy?”

“Fine.” Her clipped answer interrupted the canned music for a whole second.

“Holly chewed up the grip on Matthew’s nine iron yesterday.”

His brother had pushed him to play eighteen holes of golf and unwind. Sebastian had won. He always won. But unwinding didn’t make it anywhere on the scorecard. “Luckily, Matthew’s in a good mood these days with his new fiancée and the senatorial race. So Holly’s safe from his wrath for now.”

She didn’t even seem to be listening. Strange. Because while she’d stopped loving him, she still loved those dogs.

He normally wasn’t one for confrontation outside the courtroom, but he’d seen enough divorce cases to know if they didn’t settle this now, they were only delaying a mammoth blow up later. “You can’t expect we’ll never talk to each other again. Aside from having the final court date to deal with, Hilton Head is a relatively small community. We’re going to run into each other.”

She chewed her full bottom lip, and just that fast he could all but feel that same mouth working over his body until he broke into a sweat.

He thumbed away a bead of perspiration popping on his brow, irritation spiking higher than her do-me-honey heels. “Seems we should have spelled out the rules for communication in that agreement. Let me make sure I get the gist of this right. We aren’t speaking anymore except for hello and goodbye. But is a nod okay if we’re both walking the dogs on the beach? Or should we section areas off so we don’t cross paths?”

Her fingers tightened around her leather portfolio, her gaze glued to the elevator numbers. “Don’t pick a fight with me, Sebastian. Not today.”

What the hell?

He never picked fights. She did. He was the calm one, at least on the outside. So what was going on with her? Or with him, for that matter? “Was there something with the lawyers that didn’t go the way you hoped?”

She chuckled, dark and low, a sad echo of the uninhibited laughter that used to roll freely from her. She sagged back against the brass rail. “Nobody wins, Sebastian. Isn’t that what you always say about divorce cases?”

She had him there.

Sebastian planted a hand beside her head. Sure he was crowding her but they only had one more floor left for him to get his answer. “What do you want?”

Marianna raised her eyes, finally. That dusky dark gaze sucker punched him with the last thing he expected to find, especially after they’d spent six months sleeping apart. And he saw the one thing he absolutely could not resist taking when it came to this woman. Marianna’s eyes smoked with flaming hot…

Desire.

CHAPTER 1

Where was she, and where the hell were her clothes?

Flat on her back in a strange bed, Nikki Price stared up at the ceiling fan moving slower than the spinning ceiling. Click, click, click. Blades cycled overhead in the dim light, swaying the chain with a tiny wood pull dangling from the end.

“Ohmigod, ohmigod. Oh. My. God.” What had she done last night?

She tried to look around but her eyeballs seemed stuck, all swollen and gritty in their sockets, her head too heavy to lift off the fabric-softener-fresh pillow, sheets equally as soft against her bare skin. All over bare. Goosebumps prickled over her completely naked body.

“Not right,” she whispered to herself, her quiet voice bouncing around the quieter room sporting a hotel-generic décor. “Not right, not right.”

Her bedroom fan pull sported a miniature soccer ball with tiny flowers painted on the white patches, a gift from her brother last Christmas. “Okay, I’m not totally losing it if I’m noticing silly details like overhead fixtures, right?”

No one answered. Thank God.

Still, nothing was familiar in the dim bedroom, only a hint of early sunrise streaking through the blinds. Voices swelled outside the walls. Her stomach clenched.

Okay, almost definitely a hotel.

She inched her fingers under the covers across the mattress, farther, farther again. Empty. She searched her mind for clues before she would have to turn her head and confront whoever might be in the room with her.

Panic stilled her more than even the nauseating ache stabbing through her skull. She hadn’t drunk much the night before. Had she? She scrolled through the evening, getting ready to go to Beachcombers Bar and Grill for the live music – and a neutral place to break things off with Gary. But she couldn’t recall much of anything after asking for a second amaretto sour. She wasn’t an angel, but she’d never expected to wake up in a strange bed.

Of course she hadn’t expected to do a lot of the reckless things she’d done over the past seven months since Carson Hunt tromped her heart. Truly tromped. Not the sort of temporary hurt that came from having a crush go south or getting dumped by a guy she’d just met. No. He’d deep down damaged her soul so much that even thinking about him still made it difficult to breathe. The ache of betrayal by her first real love might never go away.

Although these days she was more mad than hurt.

Could she have been mad enough last night to do something beyond reckless? Something totally stupid. Apparently she had since here she was. She’d thought she was ready to break up with the latest loser she’d been dating in hopes of filling that empty spot left by Carson. Finally she would move on with her life.

Okay, so she dated Air Force pilots – like Carson. From the base where Carson was stationed. And most of them happened to be tall and blond like, well, Carson. It had only taken her seven months to make the connection – hello? – but once she had, she’d resolved to set her life right again and end things with her latest Carson-substitute, Gary Owens.

No wonder she’d frozen up when any of those dates so much as kissed her. She wasn’t interested in them. Which made her feel even worse. No guy – even a loser – deserved to be used as a replacement for another man.

Her stomach rebelled. So why was she naked in a hotel room? Apparently she’d gotten over her kissing aversion.

She swallowed down fear along with a prayer that whoever she’d been with used a condom. From here on out, she would stop being such a loser. She risked a deeper breath, inhaling the scent of laundry detergent. Masculine cologne – ohmigod.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Breathe in … cologne and an air of something else, an unfamiliar smell she couldn’t quite identify, but her body shivered in disgust all the same. Somebody was in the room with her. Still asleep? Or in the bathroom?

Please, please, please at least let it be Gary, even if they’d never slept together before. He hadn’t been at the bar last night for those few minutes and couple of drinks she could remember, but he’d been the one to set up the meeting by sending her an e-mail asking her for a date.

Bracing herself for the worst anyway, she arched her aching body, her head pounding as she rolled onto her side under the cotton sheets. Fresh pain pounded as her cheek met the pillow, but she stifled the urge to moan. The room appeared as empty as the bed. She gulped in gasping breaths, her heart now hammering harder than her head, relief making her darn near dizzy. At least if he was in the bathroom, she would have a second to collect herself.

Palms flattened to the mattress, she angled up, cool morning air prickling along her skin. Winters in South Carolina were all the chillier for the humidity. Cold and damp, like the ancient tombs her junior high students were currently studying in honors history class – and ohmigod, she was going to be late for work.

“Hello?” Her voice crackled up her parched throat. “Uhm, I would really appreciate it if you wrapped a towel around yourself before coming out.”

She didn’t risk guessing a name.

Nikki waited, but still no sounds from the shower or anywhere else. She squinted to look through the dim morning light across the room. The tiny bathroom seemed abandoned. Relief rode a shuddering exhale racking through her.

She would worry later about the rest when she swiped the fog from her head. She wasn’t off scot-free thanks to those unaccounted for hours, but she didn’t have to confront the awful awkwardness – and horror – of facing some guy she couldn’t even remember picking up.

New leaf turnover time.

Hell, she would turn over a whole flipping tree. She was done feeling sorry for herself just because Carson “Ultimate Loser” Hunt had drop kicked her heart in one unforgettable night. She would take control of her life and her emotions.

Pressing the heel of her hand to her melon-heavy head, she swung her feet to the floor. Thud. Her toes struck something solid rather than carpet. She toppled forward, her heart double timing to marathon pace.

Arms flailing she grabbed for the end table, slammed to her knees, her teeth jarring together. Pain sliced through her head. She squinted in the faint light…

And stared straight into the unblinking eyes of the dead man on the floor.

* * *

Major Carson “Scorch” Hunt was dead tired and he hadn’t even eaten breakfast yet.

Of course he hadn’t fallen into bed until two in the morning due to an emergency on the flight line and he was back at his desk by dawn, hoping for a more peaceful day. No such luck.

Now thanks to a phone call from the security police, peace was on hold for far longer than the sausage and egg croissant he’d picked up at Burger King. On his way out the office door again, he jammed his arms back into his leather flight jacket that had never made it onto the brass anchor peg before his phone rang.

A lieutenant from his squadron was dead…

PROLOGUE

“Ah hell, it broke.”

The second the stunned words fell out of Vic Jansen’s mouth he wanted to recall them for something more composed. But what was the mannerly way to tell the naked woman straddling his lap that their birth control had suffered a catastrophic failure?

This wasn’t supposed to happen to two over thirty adults.

“What do you mean, ‘It broke’?”

Claire’s horrified whisper steamed over his chest as they sat tangled together. The steamy gust stirred a fire down south when he should have been long past recovery after their weekend of marathon sex.

Lifting her off and to the side, Vic squinted in the darkness to see his friend of six months and lover of three days. Years of veterinary practice had prepped him for hostile horses and spitting-mad cats, but at the moment he felt damned unprepared to cope with Claire McDermott and a possible pregnancy.

Coping with memories of the daughter he’d lost proved even tougher. He shoved aside images of pigtails, Barbie dolls – funeral wreaths.

“Exactly what I said.” He swiped a wrist across his forehead, flinging aside sweat in spite of the forty degree weather of a Southern January evening. “The condom tore.”

“There’s absolutely no way it should have broken.” Panic pitching her voice higher, breathier, Claire snatched her dress from beside her feet and clutched it to her bare breasts he wanted to unveil and kiss all over again. “I know they only have a ninety-six percent reliability factor, but that four percent encompasses idiots who don’t know how to use the things.”

“Well, lady, tonight we two idiots just blew those stats right out of the water – as it were.” Vic gripped the steel rim of the bass boat, the plastic fishing chair chilling his skin. “Be still, will ya’? You’re going to tip us over.”

Claire puffed a breath of air upward, blowing away a lank lock dangling in her face, puffed again, then finally combed shaking fingers through her tousled caramel-colored hair. He couldn’t let himself think about tangling his hands through her silky strands as he held her curvy body against his or he would lose his focus.

She untangled a gelatinous lure and flicked it onto the tackle box. “Are you sure you didn’t catch the condom on a hook or something?”

“Geez, Claire.” Vic clasped her shoulders, her soft scented skin sending a fresh jolt of heat through him. “Don’t you think I would know if I had a hook in it?”

“Good point.” She dodged the cooler, leaning over the seat which displayed a flash of tempting flesh before she straightened, her lacy bra and panties in hand. “That’s the last time you get to supply birth control.”

“I feel compelled to point out that it’s one I snagged from your bedside table–” he tugged on his jeans– “since we’d used up mine.”

The slap and crash of waves against the shore filled the silence while Claire shimmied into her underwear. Vic grimaced at her extended quiet. Theirs had been an unlikely friendship of opposites – classic Claire with all her pretty lace, and him with his flannel, rough-around-the-edges ways. But a friendship he’d come to value in the past six months since he’d sold his vet practice in North Dakota and relocated to Charleston, South Carolina, away from all reminders of his daughter and ex-wife.

Yet, in spite of his vow for a rootless existence living on a sailboat, more and more often he’d found himself walking across the marina dock to Beachcombers restaurant for Claire’s home cooked meal, a glass of sweet tea – and her smile.

Claire suddenly seemed overly interested in how her dress buttoned up the front. “Those condoms in my bedside table were old. I, uh, haven’t been with anyone for a long time.”

“Really?”

She swayed toward him. “Really.”

Damn, she never failed to capsize his control with her unexpected moments of vulnerability peeking through her unflappable shield. Vic pulled her against his chest. She resisted half-heartedly, then relented.

He smoothed his hands over her back, down her spine while resisting the tempting curve of her bottom. “I don’t have any diseases you need to worry about, if that makes you feel better.”

“A little.” Her full lips curved into a hesitant smile against his skin. “Me neither, by the way, no surprise given my non existent sex life… up to now.” She eased free, the boat lurching in response. Once steadied, Claire slipped her feet into her pumps.

“What are the odds, given the timing of your cycle?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Are you sure? Never mind.” Stupid question.

The risk of having another kid scared the pants right back off him, but Claire deserved some kind of reassurance.

“Let’s take this a day at a time. There’s no need to get in a frenzy about something that may not even happen. We’ll discuss it when and if we need to, but I’ll be there for you.”

Claire stared back at him in the dark, waiting… for what? Finally, she shook her head. “Like you said, we’ll discuss it later.”

She snatched up her sweater and leapt from the boat onto the asphalt.

Sliding open the garage door, she revealed the marina parking lot and her restaurant/home up the hill overlooking docked crafts bobbing in the harbor.

They’d been on their way to his forty-two foot sailboat when they’d been delayed by a spontaneous make-out session against a string of garages for marina residents. And hey, since he owned the truck and bass boat inside, why wait?

Zipping his pants, he tracked her sweet-butt hauling up the planked walkway toward the two story restaurant she co-owned with her sisters. A few leftover Christmas lights illuminated her double-time progress way from him. He considered simply letting her go and giving them both some space. But even as frustrated as he was over her deep freeze, he owed Claire for challenging him back to life after years of numbed emotions. That meant he couldn’t let her walk away scared.

Snagging his shirt, he vaulted over the side of the boat. He stuffed his arms through the flannel softness that now carried Claire’s lilac scent, along with a few ripped buttonholes from her frantic hands.

“Hold on.” He dashed after her, the tails of his open shirt flapping behind him.

The need for a better end to their weekend raked aside everything else, including shoes. He thudded barefoot past the marina office onto her property, across the patchy sandy lawn.

Toes darn-near frostbitten, Vic made it to her front porch a hair’s breadth behind her. He braced a hand just beside her and rested his cheek against the back of her head, nuzzling against her tangled hair. She tensed, but she didn’t move, gasping in the steamy humid night.

His brain scrambled for the right words, a way to shift them back to what they’d shared before he’d ruined it by taking her to bed – or to his boat. “I know you needed me to say something, and I fell short of the mark.”

The tense brace of her shoulders sent alarms through him. Claire was beyond upset. She was in a blind panic. What fears of her own was she carrying around that she hadn’t shared with him anymore than he’d told her about his? And what a time to realize they hadn’t been friends in any meaningful manner after all. Just meal-sharing acquaintances who’d gotten naked together. “God almighty, lady, you’re the most exasperating and incredible woman I’ve ever met. But I’m not very good at the pretty words.”

Slowly, she turned, tilting her chin defensively. She reached, her hand hovering between them almost touching his bare chest, but settling on the open shirt instead. “I need to be alone right now. But I promise I’ll let you know if I’m…”

She didn’t need to finish. Her shuttered expression said it all. They couldn’t go back to what little they’d had. Disappointment chugged through him, more than he would have expected three short days ago. His hands slid from her face. “Okay, I’ll be waiting to hear from you then. You know where to find me.”

He stepped back from the porch, Claire, her smile. Déjà vu swept over him as she sprinted up the steps and into her antebellum restaurant/home. How many times would he watch people he cared about fade from his life?

Damned if numb wasn’t better after all.

“Allie, stop. I don’t want your pity.”

“Tough,” she yelled. “I feel sorry for you. There’s no great sin in that. What kind of person would I be if I didn’t ache for you and all you’ve lost?”

Jake pivoted to face her. He was a heartless bastard and he knew it. Time for her to find out as well. He had to do something to wipe out the expectations in her eyes. Given the least encouragement or any more of his maudlin revelations, she would box him up and take him home like a pathetic pound foundling.

“What do you want from me?”

Her tilted chin brought her lips a whisper away from his. “I want you to stop confusing me. Let me in or slam the door shut.”

Wavering forward, she pressed her lips to his. A surge of desire flooded him, an impulsive rage against the thought of losing anything more. Everything he’d suppressed since meeting Allison St. James slammed through him with a body-tightening ache.

“Jake,” she whispered, her breath caressing his cheek, “if I’m the one we have to count on for self-control, we’re in big trouble.”

Jake gave up the fight. “Then we’re in trouble.”

PROLOGUE

Baghdad, Iraq: nine months ago

“I don’t think we should see each other anymore once we get back to the States.”

His soon-to-be ex-girlfriend’s rejection rattled around in Captain Bobby “Postal” Ruznick’s head as loudly as the echo of worn out shock absorbers rattled along the dirt road. Dumped by a woman, in a crappy military bus, no less.

A first, but not a surprise.

He’d expected the heave-ho from Dr. Grace Marie Lanier – a profiler for the police when she wasn’t called up for her Army Reservist duty – after their second date to a no-cover-charge bazaar festival in downtown Baghdad. Then she’d hung around for another date and he’d started to think maybe…

So yeah, this did sting a little after all. Not that he would let on and launch into some major discussion when he had bigger concerns.

Such as the off-kilter sense he was getting from the desert town landscape outside the gritty windows. This should have been a simple bus ride to his plane, wrapping up a two week quick gig in Baghdad. But then nothing around here ever turned out simple.

A Special Ops pilot, he had to trust his instincts or he could too easily end up taking the eternal dirt nap.

“Bobby, I know you’re awake behind those sunglasses.” Gracie’s prissy tones contradicted her sultry, exotic scent. “Your boot’s tapping so hard you’re vibrating the floorboards worse than the potholes.”

This didn’t seem like an opportune moment to mention more than one woman had told him he twitched even in his sleep, so he kept listening to her ramble on like his third grade teacher spouting the benefits of Ritalin for settling his ass down. Except his junkie ma never made it to the parent/teacher conference. By the time he’d gone to live with his grandma, he’d figured out to avoid raisins, grapes and sugar. He’d learned to concentrate hard and process those eight ka-zillion stimuli catapulting his way all at once. He’d fast figured out how to pick which one demanded the bulk of his attention.

The newly erected placards scrolled in local dialect along the dusty road won, hands down.

“Really, Bobby, I don’t want to drag this out. Certainly it will be awkward during the flight home, but after we land tomorrow morning, we’ll never have to see each other again. I’ll return to North Carolina, you can kick back on your Florida beach.”

He grunted.

What else could he say? She was right. A shrink and a psycho really didn’t make for much of a match.

He figured he’d been lucky to get three dates. But holy hell, then on date three she’d flattened her hand to his fly during a lip lock behind a Humvee a second before the “time to leave” call from fellow CV-22 pilot Joe “Face” Greco. Face’s sucky timing had cost Bobby’s one chance at Gracie. Sexy Gracie. Blond and busty and so smart he got off on the fact she couldn’t string syllables together after their first kiss.

Now he wouldn’t luck into a repeat.

Damn. Big time damn. And so not anything he could think about now because holy crap something wasn’t right outside the grimy bus window. He couldn’t read the messages spray painted on plywood, and likely no one on the bus could read Arabic either.

Might just be signs for homemade fig preserves or a “have you seen my lost goat?” Or it could be something else altogether – like a warning to locals.

Except these locals were in surprisingly scarce supply in the small village outside of Baghdad, not a kid in sight. He logged all textbook signs of an IED – improvised explosive device. The IED could be stored anywhere or strapped to anyone.

Inside the rusted out jeep on the side of the road.

Buried under that leaning palm tree.

Perhaps stuffed in that dead cow carcass rotting in a ditch.

Gracie shifted in her seat, plastic crackling. Her soft curves pressed against his side and threatened distraction, no matter how adept he was at multi-tasking. More of her sexy scent mingled in with the pervasive military bus smell – much like an old Boy Scout tent, not that he’d ever been a Boy Scout. However his buddy Face had, and vowed military gear carried the same musty stink.

Distracting thoughts whacked him from all sides. Shit. He was better than that now. Concentrate, and do not let emotions slither through to remind him how hell could explode in seconds.

“Bobby, you’re a talented pilot and even a, uh, fascinating man. But we’re just too different. That whole ‘opposites attract’ cliché is true, but not always healthy.”

“Uh, huh.” He shoved to his feet. Fascinating? Cool. He would process that later for sure. But first– “’Scuse me.”

“Where are you going?”

Her faint question tickled at the edges of his narrowing focus. He braced a hand on the back of a seat as he walked, then another seat, left, right, making his way up the aisle with slow deliberation while assessing that cow carcass in the ditch as the already creeping bus slowed at an intersection.

Plenty of carcasses decayed around this place for days, but that bovine gut offered plenty of room to hide a bomb. He suppressed nightmarish images of other IEDs strapped to women and children. His brain flashed with memories of bombs tucked beneath murdered American soldiers waiting to be retrieved and honored for their sacrifice. Instead their dead bodies in the field were rigged to a device and used as a tool by the enemy to blow up more Americans.

His gaze skipped ahead to the camo-wearing driver. The dude wasn’t an Iraqi National since they didn’t hire locals to drive buses. The burly guy was an Army reservist like Gracie. Trustworthy.

But everyone was edgy and, well, Bobby had a rep for acting irrationally. This uptight Sarge driving the rattletrap bus already thought he was a loose canon.

Usually they were t-totally correct. Just not today.

Still there wasn’t time for chitchat. Discussion would cost valuable minutes and he needed to get up front. Fast. Sprinting would get him tackled by any of the Army dudes packing the seats, rifles on their laps.

Of course a rifle didn’t deliver much of a wallop against an IED. He made his way forward.

Slow. Steady. Focused. Almost there.

A hand snaked out, grabbing his elbow. Bobby resisted the impulse to draw back a fist – thank God, since the hand was attached to his crewdog buddy, Joe “Face” Greco who so wouldn’t take well to a fist fight. “What are you gonna do, Postal, get off and walk? Sit down and catch some sleep. We’ve got a long flight ahead of us. Listen, cheap ass, I seriously doubt the driver has any complimentary pretzel packs and a soda cart.”

Postal’s parsimonious ways were legendary.

Bobby nodded toward the empty seats up front, let Face assume whatever he wanted and kept on walking. Past “Vegas,” a family man with kids.

Sandman, Padre and Stones, each of those gunners was a crew member with helmet bags and rifles of their own. His brothers-in-arms who didn’t deserve to be blown to hell by a terrorist IED coated with cow guts. Nobody deserved that.

After dodging countless bullets on the street as a kid and even more bullets as an adult in war zones, he figured he was already living on borrowed time. Better to go down in a blaze of glory than let those bastards hurt a busload of innocents. Like Gracie, who yeah, was always a little too perfect to hang out with a messed up, adrenaline junky like him anyway.

And if he was wrong about the IED? Well, they would just have another reason to laugh and call him Nucking Futz Postal.

Bobby stopped beside the driver. Focus. Adrenaline surge. Act.

He grabbed the wheel before the Army sergeant could do more than look up.

Bobby jerked the wheel left. Hurtled the bus off the road amid hollering from the back. The rear mirror showed slinging bodies too busy righting themselves to overtake him.

Excellent.

He slammed against the seat, clenched his hand around the steering wheel. The driver’s shouts were lost in the…

Boom.

The explosion behind them rocked the earth, drowned out words, but not the hoarse shouts. The rearview mirror filled with the image of flames splitting the road behind them, exactly where they would have driven.

Hands locked, he guided the wheel, plowed the bus through a piece-of-shit barn on the city outskirts. Chickens squawked and scattered.

The bus blasted out the other side of the ramshackle barn, into a ditch and up onto the road again. Safely. Although new shock absorbers were definitely no longer optional.

At least they were safe, and Baghdad International waited ahead in the stretch of desert.

Heated nerves chilled, settling in the stunned silence surrounding him. Sweat sealed his flight suit to his body, but more from the temp than from any stress because he’d always known he would succeed.

Well, he’d been pretty sure.

He nodded to the driver. “Here ya go, Scooter. All yours again. But I’m thinking we need to get the hell out of here ASAP.”

Bobby released the wheel and pivoted away. The swaying bus lurched under his feet before steadying again as the rows of passengers gawked and whispered.

Left hand on a seat, right, left, he made his way back down the narrow aisle.

Joe Greco shook his head and clapped him on the shoulder. “Thank you, crazy ass bastard.”

That he was.

Gracie stared back at him with eyes wide. Wary. Confused. But mostly wary.

Yeah, he was definitely too close to the edge for Dr. Uptight. That pissed him off, which was better than regretting the fact he would never get naked with gorgeous Gracie.

Without a word, he plunked in his seat, slouching. Boot bouncing a never ending restless rhythm, he settled in for a few minutes’ powernap before their flight out of this shithole and out of Dr. Gracie Marie Lanier’s perfect world. She balanced it all, profiler for the cops, then racing to do her duty when called to her Army reservist psy-ops job. All that and hot as all get out. Shee-it.

As still as she sat, Gracie fidgeted causing too many damned tempting brushes of those lush breasts of hers against his arm.

With a final huff, she stilled. “Well, Bobby, you sure picked a hell of a way to avoid our farewell conversation.”