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…

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.

First Lieutenant Darcy “Wren” Renshaw flung her flight checklist on the planning room table with a resounding smack. Not much of an outlet for her frustration, but the satisfying thunk on scarred wood made her feel marginally better.

While her siblings pounded dictators in Southeast Asia, she was stuck flying Flipper to Guam.

Restrained anger pinged inside her like antiaircraft missiles. Darcy spun an empty chair and dropped into the seat at the lengthy conference table, eager to start and therefore finish this mission all the sooner.

For once she didn’t plunge into conversation with the other aircrew members plotting their early-morning takeoff from San Diego bound for Guam – an island that still haunted her dreams. No need to infect the crew with her rotten mood. After all, transporting marine biologist Dr. Maxwell Keagan and his two bottlenose dolphins to the South Pacific was considered an honor.

An honor for the rest of the C-17 crew maybe, but for her? Darcy knew better. She hadn’t earned this cake mission, an embarrassing reality that burned over her with the devouring speed of flaming jet fuel.

How dare her three star General father “encourage” the Squadron Commander to yank Darcy’s combat slot to Cantou and schedule her as a last minute substitute on the safer Flipper Flight? She’d worked her boots off to be deserving of the wings on her leather nametag since the first day of pilot training. She wouldn’t start quietly accepting gift-wrapped cushy assignments now.

Sounds of Air Force crewdogs at work wrapped around her, the familiar routine offering none of its usual excitement. Rustling charts, clipped banter. Pilots. Loadmasters. Ground support. Every one of them having already pulled their rotation in conflicts around the world. She couldn’t allow them to shoulder all her risks as well as their own.

Once she offloaded Dr. Dolittle and his dolphin duo in Guam, she would confront her commander. If she wasn’t qualified for combat in the Cantou conflict, then he should remove her from flying status altogether.

Darcy yanked a bag of sunflower seeds from the thigh pocket of her flight suit and wrestled open the cellophane. Munching away emotions she refused to let rule her, she cracked shells, slowly, one at a time to restore her calm while waiting for Dr. Keagan to arrive. “Anybody seen the dolphin doc around yet?”

Captain Tanner “Bronco” Bennett, the aircraft commander, looked up from his chart. “What’s your hurry, Wren? He’s got another ten minutes.”

“Eight,” Darcy answered without checking her watch. “To be early is to be on time.”

“Cool your jets. He’ll get here when he gets here.” Bronco reached into the thigh pocket of his flight suit. “Since we’re waiting, have I showed everyone the latest pictures of Kathleen and the baby at the zoo?”

“Yes!” the room collectively shouted.

Bronco held his hands up in good-natured surrender. “Hey, just trying to pass time till the guy arrives.”

“I’m starting to wonder if you could fit enough pictures in your pocket for that, Captain.” Darcy eased her grouse with a quick grin, drumming her fingers impatiently on the gouged wood.

She hadn’t met Keagan yet, having only arrived at the San Diego Naval Air Station from her home base in Charleston, South Carolina the night before. But the guy must have some heavy-duty clout to warrant military transport for his dolphins.

String pullers weren’t high on her list of favorite folks, especially today.

This time General Pops had gone too far with the overprotectiveness. Sure, she’d been kidnapped in Guam as a kid. A terrifying experience for her family, and one she still couldn’t dwell on for even thirty seconds without dropping her damned sunflower seeds all over the floor. But it was time to get past it.

Darcy cracked seeds one at time to focus her thoughts and calm her pissed off senses. Maybe the time had come to confront her father, too. If only she didn’t have to confront the inevitable worry on his dear craggy face as well.

Why couldn’t her dad understand that by clipping her wings, he’d always denied her the chance to put that week behind her? Her very nature, inherited from seven generations of Renshaw warriors, demanded she fight back. Like the squadron motto on her patch, she would be ready for anything, anywhere, anytime.
She hadn’t expected that to include hauling cetaceans across the Pacific.

Darcy jack-hammered another salty seed with her molars.

Bronco spun her chair to face him. “Geez, Renshaw. How about I get you some rocks to chew? Wouldn’t be half as noisy.”

Bronco’s linebacker bulk filled his chair as completely as his teasing filled the room. Darcy shrugged off her irritation and slid into the camaraderie with as much ease as zipping her flight suit. Childhood years spent as a squadron mascot while her classmates earned Scout badges had left her with a slew of surrogate big brothers and the ability to hold her own around any military water cooler.

She sprinkled a pile of sunflower seeds on top of the aircraft commander’s chart. “Shelling is an art form, boss man. Didn’t they teach you old guys anything when you went to pilot training?”
From across the table, Captain Daniel “Crusty” Baker scooped the shells. “We old guys must have been busy inventing the wheel.”

“Old guys? Ouch!” Bronco thumped his chest. “Renshaw deals another lethal blow to the ego. My wife would be proud.”

Crusty pitched the seeds into his mouth, swiped his hand along his flight suit and grabbed the bag for a second helping.

Darcy snagged it away, irritation creeping through in spite of her resolve. “Get your own, moocher.”

Bronco eased back his chair, a big-brother-concern glinting in his eyes she recognized too well. “What’s got your G-suit in a knot today, Renshaw?”

Uh-uh. She wasn’t answering that one. Her feelings were her own. Always had been since the terrorist raid on her childhood overseas home.

She clenched her fist around the shells until they sliced into her palm. One rogue seed spurted between her fingers and spiraled to the carpet. She inched her flight boot over it to conceal the seed as well as her momentary lapse.

Darcy popped another seed into her mouth. “I’m sorry. Were you talking?” She scavenged a quick grin. “I couldn’t hear you over my crunching.”

Chuckling, the two senior captains resumed pouring over Bronco’s chart.

Tipping back her seat, Darcy dragged the industrial-size trash can forward and pitched her hulls inside. Time to launch this flight and bring her closer to launching her life as well. She rolled her chair away from the table. “I’m going to find out what’s keeping Keagan so we can get this mission off the ground.”

Footsteps sounded from the hall, stalling Darcy half-standing. The door swung open, voices swelling through as three men strode in, two in naval khaki uniforms, one in creased pants and a bow tie.

Ah, the professor.

Just as Darcy started to look away, another man strolled through the doorway. One glimpse at him and she lost all interest in studying flight data scrawled on the dry erase board.

Holy marine mammal, the guy was hot.

Six foot two, three maybe. Early thirties? Given his laid-back air and casual clothes, perhaps he was the graduate assistant accompanying the professor on the flight. A graduate assistant who looked as if he spent all his after school hours on a surfboard.

Sandy-brown hair spiked from his head, the tips bleached from overexposure to the sun. The damp disarray could have been styled deliberately, but somehow she didn’t think so. His five o’clock shadow at 8:00 a.m. hinted his only comb might be fingers tunneling through sun-kissed hair.

A sea-foam colored windbreaker zipped halfway up his broad chest. The banded waist grazed the top of his low-riding drawstring swim trunks. Slim hips and an incredible tush were covered by… Flowers.

Loud tangerine and purple blooms blazoned from faded nylon hitting right around knee-length, obliterating her earlier frustration in a Technicolor sensory tidal wave.

After hanging out in an almost exclusively male world all her life, she wasn’t often rattled by a man’s physical appearance. So why were her fingers itching to comb through this guy’s hair?

The senior Navy officer paused beside the dry erase board. “Sorry for the delay. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce Dr. Maxwell Keagan, head of Marine Mammal Communications at the University of San Diego. And his research assistant, Perry Griffin. Now that they’ve arrived, I’ll set up the computer and projector while you introduce yourselves.” The officer turned to the two civilians. “Dr. Keagan, we’ll be ready for your brief in about five minutes.”

“Thank you, Commander.”

Huh?

Dr. Keagan’s answer hadn’t come from Mr. Bow Tie, but from the surfboarder dude with incredible pecs and horrid fashion sense.

Darcy dropped into her seat with more force than a botched parasail landing. She blinked, stared again.

Sure enough those tropical-flower-clad hips were advancing toward her end of the table for an introduction. Not Mr. Bow Tie. That guy was crawling along the floorboards searching for an outlet for the computer like an eager-to-please research assistant.

Surfboarder dude extended his hand. “Dr. Max Keagan.”

A beach bum with a brain. Fantasies didn’t come any better.

“Hello, Doctor.” Standing, she transferred her sunflower seeds to her left hand and extended her right. “Lieutenant Darcy Renshaw.”

His callused fingers enfolded hers, his scent chasing right up the link to blanket her with intoxicating potency. Coconut oil, salty air and a hint of musk wafted from him, like a pina colada after long, sweaty sex on the beach.

If she’d ever had such a moment.

For a crazy, impulsive second, Darcy wondered what it would be like to make that memory – with this guy. A shiver whispered through her that had nothing to do with the whoosh of the air conditioner.

Did she see an answering attraction in his blue-green eyes? Maybe the slightest narrowing of his gaze to one of those sleepy-lidded assessments she’d seen her eight ka-zillion pseudo big brothers give other women when–

Bronco cleared his throat just before the chair behind Darcy jarred the back of her knees. Damn. Did the big guy have to kick it so hard? Be so obvious in pointing out she was still clasping Max Keagan’s fingers?

Darcy jerked her hand away and glanced over her shoulder. Sure enough, the pilots stood side-by-side, a mismatched Mutt and Jeff with identical smirks. Double damn and dirt. They would razz the hell out of her all the way across the Pacific.

She willed herself not to blush. Salvaging what she could of her pride and professionalism, Darcy pulled to attention. “Dr. Keagan, a pleasure to meet you.”

Pleasure? She stifled a groan at her word choice.

Bronco snorted.

Forget salvaging squat. She turned on her boot heel toward the aircraft commander. “With all due respect, sir, I’m going to roll you off the loadramp right after we cross into international airspace.”

She faced Max Keagan again, unable to read anything on the man’s tanned – gorgeous – face. “I apologize for him and for my, uh…” Adolescent drooling? Mortifying lack of self-control? “For staring. You aren’t quite what I expected.”

“No problem. I’ve heard the same in more than one faculty meeting.” He let her off the hook with a few simple words.

Oh, man. Smart, hunky and nice enough to grant her an easy reprieve when he could have been an egotistical jerk.

She was toast.

“Let’s start again.” Composure thankfully back in place, Darcy made the formal introductions without a hitch. They settled into their chairs, Bronco and Crusty suddenly opting for a new seating chart that left only one place for Dr. Keagan. Next to Darcy.

Great. Now instead of teasing her, they were “helping.” She had her very own hulking Cupid with a sunflower-mooching cohort.
She probably needed their help. And then some.

If only she possessed as much ease with flirting as she did with touch-and-go landings.

Touch-and-go. Her heart rate fired like jet pistons chugging to life. Why did a routine flight term suddenly sound sexy courtesy of Dr. Keagan?

Duh! Because his bad-boy, fine self was sitting no less than eighteen inches away, his eyes gliding over her flight suit with a heat she’d never, never had sizzle her way before from any guy. After all, men did not look at their best bud that way, even if said bud was a woman.

Darcy savored the heat all the way to her toes.

Twenty-five years of virginity, of overprotective relatives, of being everybody’s pal and never the object of those sleepy-lidded stares, weighed her down like a seventy-pound survival pack ready to be shed after a marathon trek. She was tired of being slotted into safer roles.

Why wait until after this mission to go for what she wanted? Here was a big, hunky risk ready for the taking.

And she could have that risk without breaking her personal rule. No military men. No men like her father, government protectors by training, trade and blood.

Before she lost her nerve, Darcy extended her fist toward Max. Her fingers unfurled to reveal a now steady palm full of sunflower seeds. “Want some?”

***

Max stared at that slim hand, up to Darcy Renshaw’s wrist where a pulse double-timed in a fragile vein.

He wanted a lot more than sunflower seeds from the leggy dynamo seated beside him. Her flight suit and take-no-lip attitude assured him she could probably down the average man in five different ways. One helluva woman, no doubt.

Not that he intended to act on the impulse to accept that challenge. Following impulses could get even the best of CIA officers killed.

Or worse yet, someone else…

Chapter One

Being a princess was a real pain in the tiara.

Wearing the crown and fifty-plus pound royal garb of her native country of Cantou threatened to give Las Vegas Police Detective Kim Wong a debilitating rash and back ache. And the police station hadn’t even been called to order for morning brief yet.

She shuffled from foot to foot, shoes too tight as she stood with her fellow police officers on the Las Vegas Police Force. And yeah, they were smirking.

“Zip it, Jakowski,” Kim said, “or I’m gonna send your wife a picture of you in drag.”

Coughing into his hand, the smirker hushed and rejoined his conversation with an older detective in plaid shorts, a Hawaiian shirt and a camera around his neck.

Aside from this whole costume party being the strangest morning brief in history, the clothes brought back all the reasons she’d decided to put the pomp and circumstance behind her for a life where she controlled her choices. Hanging out with the coffee maker burping sludge into the pot, Kim bolstered herself with thoughts of the wager she’d made with her two best pals, also detectives, Dorian Byrne and Clarissa Rivers.

The bet?

Who would close their case first this weekend. The stakes? A very precious – and rare – week off.

Their boss, Captain Bill Pearson, was riding the whole department’s back to clean up the town the weekend before a big influx of tourists for the Labor Day extended holiday. Finishing up fast and first would rate extra kudos around the water cooler.

Every cop not on another detail had been assigned to work a suspect casino. She would be working the Great Wall Casino. The tip on the Great Wall would barely warrant attention on a normal day, but her boss was really wigging. So he paid more attention than normal to an unreliable snitch with a heroin habit who vowed stolen diamonds were going to be moved through the Asian-themed casino this weekend.

Normally, they would just do a cursory check, not a deep undercover gig. Except this wasn’t a normal weekend. Their Captain was definitely not in a normal mood with politicians breathing down his neck and his wife breathing fire not-too-privately about all her husband’s overtime.

So, here Kim stood in fifty-pounds of embroidered garb.

She raked her fingernails along her shoulder and resisted the urge to replace her tiara with a jeweled baseball cap. She truly respected the beauty and history of her heritage, but she’d picked a new path for her life years ago. However for this weekend she had to impersonate her spoiled brat princess cousin, Ting.

Lucky for Kim’s case, she and “Princess” Ting could be identical twins.

Not that either of them was really royalty. The whole imperial thing had ended thirty-eight years ago in a military coup. Her family was allowed to keep their titles out of courtesy only.

Kim was grateful for the support of her two best pals – her cohorts in the bet. Clarissa had already started her assignment and Dorian would be heading out soon. But Confucius love ‘em, her friends had been emphatic about giving her a big send off even though they’d already gotten their marching orders.

A hand rested on her shoulder, jolting her. She turned to find Dorian had slid through the masses, past a lion tamer and a “vacationing” couple. Her buddy, Dorian, wore a prim suit, lucky her, but her undercover get-up would come soon enough.

“Hang in there, my friend,” Dorian consoled. “It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing. We all know you can kick any man’s ass with your black belt qualifications – not to mention your street moxy.”

Kim rolled her eyes. “I can barely walk in this get-up. But sure, whatever.”

Dorian dipped her head and whispered, “Kim, are you sure you’re up to this?”

“I only needed a few stitches, not major surgery.” Itching. Not pain. She wouldn’t think about the bullet wound. A nick only, really.

“That doesn’t mean getting shot didn’t mess with your head.”

Kim forced a smile. “You just want to shift the odds in your favor of getting that week off.”

“I’m just watching my friend’s back.” She grinned. “Not that I could recognize your back in all those clothes you’re wearing.”

“It’s better than being darn near naked,” Kim pointed out because Dorian would be wearing streetwalker gear soon enough.

A scowl turned Dorian’s expression fierce. “Point taken. The stilettos are guaranteed ankle-breakers”

“I respect my country’s historic wear, but dang, this stuff chafes.”

“Once you get through the opening ceremonies, things should be more casual.”

“Obviously you’ve never seen Ting featured in Celebs Magazine.”

Clarrisa Rivers made her way past Jakowski in drag to join them. “Too bad they couldn’t give you a purple tiara. You like purple.”

“I’m sure Ting has one shoved somewhere.” Her cousin made full use of the family coffers to pamper herself.

“At least you don’t have to go undercover as a maid or a hooker.” Clarrisa tugged at the apron in obvious disgust, the magenta costume obviously striking some kind of negative chord.

“You’ve got me there.” Kim eyed her two friends, grateful for their support. They really could be out working their cases now, getting a head start on her, but they’d come here to check on her, to make sure she had her feet under her since the shooting a month ago. “Thanks for coming over to check on me. But I’m sure you need to get back to your own assignments.”

Clarissa tapped Kim’s tiara. “We wouldn’t have missed your launch for the world.”

Then the room was called to attention for the head dude, their boss, Captain Pearson. “Be seated. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover today, so let’s get straight to it and start with getting Detective Wong out on the street.”

Deep breath. Time to make her grand march to the front of the room. Bye-bye burping coffee pot.

Kim tossed her head back and strode forward, willing the crowd to part.

Which it did.

Hmmm. Apparently the royal blood still shooshed through her veins after all. Her protective entourage – police officers all decked out as well – flanked her on her way to the front of the room.

Captain Pearson nodded to her as he stepped aside to make room for Kim and Company. “Good. You all look good, convincing. Well done, detectives. We’ll get started soon. We’re just waiting on one final individual, your personal bodyguard.”

What? All itchy sensations disappeared in light of a full tingle of irritation. “Personal bodyguard? I think I’m insulted.”

Pearson shook his head. “It will look strange in the casino if you don’t have a bodyguard.”

“Of course you’re right.” Irritation slid away, which of course gave the itching full rein to return. “I’m thinking with my ego rather than my brain.” She was still stinging after getting winged on that domestic dispute job last month. She didn’t doubt herself, but she feared others would.

“We’re concerned about security on this one, Wong. It goes beyond the jewels. There’s been a threat called in on the royal family given the shaky relations between some rogue factions in the U.S. and in Cantou.”

“I’m a U.S. citizen now.”

“But you’re not yourself this weekend.”

Of course. Already her brain was getting muddled.

“This weekend, you are Ting in the eyes of your mother country. And if the diamond transfer to fund underground armies in Cantou is true, they won’t care if you’re the princess or not. You’re royal. That’s cause enough to put a price on your head. So, regardless. We want a robust security detail, and what makes the most sense is big burly boyfriend.”

A boyfriend? She searched the room full of her fellow detectives. At least she could be sure she wasn’t getting the jerk Jakowski since he wouldn’t scare off anybody in his spandex skirt and pink lipstick. Somebody really should have told him to shave his hairy legs.

Shuddering, she turned back to her boss. “You’re kidding, sir.”

“I’m afraid not,” the captain said from behind the podium. “And the most logical choice would be the man well known for hanging out with the Wong women–

A slight inkling started to niggle through. Oh no.

“–when he was deployed to Cantou–”

He couldn’t mean. She clutched Dorian’s arm.

“–two years ago on assignment with the U.S. Air Force.”

Oh no. Pearson totally did mean–

The door opened wide and in lumbered Kim’s bodyguard to the whooping and applause of her fellow police officers who must not realize this man wore the uniform for real. He wasn’t a rent-a-hunk.

Nuh-uh. He was a man she wouldn’t have forgotten regardless of his size. The looming guy wore Air Force blues, with a uniform jacket packed with ribbons and silver wings attesting to his career bravery. A military pilot who’d darn near stomped her heart a couple of years ago when she’d made her annual journey to her homeland. It should have been a fling. Instead, it had been an emotional code red, courtesy of the most intense, serious… sexy man she’d ever known.

Captain Marcus “Joker” Cardenas.

Eleven years ago Mary Elise McRae had expected to fill a hope chest for Daniel Baker. But she’d never thought she would fill it quite so literally.

Her body currently folded inside a five-by-five foot wooden crate, Mary Elise hugged the two small boys closer. The rough-hewn box jostled on the back of the flatbed truck, jarring bony little elbows and knees against her. Hard. Not that anyone dared do more than breathe in the cedar-scented darkness.

A lone horn honked along the stretch of desert road in their escape route from Rubistan. The truck jerked to a stop. A goat blocking the way? Or a cow? Either animal slow when Mary Elise needed fast. Headlights from the truck behind them shone through the tiny slits between the boards.

A Rubistanian guard from the embassy tracking them.

She’d heard his voice during the loading onto the truck. Procedure didn’t allow him on the U.S. government’s vehicle, but those ominous beams sparked fear inside her as surely as if he’d been sitting alongside puffing away on one of those cigars he favored. Would he use this delay as an excuse to ambush them? Cause an “accident”?

The diesel engine’s growl increased and the truck lurched to life. Mary Elise exhaled her relief in the stifling enclosure. Only another half hour, max, until she delivered Trey and Austin safely aboard a U.S. military cargo plane. Then she would say her tearful farewells to the two children being smuggled out of this Middle Eastern hell in the back of Captain Daniel Baker’s C-17.

Danny.

His name echoed in her mind amid the grind of changing gears. What would Daniel say when he saw her for the first time in eleven years? If only he had advance warning she would be with the boys, but she’d expected to stay at the embassy, not be in this sweltering crate.

With any luck, they’d be too rushed to talk. She would pass over her young charges. Thank Daniel for answering the emergency SOS she’d anonymously routed through the economic attaché. Then haul butt off the airstrip, back to her tiny apartment in Rubistan’s capital, back to her teaching post at the American embassy school.

Back to her solitary life.

She wouldn’t let memories of Daniel make her yearn for anything more. She’d worked damned hard for her pocket of peace away from Savannah. Peace bought with the help of Daniel’s father. Trey and Austin’s father too. And today she would repay that debt.

“Mary ‘Lise?” Austin whispered from under her chin. “Wanna get out. Gotta go.”

“Shh,” she urged as loudly as she dared. “Soon, sweetie. Soon.” She hoped.

Sweat trickled down her neck, caking sand to her skin as Mary Elise willed Austin silent. A crate of computers didn’t whisper for a bathroom, after all. Sure, a diplomatic pouch was immune from inspection – a pouch being U.S. government property of any size from the embassy. Totally immune. Unless that “pouch” starting talking.

Her arms locked tighter around thin, preschooler shoulders on her left and the more substantial nine-year-old frame on her right. At least Trey was old enough to follow instructions, his shoulders pumping under her arm with each heavy breath. Little Austin was a wild card.

Bracing her feet against the other side to combat jolts, she suppressed the illogical bubble of laughter. Definitely a card. Wild. Precious. And looked so much like his adult half brother Daniel.

So much like the baby she and Daniel might have had if not for the miscarriage.

Of course she hadn’t been able to turn away when Austin had pumped out tears at the sight of the crate. He’d begged for Mary ‘Lise to crawl inside with him instead of his twenty-one-year-old nanny, a pale nanny who’d seemed all too willing to bow out.

The truck squealed to a stop. A tiny hand tucked into hers and clutched tight with chubby stickiness. She pressed a silent kiss to Austin’s brow.

“Well, hello there, gentlemen,” the masculine bass rumbled.

Danny.

Even with eleven years more testosterone infused into deepening his voice, she would recognize that hint of a drawl anywhere. No rushing. Even in the middle of an unstable country, on a darkened runway where threats lurked in countless shadows… Danny didn’t hurry for anyone. Life followed him. He never followed life.

His ambling lope thudded closer. Could they hear her heart thump outside the box?

A second set of footsteps sounded. Faster. Cigar smoke wafted through the thin slits between boards. The distinctive scent of imported Cubans favored by the Rubistanian guard from the embassy snaked around her.

The slower bootsteps, Daniel’s, stopped. “How downright neighborly of you to offer an escort, but my folks here can handle things now.”

“We have procedure to follow in my country, Cap-i-tain,” the guard clipped out in heavily accented English.

“Lighten up there, Sparky. I know all about your procedure. The paperwork’s pristine … well, except for some ketchup on the edge there from my fries. Now back on up so my loadmaster can finish the transfer.”

Daniel’s affected flippancy reached into the box with calming comfort. And unwelcome arousal. His voice shouldn’t still have the power to strum her numbed senses to life, especially not now. She wasn’t a teenager anymore. She was a mature woman with control over her life. She’d moved on after the debacle with Danny. Married someone else.

Bad example.

Lighten up, ‘Lise. Danny’s mantra echoed in her head through the years. Life’s just not that complicated.

She wished.

“Time to head on out, Sparky,” Daniel called, casual and irreverent as ever. “The sooner Tag over there can load up and lock down, the sooner we’ll get off your runway and out of this … garden spot.”

A trail of tangy smoke slithered into the box. “What is your hurry, Cap-i-tain?”

“Hurry?” Daniel’s bass rumbled closer, louder. The truck shifted with the weight of another body. “I need to head home for my annual pilgrimage to the Frit-o-Lay factory. Besides, my copilot’s just a kid and it’s past her bedtime.”

“Hey, now,” a female voice called from below. “Frit-o-Lay? I thought you were going to Hershey, Pennsylvania.”

“That was last month, Wren.”

“And you didn’t bring me any chocolate? I’m crushed.”

“I thought about you. But what can I say? I got hungry on the way home.”

Their lighthearted voices filled the box, and Mary Elise resented the twinge of envy over his easy rapport with the copilot. She’d once shared that same relationship with Daniel until the summer their friendship had spiraled into something more. So much more.

Memories swirled in the murky box with oppressive weight. So Daniel still loved his junk food. They’d met twenty-two years ago over a chocolate Ho-Ho. She’d pulled the treat from her Holly Hobby lunch box to thank him for bloodying Buddy Davis’s nose after the bully made fun of her Yankee accent.

Did Daniel still like video games too? Hide his genius brain behind jokes?

Kiss with an intense thoroughness that turned a woman’s insides to warmed syrup?

A hand patted the box once, again, and again, with slow reassurance. Daniel. “And speaking of hungry,” he said, his hand thumping a lulling lazy beat. “There’s a flight lunch and a bag of licorice with my name written all over it waiting in the cockpit. Let’s step this up.”

Smoke spiraled inside, mingling with the ripe scent of fresh-cut boards. A low wheeze hissed from Trey. His head fell back against her arm as he sucked in air.

Tension stretched inside her. Mary Elise rubbed a soothing hand along his back, a poor substitute for his inhaler, but all she could risk. The smoke, cedar and fear were too much for anyone, much less a child with asthma. As if these kids hadn’t already been through enough with their parents’ “accidental” deaths and a Rubistanian uncle trying to claim them – and their inheritance.

All the more reason to get the children to their half-brother on American soil. Screw official diplomatic channels where the boys could be in college before Rubistan coughed them up.

Mary Elise hugged the boys closer, her hair snagging along the wood. Pulling. Stinging her scalp. Hard. Her eyes watered.

Oh, God. Come on, Daniel. They needed to get rid of that guard so someone could crack open the box, let Trey breathe.

And let her out.

Another puff of cigar smoke tendriled inside. “How interesting that your name tag reads Baker, Cap-i-tain. That is the last name of your ambassador who so recently died.”

The thudding stopped. Silence echoed for three wheezing breaths from Trey before the rhythmic tap resumed. “Baker’s a common last name over in America, Sparky.”

“Of course. If you were related you would be in mourning, not working.”

The vehicle dipped with added weight, then footsteps shuddered the truck bed. Not Daniel’s lope. The clipped pace of the guard. “Is that a loose board I see right–”

“Don’t even think about it.” Daniel’s steely voice iced the humid air. The click of a cocked gun echoed. “If you lay so much as one finger on that box, I’ll blow your damned hand off. A diplomatic pouch is sovereign United States government territory. Move back and get off this truck. Now.”

Bugs droned in response along with the low hum of the idling plane engines. Please, please, please, be careful, Danny. She hadn’t wanted to see him and now she couldn’t bear the thought of never laying eyes on him again. She’d brought him here, hadn’t had a choice for the boys. But if things went to hell, she would never forgive herself.

An exhale sounded along with the retreat of boots and smoke. The gun snicked as it was uncocked.

The crate rolled forward.

Air rushed from her lungs. Not that she should be surprised at Daniel’s victory. The teenager she’d known carried an untamed look in his eyes, the veneer of ten generations of Savannah wealth having worn thin for him. So often he’d flung himself into brawls like a scrappy street fighter in defiance of his pedigree. In defense of her. He’d always won, too. Except once.

I’m sorry. She winged her apology for then as well as now.

He’d taken a punch from his father when she’d been as much at fault for the unplanned pregnancy. Of course Daniel had never raised a hand to defend himself.

God, she wished she had the option of fighting back against her ex-husband, fists and brawn and bluster, instead of shadow dancing with insidious threats. He’d never actually struck her, just controlled her, betrayed her body in a way so soul rending she wondered if she could ever recover. And then when she’d dared leave him, he’d hired a hit man to take her out.

Not that the police would help her, thanks to her ex’s far reaching influence.

She wasn’t a wilting flower, but she also wasn’t stupid. So she’d run. She’d even been willing to move to a hotbed of political unrest in the Middle Eastern country of Rubistan to stay alive. At least in Rubistan no one thought it might be a nifty idea to kill her simply because she couldn’t bear him children.

Visions of her Georgia home chilled the sweat sealing her silk shirt to her skin. Come on, come on, come on. Open the damned box.

The sides closed in with claustrophobic pressure. She shoved away the need to run. For the boys. The precious warm weights beside her who smelled of chocolate and sunshine and dreams she would never have.

The crate tipped. Mary Elise and the children slid, wedging into the corner with the minimal padding of a couple of blankets.

“Tag, go easy there,” Daniel called. “Wouldn’t want to crack a keyboard now, would we?”

“No worries, sir.” A voice sounded beside them as the box jerked to a stop. “I’ll treat it like one of my own.”

A mechanical drone built. The dim streaks of light faded. The load ramp shutting? The world faded around her to near black until the ramp clanked closed.

She forced her breathing to regulate. Maybe they needed privacy to open the crate. That made sense. Then they could slip her back off the plane under the cover of darkness. Not ideal. But doable.

Lazy footsteps picked up speed along the metal floor. A final thump sounded on the planked top. “Lock it down tight, Tag.”

“Roger that, Captain.”

The thud of boots faded. Chains jangled in the time fugue of waiting. Was it safe to talk? Engines roared, growing louder. Forget waiting.

Mary Elise opened her mouth and shouted. And couldn’t hear herself over the engines.

Her heart hammered her chest. The boys wriggled closer. She screamed. A soundless shriek swallowed by the din.

The crate vibrated, joggled as the plane moved. Faster. Forward. Picking up speed. The roar built, swelled. Tension clenched her chest until each breath became a struggle like Trey with his asthma.

The box tilted back. Gravity slid her with the boys until she landed against the wooden wall as the plane…

Went…

Up.

Oh, God. They were airborne.

Chapter One

General Hank Renshaw hadn’t often seen a man’s hand down the bra of esteemed congresswoman Ginger Landis.

Of course, as he stood astounded in the doorway of the VIP lounge in the tiny airport on the Bavarian border, he couldn’t recall a time he’d ever seen his long-time friend Ginger’s underwear at all. Much less with a man’s hand slipped inside.

Hank slammed the door closed so nobody else would snag a view of what now filled his eyes.

Technically, the security fellow wasn’t groping around inside her satiny camisole thing. Ginger had taken off the jacket to her Christmas red power suit so the reedy guy in a black jacket could outfit her with the latest listening device for her upcoming meeting with the German Chancellor and Minister of Arts as well as the Vice-Chancellor of neighboring Kasov. All a part of a holiday goodwill trip across Europe , ending on Christmas Eve at a medieval castle with chapel ruins set to be rebuilt. Ginger would be donating an heirloom from her family’s antique art collection, a small but priceless porcelain crèche.

Hank’s role? To stand at her side as her official military escort. Unofficially, he was here to protect her. The final wall of defense between her and the threats that had been made on her life. Those threats were the very reason for the heightened security with a listening device.

Arms extended, Ginger stood in spike heels, legs to kill in a pencil thin skirt and satin camisole trimmed in lace.

His midnight dreams about this woman played out much like this – with him standing beside her, of course. He would stretch her out on that frou-frou creamy chaise behind her.

But only in dreams when he tossed off the restraints of waking hours did he allow himself to fall victim to fantasies about his pal of over twenty-five years. He was a red-blooded man, after all, and age hadn’t diminished Ginger’s appeal in the least. Which could also have something to do with the genius brain she packed underneath that head of perfectly styled platinum blonde hair.

Still, never had he done anything to put their friendship at risk by relaying the attraction.

Then he realized the silence had gone on too long to be anything but freaking awkward, and his slack-jawed look could very well put a chink in their all-important friendship.

“Sorry, Senator Landis.” Hank used her official title in deference to the security personnel present – and out of a need to put some distance back into their relationship. “I hadn’t realized you weren’t ready yet. I’ll just step outside.”

Outside. A fine place for him to stand guard anyway, while he sweated his way through images of her wearing red hot lingerie. This would be a very long day.

He twisted the doorknob behind him.

Ginger waved a manicured hand through the air, white tips of her nails fluttering. “Oh, hell, Hank. Quit with all that formal Madame stuff. We’re not at a press conference.”

She had a point. Still he couldn’t help thinking he would be safer standing guard in the airport corridor by the decorated tree getting his head on straight again. “Ginger, I’ll wait in the hall by the door until you’re ready.”

“Hold on. Get out from under that mistletoe and come over here. See if you can clip this microphone on right so I’m not trailing tiny computer bits out of my skirt,” her South Carolina drawl curled through the cloud of unease. “This poor secret service fellow’s so worried about copping a feel he can’t get the damn thing secured to save his soul.”

The young security agent must have been all of seventeen – okay, twenty-seven. They just looked like babies when you’d hit fifty-five.

The kid didn’t help matters by blushing to the roots of his Idaho farm boy red hair. “Senator Landis, I apologize. These new listening devices have a tricky clasp, but they’re far less visible.”

Ginger cocked a delicately arched brow. “Well, I wanted to use those fancy teeny tiny ones that fit in the ear canal, but all this flying gave me a double ear infection.”

She smoothed a hand over her blond hair away from afore mentioned ailing ear. The simple gesture hitched her camisole up to expose a tiny strip of stomach when Hank was already reeling from the surprise of seeing his old friend in a new light. Hank blinked his way through the fog and focused on her words. She’d mentioned being sick? Concern slammed away everything else.

He charged deeper into the room, the plush carpet muting his frustrated footsteps to dull thuds. “Are you sure you’re up to this trip? They’ve packed in more stops on this goodwill tour than there are waking hours in the day.”

“I’m fine. The antibiotic’s kicked in. My ears are just a little sensitive.”

Relief rocked through him as the secret service agent stepped away from her, giving Hank a clear path. Yeah, he knew he was a little over protective of women. His daughters labeled him an alarmist when it came to illnesses. Send a bullet or mortar his way and he could stand firm without flinching. But ailments of the body still made him break out in a cold sweat since he’d lost his wife to a fluke aneurysm twenty-four years ago, leaving him with three children to bring up.

He didn’t know how he would have made it through without Ginger’s help. He’d tried to help her as well when her Senator husband had died ten years ago in a car crash, leaving her with four strapping boys. She and Hank had pooled resources when they could.

He blinked through thoughts of the past, their past, their friendship. Anything to keep himself from focusing overlong on the fact that his fingers were now inches away from Ginger’s chest…

Chapter 1

Major Jack “Cobra” Korba, USAF had mastered butting heads with mountains by the fifth grade when he discovered his ability to make people laugh. But right now he suspected there wasn’t a knock-knock joke on earth that could offer much help against the 6500-foot rocky peak screaming toward his windscreen at three hundred knots.

“High terrain. Coming thirty degrees left,” Jack clipped through the headset to his copilot.

Adrenaline crackled inside him like the popping flickers of light across his night vision goggles – NVGs. The gear strapped to his helmet narrowed his vision into a neon-green tunnel.

“Copy that, Cobra, thirty degrees left,” affirmed his copilot, Captain Derek “Rodeo” Washington.

The C-17 cranked left, massive cargo plane hugging craggy landscape. Desert dunes and jagged ridges whipped past in an emerald kaleidoscope haze.

He lived to fly. But today he flew as lead pilot for this mission so that others might live. One person in particular.

Rodeo ran his hands along the dimly lit control panel checking readings while Jack gripped the stick. No steering yoke like with older cargo planes, the Air Force’s C-17 boasted the stick and grace of a fighter jet despite its hulking size.

Four more C-17s packed with Army Rangers trailed behind in formation. Total night swallowed them, no lights on the wings or ground. Only minimal illumination on the instrument panel guided them through the roller coaster pass in their low level flight.

Hazardous as hell to fly with NVGs, but necessary for stealthy penetration into enemy territory to offload cargo holds full of Airborne Rangers – the final phase of the mission to seize a Middle Eastern terrorist camp. Aside from having ties to 9/11, the radical faction had assassinated the ambassador to Rubistan and taken three American hostages.

Jack worked the rudder pedals, refusing to allow the need for vengeance to chink his concentration. Mountains to the left and right posed a constant threat outweighed by the benefits of masking them from detection by enemy radar. Visually, dark aircraft blended with the thrusting backdrop of sand and rock. Sound reflected off the mountains until pinpointing a plane’s locale became all but impossible.

Hell yeah, the protection from enemy ground-to-air missiles offered a hefty payoff to counterbalance the perils of weaving 174 feet of hurtling metal through a serpentine pass. At night.

All the more reason to nail this final training run over the Nevada desert. Soon to be a Middle Eastern desert. He contained the anticipation. Had to stay focused. Training missions could prove as deadly as the real deal.

Rodeo keyed up his mike. “Sixty seconds to turn point. Right turn three-zero-five degrees. Climb to 3700 feet. High terrain this leg. Peak, right side of corridor, 4900 feet. Stand by to turn.”

“Copy, co.” Jack’s gloved hand clenched around the throttle, nudging it forward. “Heading three-zero-five. Climb to 3700.”

Clipped numbers and confirmed calls zipped back and forth, every contingency considered. Jack hoped. Damn but did he ever hope since this was their last chance to work out any bugs.

Dust swirled in a murky haze from the 40,440 pounds of thrust from each of the four jet engines powering the C-17 past the arching peak. He steadied each breath in time with his heartbeat. Only a week until the three American hostages would be rescued. Only a week until Monica’s sister would be free.

Major Monica Hyatt – the one mountain of will he couldn’t move. His heart rate kicked an extra beat ahead of his breaths.

And God knows he’d tried to sway her to the point of screwing up their relationship so damned bad there was no going back. Probably for the best given that when Monica discovered he’d kept the plans for this mission from her, his flight surgeon ex-lover would likely take a scalpel to him.

Only by the grace of God and connections in D.C. had he managed to land himself in the position of primary planner as well as lead pilot. Having Monica in his biscuits was a distraction he couldn’t afford right now. Not that she was speaking to him anyway.

“Cobra, check right.”

Mountains dipped beyond his windscreen. Jack roped in his thoughts. The weight of lives in the planes as well as on the ground in that camp overseas pressed on his shoulders heavier than the bulky NVGs anchored to his helmet. “Copy, co. Got it visually.”

Jack angled through a saddle dip where a valley divided crests into a stretch of desert waiting to welcome the aerial assault from rangers offloaded into the drop zone. Low and slow. He eased back on the throttle.

Keep cool. Laid back but steady, his lifetime mantra.

Time to offload the troopers from the 75th Ranger Regiment. Jack thumbed the mike button to signal the loadmaster. “Tag, level at 3800 feet.”

“Roger, Major. Level at 3800 feet. Ready when you are.”

The loadmaster snapped through the checklist calls and confirmations until control panel lights signaled dual doors opening with the loadmaster, Tag, orchestrating. Tag, a looming silent mystery around the squadron and a magician in the air, offloaded cargo with a swift efficiency that resembled a disappearing act.

Fifty-five seconds later, one hundred and two paratroopers from his plane split the inky sky. Jack’s grip around the stick loosened. The boulders on his shoulders crumbled. Sure the C-17s still had to return to base for a no lights landing, but it was only their butts on the line now.

He shrugged through the tension. With pressure easing, piddly ass concerns trickled over him like the sweat down his back. Such as the fact that his arm hurt like a son of a bitch from the immunizations required for a deployment to the Middle East. His hand slid up to rub the sore inoculation site.

Rodeo nodded toward his arm. “You okay, Cobra? They pumped us full of more crap than normal for this one. Damned morphing virus strains.”

“This new anthrax shot feels like the time I picked up one of my sisters’ curling irons while it was still plugged in.” And it wasn’t as if he could call on his favorite flight surgeon for TLC anymore. “Sometimes it’s tough to tell which is worse, the shot or the disease.”

“You’ll survive. My mama used to dose me up with every inoculation the minute it cleared the FDA, sometimes before.” A military brat, Rodeo had grown up around the world, moving with his Army medic mother. The guy could party in four languages and never left a friend alone in a bar fight.

A wingman to trust.

Why then did he trust Rodeo with his life in the air, but hadn’t told a man he considered his best friend about the mess with Monica? “Doesn’t seem your mama stunted your growth.”

Rodeo’s deep chuckles rumbled through the interphone without arguing. No need since his wiry height spoke for itself. “Made any plans to kill time before we ship out?”

“Me. My pillow. One-on-one for twelve hours straight.” Jack pushed the throttle forward, climbing into the opaque sky.

“Don’t hand me that hangdog crap. Let’s head down into Vegas and hit one of the casino’s all-you-can-eat setup before we’re stuck with a week of that mess hall shit on a shingle. Crusty was telling me the Rio’s got this kick-butt Carnival World Buffet.” He kissed his gloved fingertips. “Everything from sushi for me to those cheeseburgers you love. Too bad Crusty’s already over in Rubistan. He’s always up for food.”

Vegas? Irritation and memories chewed his hide. “Thanks for the offer, but my bed has a kick-butt pillow that won’t take me a half hour of driving to find.”

If he could sleep the night through without dreams of Monica – or nightmares about her sister who’d been taken hostage simply because she wanted to feed a few hungry peasants.

Guilt slugged him and not for the first time. He’d used those same damned connections in D.C. to wrangle an introduction for Monica’s sister with the Rubistanian ambassador. Bingo, her team with the IFB – International Food Bank – had been granted entrée into Rubistan.

All because he’d wanted to impress Monica.

No matter how many times logic told him Sydney Hyatt would have found her way over there with or without him, the guilt stayed.

“Come on, Cobra. What’s up with you? We’ve got a week in Rubistan and then hell only knows how long in Germany afterward.”

Jack grunted, running out of excuses and not in any hurry to share, even with Rodeo.

“Ah, I get it,” Rodeo nodded, his hands running over the dim neon glow of the control panel as he noted altimeter settings and airspeed. “You’ve already got something lined up, maybe someone to meet you on that pillow. Korba, for a hairy, ugly son of a bitch, you sure score a lot.”

He wanted off this subject. Now. “Not tonight, pal. I’m taking my hairy self to bed.”

“Yeah, right. What’s your secret?”

Jack upped the throttle again, bringing him closer to his pillow and the end of this chat. “I start with calling a woman by the right name.”

“Ah, hell.” Rodeo’s curse rode a laugh. “Then I’m totally screwed.”

The headset echoed with laughter from Tag in back, Rodeo’s call sign no great secret. His first had been “George,” a link to his last name Washington until word leaked that Rodeo had a reputation for shouting the wrong woman’s name during sex. Rumor had it one offended babe of the week bucked him off and onto his bare ass in under eight seconds – rodeo style.

Minutes after the tale hit the Officer’s Club, somebody tapped a keg for a new naming ceremony and “Rodeo” was born. A funny as hell moniker if it weren’t for the fact that Jack suspected Rodeo always called out the same woman’s name. Something Rodeo had never shared anymore than Jack felt compelled to spill about Monica.

Sympathy knocked with a reminder of how close he could come to being in the same position. Bare butt on cold tile.

Sweat iced on his back. “How about after we wrap things up overseas and get back home to Charleston, let’s take some time off? Hang out. No women. I’ve got a line on some tickets to a Braves game if you’re in for a road trip over to Atlanta.”

And damn it, he would not think about how much Monica enjoyed ball games, as at ease in jeans and a ponytail as in her flight suit and a French braid.

“Sounds like a plan.” Rodeo smirked beneath the NVGs, his teeth a mocking green grin. “Well, hope you enjoy your date tonight with your … pillow.” “I’m sure I will.”

When he completed this mission, he could clear the slate and move on. Celibacy was a pain in the ass, not to mention other body parts. Much longer and he’d be qualified for a call sign change to “Blue.”

Problem was, he didn’t want anyone else. But if he didn’t get his head on straight again, he would alienate everyone around him. What the hell happened to his normal boots steady, laid back, keeping it cool?

Cracked desert heaved and rolled with rocky outcroppings leading back to Nellis AFB, the location hosting final mission rehearsal as all the combatants from different bases came together. The city lights of Vegas stayed well out of sight in their route chosen for NVGs.

Vegas. That must be what had him on edge, too many dark-cloud memories of his last trip here with Monica. They’d been so damned jazzed over landing a joint TDY – temporary duty. Then the news of her sister’s capture had come through and everything spiraled out of control in a flat spin – unrecoverable.

Ridiculous to think for a second Monica would hang all over him in gratitude once she found out he’d taken on the upcoming mission to save her sister. Clinging vine wasn’t her gig. Fine by him. He’d never wanted her to change.

Much.

Hell no, he didn’t expect gratitude complete with waterworks and hot thank-you sex. Well, okay, yeah he would give his left nut to have Monica naked in his bed again. He was human. Male. Alive.

But he didn’t want her taking him back out of gratitude. Rescuing the hostages was the right thing to do. It was his job. His mission. His calling. He would do the same for anyone’s sister, mother, daughter – be they from the United States or Timbuktu.

Still, he couldn’t stop the bitter surge of satisfaction in knowing that once he finished, he would damn well be imprinted on Monica Hyatt’s memory, if not her life, as she’d been imprinted on his.

Only one more week and he would be free to sleep without hellish nightmares or tempting dreams. He could erase her name from his brain and off his mouth. Because no way did he intend to tap a keg for a call sign change to Rodeo Two.

* * *

In two minutes flat Monica Hyatt talked her way past the cleaning lady outside Jack Korba’s room at the Warrior Inn VOQ – Visiting Officer’s Quarters. Piece of cake, since she’d changed into her flight suit after flying in on a commercial airline from Charleston.

Facing Jack again, however, would be tougher and more embarrassing than taping Band-Aids over her nipples for the bathing suit competition in the Miss Texas pageant.

She’d been first runner up for Miss Texas. She wouldn’t accept anything but a win today with the stakes a helluva lot higher than scholarship money for medical school….

PROLOGUE

July, five months ago

Brooke Garrison ordered her first taste of alcohol at twenty-eight years old.

She reached across the polished teak wood for the glass of wine from the aging bartender at the Garrison Grand hotel lounge. Her hand shook after the emotional toll of the day, hearing her father’s will read, learning of his secret life. At least she didn’t have to worry about getting carded even if she had been younger since her family owned the place.

“Thank you,” she said, surreptitiously reading the older man’s nametag, “Donald.”

“You’re welcome, Miss Garrison.” He slid an extra napkin her way as smoothly as the pianist slipped into his next song. “And please accept my condolences about your father. He will be missed.”

By more people than she had realized. “We all appreciate the kind words. Thank you again.”

“Of course. Let me know if you need anything else.”

Anything else? She would like to erase this whole horrible day and start over. Or at least stop thinking about it, much less talking. She’d already ignored four voice messages from her brother Parker’s receptionist.

Tentatively, Brooke sipped the wine, wincing. She watched the candle’s flame through the chardonnay’s swirl. Somewhere in that glass held the answers to what stole her mother away from her. To what had driven her father to lead a secret second life in the years before he’d died.

Her alcoholic mother’s bitter words after the reading of John Garrison’s will this morning echoed over and over again through Brooke’s head. “The cheating son of a bitch. I’m glad he’s dead.”

What a helluva way to learn there weren’t five Garrison offspring – but six. In addition to three bothers and an identical twin sister, Brooke had an illegitimate half-sister living in the Bahamas , a sister her father had never told them about while he was alive. Instead, he’d chosen to share the news in his will while handing over a sizable chunk of the Garrison Empire to Cassie Sinclair – the newly discovered sibling.

Not that Brooke cared about the money. The betrayal, however, burned.

Conversations and clinking glasses of happier people swelled around her while she sipped. She wanted none of the revelry, even made a point of carefully avoiding eye contact with a couple of men attempting to snag her attention.

Brooke raised the long-stemmed crystal to her mouth again. She knew intellectually to be as top notch as the fresh flowers and linens around her. Her taste buds, however, registered nothing. She was too numb with grief.

She’d always blamed her mother for her father’s frequent business trips. The drinking must have driven her wonderful daddy away. Now she couldn’t help but wonder if her father’s behavior had somehow contributed to her mother’s unhappiness.

And how could she untangle it all in the middle of mourning the loss of such a huge figure in her life? The hotel blared reminders of his presence. She could see her father’s imprint on each multi-domed chandelier in the bar, on every towering column.

Brooke circled a finger around the top of her half-full glass, an indulgence she never allowed herself because of her mother’s addiction.

Tonight wasn’t normal.

Her eyes hooked on the looming columns in the spacious hall outside the bar – the evening turning farther beyond normal than she ever could have anticipated.

Through the arched entranceway walked the last man she expected here, but one she recognized well even in the dim lighting. Their families had been business rivals for years, a competition that only seemed to increase once Jordan Jefferies had taken over after his father’s death.

So why was Jordan here now?

Brooke forced herself to think more like her siblings and less like her peacemaker self… and the obvious answer came to her. He’d come to her brother Stephen’s hotel to scope out the competition.

Brooke took the unobserved moment to study Jordan Jefferies prowling the room with a lion’s lazy grace. No, wait. Lazy was the wrong word.

Think like her siblings. Jefferies would only want people to perceive a lazy lope so he could pounce while she was otherwise occupied staring at his blond, muscle-bound good looks.

Yeah, she’d noticed his looks more than once. He might be the enemy, but she wasn’t blind. However, she’d considered him off limits because of the controversy it would cause in her family. Often, she’d heard her oldest brother Parker fume for days over a contentious business meeting with Jordan . The family diplomat, she always tried her best to soothe over arguments and hurt feelings.

For all the good it had done her. The whole Garrison clan had been ripped raw today.

Her mother’s voice whispered in her head again… “The cheating son of a bitch. I’m glad he’s dead.”

The bartender swooped by, breaking her train of thought. “Can I get you anything else, Miss Garrison?”

Garrison. She couldn’t escape it anywhere around here, just as futile as thinking she could keep peace in her family.

Why bother trying?

A heat fired through her veins and bloomed into an idea, a desire. And sure, a need for open rebellion after a day of hell. “Yes, Donald, actually you can do something for me. Please tell the gentleman over there,” she pointed to Jordan , “that his drinks for the evening are on the house.”

“Of course, Miss Garrison.” The bartender smiled discreetly and walked under the rows of hanging glasses to the other side of the wooden bar. He leaned to relay the message and Brooke waited. Her stomach tightened in anticipation.

What would he think of her picking up the tab for his drink? Likely nothing more than a Garrison acknowledging his presence.

Would Jordan Jefferies even remember her? Of course he would. He was a savvy businessman who would know all the Garrisons. A better question – would he be able to tell her apart from her twin?

He looked from the bartender to her. His gaze met hers, and even in the low lighting she could see the blue of his eyes. Interest sparked in his slow smile.

Jordan picked up his drink and wove his way around the patrons, straight toward her with a deliberate, unhesitating pace. He set his glass beside hers. “I didn’t expect such a nice welcome from a Garrison. Are you sure you didn’t have the bartender poison my drink, Brooke?”

He recognized her. Or a lucky guess?

“How do you know I’m not Brittany ?”

Without ever glancing away from her eyes, he reached, stopping an inch shy of touching a lock of her hair that stubbornly refused to stay pulled back. “Because of this. That wayward strand is signature Brooke.”

Wow. He definitely recognized her when even her own father had gotten it wrong sometimes.

In that moment, she realized she had more Garrison determination in her than anyone would have ever suspected. Brooke lifted her glass to Jordan in a silent toast.

She’d seen him many times. She’d always wanted him.

Tonight, her family be damned, she would have him…

Prologue

February: Over the Persian Gulf

“We’ve been hit!”

The aircraft commander’s words popped like bullets through Senior Master Sergeant J.T. “Tag” Price’s headset. Ricocheted around in his brain. Settled with molten-lead heat as J.T. sat in his solitary loadmaster perch beneath the cockpit in the cargo plane.

Not that he even needed the aircraft commander’s announcement. The teeth-jarring thump still shuddered through the C-17. Yet up to that last second, he hadn’t given up hope of a minor malfunction.

Minor? The wash of warning lights blazing across his control panel told him otherwise.

“Details,” he quizzed, quick. Brief. Never one to waste words even on a good day.

This sure as hell wasn’t a good day.

Aerodynamics went to crap. The craft already rattled, strained.

“Missile hit,” the aircraft commander, Captain Carson “Scorch” Hunt, answered from the cockpit above. “Probably a man-portable, fired from a boat, I think.”

The plane bucked. Shuddered. His checklist vibrated off the console. “Are we gonna have to put down somewhere bad or can we make it to Europe?”

“We’re not going to make it to Europe.”

Silence echoed for two seconds, cut only by the rumble of engines taking on a progressive tenor of pain.

Crap.

J.T. pivoted toward the cavernous cargo hold containing a pallet full of top-secret surveillance equipment. The technology could not fall into another government’s hands. Beyond that, the stored intelligence from monitoring terrorist cell phone traffic would give away field agent identities. “Plan of action?”

“We’ll have to circle back and haul ass toward the coast to land in Rubistan.”

Definitely bad. But not as bad as it could be. Relations with the country were strained, yet not outright hostile. Still, the equipment on that pallet made for a serious time bomb if they didn’t offload it before reaching land. “How much longer ’til feet dry?”

“Ten minutes until we make the coastline.”

Tight, but workable. Scooping his small black binder off the floor, he flipped through to the destruction checklists. “All right, then. Stretch it if you can while I destroy as much of this crap back here as possible before ditching it in the ocean.”
Then pray like hell they didn’t end up ditching the plane too.

“Make it quick, Tag. I can buy you one, maybe two extra minutes over the water, but hydraulics and electrical are going all to hell.”

“Roger, Scorch.” J.T. unstrapped from his seat. “Beginning destruction checklists. Get the back ramp open.”

He pivoted toward the man strapped into a seat two steps away. Spike – Max Keagan – also an OSI agent undercover as a second loadmaster on the flight, another potential land mine if the Rubistanians discovered the man’s real job. “Stay out of the way ’til I’m through, then get ready to start pushing.”

Spike flashed him a thumbs-up while keeping clear, laser sharp eyes processing from his agent’s perspective. He raked his hand over his head, normally spiked hair now in a buzz cut for his undercover military role.

Feet steady on the swaying deck thanks to twenty-four years in the Air Force and five thousand flying hours, J.T. charged toward the pallet. He flipped red guard switches, started hard drives erasing data about terrorists financing operations by trafficking opium out of Rubistan. And somewhere on their own base in Charleston was a leak. Thus the involvement of the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigation.

As he destroyed data, J.T. tried not to think about all the government time and money wasted on the trafficking investigation. He hooked his fingers in the metal rings, pulled while also pushing a small plunger. Foam filled the motherboards, seeping out.

The load ramp yawned open. Wind and light swept the metal tunnel. The coughing drone of wounded engines swelled.

Now to finish the last of the destruction the old fashioned way. He yanked the crash ax off the wall. Hefted back. Swung.

Hack.

What a helluva way to miss an appointment with his wife at the divorce attorney’s office. Sorry I can’t make it, babe, but I’m a guest of a foreign government right now.

Or worse.

He jerked the ax free of the cracked metal, swung again. God, he’d worried more times than he could count about leaving Rena a war widow, knew she had prepared herself for it as well. But how the hell did anyone prep for a peacetime front door visit from the commander, nurse and chaplain?

He’d already caused her enough grief over the years, and now to end it this way. Damn it. She deserved better.

But then she’d always deserved better than him.

J.T. hefted, arced the ax over, repeated, again, endlessly. Sweat sheeted down him, plastered his flight suit to his back. Air roared and swirled through the open hatch. Still, perspiration stung his pores, his eyes.

The aircraft’s tail end swayed more by the second. His muscles flexed, released, burned until the surveillance computer equipment lay scattered, split into a pile of metal and wires.

“Destruction checklist complete,” he reported, then nodded to Spike. “You ready?”

“Roger.” The undercover agent charged forward to push, no help forthcoming from the screwed electrical system.

They tucked side by side behind the pallet. Air and ocean waited to swallow the equipment.

J.T. shoved, grunted. Rammed harder. Toward the gaping hatch, yawning out over the gulf. Boots planted. Muscles knotted, strained, until…

The pallet gave way, hooked, caught, lumbered down the tracks lining the belly of the plane, rattling, rolling, tipping.

Gone.

Swiping a sleeve over his forehead, J.T. backed from the closing ramp, avoiding the friction-hot rollers along the tracks. “Quickest you’ll ever throw away a billion dollars. Now get your ass strapped in upstairs.”

“Roger that.” Spike clapped him on the back on his way toward the front.

J.T. jogged past his loadmaster perch, up the steep stairwell to the cockpit. For a crash landing, the higher up, the better. Two seats waited behind the pilot and copilot. J.T. darted right, Spike left, and buckled into the five-point harness.

The clear windscreen displayed coastline and desert meeting, sunrise cresting. He plugged in his headset again, reconnecting to the voices of the two men in front of him. Their hands flew over the throttle, stick, instrument panel as they battled the hulking craft.

Scorch, their aircraft commander, filled the left seat, a fair-headed guy who looked more like some mythological Greek god from the book in J.T.’s flight suit pocket, a book he’d packed in anticipation of the quiet time out over the Atlantic. Hell. Scorch would need to tap into some godlike powers to get them out of this one.

Bo, the copilot, sat directly in front of J.T. The dark-haired kid must be all of maybe twenty-five or six. Not much older than his two kids, for God’s sake. Nikki was just finishing up her junior year at UNC. Chris was still in high school.

Regret seared. Damn but he wanted to see his daughter graduate, the first member of his family to get a college education. Of course he’d attended Rena’s graduation a couple of years ago, been proud as hell of her honors grades and quick landing of a job as a civilian counselor employed by the Charleston Air Force Base hospital.
But educational successes were expected for her since all her siblings had already sported a few diplomas triple matted on the wall when he’d met her. Hers had been delayed because of marrying him so young.

His head thunked back against the seat. Images of Rena scrolled through his mind on high speed as if to jam forty years more living into the next four minutes in case he never saw her again.

Never made love to her again.

Hell, right now he’d even settle for fighting with her, something they did as well and frequently as making love, which was mighty damn often. I’m sorry, Rena. For so many things.

Scorch thumbed the interphone button. “We’re not going to make it to an airstrip. We’ll have to put her down in the desert. Strap in tight. This one’s going to smack so hard your children will be born dizzy.”

J.T. braced his boots. And if they survived the landing? The Rubistanian government would detain them. Question them. It wouldn’t be pleasant by a long shot, but they would make it home.

As long as the tribal warlords didn’t get them first.

Chapter One

May: North Charleston, S.C.

The doorbell echoed through the house.

Rena Price resisted the urge to duck and run upstairs to keep from answering. Instead, she kept her feet planted to the floor for a steadying second while she tipped the watering can into a potted begonia by the sofa.

Yeah, that sure would make a dignified image, a forty-year-old woman cowering under her bedroom quilt. And all because she was scared spitless she wouldn’t be able to resist jumping the man standing on the other side of her oak door. But then her emotions had never been easy to contain. Especially around J.T.

Water gushed Niagara Falls style over the sides of the porcelain pot.

“Damn it.” Rena dropped the watering can and scooped up a burgundy throw pillow from the sofa to blot the water off the floor. She’d just wash the pillow later.

Sheesh. She wasn’t the same eighteen-year-old at an air show all gaga-eyed and drooling over a hot airman in his flight suit. She was a mature woman.

The bell pealed again.

A mature woman who needed to answer her door so her soon-to-be ex-husband could start his weekend visitation with their teenage son.

She Frisbee-tossed the soggy pillow across the room and out of sight into the hall, flipped her long hair over her shoulder. Whew. Composed? Hah. Not inside. But enough to pass muster outwardly for at least five minutes.

Rena tucked around and past the fichus tree beside the overstuffed armchair. “Hold on. I’m coming. Just, uh,” her eyes fell on the telephone, “finishing up a call.”

Liar. Liar. Her heels chanted with each click along hardwood floors, then muffled on a braid rug as she made her way toward the broad shouldered shadow darkening the stained glass inset.

Regret pinched, not for the first time. How sad that she’d come to a point in her life where her husband had to ring the bell at his own house. He deserved so much better than this.

Better from her.

They’d sure as hell tried for years until she’d booted him out six months ago. Taken him back once he returned from Rubistan and whatever horrors he’d endured after being captured. Only to have him walk out on her a few days later.

She slowed in front of the door, pressed her hand to the glass magnolia pattern, her cluster of silver bracelets jingling and settling up toward her elbow. He wouldn’t think anything of the gesture if he saw her on the other side since she was unbolting the lock with her free hand. But she let her fingers linger on the colored window for a second longer over the place where his body shadowed the pane.

After twenty-two years of sleeping with this man, her body instinctively hungered for the comfort and pleasure she could find in his arms. Her mind, however, reminded her of the heartache.

Her hand fell away from the glass.

Rena opened the door. “Hi, J.T……”

CHAPTER ONE

Only one thing sucked worse than wearing boring white cotton underwear on the night she finally landed in bed with her secret fantasy man.

Having him walk out on her before daylight.

Ashley Carson tensed under her downy comforter. Through the veil of her eyelashes, she watched her new lover quietly zip his custom fit pants. She’d taken a bold step – unusual for her – by falling into bed with Matthew Landis the night before. Her still-tingly sated body cheered the risk. Her good sense, however, told her she’d made a whopper mistake with none other than South Carolina ’s most high profile Senatorial candidate.

Moonlight streaked through the dormer window, glinting off his dark hair trimmed short but still mussed from her fingers. Broad shoulders showcased his beacon white shirt, crisp even though she’d stripped it from him just hours ago when their planning session for his fundraiser dinner at her restaurant/home had taken an unexpected turn down the hall to her bedroom.

Matthew may have been dream material, but safely so since she’d always thought there wasn’t a chance they could actually end up together. She preferred a sedentary, quiet life running her business, with simple pleasures she never took for granted after her foster child upbringing. He worked in the spotlight as a powerful member of the House of Representatives just as adept at negotiating high profile legislation as swinging a hammer at a Habitat for Humanity site.

People gravitated to his natural charisma and sense of purpose.

Matthew reached for his suit jacket draped over the back of a corner chair. Would he say goodbye or simply walk away? She wanted to think he would speak to her, but couldn’t bear to find out otherwise so she sat up, floral sheet clutched to her chest.

“That floorboard by the door creaks, Matthew. You might want to sidestep it or I’ll hear you sneaking out.”

He stopped, wide shoulders stiffening before he turned slowly. He hadn’t shaved, his five o’clock shadow having thickened into something much darker – just below the guilty glint in his jewel green eyes that had helped win him a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Five months from now, come November, he could well be the handsome sexy-eyed Senator Landis if he won the seat to be vacated by his mother.

With one quick blink, Matthew masked the hint of emotion. “Excuse me? I haven’t snuck anywhere since I was twelve, trying to steal my cousin’s magazines from under his mattress.” He stuffed his tie in his pocket. “I was getting dressed.”

“Oh, my mistake.” She slid from the bed, keeping the sheet tucked around her naked body. The room smelled of potpourri and musk, but she wouldn’t let either distract her. “Since yesterday, you’ve just developed a light step and a penchant for walking around in your socks.”

Ashley nodded toward his Gucci loafers dangling from two fingers.

“You were sleeping soundly,” he stated simply.

A lot of great sex tended to wear a woman out. Apparently she hadn’t accomplished the same for him, not that she intended to voice her vulnerability to him. “How polite of you.”

He dropped the shoes to the floor and toed them on one after the other. Seeing his expensive loafers on her worn hardwood floors with a cotton rag rug, she couldn’t miss the hints that this polished, soon-to-be Senator wasn’t at home in her world. Too bad those reminders didn’t stop her from wanting to drag him back onto her bed.

“Ashley, last night was amazing–”

“Stop right there. I don’t need platitudes or explanations. We’re both single adults, not dating each other or anyone else.” She snagged a terrycloth robe off a brass hook by the bathroom door and ducked inside to swap the sheet for the robe. “We’re not even really friends for that matter. More like business acquaintances who happened to indulge in a momentary attraction.”

Okay, momentary for him maybe. But she’d been salivating over him during the few times they’d met to plan social functions at her Beachcombers Restaurant and Bar.

Ashley stepped back into the bedroom, tugging the robe tie tight around her waist.

“Right, we’re on the same page then.” He braced a hand on the doorframe, his gold cufflinks glinting.

“You should get going if you plan to make it home in time to change.”

He hesitated for three long thumps of her heart before pivoting away on his heel. Ashley followed him down the hall of her Southern antebellum home/turned restaurant she ran with her two foster sisters. She’d recently taken up residence in the back room off her office, watching over the accounting books as well as the building since her recently married sisters had moved out.

Sure enough, more than one floorboard creaked under his confident strides as they made their way past the gift shop and into the lobby. She unlocked the towering front door, avoiding his eyes. “I’ll send copies of the signed contract for the fundraising dinner to your campaign manager.”

The night before, Matthew had stayed late after the business dinner to pass along some last minute paperwork. She never could have guessed how combustible a simple brush of their bodies against each other could become. Her fantasies about this man had always revolved around far more exotic scenarios.

But they were just that. Fantasies. As much as he tried to hide his emotions, she couldn’t miss how fast he’d made tracks out of her room. She’d been rejected often enough as a kid by her parents and even classmates. These days, pride starched her spine far better than any back brace she’d been forced to wear to combat scoliosis.

Matthew flattened a palm to the mahogany door. “I will call you later.”

Sure. Right. “No calls.” She didn’t even want the possibility of waiting by the phone, or worse yet, succumbing to the humiliating urge to dial him up, only to get stuck in voicejail as she navigated his answering service. “Let’s end this encounter on the same note it started. Business.”

She extended her hand. He eyed her warily. She pasted her poise in place through pride alone. Matthew enfolded her hand in his, not shaking after all, rather holding as he leaned forward to press a kiss…

On her cheek.

Damn.

He slipped out into the muggy summer night. “It’s still dark. You should go back to sleep.”

Sleep? He had to be freaking kidding.

Thank goodness she had plenty to keep her busy now that Matthew had left, because she was fairly certain she wouldn’t be sleeping again. She watched his brisk pace down the steps and into the shadowy parking lot which held only his Lexus sedan and her tiny KIA Rio. What was she doing, staring after him? She shoved the door closed with a heavy click.

All her poise melted. She still had her pride but her ability to stand was sorely in question. Ashley sagged against the counter by the antique cash register in the foyer.

She couldn’t even blame him. She’d been a willing participant all night long. They’d been in the kitchen where she’d planned to give him a taste of the dessert pastries her sister added to the menu for his fundraiser. Standing near each other in the close confines of the open refrigerator, they had brushed against each other, once, twice.

His hand had slowly raised to thumb away cream filling at the corner of her mouth…

She’d forgotten all about her white cotton underwear until he’d peeled it from her body on the way back to her bedroom. Then she hadn’t been able to think of much else for hours to come.

Her bruised emotions needed some serious indulging. She gazed into the gift shop, her eyes locking on a rack of vintage-style lingerie. She padded on bare feet straight toward the pale pink satin nightgown dangling on the end. Her fingers gravitated to the wide bands of peek-a-boo lace crisscrossing over the bodice, rimming the hem, outlining the vee slit in the front of the 1920’s look garment.

How she’d ached for whispery soft underthings during her childhood, but had always been forced to opt for the more practical cotton, a sturdier fabric not so easily snagged by her back brace. She didn’t need the brace any longer. Just a slight lift to her left shoulder remained, only noticeable if someone knew to check. But while she’d ditched the brace once it finished the job, she still felt each striation on her heart.

Ashley snatched the hanger from the rack and dashed past the shelved volumes of poetry, around a bubble bath display to the public powder room. Too bad she hadn’t worn this yesterday. Her night with Matthew might not have ended any differently, but at least she would have had the satisfaction of stamping a helluva sexier imprint on his memory.

A quick shrug landed her robe on the floor around her feet.

Ashley avoided the mirror, a habit long ingrained. She focused instead on the nightgown’s beauty. One bridal shower after another, she’d gifted her two foster sisters with the same style.

Satin slid along her skin like a cool shower over a body still flushed from the joys of heated sex with Matthew. She sunk onto the tapestry chaise, a French Restoration piece she’d bargained for at an estate auction. She lit the candle next to her to complete the sensory saturation. The flame flickered shadows across the faded wallpaper, wafting relaxing hints of lavender.

A deep breath at a time she willed her anger to roll free as she drifted into the pillowy cloud of sensation. She tugged a decorative afghan over her. Maybe she could snag a nano nap after all.

Timeless relaxing moments later, Ashley inhaled again, deeper. And coughed. She sat up bolt right, sniffing not lavender, but…

Smoke.