by Cindy Dees
“Then why do I have to see him?”
Brian turned neatly into a parking spot in front of an unmarked building. “Let’s go find out, shall we? Don’t be afraid. Major Hollister’s a good guy.” Under his breath he added so low she barely heard, “When you’re not at the top of his shit list.”
The major turned out to be another crazy-fit looking man in maybe his mid-thirties who came around his desk to shake her hand and offer her a seat. Although his eyes were hard when he looked over at Brian, his gaze softened slightly when he glanced back at her.
“On behalf of the government of the United States, I’d like to officially thank you for agreeing to help us with this operation. I must ask, though, are you absolutely certain you understand what you’re getting into and what’s being asked of you?”
She nodded. She really hoped he didn’t want to dig into the whys and wherefores of her agreeing to do it. “Yes. I understand.”
He gave her a long, intense look. “Trust me, ma’am. You don’t understand at all. But you will.” He looked away, then back at her. “You will.”
Sheesh, that sounded ominous. These guys certainly weren’t trying to trick her into this mission. First Brian, and now the major had warned her.
Hollister was talking again. “If at any time you choose to withdraw from this mission, there will be no negative consequences to you. You are working with us on a purely voluntary basis. Do you understand that?”
This was taking on the distinct tone of a legal briefing. “I understand,” she replied.
“There will come a point in the operation where quitting will become dangerous, not only to you but to the other field operatives working with you. At that point, I can only urge you in the strongest terms to do your best not to abandon my people high and dry. Their lives will be in your hands.” She must have gasped, because he added hastily, “But vice versa, your life will rest in their hands, too. And I assure you, there are no finer soldiers on the planet than those you will be working with from here on out. Our unit hand-selects each person from among the best of the best.”
“Who exactly are you?” Sophie asked. She was surprised to realize she’d never heard the name of the group Brian worked for.
Hollister sighed. “I can’t tell you that. It’s classified.”
Hmm. She had a top secret clearance, yet even the name of this bunch was classified higher than that? Whoa.
Hollister was speaking again. “I have some paperwork for you to read and sign, Ms. Giovanni.”
The first pile of paper was what she expected; statements of the classified nature of this mission, of the requirement for her not to divulge any of the methods or intelligence she learned here. But then there came a warning that she would be trained to use deadly force and the possible ramifications to her if she should ever misuse that training. That gave her pause, but she signed it. Then Hollister pushed one last document across his desk at her.
She looked down at it. A will. She looked up at the two men, who were watching her closely. “Well. That certainly puts this whole project into perspective, doesn’t it?”
Hollister smiled, his eyes as cold as the North Pole. “It’s just a formality,” he replied smoothly. “Every military member is required to have one. Since you’ll be attached to our unit as an adjunct, it’s required. You know how those legal folks are about their paperwork.”
His attempt at levity fell flat, but she smiled at him for making the attempt. At least, she hoped her grimace passed for a smile.
“As you requested, Captain Riley will oversee your training.”
Her face exploded into a fiery blush as Hollister continued to stare steadily at her. “I urge you to regard your training with the utmost seriousness, Ms. Giovanni. Your life will, without a doubt, rest upon how well you pay attention to and absorb what the captain has to teach you. I have prepared a list of objectives and training milestones for him. If you give this your best effort, I’m confident the mission will be successful and you will come out of it just fine.”
Give the man an A-plus for subtlety. If she wasn’t mistaken, she’d just been told in no uncertain terms to keep her hands off the good captain and her mind on her work. She looked the major square in the eye. “I hear you. Loud and clear, sir.”
He gave the faintest of nods, then said lightly, “You’re a civilian. You don’t have to call me sir.”
Her mouth twitched. He was a ‘sir’ kind of guy, uniform or not. He wore authority like a second skin. Kind of like a few old battle-ax judges back home. You called them sir and didn’t talk back if you wanted to keep your happy butt out of the slammer.
Brian spoke up. “If you’ll excuse us, sir. Ms. Giovanni has a doctor’s appointment in ten minutes.”
The major stood and held out his hand to her. After a brief, almost painfully firm handshake he nodded once. “Good luck, Ms. Giovanni.”
She took a deep breath. Here goes nothing.
Chapter 7
Sophie stared down at the ugly black brace encasing her left knee. It clasped her calf and thigh tightly, but the hinged shafts running down either side of her knee were surprisingly light. The doctor said they were titanium.
“And you’re sure I can do anything I want with my knee and it’ll be okay?”
The doc glanced up at her. “Yup. This brace is purely a precaution. I guarantee it’ll prevent you from reinjuring the ligaments you tore before.” He glanced over at the X-rays of her knee—one set from the original surgery fifteen years ago and another set less than an hour old. How these guys had gotten a hold of her original medical records so fast, she had no idea. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
Brian asked, “So we’re cleared to launch a full schedule of fitness and operational training for her?”
“Go easy on her, eh?”
Sophie frowned. She wasn’t a complete slob. She jogged several miles at a time at altitude on a sort-of-regular basis.
The doctor added, “She’s not in the kind of shape of the women you’re used to working with.”
Women? What women did Brian work with? She might not know much about the military, but she was under the definite impression women didn’t do this fancy Special Forces stuff. Maybe the doc meant that team Brian had mentioned yesterday? The Medicis? Medusas? Something like that. A surveillance team of some kind.
Brian replied soberly, “We’ve only got a couple months at best to whip her into shape.”
The doctor opened a cabinet and fished around. “She’ll need these then. One at a time. Two if she’s completely immobilized.”
Brian glanced at the bottle label. His eyebrows popped up in surprise. The doc must have forked over the good drugs. Painkillers, hopefully.
Brian pocketed the brown plastic bottle. “Got it. The usual nutritional supplements?”
“Yup. Plus hot whirlpools and light tissue massage. And keep her moving.”
“Roger.”
Okay, these two could stop talking over her head any time now.
“Let’s go, Sophie,” Brian announced. “We’ve got a lot on our agenda for today.”
She followed him out of the office, the brace feeling odd on her knee. It didn’t interfere with her walking movement, but as soon as she put the slightest sideways torque on her knee, she ran smack into the rigid brace. That doctor wasn’t kidding. Her knee wasn’t going anywhere in this contraption. It was strange not to have to baby it, to be able to move without subliminal awareness of not doing anything to hurt her knee. There was freedom in it—and fear. Of the unknown. If her knee wasn’t there to hold her back, what was there to keep her from doing new things? Dangerous things?
Good grief. And she’d just agreed to do a secret mission to help capture a terrorist? Who was she trying to kid?
“I know that look,” Brian announced grimly as he held open the SUV’s passenger door for her.
She climbed inside and he went around and slid behind the wheel. “What look?” she demanded.
“B
uyer’s remorse. Don’t tell me you’re already regretting your decision. I haven’t even begun to torture you, yet.”
She laughed reluctantly. “No. I was just reflecting on what a chicken I am.”
He shrugged casually. “Oh. That. No prob. We’ll do all kinds of work in fear management.”
“You say that like it’s easy.”
He glanced over at her as he pulled out into traffic. “It is. It’s only a matter of knowing what to do and practicing until you get good at it.”
Sure. Just flip a switch, and poof, no more clammy palms. No more cold sweats. No more imagined disasters. It was hard to fathom.
Brian parked the car in a lot right next to the beach. What was on their training agenda here? A nice picnic and a bottle of wine, perhaps?
He opened the back door and thrust a pair of tennis shoes at her—her barely used running shoes from home. “How’d you get those?” she exclaimed. “Oh, wait. I forgot. You broke into my apartment.”
He grimaced. “Put those on.”
“What are we doing?”
“We’re going for a little run. To see how fit you are.”
Oh, Lord. The sexy stud muffin got to see just what a couch potato she was? Embarrassment crawled up her spine and they hadn’t even taken a step yet. Reluctantly, she bent down to tie on the shoes. Her breathing was already tightening up.
“C’mon,” he said.
She followed him with lagging steps out onto the beach. Great. They got to run in sand? She wouldn’t make it a quarter mile.
He directed briskly, “Stretch out some, eh? We don’t need any pulled muscles this early in the program.”
She dutifully bent down and planted her nose on one of her knees. Her hamstring protested rustily. Her rear end must look the size of Montana in this position. She pivoted so her backside wasn’t facing him and moved her nose to her other knee. Lovely. Equal-opportunity pain in the other hamstring.
She made a random creaky pretzel out of herself for a couple more minutes and then he asked, “Ready?”
She straightened up, glaring at him. “Heck, no, I’m not ready. You’re some fancy commando, and I’m a legal secretary from Utah who’d rather knit than get out of my chair and vacuum.”
He laughed, a friendly, warm sound. “I have no expectations whatsoever of you. Anything you can do over zero is better than I’d hoped for.”
“Does that mean I can just declare myself tired now and we can skip this whole slogging through sand and sweating thing?” she asked hopefully.
He grinned. “Nope. It means anything you do today will be a new personal best. We’ll build from there.”
She sighed. “All right. Just hang on to that zero expectation, okay?”
He led the way out to the water’s edge and took off in a slow jog. Well, for him it was probably a slow jog. For her it was too brisk for comfort. In no time a stitch stabbed her under the ribs and her thighs were starting to burn. The sand turned out to be firmer than she expected. It gave way enough under her feet to cushion her knee, but was hard enough that she didn’t flounder with every step.
“How’re you doing?” he asked a few minutes into the exercise in torture.
Darned if he didn’t sound perky! Not the slightest bit out of breath. If she spoke aloud right now, she was going to gasp like an asthmatic fish on a dock.
“Can we…slow down…a bit?” She panted.
“Sure. You set the pace.”
“Stop sounding so…damned cheerful.” She huffed.
He laughed. “Right. How’s the knee holding up?”
She took stock. Surprisingly, it felt just fine. And there was peace of mind in knowing the bionic brace was protecting it.
“If I told you to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, would you slug me?”
She glanced up at him. “Oh yeah…Hard.”
“Okay. Breathe through your nose and mouth together if you can. It humidifies the air going into your lungs.”
Did he mean that fiery stuff burning its way in and out of her chest cavity like molten lava? That air? She scowled in his general direction. Her calves were starting to cramp. And her behind. Then there was her right hip twingeing. And her throat was starting to feel raw.
“Isn’t it a beautiful day out here?” Brian declared brightly.
“Stuff it,” she snapped.
Laughing, he spurted ahead of her and commenced running backwards in front of her. “You’re doing great. We’ve done nearly a mile. What say we try for two? See that lifeguard tower down the beach? That’s two miles from where we started.”
She glanced past his shoulder. Could he possibly be referring to that tiny black twig in the distance? Ugh. She staggered onward, with parts of her jiggling she didn’t know jiggled. About a week later in her universe, the tower took the shape of a miniature oil derrick and then began to grow in size.
And then finally, blessedly, it loomed over them. She stumbled to a halt, her legs and lungs screaming their protest as she bent down, grabbing the bottom of her shorts and panting like the dying woman she was. Sweat stung like crazy in her eyes, but she was too wiped out to even think about reaching up to brush it away.
“What’re you stopping for?” Brian asked.
She straightened slowly, hurting all over. She glared at him. The bastard was barely breathing above normal, let alone perspiring. She asked ominously, “What do you mean?”
“Now we have to run back to the car.”
She stared. Blinked. “You’re joking, right?”
“No.”
“I’m. Not. Running. Back. You can go get the car, drive it down here and pick me up.”
“This isn’t Daytona. I can’t drive on the beach and the road doesn’t come this far. We have to run back.”
“Ahh. I see. This is the part of my training where I learn to commit murder. And to like it.”
He laughed. “Nah, that’s next week. C’mon. You’ve caught your breath. Let’s go.”
Underneath his cheerful overtone was a distinct undertone of steel. He wasn’t giving her any choice in the matter. This was a soldier. An officer. A man used to giving orders…and having them followed without question. Where did the passionate, tender, protective lover of last night disappear to?
“But I can’t do it!”
He wheeled around and took a quick, long step that brought him chest-to-chest with her. She was abruptly aware of how big and strong he was.
His voice dropped to a deep, almost threatening timbre. “Let’s get one thing straight right now, Sophie. I will never ask you to do something you can’t do. I don’t ever want to hear that word cross your lips again. Is that understood?”
She stared up at him, shocked. “But it’s two more miles—”
“You could run ten more miles if you really had to. No can’ts. Got it?”
His voice was hard, but something lurked in the back of his gaze. Compassion. Empathy. Entreaty. Well, shucks. “Yeah,” she sighed. “I’ve got it.”
She turned and faced back the way they’d come. She couldn’t even see the SUV from here. Only two side-by-side sets of footprints winding away in the sand. “Let’s go, Rambo.”
Brian poured the protein and wheat-greens shake out of the blender and into a pair of glasses. He didn’t need the protein hit—he hadn’t done anything all day that constituted actual work to his muscles. But Sophie definitely needed it, and he’d promised to do everything she did in the course of her training.
He stepped into the main room where she sprawled on the sofa, red in the face, eyes closed. The poor kid was wrung out. The run had taken the edge off her, but the weight room had done her in. He’d needed to know if she could do a pull-up or push-up. Fundamental to Special Forces maneuvers was the ability to move one’s own body weight around. She couldn’t do a chin-up but had managed two or three half-credible push-ups. They’d have to start out on light weights and work up to her body weight.
But not today. She looked rea
dy to pass out and it wasn’t even dinnertime.
“Here. Take this.” He held out the sludge-colored shake.
“What is it? Something I spread on my muscles to ease the pain?”
“No. You drink it. It’s a protein shake”
Her gaze snapped to the dark green liquid in dismay. “What protein comes in that color? Ground up caterpillars?”
“Very funny. The soy powder is pale yellow. It’s the kamut grass and blue-green algae that give it color.”
“Algae? As in pond slime? No way. Give me a steak, juicy and medium-rare, if you want me to eat some protein.”
He sighed. “In an operational situation, questioning my orders like this can get you killed. If I tell you to do something, you need to just do it. You can ask questions later.”
One brown eye slitted open, glaring malevolently at him.
He grinned down at her. “Despite the color, it’s chocolate-flavored. Don’t all women love chocolate?”
She purred, “We also love that squeaky sound men make when we yank out their chest hairs. Come here and I’ll show you what I mean.”
He glanced up at the palm tree in the corner in alarm.
She glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, relax, Brian. I’m so tired I couldn’t lift a finger right now, let alone get you in any trouble.”
“Could you move if I told you there’s a hot tub cranked up all steamy and bubbly on the deck outside?”
She sat bolt upright, then froze, groaning. “You’re a cruel, cruel man.”
“Let me help you up.” He held a hand down to her. Surely hoisting her aching bones off the couch didn’t constitute laying a hand on her in Major Hollister’s world.
Her hand felt so fragile in his. Slender and weak. What the hell was he doing, preparing her to march into a nest of terrorists? He opened the sliding glass door and ushered her to the far end of the deck, where a hot tub was, indeed, bubbling merrily. He’d cranked the heat all the way up before they left for the gym. It should cook her about as red as a lobster.