by Cindy Dees
Table of Contents
Blurb
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
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Copyright
Over the Top
By Cindy Dees
A Black Dragon Inc. Novel
Former best friends put their differences aside to rescue a child—but the baby isn’t the only thing that needs saving.
A preventable training accident that forced him out of the SEALs has left Gunner Vance bitter and angry. But all that changes when his childhood friend and onetime lover asks for his help.
When a gunfight lands a baby on lonely teacher Chasten Reed’s front porch, he knows Gunner is their best chance for survival—assuming they don’t end up killing each other while on the run.
Chas and Gunner have a simple mission: identify the baby and get her safely back to her real family. But with jeopardy around every corner of the desperate cross-country journey from New England to Hawaii, simple doesn’t mean easy. The attraction between them might be bulletproof, but their bodies are not. Will Chas and Gunner find what they’ve been craving? Or will the past, and the danger, push them over the top before they can fall in love?
Chapter One
CHASTEN REED took an appreciative sip of his beer—cold and foamy. It had been a rough week, and he looked forward to a quiet, relaxing weekend. It had taken all of his patience to keep order in a classroom full of five-year-olds anticipating Halloween next week. He loved his kids’ energy, but sometimes he just wanted to slow down for a minute and be an adult.
He’d left a good mystery novel on the coffee table, and he planned to finish off a few more beers, then fall asleep on his couch reading it.
It was on nights like this, when Misty Falls, New Hampshire, was quiet, its citizens tucked into their cozy homes, that he felt most alone.
It was also when he most seriously considered getting a dog. Maybe a Corgi. He would name it Sir Fluffington—
Pop. Pop, pop, pop.
It sounded like some local kids had gotten ahold of some firecrackers leftover from the summer. He shook his head and reached for the book. Not his circus, not his monkeys. Some nosy neighbor would call the police and the kids would run away, laughing their heads off.
Ba-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
Jeez. That almost sounded like a machine gun. The kids must have lit off a whole string of firecrackers.
Bang! Bang!
Okay. That sounded close and much bigger than a simple firecracker. Shooting off fireworks this close to the historic wooden houses on this street was a fire hazard. He got up and headed for the door to tell the kids to cut it out in his sternest teacher voice.
Something thudded against his front door.
Oh, for the love of Mike. Kids were pranking the neighborhood already?
Tires squealed as he reached for the handle and threw open the door. He started to step out and literally tripped over the woman sprawled across his front porch.
“Leah? Is that you?”
His next-door neighbor lay half on her side, awkwardly curled around her middle. Something dark was smeared in a wide streak down his front door—and the unmistakable iron smell of blood slammed into him.
He jolted in shock and squatted down, reaching quickly for the middle-aged woman who rented the one house that was the only remaining eyesore of this newly gentrified neighborhood.
“Leah, honey, are you hurt?”
He pulled on her shoulder and she rolled limply onto her back, her eyes glassy and staring up at the porch ceiling, unblinking. She looked freaking dead.
“Leah!” He felt under her chin for a pulse. Nothing. Holy crap. He pushed his hand hard along the junction of her neck and jaw. Still nothing. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. He fell to his knees beside her, frantically reviewing his CPR training from high school lifeguarding class a million years ago.
He yanked open her bulky coat, reaching for her sternum, and realized there was blood everywhere. Her shirt was soaked; her coat was soaked. In fact, he was kneeling in a spreading puddle of blood. Frantically, he tore open her shirt buttons and counted eight ragged holes in her torso. She’d been shot? The holes were oozing sluggishly but couldn’t account for all the blood he saw.
He started chest compressions, counting in his head in panic. He bent down, pinched her nose closed, tilted her jaw back to breathe into her mouth, and that was when he saw the ragged tear all along the far side of her neck. Dark red meat and white tendons stuck out along with the fibrous tube of her esophagus as he tilted her head back, and blood seeped sluggishly from the devastating wound.
A bullet must have torn through her throat and split open her carotid artery along with ripping up everything else in its path. Nobody could survive this. Frankly, he was shocked she’d stayed conscious long enough to make it onto his front porch. He fumbled in his pants pocket for his cell phone to dial 911, but his fingers were slippery with blood and he dropped the phone. He leaned across Leah’s body to grab it, and that was when he heard the noise. A terrified whimper coming from the wadded blanket lying on the porch beside Leah. She must have been carrying it when she staggered onto his porch and collapsed.
Quickly, he unwrapped the bundle and stared at a toddler, covered in blood, looking so terrified she couldn’t even cry properly. He plucked the child, dressed in pink, perhaps eighteen months old, out of the blanket and used a corner of it to wipe the blood off her face, urgently searching for injuries. As best as he could tell, the baby was unhurt.
He heard another squeal of tires and looked up. A black SUV was careening around the corner.
Why he panicked, he didn’t know, but he did. Call it instinct.
Scooping up the baby and his cell phone, he sprinted for the end of his porch, hurdled the low hedge, and took off running around the corner of his house into the dark.
He raced across his backyard at top speed. Brakes squealed in front of his house. Swearing in a continuous mental stream, he unlatched the gate, slipped out of his yard, and relatched the gate quietly behind him.
A barrage of gunfire exploded from the street, making him crouch instinctively. The sound of glass shattering announced that his front windows had been destroyed. Terror gave wings to his feet as he flew down the alley. He swerved between two houses without fenced yards and raced down the next street.
He ran for perhaps a dozen blocks, until he was so out of breath it felt like a knife was buried in his side and the panic finally abated enough for his brain to actually function.
What the hell had just happened?
His information was limited. His neighbor had died on his front porch, apparently protecting and possibly delivering to him the toddler now in his arms. The child hadn’t made a single sound since that one terrified whimper.
Where to go?
He didn’t dare go back to his house. He could knock on a random door and ask for help, but he was drenched in Leah’s blood, and the child was still more or less coated in it too. They looked like they
’d just left the set of a horror movie.
The police. He should go to the station, report Leah’s death and hand over this child, whose parents must be frantic. He looked around, getting his bearings. It wasn’t far to the police station from here. Perhaps six blocks.
He walked cautiously, on the lookout for any black SUVs or armed gunmen on foot. It was surreal. This was Misty Falls, for God’s sake. Possibly the most boring small town in America.
He struck out across the town square, which was occupied by a small park, and his heartbeat tripled as he scurried across the open spaces between trees, eager to get to the safety of the station.
The police headquarters were housed in the town’s municipal building. It was a single-story brick building built in the 1970s—ugly, squat, and utilitarian. It came into view, but more importantly, a black SUV was parked in front of it.
He froze, then backed away slowly. Fading into the nearest shadow, he continued easing backward, his heart choking him, literally in his throat.
Who was in that vehicle, and what did they want?
Abruptly a cop burst out of the front door of the city building onto the sidewalk. He had his pistol drawn and was pointing it backward into the station itself. A man dressed all in black, his face covered in a black ski mask, came out behind him, brandishing some sort of assault-rifle-type weapon. There was a burst of light from its muzzle with a sharp rat-a-tat of noise, and the cop toppled over on his back and lay still.
The gunman calmly walked over to the passenger side of the SUV and climbed in. The vehicle pulled away from the curb.
Chas tried desperately to read the license plate, but the SUV was too far away. All he saw was a blur of black. The vehicle turned a corner, and silence fell in the town square.
Lights were coming on in apartments over the stores, and he suspected people were dialing 911 without realizing there was a good chance that everyone who might answer their call was dead. Why else would that gunman have been so casual about leaving the department unless he knew there would be no pursuit from within?
Holy what the heck, Batman?
Now what was he supposed to do?
Someone came out of a building a few doors down from the cop and raced over to check the downed officer. Whatever the guy saw caused him to reel back, turn, and vomit. The man did pull out a phone, however, and appeared to be talking to whomever answered it.
Chas assumed the bystander was calling in help, perhaps police from the next town over.
Logic told him to return to his house and wait for law enforcement to arrive. To make a witness statement and hand over this kid, who was starting to feel more than a little heavy in his tired arms.
But something in his gut stopped him. His home was no longer safe. His porch was the scene of a murder, and he had no way of knowing if the bad guys would be lurking nearby, waiting for cops—or him—to show up.
Had they seen him leap off his porch? Had they entered his house in search of him? If so, they’d found his cold beer. They would know he’d fled on foot and was somewhere nearby.
He looked around frantically. He had to hide. Get to cover. Call someone, anyone, for help. But who? It wasn’t like he had a contact list full of commandos—
Whoa. Rewind. He did know one commando.
And he even had Gunner’s phone number. He’d had it for years but never had the guts to call it. His mother had gotten it from Gunner’s mom and passed it to him. He couldn’t count how many times he’d looked at that name in his contact list. Pulled up the number, hovered his finger over the Dial button, and then chickened out.
There had to be somebody else. Anybody. But it wasn’t like he could call up any of his one-night stands and open with, “Hey, it’s Chas from spring break last year. You know, Miami. So, my house just got shot up and a woman died on my porch, and I’ve got this bloodied kid with me, and I don’t know where to go. Mind if I hop on over and shack up at your place? Don’t mind the armed killers who may be hunting me and this kid. Oh, and they just took out an entire police force, but that’s no big deal, is it?”
Cripes.
With his forearm under her diapered behind, he propped the child against his shoulder, where she huddled shivering, her face buried against his neck. Poor kid was scared out of her mind.
He fished out his phone with one hand and, shielding its light against his chest as much as possible, opened his contact list.
Vance, Gunner.
He pressed the Call button.
GUNNER WOKE up slowly, groggy. Disoriented. What was that beeping noise? The vague thought crossed his mind that somebody should make it stop.
He cracked one eye open. Weird. It wouldn’t open all the way. He tried the other eye. Better, but he was in a darkened room. In a bed. How in the hell did he get here?
As he regained more awareness of his surroundings, pain began to flood his consciousness. Layer upon layer of it. Sharp surface pain of lacerations. It felt like a few of his cuts had been stitched. The deeper throb of bruises. Damn. He felt that all over his body. Top to bottom, front to back… he felt like one giant bruise. And beneath that, the intense ache of cracked bones. Felt like several ribs had been busted, if the pain whenever he inhaled was any indication. What the hell had happened to him?
Accident of some kind? He didn’t remember one. Car? Motorcycle?
He sat up—or at least he tried to—but was swamped by a whole new layer of pain so bad, he fell back to the mattress, groaning at the pounding waves of agony rolling through his skull.
A door opened into the room, throwing a wedge of light on the floor. A big, thick shadow entered, and he braced himself for more pain. Was he a prisoner? Was this some kind of mind-bending interrogation? Had he been drugged? Alarm that he couldn’t remember ripped through him.
A gray-haired man stepped up to his bed and turned on the light beside it. Gunner squinted and registered that his bed was elevated well above the floor, kind of like a hospital bed. No, wait. His body was inclined gently upward from the hips, and the sheets were white. He wore some sort of thin cotton gown thing.
Jesus H. Christ. He was in a hospital.
“How’d I get here?” he rasped.
He squinted through his good eye and made out a black uniform. A shitload of colorful medals splashed all over the burly chest. A whole lot of gold braid on the lower sleeves. The bright gold of a Budweiser pin—
The symbol, an eagle holding a three-pronged trident and a rifle, slammed into his memory gap, shaking a big chunk of it loose all at once. His name was Gunner Vance, Navy Master Chief, SEAL Team Ten. And the man standing beside him was Rear Admiral Jonathan McCarthy, commander of all the SEAL teams on the East Coast of the United States.
Well, go fuck a duck.
What had he done to rate the big kahuna coming out to see him like this? No doubt it was either stupidly heroic, or just stupid.
“How’re you feeling, son?” the admiral asked.
“Like I got into a fight with a locomotive and the train won.”
“I’m told you’ll make a full recovery.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, sir, a full recovery from what?”
“Well, you sustained quite a few superficial injuries this morning. Although from the look of you, I imagine they don’t feel so superficial.”
No lie.
“What… happened?”
“You don’t remember?” the admiral asked with a sharp edge in his voice.
Well, duh. If I remembered, why would I ask?
“Winds changed direction and went out of limits while you were on a training jump. The jumpmaster threw you men out at low altitude, and you were blown way off course into a wooded area. Came down through some trees. Could’ve been real bad.”
No shit, Sherlock. He could’ve died. Two things that did not mix at all were trees and parachutes. Horror unfolded in his gut, a slow burn that ate through his innards with the indecent agony of acid eating through steel. It bubbled and hissed, chewi
ng through sinew and muscle and soft organs until all that was left was a goo of pain.
He closed his eyes, suddenly too exhausted to hold them open. “How did it happen?”
The admiral said candidly, “Weather shop screwed up. They didn’t pass the updated winds to the flight crew.”
“The pilots should’ve known they were encountering strong winds and told the jumpmaster.”
“Same difference.” Admiral McCarthy shrugged. “Communications broke down.”
“Anyone else get hurt?” he asked quickly.
“No. Just you. Rest of the jumpers made it over the trees to a field.”
He shifted slightly and piercing pain shot down his spine. Oh no. Not his back. The two parts of the human body prone to letting down special operators like him were the back and the knees.
He missed the next few platitudes the admiral uttered, something about hoping he got well soon. But then the old man said something that got his full attention. And fast.
“…afraid you’re done in the SEALs, Chief Vance.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“This is your third hard landing. Doc tells me your back isn’t looking real good, and apparently you were complaining about it when the medics brought you in. After this incident, it’s unlikely your body’s going to let you return to an operational team.”
“I feel fine,” he lied.
“Doc injected some sort of painkillers around your spine. They tell me those will last a few weeks. But it’s not a permanent fix. According to the doc, you’ve got a couple disks that are completely shot.”
“Since when?”
“Since the Navy got a good MRI of your spine this morning.”
“Sonofabitch.”
“Did you know your back was on its last legs, son?” The admiral stared down at him awkwardly.
Gunner said bitterly, “We all have aches and pains. So what if my back gives me a little discomfort now and then? We all run on missions dinged up.”
The admiral shifted weight uncomfortably. “The doc said he didn’t know how you were walking.”
He snorted. “I’m a SEAL. Pain has no meaning for me.”