Delta Force Defender

by Megan Crane

  Even if her heart felt like someone else’s today. Someone softer. More sentimental.

  Julia’s heart, maybe.

  And the truth was, Caradine kind of liked knowing that it was still in there. Still beating, still hoping, still what-iffing. After all this time.

  “I can’t leave Hawaii.” Lindsay’s gaze matched her voice, intense and serious. “Or I should say, I won’t. Because I would go and do whatever had to be done if I could. But there’s Luana, and she deserves better than this. Doesn’t she?”

  And Caradine knew what her sister was asking of her. She raised her gaze to Lindsay’s, and for a moment, they just looked at each other, the way they had that night ten years ago. The way they had after Phoenix.

  All that panic and terror. The bleakness. The rage. Their own kind of love mixed up in all of that, sure, dark and strained by the blood they carried in their veins. The bruises that would never heal. The running that never took them far enough away. The fear that they were just as bad as what they were hiding from.

  And beneath it all, what had to happen next.

  Caradine smiled. “It’s so sad you died out there on the run.”

  “Not really that sad.” Lindsay smiled back. “I was always the weak link.”

  “Less mouthy, anyway.”

  “Probably had it coming.”

  “You know you did.” Caradine nodded once, sealing the vow. “I doubt anyone even misses you.”

  “Thank you,” Lindsay whispered.

  The day was spent in negotiations and planning. Caradine and Lindsay caught up, haltingly at first, but then with more deep, helpless laughter over the things only they found funny.

  Then, as evening approached, it all turned into something far more relaxed than a strategy session.

  “This is Hawaii,” Lindsay said, smiling, when Koa’s family turned up. “You should have at least one night that’s nothing more than that.”

  Koa’s family had come prepared to get their barbecue on. If Caradine pretended not to notice the ex–special forces military men looming around, she might have been tempted to imagine it really was just a family gathering on a lovely Hawaiian evening.

  A little slice of heaven in the middle of the thick, green jungle, with the tropical sky above and the sea in the distance. So far away from her memories of Boston—and her life in Alaska, which didn’t involve all the soft, close, perfumed air that she’d gotten used to over the course of the day—it might as well have been a different world.

  The different world she knew better than to let herself imagine. Even if that ribbon of hope deep inside her seemed to shimmer every time she breathed.

  “Walk with me,” Isaac said, appearing out of nowhere behind her, out in the yard. Caradine had been leaning against the SUV and staring up at the changing colors of the sky and the clouds that looked like sails.

  “I’m not sure that I want to walk with you,” Caradine replied.

  It was Hawaii. Her sister was here, she had a niece, and tonight, everything felt okay in a way it never had. Tonight she was entertaining what-ifs without beating herself up for it. Maybe that was why she smiled at him. As if they were different people. “We’re on a tropical island, Isaac. Surely you can come up with something more entertaining to do than walk.”

  His gray eyes warmed, and she did, too.

  One of Koa’s uncles was strumming a ukulele, an instrument Caradine had always thought was a joke until she’d heard him sing and play. People had big plates of food, and they were talking. Laughing.

  And even though most of the people here were dressed in summer clothes, or board shorts, or the colorful dresses that made sense here, somehow, it almost felt like one of Grizzly Harbor’s festivals. The festivals were when everyone in town poured out into the streets, and no matter the temperature or the time of year, life felt bright for a while.

  She didn’t know what would happen in Boston. But one way or another, it would be over. And if she survived it, there were what-ifs on the other side.

  For the first time in a long time, Caradine felt bright all the way through.

  Maybe that was why, when Isaac reached out and took his life in his hands by lacing his fingers with hers, she let him. She didn’t jerk away. She didn’t even scowl. She curled her fingers around his and held on.

  And for a moment, they were the only two people in the world.

  She could feel the heat of him, and the sizzle from that same electric current that always flared between them. She felt as if she were free-falling from a great height, when she knew full well her feet were on the ground.

  For once, she didn’t pretend otherwise. She didn’t want to analyze it. She felt it, from the lump in her throat to the tightness in her chest. It all seemed to swirl around inside her, then bloom into the molten heat between her legs.

  When he tugged her hand, leading her away from the gathering, she went with him.

  She would normally demand to know where they were going. What he wanted, and what he thought he was doing.

  But not tonight. Tonight she followed him, as the sky above them began to ready itself for sunset in lush shades of pink and orange.

  He led her away from the house and into the waiting jungle. He found a path through the trees and followed it as it cut lazily down the side of a hill. The ground beneath their feet smelled rich and damp. Birds sang to one another. And the sky she could see through the jungle canopy only seemed brighter.

  And then he ushered her out of the jungle and into a tiny little slice of paradise.

  Caradine heard it before she saw it, but when she could finally see where he was taking her, she actually gasped.

  A waterfall tumbled from above, cascading down the green, rocky hillside to collect into a pool at its base. The water splashed over the ledge that marked the boundaries of the pool and continued down the side of the mountain.

  “I know you like your hot springs,” Isaac said, his voice gruff. “I figured you might like this.”

  “That’s a secret,” she replied.

  She didn’t have to look at him to feel the impact of his gray gaze. “Maybe it’s time to let go of secrets.”

  Caradine wasn’t ready to let go of her remaining secrets or his hand, so she clenched his fingers a little bit tighter. She stared at the water tumbling down, the pool at its base, and then the stunning, impossible view. Far below, the Pacific Ocean stretched out to forever, and maybe beyond.

  It was one of the most beautiful places she’d ever seen, but the man beside her was more beautiful still.

  And her heart. Her poor heart.

  Maybe, a voice in her suggested, it isn’t Julia’s heart you have to worry about.

  “When I was a little girl,” she said quietly, lost somewhere in the tumbling water and the waiting sea, “we sometimes went away in the summers. There were probably business reasons my father took us to the Hamptons, but all I cared about was the beach. I would play in the waves until my eyes stung from the salt, and there was sand everywhere. And sometimes I would swim out beyond the breakers and float there. And later, when there were no more beach vacations, and everything was tense and grim, I would remember floating like that.” She looked up at him and wasn’t surprised to find him looking at her with that unguarded heat on his face. “Held by the sea, staring at the sky. And the only other place I’ve ever felt like that was the hot springs in Grizzly Harbor.”

  “Caradine,” Isaac said, his voice and his expression grave. “What were you and your sister whispering about on the couch? What are you planning?”

  She laughed at that, though tears pricked behind her eyes, and she wasn’t entirely sure that was really a laugh. How could she tell the difference any longer? She picked up the hand laced with hers and brought it to her mouth, kissing those tough, strong knuckles of his.

  There was nothing to say to thi
s man. There never had been. Because there was too much to say and no way to start. She’d never stop.

  So she didn’t speak. She dropped his hand, and then, holding his gaze, she began to take off her clothes. She kicked off her shoes and peeled off her socks. The volcanic rock that looked smooth and soft to the touch, but was so hard she was surprised it didn’t cut her, reminded her who she was. Why she was here.

  What she had to do.

  She pulled off her shirt and the sports bra she wore because a girl never knew when she might have to run for her life.

  Isaac’s gaze went silver, then brighter still. She saw his chest move as though he were breathing hard as she tossed the sports bra aside.

  But that was nothing compared to the way his face changed when she unsnapped her pants and shoved them down over her hips.

  “Caradine—” He shook his head. “You can’t distract me.”

  She smiled at him then. Not a smirk. Not a scowl. Just . . . her smile.

  She didn’t actually say, Watch me.

  Because he did. He always did.

  She got rid of her pants, kicked off her panties, and then, still smiling, headed for the pool and eased her way in. The water was cooler than the air, but it still felt more like a hug than anything else.

  She didn’t look behind her.

  She moved to the center of the pool, feeling the water beneath her palms as she eased her way over the rocks beneath her feet. When the water was up past her waist she sank down, submerging herself completely.

  And when she came up out of the water, he was there.

  “You drive me crazy,” Isaac said against her mouth as he swept her up into his arms.

  Her smile widened, there against his mouth, as she wrapped her legs around his waist. “I know.”

  And she spent the time they had left proving it, again and again, as if they were the reason the sun lit up the sky with so many bright, wild colors as it put itself to bed and ushered them into the dark.

  Twenty-one

  It was an overcast summer day in Boston, humid and occasionally rainy.

  They had left Maui around ten o’clock island time so they could arrive here midday. And Isaac expected Caradine to be on edge. The way she had been in Maine. After all, they were closing a very long circle. Instead, she was disconcertingly calm.

  Which meant Isaac was on edge instead.

  They’d gone over various schematics and had plotted out different strategies during the flight, but the only sure information they had to go on was the call Caradine had made to Sharkey’s from that bed-and-breakfast in Maine.

  And, once again, though Isaac would have preferred not to involve Caradine in this directly, he had no choice.

  “Go over the plan with me one more time,” he ordered her now.

  They were sitting in the front seat of yet another interchangeable SUV that had been waiting per his orders when they’d landed. Caradine looked serene, which had alarms going off in him like air raid sirens.

  She even smiled at him. Almost. “We literally discussed the plan for eight hours straight on a small plane. In exhaustive and exhausting detail.”

  “Walk me through it anyway.”

  She let out a long-suffering sigh and shifted around in the seat so she could look at him straight on.

  “Are you nervous, Gentry?” she asked.

  He had parked a few blocks down from the bar in question in a busy section of a street where no one was likely to notice an idling vehicle. Everyone else was already in place. Jonas and Templeton were inside the bar already. Blue was on the roof across the street. Isaac would take command, but that didn’t make him any happier about the fact that he had to use Caradine as bait.

  Anyone could wander in and say that they were Julia Sheeran, Caradine had pointed out on the plane.

  If anyone can pretend to be you, then why should you go in at all? Isaac had retorted. We can send a decoy.

  Because I look like my dad, Caradine had replied, with a matter-of-factness that made Isaac’s jaw hurt. He lives on forever in my face. And I have to live with that in the mirror every day, but in this case, why not use it?

  He didn’t like it. He more than didn’t like it.

  “This is not a scenario in which you’re bait in a trap,” he said now. “I want to make sure you’re clear on that.”

  “So your answer is yes, you’re riddled with anxiety.”

  “You’re wired. Templeton and Jonas are already in the bar, blending in.”

  “I find that very difficult to believe.” She smirked when he glared at her. “What? They don’t blend. Anywhere.”

  “You might find yourself surprised.”

  Because the truth was, all three of them had made a career out of blending in. They could disappear while they were standing right in front of someone, if necessary. But this was no time to get into the kind of work he, Templeton, and Jonas had done—and continued to do in missions like this.

  Not when she was the one at risk.

  “You’re going to go into the bar and do your thing,” Isaac said tersely. “No editorializing. Just stick to the script we agreed on and everything will be fine.”

  She gazed at him for a moment, something almost rueful on her face. It was making his neck itch. He would have expected her to be extra cutting at a time like this. Sharp, furious. The Caradine he knew best.

  This version of Caradine he didn’t recognize, and while he might have liked to imagine it was because of what had happened between them at that waterfall, or even her reunion with her sister, that didn’t quite land. He didn’t believe it.

  Because he’d been watching her whisper with her sister over on the couch while the rest of them had been talking with Oz about how to track people who were supposedly already dead. He’d seen the grave looks on both their faces. And more tellingly, given the Sheeran sisters, the fact that there had been touching.

  “What is it you’re not telling me?” he asked.

  “I go out of my way to tell you as little as possible,” she replied, with that curve to her mouth that would normally turn into a full-blown smirk. But not today. “You know this.”

  “You’re running out of secrets, baby,” he said.

  And his heart lurched in his chest when instead of smirking at him, razor-sharp as usual, she smiled.

  An honest-to-goodness smile. Much brighter than the one she’d aimed at him on the island last night, which he’d chalked up to a family reunion and a tropical sunset.

  This smile was on a South Boston street where gentrification was slowly taking over, pushing out the seedy liquor stores, check-cashing places, and occasional strips of boarded-up buildings in favor of swanky condo developments. There were threatening clouds overhead and set-faced strangers trudging from the nearby T stop.

  He’d always thought he wanted her to smile at him like this.

  “You were right,” she said, alarming him even more.

  “Have you ever actually uttered that sentence before?”

  Her smile widened. “You told me a while ago that I walked into the Fairweather expecting a good time, but not being at all prepared for you. And you were right. It never occurred to me that I would find any of this. I didn’t know what to do with it then. I still don’t.”

  Isaac tried to keep his cool, but he couldn’t. He scowled at her. “Is this your good-bye speech?”

  Another smile. Damn her. “Isaac. I want you to know—”

  His hand shot out before he could communicate that intention to the rest of his body. He gripped her behind the neck and pulled her close. “If you say one more terrifyingly nice thing to me, Caradine, I’m going to lose it.”

  And it was better when that smile faded. When her typical scowl replaced it. He felt actual relief.

  “I’m trying to say that I appreciate—”

/>   “I will lose it.” His jaw was so tight he was surprised he could form words. “And when I do, I can’t promise I won’t take it out on you in ways I doubt very much you will enjoy.”

  Her scowl deepened and that was better, too. Not that it solved his problem here, but it helped. It was better than Caradine being nice.

  “It might be time for you to pay some attention to your parade of psychological problems, Isaac.”

  “Do not make speeches before you go into battle,” he growled, right against her mouth. “They become self-fulfilling prophecies. I don’t want your good-byes, Caradine. I never did.”

  And he wanted to kiss her, but he didn’t. Because kissing clouded his judgment. Obviously. He thrust her away from him instead. Then they were in their respective seats, staring at each other while they both breathed too heavily.

  “You go into the bar,” he said, more darkly this time. “You do your thing. Are we in agreement on what that thing is?”

  “A very long parade of very severe psychological problems. You may have to surrender your numerous arsenals for public-safety reasons.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes. You shake the tree, that’s all. We’ll be there to handle what comes loose. Do you have any questions?”

  Another smile, but this one was acidic. Be still his heart. “Only one. Do you see a fully licensed psychiatrist? It might be time to consider having one on staff.”

  “Okay,” he muttered. “We’re done here.”

  He switched on his comm unit, made sure her wire was operational, and then checked in over his car speakers while he made sure her wire lay flat along her spine. His preferred place to tape one on, because everyone had seen too many movies and looked at the chest.

  “Report,” he bit out.

  “In position,” Blue said at once. “I’m on the roof across the street with eyes on the front door. And halfway down the alley next to it.”

  “I’ll take the back,” Isaac confirmed.

  “The thing of it is,” Jonas said, sounding garrulous and drunk, “you have to think about offense, my man.”