His thoughts exactly. “You didn’t really think I was going to let you have all the fun, did you?”
“Stop talking.” She closed the distance between them and crushed her mouth against his. Her tongue swept past his lips, memorized every centimeter of his mouth, and pushed the pain in his side and thigh to the back of his mind. There was only Sienna. Now. Forever. Fisting her hands in his T-shirt, she inspected his wounds. “You’ve lost a lot of blood. You need to lie down.”
She helped him sit, a rush of nausea churning in his gut. Reaching for the soldier she’d taken down, she confiscated the bastard’s phone and brought it to her ear. “You’re going to be fine. I’m calling an ambulance.”
“Go.” Patrick blinked against the darkness closing in around the edges of his vision. “Go after Rachel. She can’t get to Jane.”
“Jane sent me to protect you.” Sienna wedged the phone between her ear and shoulder as she applied pressure to the wound in his thigh. “Besides, I wasn’t lying before. Sullivan Bishop will kill anyone who dares try to get to her again. I’m not leaving you here.”
“She’s getting away.” Patrick fought to sit up, but her hand against his wound kept him down. Her warmth tunneled through his clothing, straight to the rush of cold setting up residence in his chest. She’d blazed into his life, heated every part of him, and burned herself into his memory. No matter what happened or what’d brought them together, she’d become part of his life. Her job had been to keep him safe, but she’d rescued him in a whole different way. She’d given him purpose. Hope. “We’ll never be safe.”
“I’ve got it covered.” Police sirens echoed off the warehouse walls. Sienna traced his eyebrow with the pad of her thumb. A thin smile pulled at one side of her mouth as he relaxed back against the floor. “Go ahead and pass out. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
*
“I’ve waited more than a year for this moment.” Rachel Wright’s shoulders rose and fell in rapid succession as Max Logan, her first recruit into the search and rescue division, led the gunwoman to the nearest police cruiser. Another fought the last of her small army into a separate vehicle. “Blevins and I were moving up the ranks. He was going to make general then take me with him to the White House. We were going to make a difference. You’re making a mistake!”
Sienna massaged the fresh gauze over her shoulder as she kicked at the loose gravel on the pavement. Spotlights had been added around the warehouse to collect evidence, but soon, the army would send their own investigators and take control of the scene. She’d already given her statement to Mystic PD, handed over her weapons, and put in a call to Blackhawk Security. Her flight back to Anchorage left in an hour. Patrick Barnes’s case was closed. She’d step into headquarters and take on another. That was the job. So why did the idea of leaving Connecticut hurt so much?
“Figured you’d be on the next plane out of here by now.” That voice.
No one should wield that kind of power with just their voice. Every cell in her body caught fire as he closed in on her. Red and blue patrol lights swept across his strong features. His sharp jaw, the five o’clock shadow that’d prickled against her cheek when they’d kissed back in her hospital room. A fresh T-shirt outlined the square of gauze and tape over his right pectoral. Just a few inches to the left, he wouldn’t be standing here. And she’d probably be dead. “And not get to see that crazy woman being carted off in cuffs? Wouldn’t miss that for the world.”
She’d made a joke, but reality slammed into her as those chocolate brown eyes locked on her. She hadn’t gotten into the SUV because she’d made him a promise. She’d wanted to ensure he was okay. Because, despite the rules Blackhawk Security warned her against breaking, he’d become the most dangerous person in the world to her these past two days. He mattered. “My flight leaves in an hour.”
“Just like that, huh?” Patrick limped into position beside her and leveraged his weight against the SUV. “You hunt me down, save me from an assassination attempt, then you’re out of here.”
“That’s the job.” One client to the next. She’d trained for more than a year to head the search and rescue division, been handpicked by Blackhawk’s resident weapons expert. She’d worked hard to get where she was, and there was no turning back now that she’d finally found her calling. “There are a lot of people out there who need my help.”
He nodded in her peripheral vision then dropped his attention to the ground. “You never told me if you found your roommate alive back in Afghanistan.”
No. She hadn’t. Sienna pushed away from the SUV, folding her uninjured arm across her chest. “Jane found her two days after we partnered up. According to the medical examiner, she’d been killed within a few hours after I reported her missing. We never identified the person responsible.”
“I’m sorry. Is that why you joined Blackhawk Security?” Patrick reached out, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “To find those who’re missing before something happens to them?”
“Jane asked me to apply for the job. I just happened to excel at it.” Sienna fought back the urge to rest her cheek against his hand. “She needed Sullivan Bishop’s help, and I owed her a favor for helping me recover my friend. So I was the one who let her inside the Blackhawk Security building the night she and Sullivan met. I bypassed the security systems and turned off the alarms.” Panic flared, the muscles down her spine tightening. “I trust you can keep that information to yourself.”
“Your secret is safe with me.” Patrick dropped his hand, and she suddenly missed the warmth of his body heat. A cold blast of wind only deepened the chill further, but she wouldn’t give into her need to have him wrap her in his arms. Especially not after he’d been shot just a few short hours ago. “Tell me where that leave us, Freckles.”
Us. A flood of excitement brushed over her nerve endings. She studied the crime scene as the last of the patrol cruisers skidded out of the gravel parking lot. To prove she could. “Well, I’m going back to Anchorage to take on another case, and you finally have the chance to start your civilian life, Major.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.” Patrick wrapped his uninjured arm around her hip and pulled her into him. Her heart threatened to beat straight out of her chest as he stared down at her, his heat chasing back the frigid temperatures. “I don’t care how complicated it gets, Sergeant. I don’t care about the rules. I want to be with you. Here, in Alaska, across the globe, I don’t care. Wherever you go, I go. Agreed?”
He pulled her mouth to his, and she lost herself in him all over again.
The case, the fact they’d both been shot, the raging psychopath who’d vowed to kill them one day, the rules her employer had put into place. None of it mattered. Her toes curled inside her boots as he swept his tongue past her lips and dipped her backwards with one hand. They’d survived the past two days together. How hard could it be to face Blackhawk’s CEO when she got back to Anchorage? Sienna set her hand against his chest, careful of his wound. “I guess, technically, you’re not my client anymore.”
“Is that a yes?” he asked.
“Yes.” Her breath crystalized in front of her mouth as she smiled. Sienna set her hand over his heart. “Just stay out of the way of the bullets next time.”
****
About the Author
Nichole Severn writes explosive romantic suspense with strong heroines, heroes who dare challenge them, and a hell of a lot of guns. She graduated from Utah Valley University with a degree in Psychology and from Nevada State College with a degree in English Literature. She's a member of Romance Writers of America.
She resides with her very supportive and patient husband, as well as her demon spawn, in Utah. When she’s not writing, she’s constantly injuring herself running, rock climbing, practicing yoga, and snowboarding.
Thank you for reading Search and Rescue! Keep falling in love while the bullets are flying with the next book in the Blackhawk Security: Search and
Rescue series, Search and Protect (Max Logan’s story)!
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Also by Nichole Severn
BLACKHAWK SECURITY: SEARCH AND RESCUE
Search and Rescue
Search and Protect
Search and Defend
Search and Pursue (2020)
Search and Destroy (2020)
Search and Acquire (2021)
BLACKHAWK SECURITY SERIES
Rules in Blackmail
Rules in Rescue
Rules in Revenge
Rules in Deceit
Rules in Defiance
Caught in the Crossfire (2020)
The Lind of Duty (2020)
STAND ALONE TITLES
Let Me Out
In the Enemy’s Arms
Search and Rescue Page 4