Take Cover

by Marliss Melton

  Lowering his arm, he suffered the queasy sensation that something awful had happened to her. Granted, it was probably dinnertime back in Spain, but the man ought to be answering his phone—unless he had bad news he didn’t want to share.

  Between the headache that was battering his cranium and his reluctance to jump into a time-critical operation, Mitch dragged himself off the plane. He, Chuck, and Austin funneled silently into customs.

  As they waited in line to get their passports checked, Mitch regarded his phone in the hopes that he’d overlooked a return call. Nothing.

  A sudden thought had him accessing Safari to search for a news story. Surely, the reporters who had descended on El Abanico Hotel would have followed up to discover the fate of the woman shot in the hotel lobby.

  He performed a search, plugging in Katrina’s full name. With rising amazement, he garnered immediate results—news stories dating to that same day. Opening an article published by La Vanguardia entitled “Shooting in Seville tied to Catalan Independence Movement,” he waded through the passages in search of Katrina’s fate.

  A shooting took place at 8 a.m. this morning in El Abanico Hotel in Seville, that resulted in the arrest of Martín José Ferrer, believed to be the mastermind behind Sunday’s bombing of La Boquería, Barcelona’s largest outdoor market. Ferrer had allegedly traveled to Seville yesterday in pursuit of his half-sister, Katrina Ferrer, who may have betrayed her brother’s activities to the Civil Guard. The shooting has been labeled an act of retaliation. The victim, Katrina Ferrer, was shot in the shoulder and taken to Hospital Victoria Eugenia, where she later died…

  Mitch’s gaze froze on the word murió. Shock dumped ice into his bloodstream. A buzzing filled his ears. The customs area became an indistinct blur.

  Katrina was dead.

  How could that be? He had held her in his arms less than twenty-four hours ago. All that vitality, all that passion, could not be gone—just like that.

  Acid seared his throat, warning him of impending disgrace. Without a word to his companions, Mitch bolted for the nearest restroom, arriving in the nick of time to empty the contents of his stomach in a toilet.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Is this the place?

  Stepping from the back seat of the cab she had caught from Norfolk International Airport, Katrina eyed the small cabin nestled under a copse of large trees with a mix of excitement and reservation. It looked different than it had in Mitch’s photo, when the oaks had been lush with leaves, the azalea bushes blooming.

  Now, in the middle of February, through the vapor of her own breath, the bare branches of the trees struck her as unwelcoming. The cabin’s dark windows gave it a desolate air. No doubt it was cold, too, given the absence of smoke coming from the stone chimney—and no electricity either, she reminded herself.

  Managing a thank you for the cab driver, who’d gotten out to fetch her suitcase from the trunk, she tipped him and waved him away.

  With an indrawn breath, she started for the cabin while feeling in her pocket for the key Mitch had given her. Squeezing it, she let the rough edge cut into her palm to ground herself.

  This is finally happening. She had dreamed of this moment for so long, it struck her as unreal. Yet the relief she’d thought she would be feeling remained at bay.

  What if Mitch’s offer no longer remained? A bed of dry leaves crackled under the soles of her boots as she neared the front stoop. An icy breeze sloughed the tree branches overhead, carrying the scent of wood smoke and drawing a chill up her spine. After all, he had never replied to her email, sent about a week earlier.

  Had he even received her explanation for not writing? Her request for shelter?

  After all, she’d awakened from her surgery asking for him, only to learn from del Rey that Mitch and his teammates had been summoned home for some untimely mission. For months after that, she’d been placed in witness protection and denied access to the internet, lest someone from her previous life discover her existence. The ruse had been necessary, del Rey had explained, to keep her from facing charges and to protect her from any more attempts on her life. She had explained all that to Mitch in her email.

  It wasn’t until the trial was underway that she learned del Rey had spread the rumor she was dead. Her horror had been immediate.

  “Everyone believes I’m dead? Mitch, too?” she’d demanded.

  “No, no, no.” Del Rey had soothed her with the assurance that he’d sent Mitch’s commander a certified letter advising them both of Katrina’s situation. Mitch would have gotten the letter when he returned from the emergency assignment that had called him away.

  But had he?

  Sudden doubt brought Katrina to a halt near the cabin’s front door. A spider web, abandoned when the weather turned cold, draped from the eves, suggesting the home had not been occupied any time recently. Surely, if Mitch had been expecting her, he’d have cleaned the place up just a bit, not that she expected him to go out of his way for her.

  If he hadn’t known of her arrival, then he must not have gotten her email.

  Dear God. Dismay kept her frozen for a minute as a crow, eying her from a branch overhead, cackled at her.

  She had no choice but to help herself to Mitch’s home. He had offered, she reasoned. After she settled in, got her bearings, and bought a new cell phone under the name del Rey had given her, she would track down Mitch—and give him the shock of his life.

  This isn’t what I’d hoped for.

  The vision she had spun in her mind to get her through their months apart splintered and then crumbled to dust. Four months was a long time. If Mitch had thought her dead all that time, he might well have found another.

  Halfway down the driveway to his cabin, Mitch jammed on the brakes. In the next instant, he extinguished his truck’s headlights, plunging the woods around his cabin into darkness. The firelight dancing in the hearth inside his supposedly vacant home came sharply into focus.

  What the hell? Someone was in there. They’d built a fire to keep warm. More than that, they’d lit at least two of his oil lamps in utter disregard for the fact that they were trespassing.

  Son of a bitch. Cutting off his engine, Mitch took the time to think through his approach. He was wearing, as he always did, his personal pistol in the paddle holster under his left arm. Unlike the Astra 600 he’d tried using in Spain, the Sig Sauer 226 with the SAS melt had never jammed on him. His trusty folding dagger was still riding in his thigh pocket, where it had been throughout the op he’d just returned from.

  Reaching for a couple of the zip-ties he carried in his glove box, he stuffed them into the pocket in the lining of his coat, silenced his cell phone, and made sure the interior light in his truck stayed off when he opened the driver’s door. Shutting it quietly behind him, he stepped off the driveway to circle the house.

  Exactly how many squatters was he dealing with?

  Annoyance tapped at his temples as he peered into the dwelling’s interior. The trespassers couldn’t have picked a worse time to break into his house. He’d just come off a grueling four-month op in Venezuela. His job had sucked the last ounce of energy from him—though he had to admit that without the distraction, Katrina’s death might have sent him into deep depression.

  He acknowledged the dark cloud of despair hovering on the fringes of his mind, waiting to ambush him the moment he wasn’t in survival mode. In fact, that was the reason he’d gone straight from their debriefing at Spec Ops to his cabin. He’d known he would need time alone in which to mourn. Discovering someone had taken advantage of his absence really put his back up.

  A lumpy shadow on the wall let him know someone was sitting in his favorite recliner, right in front of the fire. Poor son of a bitch didn’t know what was about to hit him.

  Mitch listened for voices. Not a sound came from within. The shadow didn’t move, suggesting whoever was in his chair had fallen asleep. His mind flashed to the story of Goldilocks.

  If only fairytales were
real.

  Mitch crept toward the back door leading into the tiny house’s country kitchen. Feeling under a loose brick, he expected the hidden key to be missing, only to feel its metallic edge. The squatter must have broken in through the front door since the back was still locked.

  Letting himself in, he slipped silently into his home. The familiar fragrance of pine and cedar was overlaid by something floral. A sense of surrealism accompanied his stealthy footsteps as he crossed the kitchen, his Sig Sauer at the ready.

  Halfway toward the recliner, he froze. Firelight reflected off a tendril of hair resting on the arm of the chair. The delicate features of the woman snoozing against the overstuffed high back wreaked havoc on Mitch’s mind. His heart hammered. I’m dreaming.

  He had dreamed of her so often—exactly like this. His mind had to be playing tricks on him.

  Some sound, some movement must have betrayed him—maybe his incredulous gasp of breath—for her eyes floated open.

  Sensing the presence of another, Katrina leaped out of the chair.

  “Who’s there?” she demanded, hugging herself as she stared at his dark shape.

  He realized she couldn’t see him. “It’s me. Mitch.”

  “Mitch?” Throwing her arms open, she flew at him. He had scarcely reset the safety on his gun before she hurtled into his arms.

  “Oh, thank God,” she cried, gripping him fiercely. “You did get my email.”

  Stunned by what was clearly real and not a figment of his tortured mind, Mitch hugged her back. Delight and confusion collided, leaving him dazed. He could feel her heat, her curves pressing against him. Warm lips kissed his neck fervently and tracked to his jaw.

  “What email?” he asked stupidly, the only thought he could fully process when so many were clamoring through his brain.

  His question had her pulling back. Faint firelight illuminated her confusion.

  “The one I sent last week. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve been out of the country. I haven’t checked my mail in months.”

  “Oh,” she said. “But you’re here.”

  Half-afraid she would vanish on him, he caught her face in his hands, traced the smooth skin of her cheek with his thumb. “And you’re alive.”

  She gasped with what sounded like anger.

  “They said you were dead,” he continued. “I saw it on the news.”

  “But del Rey sent a letter to your commander, explaining that was just a ruse.”

  “Captain Montgomery?” He shook his head. “I haven’t seen him in months. I went straight from vacation to four months of hell in South America.”

  “Oh, my God,” Katrina murmured as pity followed quickly on the heels of her wrath. “All this time, you thought me dead?”

  “I read it in the news,” he repeated, recalling that awful moment at the airport. “You died in the hospital.”

  “I almost did. That’s what gave del Rey the idea to spread the rumor for my benefit—and his,” she added on a harder note.

  Mitch’s smile faded as he recollected the news he’d followed, even though it pained him. “Your brothers went to jail.”

  “Martí for life,” she affirmed. “Jordi got five years.”

  His thumbs traced her cheekbones. Having stared at her picture on his phone at least a thousand times, every curve, every feature was known to him.

  “You’re even more beautiful in real life,” he asserted.

  She searched his expression with a suggestion of doubt. “I hope…,” she started, then faltered. “I hope it’s not a problem for me to be here. I understand if you’ve… moved on or if you’ve found someone else. I promise I won’t—”

  “Katrina.” He cut her off abruptly, dropping his hands to her shoulders to give her a gentle shake. “Stop. Please.” The joy of her resurrection was just beginning to dawn on him. “You’re alive! You’re fucking alive!” He gripped her harder.

  Hope brought a tentative smile to her face. “Do you still love me?”

  “Hell, yes,” he assured her. Irate feelings edged his joy aside, but only momentarily. “I can’t believe del Rey didn’t answer my voicemail. I must have left at least a dozen.”

  “I don’t think he understood what we found in each other.” Katrina smoothed her hands over his shoulders.

  With his emotions careening wildly, Mitch buried his nose in her hair battling the urge to cry. Even with his perilous work keeping him distracted, Katrina’s death had taken its toll on him. Yet here she was, very much alive, obliterating his despair and brightening his prospects beyond his wildest dreams.

  “My love,” he said, nuzzling her cheek.

  “My love,” she echoed, pulling back to look at him. Tears of joy sparkled in her eyes.

  “Welcome home,” he said gruffly. “How do you like it so far?”

  “It’s rustic. And cold. And lonely,” she answered truthfully. “But not anymore.”

  Returning her smile, Mitch marveled at the gift he’d been given. Pleasure flared in him like well-dried tinder.

  “Let’s start over,” he suggested.

  With a laugh of absolute agreement, she rolled up on her toes and gently, sweetly crushed her mouth to his.

  OTHER BOOKS BY

  MARLISS MELTON

  Echo Platoon series

  LOOK AGAIN (Novella #1, permanently free)

  DANGER CLOSE

  HARD LANDING

  FRIENDLY FIRE

  NEVER FORGET (short novel)

  HOT TARGET

  Taskforce series

  THE PROTECTOR

  THE GUARDIAN

  THE ENFORCER

  Navy SEAL Team 12 series

  FORGET ME NOT

  IN THE DARK

  TIME TO RUN

  NEXT TO DIE

  CODE OF SILENCE, a novella

  TOO FAR GONE

  LONG GONE, a novella

  SHOW NO FEAR