by Dale Mayer
Ice’s Icing
Heroes for Hire, Book 20
Dale Mayer
Table of Contents
Title Page
About This Book
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
About Johan’s Joy
Bullard’s Battle Series
Bullard’s Battle Preview
Author’s Note
Complimentary Download
About the Author
Copyright Page
About This Book
Ice wanted only one thing in her life, and that was Levi—and maybe someone who was a blend of both of them. When he asked her to marry him, she was thrilled, but now she’s struggling to pin down a wedding date for fear he’d been caught up in the moment and didn’t really want to go through with it. When the compound is attacked, and they are forced to go on the offense, she realizes what’s truly important.
Levi is infuriated that Ice refuses to set a wedding date. He’s always loved her, and there will never be anyone else for him. This fact is reinforced as they come under attack by a military group trying to overthrow a government that he aided.
As the bullets fly and the body count mounts, who says you can’t have your cake and your icing too!
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Chapter 1
Icelite Danning spun on her heels and walked away from Levi. It was hard to do, but she was getting better at it.
He reached out, grabbed her arm and spun her around again, his face twisted with anger. “What do you mean, no?” he roared. “I asked you to marry me. You said yes, but, anytime I try to set a date, you keep pushing it off. Why?”
Ice stood firm, her hands on her hips. “You’re not ready,” she snapped.
“It’s not for you to tell me when I’m ready or not,” he said, his voice gentle as he stared at her searchingly.
She smiled up at him. “No, it isn’t. But it’s a momentous time. And I don’t want you to make a mistake.”
His eyebrows shot up at that. He crossed his arms and said, “Really? You’re telling me that I don’t know what I want?”
“Really?” she said, mimicking him. “Of course you don’t know what you want. You’re a man.” She laughed.
He reached out, snagged her up and kissed her hard. Immediately passion swept over them, as it always did. He held her close, murmuring against her ear, “Ever since I asked you, I’ve been trying to set a date. Please put me out of my misery.”
“Okay,” she said, “but I want to think about it. An awful lot of people live and work here with us, and we’re likely to start something.”
He winced at that but bravely said, “Maybe we should do a group wedding then, like Badger’s crew did.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think that’ll work. We only got caught up in that one because of other people’s plans. That’s not something we do here.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing,” he said. “I have to admit, I was a little concerned about that.”
She chuckled. “I’m sure you were. But the bottom line is, a group wedding is not a good idea here.”
“So what do you want to do?”
She frowned. “I know Bailey and Alfred will want to do the cooking. I don’t want anybody else here but family and friends. I want my father to give me away.”
“What about Bullard?”
She stared up at Levi. “I would love that, but I don’t know if you would.”
He gave her that lazy sexy smile she adored. “Sweetheart, I don’t mind in the least. But I don’t know if Bullard would want to come.”
“Then we’ll leave it to Bullard to decide,” she said. “He’s a very good friend, as are many of his people. I wouldn’t want to exclude them.”
“In that case, you just doubled the numbers.”
She scrunched up her face and shuddered.
He leaned closer and said, “Maybe you’re the one getting cold feet.”
Heat flashed between them again, and she shook her head. “No cold feet here. I can think of nothing I want more than to be your wife.”
At that, he kissed her again, but, just as they were deepening their kiss, the alarm sounded throughout the compound. They broke apart and bolted in different directions. Ice headed for the control room, and Levi headed downstairs to the garage. In the control room, Stone watched the cameras. She stepped inside, and he said, “Lock the door behind you.”
She closed and locked it and hit the security button. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure,” Stone said, “but I counted two gunmen with semiautomatic rifles outside.”
Ice gasped and sat down. The sirens were still going off outside. The pool had just opened. Likely half-a-dozen people were out there, but everybody had been briefed on the alarms. At the first sound, everybody needed to be inside and locked down in the compound. It also meant all the men and their partners should be armed and ready for full-on warfare. Ice hated the fact that she and the others had to live in a war zone, but it was what it was.
And she’d rather live in this war zone than continue the work she used to do in a different one. She counted on everybody here to do their jobs. No way would she let something like this stop her from taking the next step in her life.
“There.” Stone tapped one of the monitors.
She glanced at it just in time to see a flash from a scope. She nodded. “Let me talk to Levi.”
“He’s on the PA system now,” Stone said.
“Levi, two onscreen. One shooter up on the back quarter atop the ridge. Back camera is still working. He doesn’t appear to know. We have a second shooter outside our secret door.”
“Okay,” Levi said, his voice calm and controlled. “We’ve got two teams of men going out. My team will take the secret door, and we’ve got another team going out through the back.”
“Anybody going out the back is likely to get picked off by the sniper,” Stone said.
“Maybe,” Levi said, “but not if we get there first. We’ll have to come up with an alternate way to get on the other side of that hill without having to go around it.”
“You want to bore a tunnel through there?” Ice asked.
“Talk about spending some money,” Levi said.
“I don’t care,” Ice said. “I don’t want anything to compromise our security.”
“We’ll talk about it afterward. Make sure everybody is accounted for. Do a full roll call, and anybody who’s off-base needs to be told they can’t come home.”
“Will do,” Ice said. It was standard procedure. All the women had been thoroughly briefed before they moved onto the compound, but they hadn’t had an incident in months. One of the reasons they always had to do these practice sessions was just to keep everybody up-to-date with safety procedures.
With Stone manning the security systems, Ice headed down to get a headcount. She went to the physical roster on the kitchen wall and checked to see who was on and who was off. On the chalkboard beside her, she added up all the partners and started making calls. Ten minutes later, she had two people running errands in town, seven at work at their various jobs in town and the rest were on the base, locked into their apartments. All of them wanted to come
back to the main compound building. Ice sent the message that nobody was to move yet.
As she studied the layout of the compound, she said, “Alfred, we really do need a secure way for them to get from the individual apartments to the main building.”
“Yes,” he said, “that’s that tunnel we were talking about.”
“And we need a way to get on the other side of the hill. That’s the second time we’ve been caught by that blind spot.”
“We can have cameras set up that keep that blind spot from being blind, but we can’t get there if a sniper settles in first.”
“Exactly,” she said. “I’ve contacted everybody, and we need to open the house in town, in case those currently there have to stay. Seven at work and two shopping.”
“So, nine women?” Bailey said, coming out of the pantry.
“Yes, but Flynn is here working, and Anna’s at her place. We’ve also got Logan in town, so he can help with the women.”
“We’ll probably need a couple more men.”
“Harrison and Easton are out there that we can call on,” Ice said. “I want them to get to the safe house with the women too.” She picked up the phone and made the calls.
“Do we have any idea what’s going on?” Alfred asked.
“The usual. This time we have a sniper. We’re looking to see if he is connected to a team.”
“There’ll be a team,” Alfred said comfortably. “I just wonder who and what’s behind it.”
“I don’t know. I’m getting damn tired of it though.”
“It’s to be expected,” Alfred said. “Doing good work pisses off the wrong people.”
She just rolled her eyes at him.
As he walked back to the kitchen island, he said, “I think I’ll put on some cinnamon buns. People will need the extra boost.”
“I’ll help,” Bailey said.
Ice watched as two of her favorite team members headed to the pantry. Of course it didn’t hurt that they were forever bringing out wonderful things for everyone to eat. It was certainly needed regardless, but especially at crunch time.
She sat with a notepad and wrote down all the things she needed to keep track of. As the company got bigger, the logistics got harder. She had lots of staff working in the office now as well, not to mention most of them were partners to the men working the ops for the company. It would seem to be the prudent way to keep everybody happy, but, at the moment, Levi questioning their personal life had pushed her into a territory she wasn’t comfortable with. It wasn’t that she was holding back on setting a wedding date, it was all about not wanting to have him regret it.
That he’d actually asked her had completely blown her away. She figured he’d been caught up in the wedding thralls of Badger and his group. Then she figured it was hard for Levi to do anything but ask her. At the same time, when this shit was going on all around them, she had to wonder just what was the priority here? Her safety and that of everyone was the priority, not getting a chance to walk down an aisle. She didn’t even want that. She just wanted to get married out by her own pool, on her own compound, with her father handing her off to Levi.
And she knew Levi would be all for that type of ceremony.
She was totally okay to bring in anybody from Badger’s group, any of their friends out of California or even any of Bullard’s group out of Africa. Bullard in particular. He was a special friend, and they had a connection she hadn’t had with many others. But, if Bullard struggled with the idea of her finally tying the knot with Levi, then her relationship with Bullard could become hellish. Yet she and Bullard had come to an agreement a long time ago. He knew perfectly well; Levi was her partner in all ways. So why the hell was she taking umbrage over Levi trying to set a wedding date? She got up and walked over to the secret entrance directly into the compound, not at all happy that she hadn’t heard from anybody. She hit the PA system and called out, “Stone?”
“The team outside the secret entrance is clear,” he said. “Waiting on the team heading for the blind spot.”
“Good enough,” she said. “I’ll send out two teams by road. We need to know where these guys are coming from and what they’re after.”
“Let me do another satellite search first,” he said. “I was there a few moments ago, and it was clear, but give me another second.”
She waited as she walked out to the massive garage, the two teams waiting in their vehicles for the go sign. When they saw her, Evan leaned over and said, “Have you got the word yet?”
“Just waiting on Stone to do another satellite search. Levi’s taken out two at the secret entrance, but we still have one sniper up on the blind spot.”
“If there’re three, chances are good more are around,” the men in the trucks called out.
She nodded and opened the garage doors. “Stone?”
“They’re clear. One head south. A vehicle’s parked in the trees about half a mile down.”
She relayed that back to Dakota. He nodded and drove out, heading to the left.
Merk was driving the second truck. She faced him and said, “You need to go to the right and drive straight ahead for another four miles, according to Stone.”
Just then Stone’s voice came over her phone again. “Make that five,” he said. “It’s on the move. A black Jeep, open back, with one driver who looks like he’s got a lot of weapons in the front seat.”
Merk gave a hard grin and said, “We’re on it. Five miles is nothing.”
“Do you have a third spot?” Ice asked. “I’ve got a third truck ready to go. Jace is driving.”
“He’ll follow Merk,” Stone said, his voice cool. “But at the first T, he’s heading left. Looks like we’ve got a couple vans sitting there. I think that’s the communication system.”
“Then he’s not going alone,” she said. She walked over to Rhodes and said, “I’m taking another vehicle with you.”
The men split up as she hopped into the driver’s side and turned on the engine. “Stone, I’m heading out too. Keep watch on the satellite.”
“Always,” he said. “I’ll tell Levi.”
She chuckled. “You better not tell him until I’m gone. Do you know what he’ll say?”
“He’ll say, That damn woman had better marry me soon,” Stone said. “When will you put him out of his misery?”
“Soon,” she promised. “But I just want a family party. I don’t want anything big and formal.”
“We’re a big family as it is,” Stone said, laughing, “but I’m really glad to ditch the formalwear.”
“We’ll talk when I’m back.”
*
“She what?” Levi yelled into the PA system. “Stone, really?”
“She didn’t want Jace heading to the communication base on his own,” he said. “She figured two vehicles would be better.”
“That might be,” Levi said, “but that doesn’t mean she should have gone herself.”
“Whoever planned this attack didn’t think it through. Normally we have half this number of men at home.”
“I know,” Levi said. “We’ve got the first three prisoners in the jail cell. Nobody’s conscious.”
“Any IDs?”
“Nothing. Black-ops all the way. Top military-grade equipment, clothing. No tattoos that we could see either.”
“Chips?” Stone asked.
“We’re running scanners on them right now,” Levi said. “Have you kept the eyes in the sky on the four vehicles?”
“Yes, and all four appear to be engaged.”
“Shit,” Levi said, striding toward the garage. He opened the internal door, stepped out and saw all four of the military vehicles they kept were gone. He headed to his truck. “Where do I need to be?”
“Looks like trouble with Ice,” Stone said soberly. “Take your men and head right out to the first junction, then you head left. Less than three miles.”
“Switching over to comm,” Levi said, “you’re now on my headset.” He ordered his
team outside to the trucks. With two vehicles racing down the road, he was ready to have some very strong words with Ice. He knew it wasn’t fair, but he wanted to keep her safe. And he knew she’d fight him every step of the way because she would want to keep him safe as well.
The trouble was, they were partners for a reason, and she would never be the little woman who stayed home. He loved her for it, but, damn, the last thing he wanted was to have her injured.
When they were about a mile out, his headset crackled. “You’re coming up on the four vehicles,” Stone said. “There’s been no movement since Ice arrived.”
“In that case, I’m pulling over early,” Levi said.
“Pull up right now,” Stone said urgently.
Levi pulled off the road and into a group of trees. It was a rough landing, but the other vehicle pulled up beside him. “What have you got?”
“Looks like Ice is being taken prisoner. They’re walking her toward you now. One hundred yards ahead.”
“Are they holding rifles on her?”
“Yes,” Stone said. “Get moving now.”
Levi’s men ran, loaded for bear. As they came around the bend, sure enough, Ice and Jace stood with their backs turned, and two men held rifles on them.
Levi didn’t even think about it. He raised his handgun and fired one shot. He took down the first shooter with a bullet right between the eyes. When it came to this kind of game, absolutely no way would he shoot to injure. When the other gunman was shot down a second later, the place erupted with return fire from the nearby roadsides. His men raced for cover. Ice, on the other hand, dove backward, grabbed the gunman’s weapon and, from her crouching position, started firing.
Yeah, that was his Ice.
Amid the gunfire, he ran to her, helped her to her feet and said, “You stand guard over these guys. I want that one alive, if he survives, and this one, well, he faced a death sentence the minute he pulled a gun on you.” The gunfire slowed.
“Go, go, go,” she said, “there’re several more.”
He shot her a disbelieving look, but his men had already spread out and had quickly taken the rest hostage. Before long, he and Ice stood facing the newest group of prisoners. They were all dressed the same as the ones he’d already rounded up. None spoke, only glared at them, murder in their eyes.