Wings of Gold Series

by Tappan, Tracy

  She charged forward and grabbed the radio out of his hand, then spun hard on her heel.

  “Nicole!” Aagaard called after her.

  She kept going. Ryan could take his I’m-a-senior-agent voice and shove it up his ass. Her knees barely held her upright as she made it to the hatch. Somehow she managed to scramble out of the submarine and get to the egress point.

  Samson was already there, Perkins just fast-roping down the opening to land next to him.

  “Aft inside the sub,” she told the bomb unit guys. “You’ll find Aagaard in there with a bad guy wrapped in explosives.”

  They gave her a brief, odd look—had they heard the slight quaver in her voice?—then sprinted off.

  She spoke into the radio. “This is Agent Gamboa, ready for extraction. Send down the SPIE rig.”41

  “Roger that.” It wasn’t Eric who answered, but his young copilot, Steve “Jobs” Whitmore.

  A moment later a second rope dropped down in front of her, this one sewn at regular intervals with metal rings. Setting down the AN/PRC-112, she swung her harness’s lanyard over her shoulder, grabbed the metal clasp on the end of it, then secured herself to one of the rope rings.

  Ryan Aagaard charged out of the submarine.

  She picked up the radio again. “I’m attached.”

  She started to rise slowly, her harness pulling against her armpits and thighs.

  Ryan raced up to the rope and deftly hooked his lanyard to the loop two below hers. Fucker.

  They both lifted off the ground, dangling like the last two chili peppers on a vine, booted feet swaying as they ascended steadily toward the opening at the top of the mini volcano.

  She glared down at Aagaard.

  His face was turned up to her, his eyes flinty.

  The temptation to waffle-iron the design of her boot sole onto his face was nearly impossible to suppress.

  As they popped through the top of the rock into open air, she squinted skyward, catching sight of the underside of Eric’s helicopter. After the quiet of the cave, the thunder of the rotors was deafening. The wind sucked her black cargo pants to her legs and whipped her ponytail into a snarl. She shivered. Why don’t you not list all of the reasons why we shouldn’t go out, before we’ve even had a chance to find out if we can have fun together?

  They flew along, floating in the blue sea of the sky. Her harness pulled at her groin and pressed uncomfortably across the top of her breasts. She hadn’t re-fastened her bra.

  Within five minutes, they arrived at the small Catalina Island airfield they were using as a base. The helo lowered, dropping Aagaard to his feet—he unhooked—then her boots touched down. She unhooked. The helicopter edged sideways, presumably to land on the large circle painted on the concrete. She didn’t stick around to watch.

  She took off for the tower, long strides eating the pavement.

  Ryan was at her side in two paces. “You’ve got the wrong idea about what just happened, Nicole.”

  She squared her chin and walked faster, nearing the doorway into the tower.

  “Would you stop—” he grabbed her arm—“and let me talk to—?”

  She whirled, and with a hard downward chop of her hand, crashed his hold off her.

  Ryan barked in pain.

  “I have two black belts in martial arts!” she shouted into her partner’s face. “Do you ever bother to remember I’m more than a pair of tits?”

  “Hey, what’s going on?” Eric jogged up to them, hauling off his helmet. “Are you two okay?” Behind him, the helicopter’s rotors were still turning.

  Aagaard kept his eyes on her. “That wasn’t about your ability to fight. It was about distraction. The target was going to blow us to Kingdom Come. There weren’t any other options I could see for handling the situation other than what we did. You either, or you would’ve mentioned them. I knew it would work. And it did.”

  “Congratulations.” Her voice came out of a dark pit in her stomach. “You’ve seen my breasts now, Ryan. Maybe you—”

  “What?” The one word cracked out of Eric like a bullet from a gun.

  “—finally stop being such a fucking madrazo.”

  Ryan’s face flushed a strangled shade of red. “You’re out of your skull if you think that’s what this was about.”

  “Right. Then why do you keep blushing?” Nicole reached for the door handle to the tower.

  A hand grabbed her arm again. Eric’s.

  She shot icicles at him with her eyes and deepened her voice to a threatening rasp. “Everyone needs to stop touching me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Eric said, dropping his hand. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

  “No, Eric, I’m not okay.” She turned to face him fully. “I haven’t been okay since we pretended to have sex together.” She heaved a breath. “You were in my head that whole mission, making a basket case out of me. I can’t be strong when I’m around you. I told you that!” Her voice cracked. “Doesn’t anyone know that I have capabilities? Do I even trust it anymore? My mind is so scrambled and backwards, I just let myself get manipulated into flashing my tits at Dynamite Man. Maybe that was the correct thing to do. I have no idea. But it feels horrible, and…I’m so sick of prostituting myself.” She looked at Aagaard. “I said I’d find a new partner after this mission is over, so consider me out. Hunt down Carrera with someone else, Aagaard, because I need to be officially done with you.”

  Ryan’s mouth hardened.

  She turned her attention back to Eric. “You’re getting the boot, too. This is it, Eric. Leave me alone.”

  Into the heated, churning silence, a Cessna’s prop engine whirred by overhead, sounding like a child’s toy.

  Eric’s eyes darkened to the shade of a bruise. “No,” he said simply.

  She threw rigid arms out from her sides, mute and exasperated. She had no idea how to deal with his continual refusal to hear her on this. Her cell phone vibrated in her pants, saving her from coming up with a comment she didn’t have, and she fished it out of the leg pocket of her cargos. She glanced at the screen. The message was from her mother…along with half a dozen missed calls from the same number.

  Frowning, Nicole opened the message, and as she read, she felt the blood wash out of her face. “Dios mío,” she breathed and bolted into the tower.

  * * *

  Eric gripped his helmet in a tight fist, restraining himself with every ounce of his self-control to keep from chasing after Nicole. How fucked was it to leave her alone rather than help bring her down from the ledge of what had to have been a harrowing experience with a suicide bomber? But Nicole clearly wasn’t open to any male interference right now…and he had Aagaard’s major screw-over to thank for it.

  Eric rounded on Special Agent Fucknut, a hard knot of anger bunching inside his gut. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t knock you on your ass.”

  Aagaard’s nostrils edged white. “You’re welcome to try it, Lieutenant.”

  Eric laughed, a burst of incredulous air. “That’s your answer?”

  Aagaard glared at him, jaw set hard. “You weren’t boots-on-the-ground on this op, O’Dwyer. You didn’t see what Agent Gamboa and I faced. I was trying to save her life. That’s all.”

  “Well, I think you might’ve broken her, asshole.”

  “That was not my intention,” Aagaard shot back stiffly. “And I paid the price for it, didn’t I?” He glanced at the door where Nicole had disappeared, pain crossing his face.

  It was the kind of pain Eric had seen a hundred times…on Mikey. “Holy shit,” he ground out. “You’re in love with her.”

  Aagaard stared at Eric in stone-cold silence. Then, “Yes.”

  Eric punched him. No thought. His fist just made savage connection with the underside of Aagaard’s chin.

  Aagaard’s feet flew out from under him, and then—as Eric had promised—the agent thumped onto his ass. Aagaard’s eyes went wide. The man was clearly shocked at Eric’s ability to one-punch the Mighty
Ryan Aagaard down to the pavement.

  “I’m Irish and have three brothers, you moron,” Eric explained with a sneer. Flinging his helmet aside, he grabbed Aagaard by the front of his bulletproof vest, hauled him up, and shoved him against the wall of the tower.

  It was Rage Machine Eric who took over and snarled right into the man’s face, “She’s mine.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Sharp Memorial Hospital

  Nicole stood paralyzed in the doorway of Room 434, her belly wringing down to the size of a golf ball. She stared at the room through tear-blurred vision—IV bag, heart monitor. That’s all she saw at first…then her mother standing by the hospital bed, and…

  A large male body loomed into view.

  “US Marshal service,” the man announced to her. “I’m sorry, but no visitors are allowed.”

  Nicole swallowed hard, peered around the man into her mother’s haunted eyes again, then shifted her attention back to the marshal planted in front of her. “I’m Special Agent Nicole Gamboa, DEA.” She pulled out her badge and showed it to him. “This shooting has been classified as drug-related. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask Mrs. Salazar some questions.”

  The marshal studied her, lips pursed. “You said Nicole Gamboa?”

  Nicole could see it in his gaze; the marshal knew she was Mr. and Mrs. Salazar’s daughter. “That’s correct,” she answered. Just being a good little hunted woman and not revealing my true identity.

  “I’ll be right outside.” The marshal closed the door softly behind him.

  Nicole hurried over to her mother and hugged her tightly, inhaling deep, comforting lungfuls of her scent. Her mother smelled like she always did, pleasantly of coconut which made up so much of her Hawaiian cooking. “I came as soon as I could.” Nicole had snagged a ride from Catalina Island back to San Diego on a crop duster, then taken a taxi to her car and raced here. She was still dressed in her all-black mission gear.

  “I can’t believe how shocked I am.” Her mother leaned back and smiled weakly at Nicole. “I always knew this day would come.”

  Tears rose again, but Nicole fought them back. “It shouldn’t have. Dad was always so careful.” She glanced down at her father, sound asleep in the hospital bed. “How is he?”

  “He was shot in the chest, but on the right side. The surgeon says he should be fine. Mahalo,” Kalani added quietly, a Hawaiian word for gratitude. “He’ll be glad to see you.”

  “Don’t wake him,” Nicole said. “I’m not going anywhere. I can wait for him to get up.”

  Kalani placed a soft palm on Nicole’s cheek. “You look tired, ku’ulei.”

  “Work,” she said, which wasn’t a complete bald-faced lie. Eric was tied to her work.

  Her mother grabbed a small box of apple juice off a tray attached to the hospital bed. “Here.” She held it out to Nicole. “Get your blood sugar up.”

  Nicole took the juice. “Thanks.”

  “It’s more than work,” Kalani observed quietly.

  Eyes down, Nicole slowly unwrapped the tiny straw.

  “A mother knows these things.”

  Nicole punched the straw into the juice box. “We don’t have to talk about it now, Mom. Dad is—”

  “You father is sleeping. What else are we going to do but talk?” Her mother waited. “So?”

  What was there to say about Lieutenant Stars and Stripes? That Nicole had finally met a man who could understand her; that she was crazy in love with him but couldn’t let herself be…or, more accurately, didn’t know how to be a woman in love. Leave me alone. I can’t be near you. I can’t be strong when I’m around you. She closed her eyes. Her heart ached—actually, physically hurt, like someone had poured acid into her chest cavity.

  “Nicole?” Her mother’s voice was insistent.

  She pulled a hand down her face. “All right. It’s a man.”

  “Someone you’re dating?” Kalani asked softly.

  “I honestly don’t know what we’re doing, Mom.” Nicole set the juice box back on the tray. “I really like him, but I don’t want to drag him into—” she swept a vague hand around the room—“this. I come with a lot of bad baggage.”

  Kalani eased down in the visitor’s chair. “Does he know about your past?”

  “Yes.” Nicole grimaced. “I’m sorry. I told him.”

  Kalani waved the apology away. “I trust your judgment. What did he say?”

  The memory of Eric sitting in Blue Point Coastal Cuisine, so handsome in his custom-made shirt, completely unfazed by her terrible past, entered her mind and dumped more acid on her heart. She cleared her throat. “In so many words, he said he could handle it.”

  “Well then?”

  “Well then, what?” Nicole returned. “He doesn’t know what he’s saying, and I can’t be blasé about this, Mom—not when I’m standing next to my wounded father.”

  Kalani sighed. “You’re out of witness protection, Nicole. You’ve changed your name from Salazar to Gamboa, so you’re not associated with us anymore.” Her mother leaned forward in her chair. “I know why you got out of the program, ku’ulei, because you wanted a life. But look at you. You’ve been out for years, and do you have any close friends? Have you ever had a boyfriend for longer than a month or two?”

  Tears moved into Nicole’s nose. She sniffed them back. “I just don’t know how to be in love, Mom. I suck at it. I only seem to know how to run away.”

  Kalani’s gaze clouded. She sat back. “Your father and I did that to you.” She shook her head, her short, dark hair not stirring an inch from its well-coiffed ’do. “The lifestyle we reared you in was awful for a child. It’s why I only had you.”

  “It was better than the alternative,” Nicole countered, “to be raised by a man actively in the drug trade.”

  “True.” Kalani toyed with a loose thread on her slacks, then smoothed it flat with her palm. “You haven’t been told much about Manolo’s past—your father wanted it that way—but…I think you need to know something.” Kalani glanced over at her husband, then returned her attention to Nicole. “The position your father held in the Medellín Cartel was of enforcer. The job required him to kill people occasionally—which you may have guessed—but mostly, he was in charge of persuading those who were in debt to the organization to pay. His method of persuasion was…” She returned to the thread, plucking at it a couple of times. Her voice went very quiet. “He used to rape the wives and the girlfriends of the men who owed money, sometimes quite brutally.”

  Nicole stared at her mother in blank shock. Numbness fanned through her limbs, her mind fuzzing at the corners as her brain tried to block out something she really didn’t want to know. She moved her gaze over and stared vacantly at the regular blips on her father’s heart monitor screen. It was set on silent mode.

  “That is why from the time you could walk,” her mother continued, “Manolo taught you to fight. To be strong and tough and never let your guard down. Because he knew firsthand the atrocities that could be inflicted on women, and he was haunted by the thought of anything bad ever happening to you.”

  Nicole shifted her focus to her father, tears washing over her vision. She tried to merge the picture of the man lying in bed—who’d bought her a snow cone every weekend after her karate tournaments—with the image of a brutal rapist. She couldn’t.

  “You turned out too tough, though.” Sorrow darkened her mother’s eyes. “Such a nice, attractive girl, and you hate those qualities in yourself.” Her brow folded. “It pains me so much to see it.”

  A tear leaked down Nicole’s cheek. Nothing like being a letdown to your mother.

  “You can’t keep your guard up and expect to have people in your life, Nicole.”

  Nicole’s lips threatened to tremble, and she dragged a palm over her mouth. “I know that. It’s just…I can’t seem to be anything else.”

  Kalani produced a tissue from her purse and offered it to Nicole. “You’re living your life according to Mano
lo’s agenda. Your father didn’t lay such a burden on your shoulders on purpose—he was only trying to protect you. I truly believe he would be mortified if he knew he’d trapped you like this.”

  Nicole took the tissue and wiped her eyes. “It’s just so hard. I get scared around Eric, Mom, and I freaking hate being scared.”

  Her mother sighed expansively. “Nicole, sweetheart, change is difficult. It’s not going to happen overnight. You must be willing to let yourself feel scared for a bit.” She stood. “Give this Eric six months. That’s it. If you don’t get over being scared by then, leave.”

  “And if things do work out, I’ll have to start moving again.” Nicole gathered the tissue into a ball. “He’s in the Navy.”

  “Oh, who cares? As long as he’s a man who can help you feel safe.” Kalani’s expression turned tender as she smoothed her hand over Nicole’s hair. “I want that for you so much, ku’ulei.” She sighed. “Look, if you love this Eric, give him a chance. I think you’re clear of your past, but if the worst should happen and you’re drawn back into it, your man says he can handle it. Trust him at his word and don’t fuss over him.” She waved an airy hand. “Men don’t like that.”

  Nicole laughed wetly. Please don’t do me that favor. “Yes, I’m starting to see that.” She rubbed her nose. “The worst might’ve already happened, though. Yesterday I found out my old WITSEC case worker was tortured to death by the Jiménez crime family. There’s a good chance Lehder-Rivas’s men are on the verge of finding me, because the marshals want me to come back in the program.”

  Her mother frowned. “The marshals told me and Manolo about this, too. They want us to move again. But the Jiménez family doesn’t work for Lehder-Rivas.”

  “No. They work for me.”

  Nicole jumped back from her mother, her heart nearly leaping from her mouth at the sound of that male voice. She’d only ever heard him speak Spanish, but even in English, his tone held the same merciless inflection. As she turned to gape at the impeccably dressed man standing inside her father’s hospital room, her blood turned to ice.