Hell or High Water

by Julie Ann Walker

  “Thoughts, gentlemen?” Leo asked, not surprising her in the least with his question. He was the only commanding officer she’d ever met who never made a decision until he listened to the opinions of his men. Probably one of the reasons why the eight of them had lasted nearly fifteen years running the kind of operations that usually claimed one in five.

  Then it hit her like it always hit her, a two-by-four right between the eyes. There were no longer eight of them. There were only seven. Holy shit, the memory of Rusty turning to her from where he had landed on the floor in that hall after armor-piercing rounds cut through his ceramic bulletproof vest flashed in front of her eyes. Blood had been on his lips, flecking his face. More had already begun to pool around his body…

  “Run, Agent Mortier!” he bellowed, swinging around to return fire. The thump, thump of his M4 discharging rounds at a mind-boggling rate was interspersed with the higher-pitched tat-tat of the rebels’ AK-47s.

  I shouldn’t have done that, she thought, her mind racing through the chain of events that had brought her…brought them…here. I shouldn’t have shot the general. Though, given that he’d been dialing his phone, she didn’t see what other choice she’d had. But surely there was another way…

  Her pistol jumped in her hand as she fired from around the relative safety of the corner, waiting for the right moment, a lull in the shooting, when she could drag Rusty down the hall with her. And it was strange, but everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. The plaster on the corner of the wall was crumbling under the barrage of steady gunfire, but she could count each chunk as it flew in front of her face. The clack of her pistol cycling a fresh cartridge into the chamber sounded particularly loud as her heart beat a steady lub-dub like a bass drum.

  Good God. She’d just killed a man. She’d pulled her gun and placed a round right between his surprised eyes, and—

  “Go!” Rusty bellowed again. And with that one word, time sped up. She couldn’t count the plaster chunks. There were hundreds of them. She couldn’t hear her pistol cycling rounds, not above the roar of the firefight. And her heartbeat wasn’t steady. It was thundering!

  Turkey-peeking around the corner, she saw her chance. Now!

  She ran the three steps to Rusty, sliding on the tile floor as she grabbed the strap on his body armor and pulled with all she had. Gritting her teeth, her muscles straining, her combat-booted feet scrabbling on the slick tile, she inched his immense weight backward.

  Thump! Thump! Thump! His M4 spit forth a hail of cover fire.

  Bang! Bang! Bang! In her free hand, her pistol pumped out hot lead. She was shooting blind at the corner the rebels were hiding behind. But she figured even if she didn’t hit any of them, it was enough to keep them there. And that’s all she needed. Just a little time. Just a couple of seconds…

  “Leave me!” Rusty yelled again, even as he continued to lay on his trigger. “I’m done!”

  “No fucking way!” she screamed just as…click, click, click…her clip ran dry. She shoved the Sig into the back of her cargo pants and grabbed the other shoulder strap on his body armor. With a mighty heave, she pulled him around the corner.

  The minute she did, the rebels opened fire and the wall once more began to disintegrate. The plaster exploded in powdery blocks, adding a chalky smell to air that was already rife with the scents of spent cordite and fresh blood.

  Rusty rolled onto his stomach and angled his M4 around the corner to continue firing. He was racked by coughing, the sound wet and sickening. Chest wound. She could hear it. Even now his lungs were filling with fluid.

  “I’m a dead man!” he told her.

  “Not yet, you aren’t!” she yelled, retrieving an extra clip from her pocket. Grabbing her Sig, she ejected the old magazine and slammed in the new. And that’s when a round crashed into Rusty’s skull. Blood flew from his head and he dropped to the floor, immobile in an instant. Now he was dead…

  “Rusty!” She screamed his name, the wall exploding under renewed enemy fire. She ducked down, her heart breaking into a million pieces, her stomach disgorging her lunch so violently it hit the wall across from her. And in those seconds when she was too busy puking her guts up to fire, the rebels closed in. The sound of their boots pounded down the hall in her direction. Getting her mutinous stomach under control and realizing she was left with no other choice, she spared Rusty once last look before turning and running for the back door.

  “…like Morales seems to think,” Bran was saying when she suddenly found herself yanked from the past back into the present. It happened so fast, she suffered mental whiplash.

  Holy hell. That memory always struck when she least expected it, hitting her like a freight train and leaving her emotionally broken and bloody. If she wasn’t mistaken, that was her stomach crawling up into her throat, ready and waiting to disgorge its contents all over the pilothouse. She couldn’t believe Rusty had survived his wounds long enough for Leo and his men to find him. She would have sworn on her mother’s grave that he’d died instantly with that last shot. And even though Morales had assured her time and again there was nothing she could have done differently, nothing he said could suppress her guilt at having left Rusty there. Still alive. Still—

  “I say we sail on by them and see what we see,” Bran continued, and Olivia covertly sucked in a ragged breath, forcing herself to exhale past the vise crushing her chest. After she managed that, she swallowed repeatedly until her stomach resumed its usual position. Then she pushed the terrible memory back into its safe, separate mental compartment and slammed the door shut. And stay there!

  She couldn’t change the past, no matter how much she wanted to. But at least she could concentrate on the present. And in the name of that…

  “If everything is on the up-and-up, they won’t bat a lash if we drop anchor and make a dive,” Bran added. “We’re a salvage ship. They’ll just assume we found something worth salvaging.”

  “And if Morales is wrong and somehow they’re not on the up-and-up?” Wolf asked.

  “Well, I guess we’ll need to be locked and loaded, won’t we?” Leo said.

  “Roger that.” Bran nodded.

  Mason muttered something, and Olivia looked over at him with a start. The man made being motionless an art. She’d forgotten he was in the pilothouse with them. Though how that could be, since he was the relative size and shape of a Mack truck, she’d never know.

  “What did you say?” she asked.

  “The contractors,” he said, his Beantown pronunciation making the word sound more like “cahntractahs.” “Did Morales say when the fuck they’d be joining us?”

  “They’re having trouble fixing their prop, and the current is pulling them in the opposite direction. Morales says the best-case scenario is an ETA of two, maybe three hours. Do you all want to wait for them? Or do you still want to do this Han-style?”

  Leo looked around at his men, one brownish-blond brow lifted above the frames of his mirrored aviators.

  “Let’s just get this over with,” Bran proposed. “I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but I’m over this suck-ass gig. And those steaks I threw in the refrigerator back home won’t eat themselves.” He lifted his wrist to check the big, black diver’s watch he wore. “I figure if we get the lead out, I can have them on the grill by nineteen hundred tonight.”

  “So in the legendary words of Larry the Cable Guy”—Leo smiled, that brow of his quirked even higher—“you’re ready to git ’er done?”

  Bran’s mouth twitched, and for a couple of seconds the two men just stared at each other. Olivia frowned. Apparently, I’m missing something here. Then Bran winked and said, “Exactly.”

  “And the rest of you?” Leo asked.

  “‘Time and tide wait for no man,’” Wolf said, then added, “I could use a steak.”

  Mason simply grunted, which she’d come to understand was the same as a yes.

  “Done.” Leo smacked his hand on the back of the pilot’s seat. “W
olf, put us in gear. Mason and Bran, you guys go downstairs and grab the weapons. You know, just in case.”

  And even though Leo was no longer their commanding officer, the men followed his orders without hesitation. After Bran and Mason disappeared belowdecks, Leo walked to the back of the pilothouse, motioning for Olivia to follow.

  Her eyes automatically traveled down the length of his broad back to his trim waist. Then lower. To his ass. Where they stopped so fast it was a wonder they didn’t leave skid marks on the backs of her eye sockets.

  She couldn’t help herself. The man had an amazing ass. All high and tight and—

  Oh, for the love of Peter, Paul, and Mary. There she went again. And this emotional roller coaster she was riding, filled with guilt and ready to blow chunks one minute and brimming with lust and eager to knock boots the next, was getting really old, really fast. Not to mention keeping her slightly disoriented and wound tighter than a suicide bomber.

  “What?” she whispered after Leo stopped at the far wall, glancing surreptitiously over her shoulder at the back of Wolf’s head.

  The feel of Leo’s big, callused hand gently gripping her upper arm had her head whipping back around. They were standing so close she had to tilt her chin way back to look up at him. She couldn’t help but wonder which hue his hazel eyes had taken on behind those blasted sunglasses.

  “I’m wonderin’ what your plans are after we retrieve those chemicals,” he said, his voice low and rumbling through her chest. Her stupid nipples perked up as if he’d specifically chosen the timbre to titillate them. And wheeee! Here I go again, riding that damned roller coaster up another hill!

  “What do you mean?”

  He stuck his tongue in his cheek. “I guess I was hopin’ you’d be willin’ to pass the capsules off to your A-Team and sail with me back to Wayfarer Island. I can have Wolf or Romeo fly you to Key West to catch a flight to DC tomorrow mornin’.”

  His words slid into her like a spoon into melting ice cream, and something warm and delicious unfurled low in her belly. “Leo Anderson, are you asking me to spend the night with you?” Oh, please, begged a part of her, the decidedly downstairs part. Good God, should you be doing that? asked a voice in her head. I don’t know if I’ll be able to love him and leave him, admitted her heart.

  When he said, “You know I am,” she studiously chose to ignore the latter two. Especially when he scooted closer so he was crowding her, letting her feel him against her. And the look he gave her, the arched brow, the twisting of his wonderful lips? Well, it ranked about a nine…no, ten…on the panty-melting scale. Her heart tripped over itself. Her breaths came so fast and shallow one would think she’d never been seduced by a man before. Although, in all honesty, she’d never been seduced by a man who could hold a candle to Leo.

  “You don’t beat around the bush, do you?”

  “Not anymore,” he whispered, leaning down until his mouth was a hairsbreadth from hers. “I want to finish what we started down there in that galley. Hell, what we started a year and a half ago in Syria. Don’t you want to finish it too?”

  “God, yes,” she admitted, watching his lips curve into a smile that could only be described as triumphant and…male.

  * * *

  2:10 p.m.…

  Leo stood on deck, binoculars raised to his eyes as the salvage ship sliced through the softly rolling seas. Waves shushed against her freshly painted hull, and the big engines hummed with newly tuned health. Beside him, Olivia mirrored his stance, one hand on the rail to steady herself against the gentle rocking of the vessel and the other holding a small pair of field glasses to her eyes.

  And maybe he was just being fanciful, but he would swear he could smell her alluring scent drifting toward him on the breeze. Which, you know, might account for the semi he was sporting. Then again, perhaps that had more to do with the fact that she’d agreed to finally, finally be his.

  For tonight, he was quick to remind himself. Just for tonight.

  For some reason, that thought brought with it a vague sense of unhappiness. Not because he was against one-night stands. For shit’s sake, one-and-dones were pretty standard for spec-ops guys. The covert nature of their jobs didn’t lend itself to maintaining stable relationships, and it was a rare woman indeed who could send her man out the door time after time, not knowing where he was going, not knowing when he’d come back…if he’d come back. And then if he did come back, not being able to ask him anything about where he’d been or what he’d done. That’s why most of the SEALs Leo knew, himself included, opted for the occasional trip to Pound Town with a woman who didn’t want anything more than the use of his hard body for some sweaty, unbridled sex.

  No, sir, that indefinite sense of…discontentment digging into the back of his brain like a damned chigger didn’t have a motherfrickin’ thing to do with him being against slam-bam, thank-you-ma’ams as a general rule. But more because he suspected he was against them when it specifically came to Olivia.

  The truth of the matter was, he…well, he liked her. Like, really, really liked her. She was quick to crack wise and easy to laugh. She knew when to talk and when to shut up—like during those myriad sunsets they’d shared in Syria, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on the hillside, not saying anything, just being near each other and taking comfort in that nearness, that small human connection.

  He always knew where he stood with her; she didn’t pull her punches with him. And yet he had a sense that she was keeping a part of herself separate, a part of herself…secret. She was a whip-smart open book wrapped in a riddle and tied up with a mystery. In a word: fascinating…or maybe captivating…or perhaps intriguing better described her.

  Whatever she was, he remembered having an epiphany about two months into their assignment in Syria. She’s what I’ve been looking for…waiting for. The thought had exploded inside his brain like an IED. Stunning him. Wrecking him.

  Truth to tell, he hadn’t been the same since. And despite having teased her with that whole Are you askin’ me to go steady? business down there in the galley, the fact of the matter was he was scared shitless that once he finally got her in his arms, he wouldn’t want to let her go.

  “Holy jeez, Leo,” she said, breaking into his thoughts. “You need to invest in some oil.”

  He lowered his binoculars to find her watching him. The wind and the sun had pinkened her cheeks, making her eyes seem that much bluer.

  Arresting…

  He snapped mental fingers. That’s the one! She was the most arresting woman he’d ever met. Of course, right now she was more like the most confusing woman he’d ever met. Invest in oil? What the what? He decided to go with his standard Einstein-esque rebuttal of, “Huh?”

  “Those hamsters are running so fast up there”—she pointed to his head—“that their wheels are squeaking and I can hear them all the way over here.”

  See? What had he said? Quick to crack wise.

  “Are you sayin’ I’m thinkin’ too loud?” He grinned down at her.

  The wind caught the end of her ponytail, blowing some of the inky black strands across her cheek and lips. She brushed them away, and his gaze zeroed in on her hand. The memory of her fingers in his hair as she hungrily ate at his mouth had the semi he was sporting pulse into a full-fledged cockstand. Apparently the self-love belowdecks was no match for the power of that kiss. Or even just the memory of the power of that kiss.

  “A penny for your thoughts?” she said.

  He snorted so loudly it was a wonder he didn’t swallow his tonsils.

  “What?” She tilted her head.

  “Nothin’,” he told her.

  “Doesn’t sound like nothing.”

  He bit the inside of his cheek. “Do you ever get the feelin’ we talk in circles?”

  “Not me,” she insisted. “It’s you.”

  “Me?” he scoffed. “I’m not the one with somethin’ to hide.” He spread his arms wide. “I’m a civilian now. What you see is what you get.”

>   “And what do you think I have to hide?” she asked, her expression turning enigmatic. Yessir, and there’s the CIA agent I’ve come to know and…um…know. Why did he keep getting hung up on that last part?

  “If I knew that,” he told her, “we wouldn’t be havin’ this conversation, would we?”

  For a moment she studied his face, then frowned. “How did this get turned around to me, anyway? I thought we were talking about what’s going on in your head.” She lifted a hand to shade her eyes.

  Without hesitation or conscious thought, he pulled off his sunglasses and slid them onto her face.

  “Thanks,” she told him. “That’s very gentlemanly. Is it meant to be a distraction from my question?”

  “I am nothin’ if not gentlemanly, darlin’.” He intentionally thickened his accent, smacking his gum cheekily.

  “Mmm.” She pursed her lips. The gesture could either be construed as annoyance or an invitation for a kiss. He decided to place his money on the latter and bent down to quickly—

  “There’s movement on deck!” Bran called from his position farther along the railing.

  Smirking up at Leo, Olivia whispered in that smoky voice of hers, “To be continued?”

  “You bet your ass.” He was grinning when he straightened and lifted the binoculars to his face. Olivia did the same beside him. They were close enough to the Black Gold that minor details aboard the gleaming black yacht snapped into sharp focus. The bright glint of the stainless-steel fittings. The rich teakwood decking. And the line of four dudes standing at the railing. Leo narrowed his eyes. The men were thin, bearded, and wearing stained clothes—not at all the kind of crew one would expect on a multimillion-dollar yacht. But he cataloged all of that as an aside, because what immediately snagged his attention were the familiar diagonal belts fastened across their torsos.

  Gun straps. Like the one he was wearing. The hair on his arms stood up at the same time Olivia whispered, “Sonofabitch!”

  “LT!” Bran yelled, jogging toward them.

  “Yeah.” A quick spurt of adrenaline burned through Leo’s blood as he quickly glassed the rest of the vessel, trying to count heads, trying to determine exactly what it was they were dealing with. “I see ’em.”