Carla tucked her hand in Kyle’s and clamped on hard.
He turned to look at her, but she was watching Tanya with a look of pain on her face.
Oh shit! And Chad didn’t see it coming.
Kyle didn’t know what to do to help him.
“You are so sweet,” Tanya said in that teasing tone of hers from across the watery gap between their craft. “I think you have something wonderful started here. I have many contacts other than the General and Estevan. No one still alive except you knows which side I’m on. With the right misinformation, we might really get something done here.”
“No wait!” Chad was edging out as far as he dared on the curved deck of the sub, but Tanya expertly idled the boat a few meters farther away.
“Maybe next time, cutie.”
She waved at Chad.
Then, after slamming down the throttle but before the engines really took hold, she blew a very sincere-looking kiss to Carla.
An instant later she was gone.
Duane moved in to console his friend and to keep him from tipping off the side of the sub into the lake.
Kyle looked down at Carla’s smile as she watched Tanya shoot away across the now-quiet lake. “Any explaining you want to do?”
Damn woman only smiled and shook her head before moving over to console Chad.
* * *
Once they were below, Richie insisted on being the tour guide for “his” sub. It was broken into several compartments, none of them meant for comfort. Most of the central area was taken up by bales of cocaine. They were stacked everywhere, barely leaving slither space between them.
Richie sat on a high chair that reached up inside the conning tower. He had a dashboard of controls, wheel, foot pedals, radio, sonar. Carla had to admit that she was impressed, but she didn’t look beyond that.
“Imagine their faces on the Freedom when we surface beside them with ten tons of cocaine.” Richie was crowing, but Carla barely heard him.
There were words forming inside her. They’d be coming, and coming soon. Though she still wasn’t sure what they were or what they meant, they were slowly filling the aching void inside her. Except the void no longer ached as badly as she’d grown used to.
The sub’s rear compartment was filled with diesel engines and the big battery packs for when they had to run submerged, like through the channel across from Maracaibo. Chad and Duane took over engine operations right away.
The forward compartment was mostly food and two very narrow bunks to stretch out on. Hot-bunking. One person would roll out and another would roll in, sleeping in shifts.
All she cared about was that the others were soon busy with their own tasks.
The sound of the engines thrumming through the hull smoothed out as Chad and Duane worked their magic. Richie had finally gotten control of the ballast and trim tanks. The soft light of the breaking dawn, muted by the thick fiberglass of the hull, shifted as the sub sank to a lower profile until only the engine’s air snorkel and a short periscope showed above the surface.
She pulled the curtain on the cramped forward area.
Finally, it was just her and Kyle.
He dragged her down beside him onto the lower bunk. They leaned back against the curved hull and propped their feet up on packs of foodstuffs. It couldn’t have been more like the end of the Forty-Miler unless there was a campfire. The pressure of his shoulder against hers reassured her that it was safe to continue.
No, it was safe. Full stop.
“There was a cavern inside me.”
“Guessed that.”
“Shut up.”
Damn man just grinned at her, cocky bastard. So full of himself and every bit of it deserved.
She thought about trying to explain the emptiness that had been the last four years of her life since Clay’s death—a cavern so vast and wide that she’d become lost in it.
But now, sitting beside Kyle’s quiet strength, she understood that the only thing that mattered was how full her heart was, not how empty she’d been.
“Sergeant Kyle Reeves.”
“Yes, Sergeant Carla Anderson?” Having found herself, she could happily get lost again in his voice. Every single time, even on that first day, she had trouble hearing him because she so enjoyed listening to that deep, warm voice.
She could make a life’s plan out of doing just that.
What the hell, why not? She knew for a fact she would never find a better place to be than beside Kyle Reeves. Never find anywhere else that she wanted to be. If she didn’t know what that meant, then she was impossibly stupid. And as she’d told Colonel Brighton, I ain’t stupid.
Carla finally understood what had been building inside her over the seven months since she’d first rolled into The Unit’s compound. And like Delta training, it made perfect sense once you’d gotten through it and could look back. Typical Kyle, he’d seen it long before she had, but she’d gotten there.
She raised her right hand.
“Kyle Reeves. I, Carla Anderson, do solemnly swear that while I may be a wild woman, I am completely and desperately in love with you and that I will, from this day forth, bear true faith and allegiance to you.”
Hey, if she was going to mangle the Oath of Enlistment of the U.S. Armed Forces, she might as well do it the whole way.
“So help me God.”
Kyle burst out laughing—a sound that filled the sub’s chamber and filled her heart. He pulled her into his lap and held her tight in the circle of his powerful arms.
She buried her face against his neck and breathed him in, could feel his chest rumble when he spoke.
“May he help us both.”
Carla breathed him in again. “It’s she.”
Order M. L. Buchman's next book
in The Night Stalkers series
By Break of Day
On sale February 2016
By Break of Day
Night Stalkers Book 7
by M. L. Buchman
NAME: Kara Moretti
RANK: Captain of the army’s stealthiest remote piloted aircraft (don’t call it a drone)
MISSION: To be the eyes of the team
NAME: Justin “The Cowboy” Roberts
RANK: Captain of the army’s most powerful helicopter
MISSION: To redeem the past, at any cost
They put life, limb, and heart on the line
Two new captains join the Night Stalkers with two different strategies in life, love, and combat. When Brooklyn-raised Kara joins the crew, she knows one thing as an absolute truth: to stay safe, keep everything and everyone at a distance. Born in Texas, Justin flies with all his heart. When Kara and Justin collide on a secret mission deep in the Israeli desert, then the battle truly begins.
Praise for M. L. Buchman:
“Like Suzanne Brockmann and Catherine Mann, Buchman’s work has catapulted him to the top of the military romance genre pack.” —RT Book Reviews
For more M. L. Buchman, visit:
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Order M. L. Buchman's next book
in The Night Stalkers series
By Break of Day
On sale February 2016
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About the Author
M. L. Buchman has over thirty-five novels in print. His military romantic suspense books have been named Barnes & Noble and NPR “Top 5 of the Year,” Booklist “Top 10 of the Year,” and RT Book Reviews “Top 10 Romantic Suspense of the Year.” In addition to romance, he also writes thrillers, fantasy, and science fiction.
In among his career as a corporate project manager he has: rebuilt and single-handed a fifty-foot sailboat, both flown and jumped out of airplanes, designed and built two houses, and bicycled solo around the world. He is now making his living as a full-time writer on the Oregon Coast with his beloved wife. He is constantly amazed at what you can do with a degree in geophysics. You may keep up with his writing by subscribing to his newsletter at www.mlbuchman.com.
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