Maybe Scarlett heard him because she responded with, “Just relaying information, Marsh.”
“They probably don’t want her inside with the family,” Trini—maps and logistics—said.
“Yeah or maybe they simply didn’t want to hear her cry,” Nez growled.
Ford didn’t relay any of the team’s ire to Scarlett. It simply settled in his gut.
Later, he might find her at their FOB, sit outside under the stars as the massive ship parted the black water, and let out his frustration. Like the fact that every time they chopped off one snake head in this militant-infested world, another popped up. And it was women and children who paid the price.
Scarlett would just sit, drinking a bottle of lemonade, and listen.
She’d almost become the closest thing to a best friend that a logistical teammate could get in the Navy.
Any closer and he’d be breaking the kind of rules that could get him kicked out.
Off SEAL Team Three and back to Montana to herd cattle.
Yippee ki yay. No thank you.
Down in the compound, they’d dragged Martha to a hut ten feet from the wall. He didn’t want to imagine the smells, the heat, or what it might feel like to be Martha, alone, bruised, grief-stricken, terrified.
Frankly, he already knew.
“You’re a go, Team Three.” Precious words, spoken with verve, the slightest hint of caution.
“Roger.” Ford relayed the info to the team.
It happened fast, just as they’d planned, practiced, and run over in their minds.
Sonny and Kenny C threw a Yates climbing hook over the wide wall, yanked down on the folding hook to extend the ladder, and were up and over the wall so fast they could have bounced.
Cruz took out Tango one with a quiet shot to the head, silenced by his QD sound suppressor.
Leviticus ghosted the second man, but the third took off running.
Meanwhile, Nez headed for the entrance of the compound, where they’d extract Martha.
“Do you have her?” Ford asked as he headed toward the back entrance, just in case their plan went south and Sonny and Kenny C needed support.
“We have the package. Headed toward the entrance.”
Tango three—where had the bugger gone? Ford hadn’t heard shouts rising from the compound where Nasir al-Rimi probably slept, armed to the teeth with militants.
He stood in the darkness outside the back entrance, watching the gate when Nez came over the headset. “We have the package. Exfil, exfil.”
“Roger.” Ford toggled the mic. “Operations, we have the package. Exfiling to the extraction point.”
“Roger.”
He turned, but Scarlett’s voice came back through the pipe. “We have movement. Three—no, maybe four—bodies headed out the back.”
He hunkered down, his heart thundering hard.
Their extraction point was a half mile back into the hills, the closest they could get without alerting the village.
Apparently, HQ didn’t want a full-out war with these guys, yet.
Carrying Martha would slow them down. A little.
Shouts, and although he could speak Arabic, he couldn’t make it out. If he were to hazard a guess, he would bet it was something along the lines of “Run faster, kill them before they get away with the goods.” That was his G-rated, simplified version.
Because Martha was young, pretty, and these guys weren’t above a little slave trade.
He could break away, exfil through a contingency route, and meet his team at the chopper. Follow the plan.
Or…
He stood up. Squeezed off a shot, and the leader dropped.
Ford dusted the one behind him, too, before the two in back littered him with shots.
He leaped into a wadi, rolled, and came up with his HK45 and pumped two shots into the chest of the man lipping his foxhole.
The man dropped like an anvil on top of him.
The action screwed with his NVGs and he went blind, the glasses breaking free from his helmet.
Shoot!
He wrenched them up, but he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face.
He pushed the assailant off him and rounded up to his knees, blinking.
C’mon, adjust. Shooter four was out here, somewhere—
Scarlett’s unsanctioned scream shrilled through his comms headset. Piercing, bright, and he scrambled to his feet, every nerve on alert.
“Behind you!”
He whirled and shot, still blind.
An explosion slammed into his armor, a punch that caught him center mass, right in his chest plate, blowing him back, the air whooshing out of his lungs.
He landed hard into a pile of sandstone and rubble, the world gray and formless.
“Get up!”
Scarlett.
Yes. Get up! But the shot had shaken his .45 from his grip.
“He’s on top of you!”
He brought his knees up, ready to defend, his hand on the straight blade Winkler on his war belt.
A shot sounded, but the shadowy form in front of him kept coming.
Ford’s chest was on fire, but he shouted it away, rolled to his feet, yanked out his blade, and leaped for the target.
Moments later, Cruz ran up, breathing hard. “I missed him. Sorry.”
“I didn’t.” Ford cleaned his knife, his eyesight adjusting, finally, and resheathed it. “Let’s go.”
Shouts now from the compound, thanks to his unsuppressed shots, but he didn’t turn around, just hoofed it behind Cruz up the hillside.
They ran silently, Nez checking in when they reached the Black Hawk, now cycling up. The sound thundered across the canyon and the helicopter lifted.
“We’re picking you up,” Nez said.
Scarlett’s voice came again, calmer. “You have two trucks on your six, gaining fast.”
Ford affirmed and conveyed her sit-rep to Nez, but he didn’t slow, and next to him, despite nearly a decade of wear on him, Cruz was outrunning him.
Yeah, well, Cruz didn’t nearly have a hole blown through him.
The beautiful black bird rose just ahead of them, and in moments it hovered low enough for Cruz to throw himself onto the deck. Nez raked him in.
Shots dinged off the wheel struts.
Nez held out his hand and Ford leaped for it. Sonny grabbed his body wrap, and even Kenny gave him a hand as they lugged him aboard.
The chopper lifted, the desert dropping under them.
More shots, and Levi returned fire as Ford strapped himself onto a bench.
“What happened back there?” Nez shouted over the engine, his dark eyes blazing. More shots arced into the night, like fireflies. “You don’t usually go Lone Ranger on us. That’s going to get you killed. Stick to the mission specs—you had orders to exfil!”
“Marsh got ambushed,” Cruz said.
That wasn’t—except, it might have looked that way, especially since only he had direct communication with Scarlett.
“I’m sorry, Chief. Squirters came out the back, in hard pursuit,” he said, still catching his breath. His entire chest felt aflame, and suddenly he was having a hard time breathing.
His master chief must have seen him grab for the collar of his body wrap because he leaned over and examined the hole in his armor. “You’ve been shot.”
“No lie.” He closed his eyes. “But I’d be dead if Scarlett—Petty Officer Hathaway hadn’t warned me.”
Nez gave him a hard, dark look. “No more rogue ops. Good thing Cruz saw you, or we’d be circling back.” He glanced over at Martha. “With a possible negative outcome.”
The young woman hugged herself, her arms tight, her face bruised. She looked out onto the Yemen hillsides, the villages tucked into the crannies of bald, dusty mountains, lit here and there with courtyard fires and in some places, lights.
She appeared utterly stripped. As if she hadn’t a clue where she was or what had happened.
Yeah, he got that.
He might have broken a rib.
Weirdly, Martha turned and looked straight at him, her jaw tight, her eyes hard. Almost angry. The sudden change drew in his breath past his aching chest.
But he got that too.
He could almost see the personal, emotional armor forming. After a trauma like this, it would take her years to break it down, to feel safe enough to let someone inside, to not feel as if she had to control every moment, wrestle her fears into a hard, forbidding ball.
It would also take years before someone might come along who could earn her trust, help her open her heart to hope and maybe even love.
Years before she’d be able to silence the voices of fear. Maybe even guilt and shame.
But when she did, maybe she’d find another voice. The kind of voice that told her she wasn’t broken. Not wounded, but strong.
Even brave.
And someday that voice would tell her it was okay to take a chance and live again.
That voice just might save her life.
He looked out the window. They’d crossed the jagged mountains, were heading toward the coastline, and beyond was their transport ship.
The moonlight dragged a golden trail across the ocean to the deep blue horizon.
Ford put his hand on his chest, felt the hole, the ache. But underneath his palm, his heart was still beating.
Thank you, Scarlett.
3
“Never in a thousand years would I guess you’d join your mother’s campaign.”
Glo made a face at Cher as her red-headed former roommate set a wide-mouthed mug in front of Glo, a heart-shaped leaf drawn into the foam of her vanilla latte. She slid onto the wooden bench across the table from Glo, armed with an Americano and a gleam in her eye. “So, how did the Senator rope you in?”
Glo picked up the coffee. “I’m not really sure. It happened so fast…” She blew on the rising steam. “One minute I had a thriving career, the next I’m sleeping in the guest room.”
“Still haven’t moved back into your old room, huh?” Cher wore her long red hair gathered back, low and to the side. Only Glo’s long-legged friend could rock the over-the-knee boots, the short black dress, and oversized gauzy shirt. She looked professional, put together, and fit, and Glo felt a little underdressed in her boyfriend jeans, striped T-shirt, and leather jacket.
Glo set her cup down. “Do you know that my mother still hasn’t cleaned out Joy’s things from our room? And she won’t let me touch them. It’s been ten years, and she still has it dusted and vacuumed every week.”
“Grief does that—holds us hostage. It took my father three years to clean out my mother’s closet.” Cher broke off a piece of her late afternoon treat—a morning glory muffin.
“What, are you charging by the hour now?”
Cher laughed. “No. You’re the one with the psychology degree. I just know that grief makes us do crazy things. Like hike across America or climb mountains—”
“Or push incredibly hot, brave, and amazing men out of our lives?”
“That too,” Cher said, taking another bite of her muffin. “Listen, I’m not judging, just jealous. I haven’t had a date in months.”
Which was crazy. Cher was not only beautiful, but smart too. Glo always knew her small-town friend from East Tennessee was destined for greatness, starting when she’d helmed the Vanderbilt Hustler as editor in chief. Now she worked as a fiction acquisitions editor for a national publisher.
Maybe Glo should have gotten a “real” job, like her mother had suggested, with her psychology degree. Gone on to be a counselor, like she’d planned. But she had more than enough problems than to spend hours listening to others.
Although, maybe listening to others would help her figure out how to unsnarl the mess inside.
“Maybe you should try online dating?”
“Oh no. Most of those guys are looking for a booty call. I have a strict IRL policy for dating.”
“IRL?”
“In Real Life.”
Glo laughed, and it eased the fist that seemed to grip her heart since she’d flown home in the Jackson private jet nearly three weeks ago. Since she’d moved her meager belongings into the grand guest room suite of the Jackson estate.
Since she realized one bright morning that she’d been sucked, ever so surreptitiously, back into her mother’s world. Listening to briefings at the dining room table over poached eggs and wheat toast. Sure, she’d done a few interviews online and over the phone for CMG, thanks to Carter’s press release of their award nomination. But it felt like her world had become a rerun of…will her mother win? All hands on deck to get the job done.
Never mind her own life.
“I caught your interview on The Highway, by the way. And that video of you singing ‘One True Heart’ is trending on YouTube.” Cher thumbed open her phone, and the YouTube app popped up as she handed it to Glo. “Is that Tate in the background?”
Glo nodded without looking at it.
“Yeah, I can see why you’re moping.”
“We really didn’t have anything…I mean…he was my bodyguard, nothing more.”
“Right,” Cher said, turning off the screen. She leaned forward. “Catch me up. I want more than the high points. All the delicious details, please.”
Oh, Cher was good medicine. Glo had missed her when she hit the road with the Belles. “Where to start? You heard about the bombing in San Antonio, right?”
“After one of your NBR-X shows?”
“Yeah. We were auditioning for the permanent gig, and the bomb went off in the backstage area. It trapped Kelsey, a little girl, and Knox Marshall—”
“Tate’s brother?”
“Yeah. He runs the family ranch in Montana. Tate has two older brothers—Reuben, the oldest, is a smokejumper—and two younger brothers. Wyatt is a hockey player, and Ford is a Navy SEAL.”
“Oh…my. So enough alpha male to go around, then.”
“You’re not helping.”
Cher laughed.
“He also has a younger sister, Ford’s twin, Ruby Jane. I met all of them but Ford a month ago at a family gathering for their mother’s sixtieth birthday.”
“You were at their ranch?”
Outside, the sky drizzled down a cool, late-April rainfall, reaping the fragrance of the lilacs shading the front porch and mixing with the scent of fresh-brewed coffee. A few cars splashed by.
“We hunkered down there for a couple weeks after the bombing. It was Tate’s idea. We hired him mostly for emotional well-being. None of us really thought we were in danger, but Kelsey started having panic attacks.”
“Are they related to her attack in Central Park?”
“Yeah. It’s been over a decade, but she still has wounds, especially since her attacker got paroled right about the time of the bombing.”
Cher raised an eyebrow.
“Mmmhmm. So, Kelsey wasn’t sleeping, and I thought having a bodyguard around might help her feel safe. When Tate found out about her past, he made the call to bring us to his ranch while he tracked down her attacker, just to make sure she wasn’t being stalked.”
Cher finished off her muffin. “And, was she?”
Glo nodded. “Actually, yes. And Tate and his brother found him, but…well, that wasn’t the biggest problem.”
“The biggest being that Tate has manly muscles and a killer smile?”
“I mentioned you’re making it worse.”
“I just don’t see what the big deal is here, Glo. He’s a bodyguard—he’s made for trouble. And it sounds like he’s pretty good at shutting it down.”
“He got the stuffing kicked out of him by a Russian mobster and nearly died.”
Cher frowned. “But he didn’t. Crisis averted.”
Glo ran her finger along the handle of her mug. “We got the gig from NBR-X and decided to take it. Our debut was in
Las Vegas. I didn’t know it then, but Tate has some sort of dark past in Las Vegas that involves the mob. They found out he was in town, and one of their thugs came looking for him.”
“And you, given the bruise you’re trying to cover up. And what’s with the bandage on your shoulder?”
“I was shot, but that was before.”
Cher’s eyes widened. “Shot? You were shot?”
“Just a nick, but…yeah.”
“You’re leaving a lot out.”
“Okay, back to the bombers…one of them tracked us down at Tate’s ranch and winged me.”
“You make it sound like you’re in an action thriller.”
Huh. Maybe she was. Complete with hunky hero.
Except in this version, the hero went down with the plane, so to speak.
Not the ending she was after, thanks.
“Here’s the bottom line. The bombers are with the Bryant League, a leftist group who wants the United States out of all international ties. They hate my mother because she’s a moderate and is on the National Security Council and has diplomatic ties with Russia and General Boris Stanislov. I’ve even met him. Anyway, they’re trying to scare my mother into not running by threatening her—and apparently, me.”
Cher’s face had lost its color. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. And that means Tate would be right in the middle of it all.”
“Keeping you alive. I’m a fan.”
“And possibly dying. No thank you. I still have nightmares of David driving over that IED, or whatever happened—believe me, my imagination has conjured up plenty of scenarios. No…I was right when I said once is enough. You’re right, grief does make you do crazy things…and I…I’m tired of losing people I love.”
Cher reached across the table to touch her arm. Squeezed. “Right. First Joy, then David.”
Glo shook her head. “And seeing Tate in that hospital bed. No—seeing him losing his life right before my eyes…I can’t sleep. And I certainly can’t live with it.”
Cher’s mouth tightened into a grim line. “I get it, despite the muscles and the hotness and the fact that the man would throw his body in front of a bullet for you.”
“I don’t want anyone to throw their body in front of me for a bullet, but especially not someone I…could…”
Tate Page 5