by Em Petrova
Something Sascha hadn’t heard in so long, it felt as if the clouds parted and rays of sun beamed down upon her. “For a while, I’ve thought you needed out of this town. Your creativity’s been stifled. Maybe you will find some passion with a change of scenery.”
Happy tears filtered into her eyes. Here she believed her momma so dragged into her grief that she had no inkling what went on in Sascha’s life. Yet she’d seen her struggles even if she hadn’t brought them up.
“I hope you’re right, Momma.” She blinked rapidly to dispel her tears, and the room came into focus once more.
“Keep me updated on what you’re doing.”
“I will.”
“Love you, Sascha.”
“I love you, Mom.”
After ending the call, she sat there rolling the conversation through her mind and coming to the conclusion that passion might be the one thing she lacked for many months now. The only thing she felt passionate about at the moment was River. But since he wasn’t here and she had to go on with life, she opened her documentary and watched it for the four thousandth time.
She just started to watch it again, when a knock on the door jerked her out of her chair.
She hurried to the front of the apartment. Maybe a neighbor had come to welcome her to the complex.
When she peered through the peephole and spotted River, a cry escaped her. She whipped the door open and threw her arms around him.
He flexed his arms, bringing her closer to his broad chest. “I just got cleared from the doctor to return with my unit. I wanted to tell you in person.”
She searched his eyes. “I’m glad you did.”
“I can’t stay. I only came for one other thing.”
“What is it?”
He lowered his head by degrees until his lips were a breath from hers. “This.” He took her mouth in a sweet kiss that fluttered all the right parts of her body. She moaned and angled her head to receive a sweep of his tongue. But after only two passes, he straightened.
On the street, a horn blasted.
She peeked around his shoulder at the big SUV. “Is that…”
“My team. Yeah. Assholes.” He turned and shot them the bird before turning to her with a grin. “Keep my side of the bed warm.”
Heart overflowing with more emotions by the minute, she smiled and nodded. “See you soon, special operative.”
She watched him go this time.
“You just had to blast the horn, didn’t ya?” His voice reached her clearly as he climbed into the SUV to some hoots and wolf-whistles from his team.
In that second, she saw the camaraderie—the brotherhood—that Ethan had known. Realizing that River belonged and these guys cared enough to watch his back filled her with warmth.
As she returned to her computer and work, she compressed her lips. All this time, she’d believed her momma had been emotionally stunted. Now Sascha saw that she could claim guilt for putting a hold on life, because she couldn’t remember the last time she allowed herself to feel with this intensity.
River had walked into her life and ripped off that scab. Instead of bleeding how she thought, emotions flooded out of her.
She was going to be okay.
“To Shadow!” His teammate, Broshears, raised his beer bottle in tribute, and everyone followed.
Hepburn raised his water.
“Man won’t even have a beer,” his captain quipped from the head of the big table where they all gathered.
“I’ve had enough of my head spinning for a lifetime.” He sipped his water while they all swigged.
Broshears lowered his bottle with a grin. “Welcome back, Shadow. Team isn’t the same without you here.”
“Feels good to be back.” Hepburn reclined in his seat and extended his legs.
“How ya feelin’?” Gasper was one of Hepburn’s closest buddies, but he never could get over that Wisconsin accent that twisted some of his words, especially when he often ended everything with ‘eh?’
Hepburn disliked being in the spotlight, so he only shrugged in answer. “Better than I felt a couple weeks ago.”
“Dude, you’re the only guy who could get into a car accident and come back with a pretty girl.” Gasper waggled his brows.
Everyone chuckled, but his insides twisted at the mention of Sascha. Leaving her had him still burning hours after walking away. Admitting that to himself proved to be just as difficult as being down for the count with a head injury.
“Where’d you pick her up, anyway? Was she your nurse?” Lipton dragged the bag of chips in front of him. He stuffed two in his mouth and chewed.
How much did he want to share with his team? They were as close as brothers, but when it came to their personal lives, they didn’t kiss and tell.
“I don’t have many numbers in my phone, and the hospital called Sascha to pick me up.”
“What’s the scoop on Sascha? Don’t say nothing’s going on, either. We all saw you kiss her.”
His mouth quirked at one corner. “She’s the sister of my old Army buddy.”
“Well, what’s he gonna think about you diddlin’ with his sister?” Gasper asked.
Hepburn blew out a breath. “He’s dead. Lost his life in Afghanistan.” The scars on his back seemed to tingle with the memory of them both being thrown by the blast. He’d landed hard on rocks that cut into his flesh, but Ethan hadn’t been so lucky.
“Shit, that’s harsh. I’m sorry.” Gasper gave a shake of his head and took another pull of his beer.
“At any rate, we’re glad you’re with us again, Shadow.” His captain sat next to the love of his life Cora. She mainly acted as the team’s pilot, though she’d been trained as a special operative and could fight with the best of them.
Hepburn couldn’t help but study the couple. They worked closely, but they also had to deal with the possibility that they could lose the other. Penn stared down dangerous shit on a daily basis, and Alaskan pilots too often went down in the bush. Cora’s own father had lost his life in such a crash.
Sascha wouldn’t rest very easy when he could take a hit any day, and he didn’t want to think of leaving her.
“Too bad you didn’t get a better vacation, Shadow.” Lipton interrupted his thoughts.
“Actually, I went to Texas to help my brother. My mom and I were going to have an intervention to get him back into an alcohol treatment plan.”
“Damn,” Gasper said quietly.
“I never did get to help. By the time I could leave the hospital, she already got Kyle into a facility.”
“Tough situation, not being there for family. Sounds as if your mom had enough on her plate with your brother.” Broshears eyed him. “Guess you can be thankful you got a pretty nurse instead of your momma pestering you to take your medicine.”
All the guys laughed, and he chuckled along with them. Being with them again felt damn good. He belonged here. But that understanding left him with a buried kernel of worry. If he lost one of these brothers…well, it’d be hard to guess how he’d react next time.
He straightened in his seat and chugged the rest of his water. He’d just have to step up his game to watch their six.
When Penn set his beer down on the table, they all looked to their captain as if sensing what was coming. Hepburn noted how several of the guys bowed their heads and braced himself for what they were about to share.
“I think by now some of you have heard that a special operative from the South was recently shot. Dylan Knight from the Knight Ops team with the Southern US division of Operation Freedom Flag is in critical condition, though last I heard, they believe he’s turned a corner for the better.” Penn’s announcement carried so much weight that none of them spoke for a minute.
After the moment of silence passed, Lipton spoke up, “I think they all need to know how he was shot.”
Penn’s gaze swept the group. “He didn’t get injured on a mission. Someone broke into his house and shot him. Thank God his wife and kids we
ren’t home at the time, which makes suspicions run higher within Homeland Security that something more is going on.”
“Like what?” Hepburn asked.
Penn tapped a finger on the table. “It’s believed that someone hunted him down. And maybe he’s not the first this has happened to. There have been other military officers killed in cold blood on US soil. It’s now a matter of national security.” He looked from man to man and when he reached Hepburn, a shard of ice stabbed through him.
“Six men associated with the military have fallen in Alaska alone.” Penn’s throat worked on a swallow. “Someone is hunting us.”
Hepburn brought his fist to his mouth as he drank it all in. Hunted. Someone wanted military men dead, and one of the special operatives in the South was suspected as a failed hit.
Which meant this person—or group of people—also knew about Operation Freedom Flag.
“It was bound to get out sooner or later to the general public that Homeland’s got us dotted in the hot spots across the US,” Hepburn said.
Penn compressed his lips. “Nothing is kept under wraps when there are so many of us. A dozen teams across the US handling the same shit we do every day. What we need to do is concentrate efforts on tracking this son of a bitch down.”
“It might be more than one person. A group. It’s easy for one man to fly to the South, but what if it’s a group that’s spread out?” Hepburn’s mouth felt dry and his head throbbed, but at least the room remained in place.
“Good point. It could be some kind of militant group formed against us. Christ knows that we’ve taken out enough terrorists, smugglers and bombers to piss someone off and provide a vendetta. Even though not all suspicious deaths of military officers have been examined yet, there’s no denying that many are right here in Alaska.”
“Which points to the person being here,” Lipton put in.
“Question is, how do we lure someone in to make an attempt on one of us?” Hepburn’s mind seemed to have reconnected just when he needed it.
Penn picked up on what he meant. “It’s not a bad idea. One of us becomes a decoy.”
At his side, Cora shifted in her chair, her folded arms revealing how much she hated the idea. Hepburn saw Penn’s arm move and knew he’d settled a hand on her leg under the table to calm her.
With surprise, he realized he’d do the same with Sascha.
“We put someone out there and lure in the killer,” Penn said.
“Maybe even start with internet forums that radicals frequent,” Gasper put in.
Penn nodded. “Gasper, get on that. Lip and Broshears, I want you both on the research end of this. Do a deep dive on all the files and see if you can connect the killings. We’re looking for more than locations. It could be a common connection, such as they all trained at the same facility. I want to hear every small detail about these men who died.”
“On it, captain. When we’re finished, we’ll know if they all liked the same brand of beer.” Lipton raised his own bottle but didn’t drink.
“The last thing we need to decide is who will be the decoy.”
At his side, Gasper turned his head and shot him a look. “You’re the shadow.”
Hepburn met his captain’s gaze at once. “I’ll do it.”
Penn gave him a single nod. “It’s settled. We’re headed to Anchorage ASAP.”
“Anchorage?” Hepburn’s gut clenched at the thought of seeing Sascha so soon. If he could get away, that was.
Penn pushed back from the table and stood. “That’s the central point of all the killings in this state. Some are Air Force. The rest retired. Keep me informed of your findings, men.”
With that, Penn and Cora walked out of the room. The meeting ended, but nobody made a move to go. Hepburn sat silently with his thoughts for a while, coming up with plans to put himself in danger and immediately discarding each one.
He was the Shadow. He could slip in and out of anyplace and lure in all kinds of dark criminals who wanted him dead. Of course he’d do it for his team, for Operation Freedom Flag and all those men who’d died so far at the hands of this extremist.
But he had more to think about than himself. He had Sascha’s heart to protect.
After a week on the new university campus, Sascha had a grip on where everything she needed was located. The library, film lab and a coffeeshop were her top priorities.
She’d been in a lot of coffeeshops in her day as a student, but this proved to be one of her favorites. Each day she chose a different table in hopes of finding which position gave her the most creative inspiration.
In the back corner, she had the perfect view of the entrance where she watched students and professors. The middle of the room gave her a chance to catch snippets of conversations. Now she knew the best restaurants in town, along with hotspots for entertainment, including an ice rink.
Finally, the front of the room near the barista station offered the fragrant scents of coffee beans and fresh bagels. Who could go wrong with that?
But her favorite spot so far had to be a table for two near the windows that looked out over the campus. From here, she had the view, a peek at the entrance, the scents of coffee beans and bagels and the occasional bit of a conversation taking place around her.
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Since she kept it short, it grew fast. Soon she’d need to locate a salon or undergo the painful task of growing out a short style.
She flipped through some film frames containing new footage taken in the university lecture hall on drug and alcohol abuse statistics among the population of young people on campus and sipped her caramel iced coffee. The last time she’d enjoyed this drink had been in the airport with River.
They’d been parted for a week and a half, but a lot had happened to her. Not only had she enrolled in the new semester of the program, but she ran across a terrific find on a street corner—a purple sofa. A few bucks went a long way in bribing two college students to drag it back to her apartment for her. She got a free couch and they had beer money for the night.
Besides these things, she now owned a warm coat and replaced her cowgirl boots with a pair with rubber soles that could slosh through so much mud, snow and what she’d started calling mud-snow, which was a slushy mix.
Also, she’d been working. She couldn’t wait to tell River that her leap into a new life vanquished her lack of drive to finish her documentary. These clips from the lecture about the number of young adults who fell into addiction because of their struggles with sexual identity were really taking on an important role in her film.
She sucked up the last of her coffee, her thoughts turning yet another corner—to her momma.
They’d been talking on the phone almost every night. Not the old sad conversations that had Sascha in tears too many times to count, but good stuff about life. One night, they even mentioned Ethan without her mother losing it to tears.
Someone entered the shop, and she glanced up automatically to see a few people from her film class. The girl named Maggie spotted her and waved. Sascha waved in return and went back to her editing.
A couple minutes later, the students surrounded her table. Maggie dropped into the seat, a grin on her lips. “Wow, this is a great view of the campus. I’ve never sat here before.”
Sascha smiled. “I just discovered it too.”
“You’re Sascha. You’re finishing up your master’s degree with a documentary on suicides and mental health issues among the LGBTQ+ community.”
She laughed. “That’s right. And you’re Maggie, focusing on the rising rates of homelessness.”
Maggie chuckled. “See, guys? She’s not only pretty—she’s observant.”
Sascha blinked at the statement that led her to believe the trio had been discussing more than her filmmaking.
She tucked the stray short hairs behind her ear again. The action was becoming a nervous habit. “Uh, thank you.”
“Oh, have you met Blake and Emerson?” Maggie pointed
to the guys, one lean and lanky even in his thick coat, the other average height and wearing a parka and a ballcap with the university logo.
“Nice to meet you both. I’d offer for you to join me, but I don’t have the room.”
Maggie smiled and stood. “We just wanted to say hello. Oh. Guys?” She gave them a penetrating stare, one at a time, as if communicating something. She raised her brows too.
The guy in the hat named Emerson nodded.
Maggie pivoted to Sascha, her smile sparkling with excitement. “The three of us have a critique group. We get together at least once a week and give feedback on each other’s projects. Would you like in?”
Sascha couldn’t be more stunned. “Wow…um, yes! It took me a year to find a group back in Texas.”
“So that’s where you’re from. Your accent had us placing bets.” Maggie laughed when heat climbed Sascha’s cheeks.
She wasn’t normally shy, but being on her own in a new city, state—heck, she might as well count Alaska as a different planet when she compared it to home—she’d spent a week floundering for her footing.
“Thank you. I’d love to join you.”
“Great! Why don’t you meet us at the pizza joint on the corner tomorrow afternoon? We’ll grab a couple pies and head to my place. It isn’t far.”
“Sounds great.”
“Can’t wait to see more of your work, Sascha. Really—what you showed us on the big screen that day in class is super good.”
Her heart trilled with joy at the compliment. After toiling so long, and feeling as though she gained no ground from the previous day or even week, hearing that she’d achieved her goal of making a solid piece of work left her stunned.
After the trio moved off to a table in the back of the coffeeshop, she packed up her belongings, tossed out her cup and walked slowly back to the bus stop.
She didn’t mind public transportation—it gave her more time to drink in her surroundings and gain more fodder for her film. All the way to the stop near her apartment, her mind bounced and refused to settle.
She wished she could share her day with River. What would he be doing right now? Her stomach gave a queasy ache just thinking of the possibilities. Where was he? He hadn’t sent her so much as a text, not that she expected him to be one of those sappy guys who stayed up all night sending heart emojis.