A Chance Encounter
Page 17
“I’m so tired, and yet I’m so excited and humbled and grateful and—”
“Loved.”
She closed her eyes, relaxing completely in his embrace. “I never knew how much until today,” she admitted softly. And then Katie stared up at his dark, shadowy face. A fierce need welled up within her.
“I’ve come to the conclusion you’re a butterfly reincarnated into human form, Katie Riordan,” Taylor whispered huskily. “How can I keep a butterfly captive when I know it should fly free?”
Katie heard the underlying worry in his tone and turned in his arms. “You don’t know?”
His eyes were dark, and he shook his head, bleakness in his voice. “No…. I wish I did.”
She stretched up on tiptoe, pressing her lips to his mouth. “It’s easy. If the butterfly comes back to you, then it’s yours to keep.” She molded herself to him, feeling him tense. “I’ve come home, Taylor. You’re my home, my freedom….” And she kissed him as though she would never kiss him again.
He shuddered, then embraced Katie, hardly daring to believe what he had heard. He pressed his face against hers. “We’ve come through so much in such a short time, Katie. But I feel as though I’ve known you forever.” His arms tightened around her, and he savored her lilting laugh.
“I believe in reincarnation,” she confided, holding him tightly, kissing him along the hard line of his jaw. “The moment you came to help me pick up my books, I thought, where have you been? I’ve been waiting for you all my life.” She sighed, content as never before. “You’ve helped me through so much, Taylor.”
He arched a brow. “I? Helped you?”
Katie nodded soberly. “Did Mary Ann tell you that you never helped anyone? That all you could do was destroy and tear things apart?”
Taylor nodded. Gently he lifted her in his arms and carried her inside the house and to his bedroom. It was a sparse room in dire need of a woman’s touch. “That was pretty much it,” he admitted, setting Katie on the bed and lying down beside her.
“Don’t ever believe that again, Taylor. Without you, I couldn’t have survived this, and I know it.” Katie shrugged. “You’re right. I am like a butterfly. No one is more aware of my strengths and weaknesses than I. I can’t handle a lot of stress. You can. I don’t know how to defend myself.” She sat up, holding his bandaged hand between hers. “Some people were put on this earth to help. Others to do different jobs. All of us are important. You’ve been my strength, my beautiful dark knight with the heart of a unicorn. You’ve sustained me. I’d ha’ve fallen apart after the fire if you hadn’t been there.” Her left hand grew hot, and she smiled tenderly at Taylor, who had an odd look on his face.
“This is all I do well, darling. It’s one form of healing. You’ve healed me in other ways.”
Taylor felt the frantic tingling sensation move across his badly blistered palm, which was swathed in gauze. This was his Katie. “You’ve healed my heart, too, princess.”
She leaned over, and her mouth met his. Glorying in the strength of his returning ardor, she whispered, “I love you.”
“Enough to marry me?”
“Yes.”
“And have kids—who I’m sure will be real hellions, because I was one myself?”
She smiled against his mouth, running her tongue delicately across his lower lip, feeling Taylor tense. His good hand slid up her rib cage to caress her breast. “Yes,” Katie breathed, lifting her hands and framing his face. “I want a hundred of them.”
“My income won’t cover that many. Will you settle on one or two little unicorns instead?”
With a soft laugh, Katie slid down beside him, her eyes lustrous with love for him. “Knowing a Scorpio’s capacity for passion, we’ll end up with half a dozen.”
Taylor grinned, easing her back on the bed, thinking how incredibly beautiful she looked in her loose, cotton dress, splashed with a rainbow of colors. He tunneled his fingers through her thick, soft hair, marveling at its silky curls, a grin hovering on his face. “Scorpios are just very loving,” he corrected, nibbling at her earlobe and then trailing a path of kisses down her slender neck. “And I’m going to enjoy every flight of the unicorn with you, my lovely princess…forever.”
Two USA TODAY bestselling authors in one book!
Two deadly missions have these men in uniformputting their lives and their hearts on the line forservice, duty and love.
Look for COURSE OF ACTION next month,
featuring Out of Harm’s Way
by Lindsay McKenna and
Any Time, Any Place
by Merline Lovelace.
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Also available from Lindsay McKenna and HQN Books
High Country Rebel
The Loner
The Last Cowboy
Deadly Silence
Deadly Identity
Guardian
The Adversary
Reunion
Shadows from the Past
Dangerous Prey
Time Raiders: The Seeker
The Quest
Heart of the Storm
Dark Truth
Beyond the Limit
Unforgiven
Silent Witness
Enemy Mine
Firstborn
Morgan’s Honor
Morgan’s Legacy
An Honorable Woman
Selected books by Lindsay McKenna
Harlequin Romantic Suspense
@His Duty to Protect #1691
@Beyond Valor #1739
Silhouette Romantic Suspense
Love Me Before Dawn #44
^Protecting His Own #1184
Mission: Christmas/“The Christmas Wild Bunch” #1535
@His Woman in Command #1599
@Operation: Forbidden #1647
Silhouette Nocturne
*Unforgiven #1
*Dark Truth #20
*The Quest #33
Time Raiders: The Seeker #69
*Reunion #85
*The Adversary #87
*Guardian #89
HQN
Enemy Mine
Silent Witness
Beyond the Limit
Heart of the Storm
Dangerous Prey
Shadows from the Past
Deadly Identity
Deadly Silence
The Last Cowboy
The Wrangler
The Defender
Lindsay McKenna is proud to have served her country in the U.S. Navy as an aerographer’s mate third class—also known as a weather forecaster. She was a pioneer of the military romance subgenre and loves to combine heart-pounding action with soulful and poignant romance. True to her military roots, she is the originator of the long-running and reader-favorite Morgan’s Mercenaries series. She does extensive hands-on research, including flying in aircraft such as a P3-B Orion sub-hunter and a B-52 bomber. She was the first romance writer to sign her books in the Pentagon bookstore. Today, she has created a new military romantic suspense series, Shadow Warriors, which features romantic and action-packed tales about U.S. Navy SEALs. Visit her online at:
www.LindsayMcKenna.com
www.twitter.com/lindsaymckenna
www.facebook.com/eileen.nauman
Excerpt from Down Range
Chapter One
WHAT THE HELL? He had to be seeing
things. SEAL Lieutenant Jake Ramsey froze as he climbed out of his rented red Jeep Wrangler. He’d just parked at the Pentagon, ordered here for an appointment with U.S. Army General Stevenson. He had no idea what this meeting entailed. It was top secret.
His heart thudded in his chest as he stared one row of cars up. A Marine Captain emerged from her black SUV. Jake removed his wraparound sunglasses, remaining motionless, watching her pull her black leather purse over the left shoulder. The gesture was all too familiar to him.
She wore her khaki summer uniform short-sleeved blouse along with dark green gabardine trousers that emphasized her long legs. In short-heeled, polished black pumps, she was all spit and polish. Morgan Boland had an hourglass figure, and though her clothes fit her comfortably, Jake knew how beautiful she was without any clothes at all.
His mouth tightened. What the hell was Morgan Boland doing here?
Stunned, Jake wrestled with a lot of old feelings leaping to life within him. Oh, he remembered tunneling his fingers through that mass of silky red hair now softly framing her oval face and stubborn chin. The strands curled slightly across her proud shoulders.
She hadn’t seen him—yet.
Two years ago they’d met in the Hindu Kush mountains near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. They’d collided like two comets, renewing their relationship that had started at the Naval Academy, Annapolis. His lower body tightened in memory of those three incredible days with her in his arms in that Afghan village. Three of the most incredible nights of his life since…He ruthlessly tried to crush the grief-stricken memories from when he was twenty-four years old. Jake had lost his wife, Amanda, and two-week-old baby, Joshua, in a car accident. They’d only been married a year.
At twenty-seven, Jake had unexpectedly met Morgan once again. And whether she ever realized it or not, she’d salvaged his bleeding, wounded soul. Those few days had transformed him, pulled him out of a three-year depression. She’d breathed new life into him.
His mouth pursed, the corners pulling in as he watched her shut the door on the SUV. The May morning’s breeze was inconstant, lifting a few gold-and-copper strands of hair across her face. He stared with a mixture of grief and longing as she lifted her long, expressive fingers and pulled the strands away from her cheek.
Morgan was still hauntingly beautiful to him. His mind spun with a hundred questions as to why she was here at the same time he was. Jake worked to suppress those unrequited feelings about their shared history. He’d had that impulse, of never allowing her to escape his arms again. But she had. And it had been his damned fault. For the second time in his life, he’d driven Morgan away from him.
There was a file beneath her left arm. She pointed the clicker at the SUV to lock it. Jake swallowed hard, trying to ignore his desire. It had been a lethal attraction from the first moment, in Annapolis, while going through the Naval Academy. They were a powerful match in bed, but dammit, she was bullheaded and wildly independent. She refused to be what he wanted her to be. When they came together in bed, it was like the Fourth of July every time. Yet, afterward, it always descended into a heated argument, hurtful words flying between them like bullets being fired from an M-4 rifle.
His breath jammed in his throat as he saw her lift her head, her green-eyed gaze meeting his. For a moment, Jake felt like a proverbial deer paralyzed in a set of car headlights. Her eyes narrowed. Of course, she recognized him. Her oval face with high cheekbones and a sprinkle of pale freckles tightened. Her mouth…oh, God, her mouth…Jake remembered hotly covering those full lips, feeling her hungry response, her sleek, athletic body pressed demandingly against his, wanting him as much as he wanted her. Now, that soft, full mouth thinned with displeasure. He forced himself to hold her gaze. Even from this distance, he could see the spark of surprise and then anger flare in her green eyes.
What the hell were the chances of meeting Morgan two years later, here in a damned Pentagon parking lot? Jake decided he had to be a gentleman and walk over and say hello. He shut the door on his Jeep, locked it and shoved the key into a pocket of his tan Navy summer trousers. Pulling the garrison cap from beneath his left arm, he settled it on his head.
Jake felt as if he was going downrange into a direct action combat mission. Born of a Navy SEAL, he walked with an easy, natural confidence toward the only other woman in his life who had held his heart—and he’d screwed it up both times. Now, as he closed the distance between them, tension was evident in her, but she was a warrior like him. Jake tried to prepare himself. Morgan was definitely not happy to see him. And he knew why.
“You’re the last person I expected to see here in this parking lot,” he said, trying to soften his normally hard expression. He came to a halt a few feet away from her, but he could still see her emerald eyes flash with what he interpreted as disgust. Or maybe, distrust. Probably both.
“Makes two of us, Ramsey.”
“What business do you have here, Morgan?”
She quirked her lips. “It’s top secret. How about you?”
He managed a sliver of a smile, appreciating the way the uniform hid her breasts. He knew those breasts well, and even now, his body hotly remembered their firm curves, too. “Same. Where you headed?”
“The E ring. You?”
His brows rose. “Same ring.” What the hell kind of cosmic joke was being played upon him? Jake saw confusion for a moment in her eyes, too.
The breeze blew enough to lift strands of her red hair across her flushed cheeks. He had the urge to lift his hand, catch those errant strands with his fingers and gently tuck them behind her delicate ear as he’d done on so many other occasions. Why the hell couldn’t he erase Morgan from his body and memory forever?
He’d been in the military since he was eighteen. He’d gone to Annapolis and went into the Marine Corps. Later, he moved to the US Navy to become a SEAL. At twenty-nine, Jake felt snared by a joke being pulled on him by Marine Corps god Odin himself. The last person he ever wanted to meet again was Morgan. And here she was: all six feet of woman warrior who proved him wrong about her being the weaker sex.
She glanced down at the watch on her right wrist. “I’ve gotta go, Ramsey.” Morgan drilled him with a hard look. “And I can’t say it’s been nice seeing you again.”
Jake watched her turn on her heel and walk toward the main doors of the Pentagon. It almost felt as if she’d physically slapped him. He stood for a moment, letting her quiet rage pass through him. It wasn’t her fault, he sourly admitted. He’d been the one to hurl the indictment that women were weak. That they shouldn’t be allowed into combat. He and Morgan had gotten into that very argument after making love on Christmas morning as a blizzard hit the Afghan village.
He and his SEAL team had holed up at the American-friendly Shinwari village to wait out the coming storm. To his everlasting surprise, Morgan had been there, too, with another SEAL team. The SEALs operated in small four and eight-person fire teams throughout the Hindu Kush, rooting out the bad guys and taking them down. He hadn’t been able to swallow his surprise or disguise his pleasure at discovering she was there. Morgan had been assigned as a linguist with another team on a separate black-ops mission.
Rubbing his recently shaved jaw, Jake saw her disappear inside the building. He had just enough time to make his appointment with General Stevenson of the U.S. Army. His emotions, no matter how he tried, burned bright and intense over meeting Morgan once again. She had stood out at Annapolis from the moment he’d seen her in their plebe year. They were in the same class, and for two years, Jake had fought to ignore the tall, assertive redhead. Morgan was as physically strong as most of the men going through the four-year military program. Jake had watched her begin to shine and bloom in her third year. She’d been at the top of the academic list, a champion fencer on the fencing team, and her keen intelligence had been recognized.
He quickly walked across the asphalt parking lot, in deep thought over her. When had he fallen under her charismatic spell at the aca
demy? How had it happened? Jake had accidentally met Morgan as a third-year student at a local civilian pizza parlor everyone frequented on Saturday evenings. There were plenty of guys who wanted her. She’d always been surrounded by them, but she didn’t seem to care or notice any of them. Yet, when they’d met up at the bar to order pitchers of beer, something had happened.
“Damn,” he rasped, scowling. They’d accidentally grazed one another’s elbows. Jake remembered Morgan’s gaze meeting his. Those deep green eyes that made his heart melt, made his body go hot and hard with longing. Her nickname at the academy had been Amazon because she was tall, physically strong and she had a bruising, in-your-face independence.
Jake remembered taking Morgan’s hand and leading her into the hall of the bar to be alone with her. He’d done something he’d wanted to do for years: kiss the hell out of her. Morgan, he’d discovered, had been watching him for a long time, too. He’d asked if she was protected, and she’d said yes, she was on the pill. They’d never made it back to the Academy until very early on Sunday morning. And their hearts and fates had been sealed, for better or worse.
He needed to stop remembering. Morgan wasn’t in his life anymore. Jake scowled and climbed the stone steps of the Pentagon. Up ahead were soldiers with M-16 rifles. Since the bombing of the Pentagon on 9/11, security had markedly changed. He would go through an X-ray machine before ever being allowed into the military bastion.
Jake aimed himself toward the outer ring, the E-ring. It was the only level that had windows looking out into the civilian world. Only senior military officers got those posh office assignments. This was where many top secret and black-ops missions originated. Curious as to why he was called off PRODEV, sixty days of leave granted to him after coming back from Afghanistan with his SEAL platoon, he arrived at the E-ring. Looking at the file he held, he saw the number of the office and turned to the right.
CAPTAIN MORGAN BOLAND was sitting in a chair opposite the secretary’s desk when the door opened. Her eyes widened. Jake Ramsey, again? Her lips parted for a moment. What was he doing here? He stopped when he realized she was sitting there staring up at him. He had a stunned look across his normally unreadable expression. Shock bolted through her.