Call to Engage

by Tawny Weber

  And she was even happy watching him with Nathan. Seeing the kind of father he would have been. The pain was still there, of course. She finally accepted that it’d never go away. But it wasn’t like a knife to her heart any longer. And for that, yes, she was happy.

  * * *

  SHADOWS ENGULFED HIM, smothering the light, smothering hope. He sucked in air, but there was none to be had. Instead it was fire.

  Flames surrounded his body, hot and biting and filled with all the furies of hell. They ate into his flesh, ripping and tearing it to the bone. Heat engulfed, roaring with screams of the damned, with warnings of the futility of trying.

  But he couldn’t give up. He wouldn’t go. Not like this.

  He called up all his strength to push upright. He couldn’t shake off the fire, but he could escape it, dammit. He fought his way through the inferno, running, angling left and then right. Moving. Keep moving.

  “Elijah!”

  His breath came in labored pants. Sweat poured over his skin, cooling, burning. Salvation was close. He knew it. He’d seen it. He just had to find it.

  It was up to him.

  “Elijah, please. You have to wake up.”

  His eyes snapped open.

  Ava.

  He blinked, squeezing his eyes tight against the sweat dripping off his brow. When he opened them, she was still there. Peering down at him in the dusky moonlight, the swathe of hair curtaining her face doing nothing to hide her concerned expression.

  Damn.

  His fists clenched at his sides.

  Damn it all to hell.

  “Are you okay?” Her voice trembled almost as much as the hands that were racing over his chest, as if checking for injuries.

  “Yeah. Fine.”

  “Are you sure? Do you need anything? Can I get something? What will help?”

  He could use a drink—even ice water. He wouldn’t mind a shower to wash away the thick coating of sweat on his skin. And he’d give anything for some fucking privacy so he could pull himself together.

  But the look on her face told him he wasn’t getting any of that. “I’m fine, Ava. Just a dream. Go back to sleep.”

  “That wasn’t a dream. Dreams don’t leave you shaking and moaning in a pool of your own sweat,” she said.

  Probably not. But it sounded a lot better than flashback, didn’t it?

  “I’m fine,” he said again, tempering his tone as he realized how horrible it must have been for her to be woken like this.

  “You’re not. You can’t be.” She pushed into a sitting position and flipped on the bedside light. She used both hands to shove her hair back so she could get a better look at his face.

  “Leave it alone.”

  “Maybe you could talk to Nic, or one of the other guys,” she suggested, unable to leave it alone. “You’re obviously suffering. I’m sure they won’t mind. Should I wake someone?”

  “I don’t need to talk to anyone,” he said dismissively, slapping the light off. As if that would shut her up.

  “You need to do something about the nightmares, Elijah. You can’t keep suffering through them.”

  “I’ve suffered through them for a decade and managed fine. Now I’d like to go back to sleep.”

  Outraged, Ava flicked the light right back on. Ignoring his groan, she glared. “You never had nightmares before. Not when we were married. This has something to do with that mission, the one that landed you in the hospital. Admit it.”

  “God.” He pulled the pillow over his head.

  She pulled it right back off.

  He tried a different tact.

  “You know, once the sight of a naked woman insisting I stay awake would have been hard to resist. But unless you’re offering any sort of kinky sex, I’m going to call this a first and pass.”

  “Elijah.”

  “Fine. You want the truth? I did have nightmares when we were married. Anyone who’s fought, who’s seen what we see, they revisit it on a regular basis in their sleep. Throw in a few flashbacks to the sight of my son in a coffin and there’s plenty of fodder for a tortured psyche. It is what it is.”

  Her mouth dropped open, but no words came out.

  “You had nightmares when we were together? In the same bed, together?” she asked when she found her voice again.

  “So?”

  “So how could I not know that?”

  “Because you didn’t want to know, Ava.” At her stricken expression, Elijah rubbed his hands over his face. Dropping them, he pushed into a half-sitting position to rest on one elbow and gave her arm a rub. “I didn’t want you to know. It was my deal, okay? My problem.”

  “Your problem?”

  Too tired, too worn out from the dream to temper his words, he gave her the honest truth. “Yes, my problem. Because that’s how you wanted it. You said that when we were together, you wanted me to focus on our marriage. Not on my career.”

  “Because hearing about your career terrified me. Most of your life was top secret. I never knew what you were doing, I had no idea where you were half the time. All I knew was that you were in danger.”

  So she’d said hundreds of times. In that same tone of hurt accusation. He’d always took it on the chin, because that was what a man did. He was trained to do his best, to give his all and to roll with the punches in silence.

  But right now, his soul was raw. He simply didn’t have the strength to let her words slide.

  “Ava, you never wanted to be involved in parts of my career that I could share. You wouldn’t talk about training, my studies, or travel. You wouldn’t even go with me to Hawaii,” he reminded her, still baffled by that one. “If you didn’t want to be involved with the easy side, why would I assume you wanted to know anything about the dark side?”

  “But I’m here,” she protested half-heartedly.

  “Why, Ava?” he asked, eyes pinned on her face. “Why, exactly, are you here? You still haven’t told me why you came along on this little venture.”

  “I...um...” She glanced at the door as if considering doing something about that, then blew out a breath. “Does it matter?”

  Yeah. Oh yeah, it matters. But because it did, because it mattered so damned much, Elijah didn’t press. He couldn’t. Not when she looked like she was about to cry. “What matters is that you are,” he said honestly, sliding his finger along the sweet curve of her cheek. “What matters is that you want to be.”

  “And if it’s a mistake?” she whispered.

  He leaned in, nuzzling the soft skin at her throat.

  Mmm, she smelled good.

  “Babe, it is what it is,” he said again, leaning back to watch her face as he slid his hand over the tempting curve of her breast. “But if you’re worried about me having dreams, maybe you could try a little distraction.”

  “Distraction?” she repeated, passion heating her eyes as she slid down onto the mattress. She didn’t look pacified by his answer, but she was obviously willing to let it go. Which was all he wanted.

  Well, almost all.

  “About that kinky sex...”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “YOU’RE SURE HE’S MOVING?”

  “Him. Or someone using his credit card.” Ward shrugged. “Given that no one’s seen Ramsey alive in half a year, your guess is as good as mine who it is. But the card is new, tied to one of the marked bank accounts.”

  Most of Elijah’s attention on the papers Ward had just given him, he listened with half an ear to the conversation floating around the small, well-appointed office Savino had declared HQ.

  “What else did you get out of that intercepted transmission?”

  “Someone using one of the various email accounts that Lansky uncovered sent a message, he wants an update and is pissed
that his funds went missing,” Ward surmised. “There’s no signature, the message is sent to a dummy account that was shut down within an hour of it being read.”

  “Well, someone took the bait. The question is, who.”

  “You want more, ask Rembrandt. Cryptology is his specialty.”

  “Prescott?” Savino prodded.

  Setting his pencil down, Elijah finally looked up to meet his commander’s eyes.

  “You want the who? If I were a betting man, I’d put it all on this being Ramsey.”

  “And if you weren’t a betting man?”

  “I’d put three-quarters of it.”

  Busy checking the feed from the outside cameras, Rengel laughed.

  “Ramsey isn’t as smart as he thinks he is. He’s not skilled at creating new identities, doesn’t know how to go under,” Elijah pointed out with a slight sneer. Because while that wasn’t a part of standard military training, if the guy was any kind of smart, he’d have figured it out. “He might have bought a fake identity or three, might bounce the transmissions as much as he can, but he’s tapping his own accounts for funds.”

  “And his partner?”

  Elijah grabbed the pencil again, tapping it on the table in an attempt to shake off the sick feeling. “I haven’t gone through all of this, just the top layer. I need to keep digging, go deeper than a surface look.”

  “Give me what you’ve got so far.”

  “Whoever he’s in contact with is good. Superior, in fact. They understand electronics. They have access to quality equipment. And they are playing Ramsey.”

  Elijah felt like a traitor giving the report. All it needed was Lansky’s photo attached to it. From the sick look on the faces around him, he knew the team disliked hearing the information as much as he hated sharing it.

  “Keep digging,” was all Savino said, though. “In the meantime, can you tell if he’s taken the bait? Is he going after Torres?”

  Although he’d already memorized them, Elijah skimmed the decoded emails. “The message says he’s heading for Northern California to take back what’s his. It isn’t specific about where in California or what he’s after. He’s furious that we found his secret account. Since he’s sure we’re not smart enough to break his code, he accuses this person of betraying him.”

  Savino’s jaw tightened, the only sign of concern that Ramsey hadn’t taken the bait and was coming for Nathan instead. But they all knew that the only way he’d know to come to NorCal was if someone tipped him off.

  “Anything else?”

  “The message bounced a dozen times between here, Timbuktu and every point in between. The best I can do without better equipment—” namely, the equipment on base where their little secret mission would be exposed “—is that he’s emailing someone on the West Coast. California, probably, but possibly Oregon.”

  “That’s good enough.”

  Enough for Savino to start issuing orders.

  Without question, without hesitation, the men moved to obey. Elijah, since he’d been ordered to wait, remained behind.

  “Ava’s got Nathan?” Savino asked. From where they stood, they could both see the pair practicing tai chi on the upstairs landing. Woman led boy in easy, smooth moves, their steps accompanied by a lot of smiles and the occasional laugh.

  “They’re secure,” Elijah confirmed.

  “Send the message.”

  “Nic.” At Savino’s look, Elijah grimaced and shifted to attention. “Sir?”

  “I know what you’re going to say, so don’t bother. You have your orders, Prescott.” His face closed, Savino tilted his head toward Elijah’s phone. “Follow them.”

  Elijah took his cell phone off his belt. With quick, easy moves, he typed in the message. But he couldn’t bring himself to hit Send.

  Ava’s laugh, free and light, tumbled down the stairs, quickly followed by Nathan’s giggles. The boy’s safety was priority. Ava’s, too. With the two of them on the line, he had no choice.

  So, with a deep breath of regret, he hit Send. And felt like shit as soon as he did.

  “We have to know,” was all Nic said before walking out of the room.

  Yeah, Elijah thought, taking a deep breath.

  They had to know.

  * * *

  SITTING ON THE sofa in Nic’s plush mountain getaway, her feet curled under her in a position of relaxation while her mind raced, Ava watched Nathan play with his little plastic figures on the floor across from her. Every once in a while, she slid a careful look toward the kitchen.

  Although she couldn’t hear a word, she could clearly see the men through the closed French door. She could practically feel the intensity hovering in the air like a laser grid. Sharp, defined and dangerous.

  As they had the previous day, the four members of Team Poseidon gathered in there for what she supposed was a briefing. Today, they had company. Elijah, Nic, Aaron and Paul had been joined by four other men, the second team, she supposed. She easily recognized Beau Danby and Ty Louden, they hadn’t changed much in four years. She was pretty sure the other two were Mason Powers and Levar Kane, but hadn’t got a good enough look at their faces yet to be sure.

  They were all armed. They all looked dangerous. Dangerous and ready.

  Elijah had warned her the night before that something might go down soon. Like Nic had been when he’d issued the invitation to join them for these few days in Tahoe, Elijah had kept whatever that something was vague.

  So she understood why he was prepared and on alert. But there was something else going on.

  “Ava, you wanna play? You can be Black Widow.” Nathan held up a curvaceous action figure dressed in skintight black. His smile was easy, but like hers, his eyes held worry as they slid to the roomful of men just beyond their hearing.

  Wanting to erase that worry, to help him relax, Ava put on an easy smile and joined him on the floor. “Black Widow, that’s Natasha, right?”

  “Hey, you know Avengers?”

  When they came in the form of Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Jeremy Renner and the always luscious Chris Hemsworth? Oh yeah, she knew her superheroes. But she doubted a seven-year-old boy would appreciate the whys behind her interest, so she focused on the figures he had scattered over the rug.

  “Captain America, Iron Man, Black Panther, Thor, Hawkeye, Winter Soldier, Scarlet Witch.” She tapped each one as she named them, then winked. “Where’s Falcon and Hulk?”

  “I forgot them at home,” he said, wrinkling his nose in self-condemnation. “They were in the Millennium Falcon with Chewie and Finn.”

  “I love a crossover universe,” she said, checking out Black Widow’s mobility as she twisted arms and legs. “So what’s the game? Are we fighting bad guys?”

  Ava spent the next half hour keeping him distracted while he kept her entertained. Her workouts were the closest she’d ever come to being a tomboy, and Ava was surprised at how easily she fit into the game and at how much fun she had.

  Would Dominic have played like this? With full-out imagination and an appreciation for clear uses and clever repartee? Her heart melted a little, but the pain was more sweet than bitter this time.

  She and Nathan turned from their play when the door opened. Ava’s welcoming smile dimmed a little when she saw it wasn’t Elijah. It dimmed a little more when she noticed the look in Paul’s eyes. She recognized that look. The warrior look.

  She laid a protective hand on Nathan’s back.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’m here to play,” Paul said, ignoring her real question. “Rembrandt and the Kahuna are coordinating extraction with the other team.”

  “Extraction?” Ava glanced at the men gathered around the kitchen table. “That means someone’s leaving, right? Who?”

  “Not sure yet.” Paul dr
opped to the floor next to Nathan, immediately engaging the boy in a discussion about whose powers were mightier, Iron Man or Cap.

  Taking the hint, Ava pushed to her feet. Something was wrong. She wanted to storm into that kitchen and ask Elijah. But she knew he’d deny there was anything going on. He might deny it with a kiss. Maybe seduce her stupid with a kiss that would have her brains leaking out her ears. The same way he’d shut her up last night after his nightmare. But she knew now, as she had then, that something was bothering him.

  The thought of that nightmare, the way he’d looked in sleep—teeth gritted, the dripping sweat, the vicious trembling and the smothered moans of pain—made her stomach churn.

  Worse than his suffering, Ava couldn’t get past the painful truth. Elijah was right. Before, she hadn’t wanted to know. She’d wanted to be his wife, but only on her terms. She’d loved him—she’d never believe what she’d felt wasn’t love—but she hadn’t accepted him. Not the whole of him.

  So she’d let him suffer alone.

  Unable to stay there stewing, Ava hurried outside.

  “Ava?” Aaron asked from his position by the door.

  “I just need some air.”

  She didn’t wait for permission, wasn’t sure what she’d do if she didn’t get it. She had to move. Had to work off this sick feeling of failure. As soon as she was outside, as soon as she breathed in the cool, pine-scented air, the desperate urge to run faded to a mild nagging need. Mild nagging, she could handle.

  Remembering the instructions Nic and Elijah had drummed into her, she kept to the path around the house. No farther than twenty feet, never out of sight.

  She pulled a small purple flower from a bush, twirling the stem before lifting the bloom to her nose. Breathing deep, she reveled in the sweetness.

  Before, she’d been the one refusing to talk about Elijah’s career. But now that she was smack-dab in the middle of it, they’d switched roles.

  Now he wouldn’t talk to her. Not about his feelings. Not about the pain he was going through. Not just in his body or his mind, she realized.