Code of Honor (HORNET)

by Tonya Burrows

  The question caught her off-guard. He’d never talked about that summer before. She always thought he didn’t remember, or maybe didn’t want to remember. “Of course I do.”

  She’d been fourteen and it was arguably the best summer of her life. Her mother had been going through one of her all-too-frequent “rough patches,” and she’d stayed the whole summer at Mara’s house. That July, Mara left El Paso to visit her father’s family in Wyoming, and she’d invited Lanie along with her.

  “I fell in love with your family that summer,” she said softly. For so long, it had been just her and her mom, so meeting the Warrick clan had been overwhelming at first. There were eight children—Rebecca, Jesse, Kimberly, Ashley, Scott, Savannah, Dane, and Tyler—and they were a loud, rambunctious bunch. Johanna Warrick was a superhero for raising all of her kids to adulthood without losing her sanity.

  Lanie had cherished her time with them. She’d come to think of Becca, Kim, Ashley, and Savannah as sisters, and the boys became like obnoxious little brothers. All except Jesse. From the start, there had always been something else between them. Something more.

  “I kissed you that summer,” he said, and it was the first time he’d ever mentioned it in all the years since it had happened. “After that trail ride at Wind Cave.”

  She nodded. “I remember.” How could she forget? It had been a beautiful day, clear blue skies. Perfect day for a ride—until Jesse’s horse saw a snake on the trail and bucked him. She smiled a little at the memory. “That horse was too big for you to handle. You were too skinny.”

  “Was not,” he said, but the defensiveness in his tone was playful. Then he sighed. “Well, shit, yeah, I was skinny, but there’s no horse I can’t handle. I’m a Warrick.”

  “And yet.” She poked his belly. “You got yourself bucked.”

  She’d rushed to help him, afraid he’d been hurt when the horse spooked. She’d leaned over him, intending to check for injuries, and he’d sat up at the same time, his lips meeting hers. It was an innocent kiss between two kids not quite teenagers, but it had been her first and she’d never forgotten the soft, secret touch of his lips to hers.

  He caught her finger and lifted her hand to his lips. “Did you ever consider maybe I did it on purpose?”

  She sat up. “What?”

  “I’m a Warrick. We’re horse people. I’ve been ridin’ since before I could walk.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “No way.”

  He shrugged. “I wanted to kiss you and I didn’t know how else to get your attention.”

  “Oh my God, Jesse. You could’ve been hurt!”

  “But I wasn’t. And I got my kiss.”

  True. Maybe he’d walked away unscathed, but she certainly hadn’t. She’d fallen madly, deeply in love with Jesse Warrick that day, as only a preteen girl could. And if she was honest with herself, she’d never fallen out of it. She’d often wondered how kissing him would feel now that they were adults and could explore the act more intimately.

  And now she knew it was just as good as she’d expected it to be.

  It was silly of her, but after all these years, she still went gooey-kneed when she thought about that summer. What did it say about her that an innocent teenage crush was her most enduring relationship?

  They’d drifted apart that winter, IM chats and emails dwindling as each of them got caught up with school, friends, sports. Still, when she’d returned with Mara the next summer, she’d stupidly expected to pick up right where they’d left off. Maybe even take it a step further, since she was a mature fifteen and he’d turned sixteen the previous December. But everything had been different. He’d started dating his future ex-wife, Connor’s mother, and she’d gone back to El Paso that autumn completely heartbroken.

  “You ever wonder—” He stopped, cleared his throat, and seemed to wage some internal war.

  She tamped down the surge of girlish hope. “Wonder what?”

  “About us?”

  Oh, all the time. She just didn’t want him to know that. She scoffed. “C’mon, cowboy. We were barely teenagers and had nothing but an innocent summertime crush.”

  “I’ve wondered,” he admitted so quietly she barely heard him. “You’ve always been here…” He tapped his temple with one long finger. “In the back of my mind. I can’t say I chose wrong goin’ with Lacy like I did because that choice gave me Connor and I wouldn’t trade him for anythin’. Can’t even say I’d do it all differently if given the chance—same reason. But I have wondered.”

  Her throat closed up. Knowing that after all these years, he’d spent time wondering what could’ve happened between them opened all kinds of old wounds. She’d thought she’d gotten over him. She’d only been a kid, after all. Half mature and supposedly unaware of what, and who, she really wanted.

  But, clearly, she was wrong about that.

  For her, it had only ever been Jesse Warrick. She’d known it with all her heart when she was fourteen. Strange that it took until her thirties to figure out why she’d never been good at relationships.

  Still. There was too much at stake now. She had her career with HORNET to think about. How would it look if she let herself fall in love with a teammate, let alone the team’s new leader? It’d just re-enforce every stereotype ever of women working in a traditionally male profession.

  And, okay, maybe she was more than a little afraid of getting her heart crushed by him again.

  Suddenly self-conscious, she sat up and dragged the sheet up over her breasts. “Jesse, I—” She stopped short of admitting the truth. Telling him how much he’d hurt her all those years ago seemed too much like admitting a fatal flaw, a weakness she couldn’t afford. “This…thing.” She waved a hand in the air between them. “It can’t be more than…this. It can maybe go beyond tonight if you want, but I can’t give more than just sex.”

  Jesse also sat up against the headboard, and pulled the sheet over his lap. He said nothing for a long time, and she couldn’t tell what he was thinking by his closed-off expression. He was almost terrifyingly good at shutting down, locking up, and not letting anyone in.

  Which was okay, she reminded herself. She didn’t want in. Wasn’t that the whole point of her little speech just now?

  “You’re right,” he said finally. “This can only be physical.”

  “Yeah,” she said and wondered why him agreeing made her wither inside. Jesus, she had to man up. This was her idea to begin with. “We’re good at the physical part. Let’s stick to what we’re good at, okay?”

  …

  Jesse opened his mouth to reply, but a timely pounding on the cabana’s door saved him. Good thing, because every thought running through his head was the exact opposite of what was coming out of his mouth. He didn’t want only sex with Lanie. He was halfway in love with her. Hell, maybe he always had been and the sex just brought all those buried feelings back to the surface.

  Goddammit, he’d known this would happen, and yet he’d jumped into bed with her anyway.

  Beside him, Lanie also seemed glad for the reprieve. As the banging continued, she looked toward the living room. “Who the hell is that?”

  “Probably one of the guys bein’ an ass.” Maybe Jean-Luc, since he was the only one who knew they’d spent the night together. Jesse fell back on the mattress. “Ignore them.”

  Lanie started to settle down beside him, but froze when the pounding started again and a woman’s voice called, “Jesse? Jesse, please open up!”

  Lanie raised an eyebrow at him.

  “What?” He held up his hands. “I swear I have no idea who that is.” This had to be Jean-Luc’s doing, too. If so, he was gonna skin the guy for a new pair of Cajun-hide boots.

  Lanie pursed her lips and he got the feeling she was trying not the laugh. “Better go find out then.”

  He swung his legs off the bed and snapped up his jeans from the floor. Took his time pulling them on. If Jean-Luc was pranking him, he wasn’t going to hurry. But then as he stepped out in
to the living area and saw the blood-spattered woman and young bellhop at the verandah doors, he picked up his pace.

  This wasn’t a prank. Something was wrong.

  “Lanie, get dressed. We got trouble,” he called over his shoulder as he unlocked the slider. “Ma’am, are you all right?”

  The woman shook her head hard, sending her blond bob whipping around her face. He recognized her. The woman from the lobby that had shot Jean-Luc down flat. Beside her, the bellhop was gray-faced and sweating profusely. He babbled something in French, then took off running. The woman shouted after him, but he didn’t even look back as he scrambled over the sand dunes, headed away from the hotel.

  Jesse watched the kid go. “What’s goin’ on?”

  The woman faced him again. “The hotel is under attack. Jean-Luc’s still inside and he needs you to call him.”

  “Holy shit,” Lanie said in what may have been the understatement of the year. She rushed forward and guided the woman inside. “Sit down. Tell us what happened.”

  Jesse stared at the two women, but his brain wasn’t tracking the convo. There was a strange buzzing going on between his ears, and his heart threatened to drum right out of his chest. It took him several long seconds to realize he was panicking and he needed to take a breath or he was going to pass out.

  Connor. His son was in the hotel. All the recruits. Gabe and Quinn. Jean-Luc. And he didn’t know how many of the others were in the main building.

  On autopilot, he walked into the bedroom and grabbed his cell phone, hitting number four to speed-dial Jean-Luc. No answer. Shit. He tried again, and again got nothing. His imagination started filling in all kinds of horror scenarios. What the devil was going on inside that hotel?

  The phone buzzed in his hand. Jean-Luc’s name showed on the screen. He answered before the end of the first ring. “Sitrep.”

  “Four Tangos that I’ve seen, likely more,” Jean-Luc said in a whisper. “They have at least four hostages in the lobby. One Tango casualty, two civilian wounded. Is Claire all right?”

  Claire? He must mean the blond woman. Jesse glanced behind him. Lanie had given the frazzled woman a glass of water and taken a seat on the ottoman in front of her. “Affirmative. She’s here and safe. What about—?”

  “Negative,” Jean-Luc interrupted, apparently reading his mind before he was able to force the sentence out through his constricted throat. “I haven’t found Gabe, Quinn, or any of the recruits yet.”

  Jesse swallowed back a rising lump of panic and his fingers tightened convulsively around the phone. “Find my son, Cajun. Get him out of there. Please.”

  “I gottchu, mon ami. I’ll find Connor and—merde!” There was a scrambling sound, then Jean-Luc cursed in string of different languages, ending with, “Fuckfuckfuckityfuck!”

  Gunshots rattled over the line. The shots were short-lived and sounded from a distance. None sounded from closer to the phone—no return fire.

  Did Jean-Luc even have a weapon available to him? They’d only had paintball guns during the training mission in Suriname, and all of their heavy-duty weaponry was tucked away on their jet, which Jace Garcia, their pilot, had flown to Washington DC to pick up Audrey and Phoebe.

  Surely Jean-Luc at least had his knife—guy never went anywhere without the big-ass thing—and if anyone could prove that old adage about knives in gunfights wrong, it was that sneaky Cajun bastard. But long seconds ticked by, and no sound came from the other end of the line.

  “Cajun?”

  No response.

  “Jean-Luc!”

  Nothing. No sound. The line clicked and went dead.

  Jesus Christ. Had he just listened to Jean-Luc’s death?

  Jesse had to make a conscious effort to loosen his fingers from the phone. He closed his eyes, concentrated on breathing through the fear. In and out. In and out. But the yoga breathing trick was doing shit for him right now.

  He sensed movement behind him, caught the scent of Lanie’s berry shampoo on the air. He whirled. “I never should have brought Connor here. I never should have left him in the hotel alone.”

  She stepped forward, but stopped short of touching him. “You didn’t leave him alone. He was with the guys and the rest of the recruits. You said Jean-Luc was right down the hall.”

  God. Jean-Luc. What if he was bleeding out somewhere in that hotel?

  “We need to go in, get them out.”

  She stared at his for a solid five seconds. “Jesse,” she said finally, very slowly, “go in with what? We have no weapons, no intel. We don’t even know how many Tangos we’re dealing with here.”

  “Jean-Luc said four, and he took one out.” As he spoke, he was already moving past her into the living room. “He pulled the fire alarm. There’s confusion, and we can use that to our advantage.”

  Claire leaped to her feet as he passed. “Is Jean-Luc okay? Did he save Tiffany?”

  He ignored her, snapped up his T-shirt from the floor by the couch, and pulled in on. He paused long enough to check the kitchen for anything that could be used at a weapon. Nothing sharper than a butter knife. He shoved the last drawer shut and the flatware inside rattled.

  Fuck it. He’d go without.

  He headed for the door.

  Lanie jumped in front of him, blocking his path. “They’ll have back up.”

  “Then we need to get in there before their back up does.” He stepped around her, but she caught his hand. When he glanced back, the pleading look in her eyes almost stopped him. Almost. But then he thought of his son, and God, Himself, wasn’t going to stop him from getting into that fucking hotel.

  “Jess—”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m not leavin’ my boy in there.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Shit.

  Lanie watched Jesse go, her heart lodged somewhere in her throat, thundering with a noxious mixed of adrenaline and terror. He was going to get himself killed.

  “Shit,” she said again, out loud this time, because one time didn’t seem to be enough. She whirled on Claire. “Tell me everything. Fast.”

  The woman shook her head. Her blue eyes were too big, glassy with shock. “I-I don’t know anything.”

  Yeah, she did, but she wasn’t sharing. Standing around trying to get her to talk was only wasting precious seconds Lanie couldn’t afford. “Stay here. You’ll be safe here.”

  She didn’t wait for an answer and sprinted back into the bedroom for her phone and the little bit of gear she hadn’t left on the plane. Didn’t amount to much—a multi-tool, a small set of field binoculars, and a folding knife. She knew Ian and Seth had both opted for the cabanas rather than the main hotel like she had, so she sent them both an SOS text and told them to bring any gear they had. Praying neither of them had shut off their phones for the night, she then dialed the one person who might be able to help them, and bolted after Jesse before she heard the first ring.

  Tucker Quentin answered before the end of the second. “Lanie?” There was concern in his voice, and it sounded genuine even though she’d only met the man once before. With the massive number of people he employed, she figured he’d have no idea who she was. “Is everything okay?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you, sir.” She veered off the path and dodged through a small stand of palm trees to get to the beach faster. “I thought you should know your hotel’s under attack.”

  A beat of silence. In that beat, she sensed his mood change from puzzled concern to barely controlled anger. She could all but feel the chill of it radiate over the line.

  “Details,” he demanded.

  “I don’t have any yet. Or not many. It’s the main building. Half of HORNET is inside. The recruits, too.” Once on the beach, she paused, looking for any sign of Jesse, and saw Seth and Ian running toward her. Ian must have left his dog, Tank, behind. She also spotted footprints in the sand headed toward the hotel. “Jesse’s son is inside.”

  Tuc cursed. “Tell me he’s not about to do something stupid.�
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  “I can’t, sir.”

  “And he’s supposed to be the level-headed one,” Tuc muttered.

  Some of her own banked anger ignited at that comment. Even though she agreed Jesse was making all the wrong moves right now, she was compelled to defend him anyway. “Would you keep your cool if it was your kid in danger?”

  “I don’t have a kid,” Tuc said after another beat. “But, no. You’re right. Where’s my hotel security?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you armed?”

  “Does a pocket knife and multi-tool count as armed?”

  “Fuck me.” Tuc said nothing again for a beat, but there was a lot of movement in the background. Whatever he was doing, he was moving fast. “There should be a small stash of arms in the security center down the north hallway off the lobby. I’ll send you the blueprints. My men and I are en route, but we’re five hours out, at least. We’ll use the flight time for intel gathering and send you whatever we find. I’ll also do everything in my power to get men there sooner. In the meantime, I’m trusting you to keep my guys from ending up dead.”

  Lanie huffed out a laugh that was more disbelief than amusement. “That’s a tall order with this group.”

  Tuc sighed. “Don’t I know it.”

  Tuc hung up just as Seth and Ian reached her. They were both carrying backpacks, and she hoped they had more gear than she did.

  “The fuck?” Ian said. Concise with words, as always.

  Seth translated, “Got your SOS. What’s happening?”

  Lanie slid her phone into the back pocket of her shorts and gave them a quick rundown, ending with, “…and he’s gone after Connor.”

  “Oh, Christ. Not again.” Seth walked several paces away and stared out over the water, his shoulders slumping.

  “Hey, Hero,” Ian called. “You solid?”

  Seth’s spine straightened. He rubbed at his face with one hand, then came back. “Yeah, I’m good now. Bad memories. Bad moment.”

  Ian gave his shoulder a squeeze. “That’s not happening again. You’re not losing another team tonight.”

  “Damn right. So.” Seth lifted his gaze to Lanie’s. “How do we stop this from going sideways?”