by Paige Tyler
“Since I have someone back in the world waiting for me,” Holden said.
Wes turned to look back at him. “Then I guess I’ll have to be careful and make sure you make it home in one, undamaged, piece.”
Then slipped down into the endless maze of ammunition pallets, shipping containers, ship bulkheads, and pitch-black corners and corridors. Holden knew the ship’s crew didn’t spend a lot of time in these parts of the ship, besides from the minimum required inspections. But it was impossible to miss the signs of recent activity—boxes and containers broken open, satchel bags of explosives lodged in between the larger munitions. Here and there he saw the wires running to other compartments. Wires connected to explosives that would make sure the entire ship went up at once.
The urge to dismantle the IEDs was nearly overwhelming, but he and Wes resisted. They needed to clear out the targets first, then they’d come through with the ship engineers and clear the explosive devices.
Holden heard the first group of terrorists long before he saw them coming around a stack of two-thousand bombs on pallets. There were three terrorists and one engineer laying wires out from the next compartment to this one. The explosive charges had already been set, and Holden didn’t want to even imagine what it would do to the ship—and his teammates—if this huge stack of bombs all blew at once.
One of the terrorists caught sight of him and Holden opened his mouth to shout a warning while at the same time he reached for the handgun holstered at his hip.
Holden took him out while Wes dealt with the other two. The poor engineer stood there frozen in place, his eyes wide.
“We’re US Navy SEALs.” Holden approached the man, backing him toward the nearest dark corridor between the stacks of general purpose bombs. “I need you to stay hidden and be quiet. Can you do that for me?”
The man nodded his head slowly, even as he darted a quick glance at the demo bags full of explosives lodged among the warheads around him. Holden knew the guy wasn’t thrilled at the idea of hiding in the middle of a stack of bombs rigged to blow, but it wasn’t like they could trust him to defuse the explosive devices. The man was obviously too rattled for that. And Holden couldn’t waste time doing it himself.
“Don’t worry about any of that,” Holden murmured softly, like he was talking to a child. “Just stay right here, okay?”
At his nod, Holden turned and caught up with Wes. In his earpiece, Dalton announced his team was working their way toward the aft of the ship, clearing targets as they found them. The captain had drastically underestimated the number of terrorists involved in this hijacking. There were a lot more than half a dozen bad guys down there.
He and Wes continued to move through the dark cargo holds, finding more terrorists and taking them out. One of the bad guys got off a long burst of automatic weapon fire in their direction. Wes put the man down as fast as he could, but the damage was done. There was no way the remaining terrorists hadn’t heard that. They had to finish this mission before some psycho went suicidal and blew the explosives they’d already rigged. It might not be enough to get the entire ship to go up, but it would easily be enough to kill all of them.
Holden heard Dalton shouting orders over the radio and could tell his buddies were in trouble. It sounded like they were pinned down in one of the forward compartments just ahead of them.
Holden didn’t think. He simply took off running, knowing Wes would follow.
He sprinted into the forward compartment, sliding to a halt when he saw Dalton, Noah, and Sam pinned down behind some crates. The five bad guys were hiding behind much better cover than his Teammates, blazing away at Dalton and his team with AK-47’s on full automatic. But Holden had come in nearly behind them, which gave him a much better shot at them. He could take them all out. Unless they got him first.
As if sensing he was there, all three turned his way. He could have dived to the side, tried to roll for the nearest crate. But instead, he walked toward them, bringing his weapon up and slowly squeezing off one accurate shot after the other.
His actions probably seemed insane, but they weren’t. Not for someone who trusted his Teammates as much as Holden did. He was completely exposed, but he knew his buddies would cover him and keep the terrorists from getting a clear shot at him.
Holden would take the terrorists out.
Dalton, Wes, Noah, and Sam would keep him alive long enough to do it.
Now that he thought about it, maybe it was insane to trust someone that much.
He continued forward anyway, shooting until there was no one left standing in front of him. When he was done, silence descended, broken only by the horrible ringing in his ears from shooting in the close, echoing confines of the ship’s hold.
Noah checked the bodies while Dalton and Sam disappeared toward the aft of the ship, heading out to clear the explosive devices.
“That was kind of crazy, standing out in the open like Wyatt Earp,” Wes said, giving him a reproachful look. “I’m pretty sure Kendall wouldn’t consider that being careful.”
Holden grimaced. Wes was right. He hadn’t done a very good job of that whole careful thing. “Maybe we could forget to mention that part to anybody…ever.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard since Headquarters is going to slap a big Classified sticker over this whole mission,” Wes said. “But you probably need to stop acting like you’re a single guy with nothing to lose because we both know that’s not true anymore.”
Wes walked away, leaving Holden standing in the middle of a room full of dead bodies, ears still ringing. A smile spread across his face at his friend’s words. It was a little scary, having someone mean this much to him, but he liked it.
There was a time when a long flight home from a mission would mean nothing more than a chance to catch up on his sleep. But this time he knew he’d spend every second of it thinking about getting back to Kendall…and all the things they’d do when he got there.
Thank goodness his uniform pants were loose because the trip home was going to be agony.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
DAD, YOU DID a lot of undercover work, right?”
Kendall wasn’t sure how to even begin to explain what was going on to her father, but she needed to talk to someone so she’d Skyped him. She hadn’t slept at all last night in the hospital, and after getting released this morning, she’d found herself wandering around Holden’s apartment the whole day. Her concussion symptoms might be gone, but she was giving herself a headache trying to figure out what she was going do about this case, and more importantly, Holden.
Who better to give her advice than someone who’d done the job?
“Yeah, you know I did,” her dad said. “I remember you and your mom used to hate it, too.”
That was true enough. Between being worried about him and never knowing when he’d be home, she and her mom were a mess.
“Why do you ask?” he said. “Does this have something to do with the case you’re working?”
“Yeah.” She pulled up her legs to sit cross-legged on the couch. “Were you ever in a situation where you felt like…”
“Felt like what?” her dad prompted when her voice trailed off. He leaned forward in his chair, his dark eyes full of concern. “Is something wrong, Peanut?”
Kendall almost laughed at hearing the nickname he’d been using on her since she was six-years-old when she’d eaten an entire bag of peanuts at the zoo instead of feeding them to the animals. She’d tried to get him to stop calling her that, especially after she’d started high school, but he never had. At least he’d never called her that in front of any of her boyfriends.
“No, nothing’s wrong,” she lied. “I just wanted to know if you ever worked undercover on a case where you started to think that maybe the person you were there to put in prison wasn’t the bad guy he was supposed to be?”
Her father regarded her thoughtfully. “Peanut, what the hell have you gotten yourself into? And do you need me to come out there to help?”<
br />
She let out a sound that was half snort, half laugh. Her father was serious. If he thought she needed help, he’d be on the next plane to California with his badge and issued sidearm.
“Thanks, but I’m okay. Really,” she added. “I just need some advice.”
He considered that, then nodded. “Okay. Give me the facts. What are we dealing with?”
Telling her father what the case was about without giving him particulars was tricky. She told him she was investigating a burglary and that the suspect wasn’t behaving like your typical criminal.
“How does he behave?” her dad asked.
Kendall hesitated. If she said too much, her father was going to put two and two together and figure out how seriously screwed she was.
“He came to my rescue in a crowded bar when we made it look like my jerk ex-boyfriend was harassing me.”
“What else?”
“He gave me a place to crash when it looked like that same ex trashed my apartment,” she said.
Her dad nodded again. “Anything else?”
She absently twirled the ends of her hair around her finger. “He kind of put his body between me and a man with an automatic weapon during a drive-by on the street yesterday.”
Her dad’s eye went wide. “You were in a drive-by?!”
Kendall cringed. She half expected her father to close Skype and get on a plane right then. She might be an FBI agent with all the training necessary to take care of herself, but she was still his little girl. But other than muttering a curse under his breath, he was surprisingly calm.
“I won’t ask how you are because I can see that you’re fine. Physically, anyway. So, I’ll stick to the case,” he said. “Are you sleeping with the suspect?”
Crap. There it was. Two plus two equals…screwed.
“It’s possible,” she said quietly, then hurried on before he could say anything else. “But that’s not the reason I’m having a problem with this assignment. I admit the guy has a shady background and that there’s a good chance he did exactly what the FBI thinks he did, I know in my heart there has to be a reason for it. He’s a good man that’s been put in a bad position. Right now, he’s in some crap hole part of the world risking his life for people who don’t even know he exists.”
Her father sighed. “This is more than you accidentally sleeping with the suspect, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” she said softly. “He’s kind of special, Dad.”
Kendall braced herself for the lecture from hell, the one where her father insisted a cop always put the law first. She’d heard it enough around the dinner table growing up as a kid. As much as she didn’t want to hear it right now, she knew it was coming.
But once again, her dad surprised her. “Peanut, let me ask you something. It’s not a hard question and you don’t even have to answer out loud. Can you do that for me?”
“Um…yeah…I guess so.”
“What is your gut telling you to do about this guy? Protect him or lock him up?”
She frowned. The first time she’d come to her father for advice about work and he blows her off by asking what her gut was telling her?
He must have seen the frustration on her face because he continued. “I know you’re hoping I’ll tell you how to handle this situation, but it doesn’t work that way. You’re the only person who has all the information about what’s really going on, and who knows this guy. That makes you the only one who can figure out what to do.”
“That’s the problem.” She sighed. “I know exactly who Holden is, but I still don’t know what to do.”
He shook his head, letting out a rueful laugh. “Sorry, kid. The only advice I have is the advice I’ve already given you. Go with your gut. It’s what’s gotten you this far. And as long as you do what you think is right, I’ll always be in your corner.”
“Even if it gets me fired and sent to prison?”
“Let’s hope you figure out a way to keep that from happening,” he said with another laugh, this one with even less amusement. They both knew if she handled this wrong, she’d be in deep trouble and the most her parents would be able to do was visit her on the weekends.
Kendall was still thinking about that thirty minutes later, when someone knocked on the door. She considered not answering, figuring anyone there to see Holden wasn’t interested in seeing her. Besides, she wasn’t in the mood to see anyone. Between worrying about Holden and the conversation with her dad, she was about to lose her mind.
But whoever it was knocked again, this time louder.
Cursing, she got up and walked over to take a peek out the peephole, stunned to see Kimber and Kyla standing there with a bag of take-out and a stack of DVDs.
“We know you’re in there,” Kimber called out. “And we know you need company. So, open the door. Because we’re not going anywhere.”
Kendall rested her forehead on the door and closed her eyes. What had she done to deserve such amazing friends
Oh, yeah. She’d lied.
* * * * *
“How do you not go insane?” Kendall asked. The words came out whinier than she would have preferred, but Kimber and Kyla didn’t seem to notice. “I’ve only just met Holden and it already drives me crazy when he has to leave like this. How do you handle it?”
On the other side of the coffee table, Kimber let out a half sigh-half laugh as she set out the boxes of Chinese take-out. “To start with, you need to keep in mind that I don’t have much more experience with this than you do.” She sat down on the opposite side of the sectional and picked up her chopsticks. “Dalton and I have only been back together for a little while, so I’m still learning how to cope with his job.”
“But you seem to be doing okay,” Kendall pointed out.
“Not really. I’m as freaked out as you are. It’s just that I’ve learned a few coping mechanisms and that makes all the difference.”
Kendall poked at her spicy chicken with her chopsticks. “What kind of coping mechanisms? And if you tell me there are breathing exercises that can help me not worry so much about Holden, I’m going to smack you.”
Kimber laughed. “No breathing exercises. I promise.”
“What then?”
“First, you have to trust that Holden and the other guys on SEAL Team 5 are the best in the world at what they do. No one trains harder than they do and no one has a Team as tight or as protective of each other. They all go out as a Team and they all come back as a Team.”
Kendall could believe that. She’d never seen Holden in real combat, of course, but if the way he’d handled himself in that drive-by the other day was any indication, he was definitely good under pressure. And there was no doubt he was close to his Teammates. She could only imagine how hard they’d fight for each other.
“Okay,” she said. “So, what’s part two?”
Kimber pointed her chopsticks at Kyla, then Kendall, then herself. “This. Being with other people. Getting together to watch a movie, eating dinner, talking, and laughing.”
She must have looked confused, because Kimber continued. “When people are facing scary situations, they sometimes wall themselves off from everyone else and try to make it through on their own. But when it comes to something like this—waiting for the people we care about to come home—we have to accept we can’t do it alone. We need to reach out and ask for help.”
“That’s why we came over tonight,” Kyla said. “To let you know that we’re here to help you. And to let you know that it’s not only Kimber and me. If you need to talk or you need company, you can call any of us. Felicia, Hayley, Lyla, Bristol. We all know what it’s like to worry and wait.”
Kendall gazed at them in amazement, wondering again what she’d done to deserve their friendship. It made her feel even crappier than she already did, and for a moment she almost wanted to tell them she wasn’t worthy of any of it. That she was an FBI agent lying her ass off to everyone—especially Holden—in order to put him in prison.
She opened
her mouth, not sure what to say, but needing to say something, when Kimber laughed and waved her hand. “Enough of all this serious talk. Let’s eat.”
That was a good idea. She needed to collect her thoughts and figure out where this was all heading. She’d come damn close to spilling everything.
After eating dinner and a ridiculous number of fortune cookies covered in Reddi Wip, they put on one of the movies. It was a romantic comedy Kendall hadn’t seen yet and it looked fun. But halfway through the opening credits, Kyla picked up the remote and paused it.
“What am I going to do about Wes?” she said. “I’m terrified I’m so firmly stuck in the friend zone he’ll never see me as anything more than the messed-up girl his Team has taken under its wing. I swear, it’s like he doesn’t even notice I’m a woman at all.”
“He notices,” Kimber said. “Trust me, he notices.”
Tears welled up in Kyla’s eyes. “Then why won’t he ask me out, dammit? I do everything to let him know I’m into him, but he doesn’t do anything about it.”
“Have you ever thought of telling him how you feel?” Kendall asked.
You’d have thought Kendall told Kyla to run naked down Main Street carrying a flaming sword and a package of hot dogs. The girl blushed so much Kendall thought she might pass out.
“I couldn’t do that,” Kyla insisted. “Not ever.”
“Why not?” Kimber asked.
Kyla chewed on her bottom lip. “Because if he’s not interested in me that way and I tell him how I feel, I could lose him as a friend.”
“Sometimes, you have to take a chance,” Kendall said.
Kyla shook her head. “I can’t. It’s not worth the risk.”
When Kimber exchanged looks with Kendall, she could only shrug. How could she give Kyla advice when she didn’t follow any of it herself?
“Have you ever made the mistake of lying to someone?” she asked quietly. “Starting with the best of intentions, but then realizing you might have made the biggest mistake of your life?”