Close To Danger (Westen Series Book 4)

by Suzanne Ferrell

  “So, you were sent in to retrieve him before they sold him and all his knowledge off to someone who would use the information to attack our country?”

  “Give the woman a prize,” he said, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of her head.

  “What went wrong?”

  Everything.

  The fire in the fireplace sparked and the flames moved, just as they had that night.

  “It was a simple mission, should’ve taken us no more than a day or two. Fly into Columbia, meet a CIA agent with contacts in the area. Cross the border with the agent’s tracker. Find the CEO, secure him, and get back to the landing zone for a taxi home.”

  “Taxi being a helicopter?”

  “Fastest way home.” Should’ve been as easy as crossing the street for his team. They’d done it dozens of times before, in all kinds of terrains, all kinds of scenarios.

  Chloe shifted, lifting slightly and adjusting her body so she could rest her arm on his chest, her chin on her arm, those soulful brown eyes studying him. “What went wrong?” she repeated.

  He reached over to toy with some of the soft spikes of her hair. “Everything. I should’ve known something was up when we got off the plane. Our agency contact seemed nervous. He was a young guy I found out later was on his first in-country assignment. The guide seemed to be more in charge than he did. But my team’s job was go get the hostage, not train a field agent. So, we followed the pair into the jungle. Timing was right. Took us less than a day to find the camp. We spread out, isolating the small hut on one side where a guard stood. Obvious place for the hostage to be kept.”

  “Was he?”

  “Yes, only he wasn’t alive. My guess is they killed him within hours of us arriving.”

  “Why? He wasn’t any good to them dead.”

  “They’d gotten all the money they could from his account before the government put a freeze on his assets. If they were hoping to sell him off to the highest bidder, something must’ve gone wrong with the deal.”

  “How did they know you were coming?”

  “The guide.”

  “He sold you out?”

  He clenched his jaw tight for a moment, fighting the anger that shot through him. “The group worked often as security for the drug cartels up in the mountains and in the jungle. Our guide was a go-between for them and the cartels’ leadership. Apparently, they didn’t like our little mission into their territories. So we, along with our CIA contact were to die down there, too.”

  “Only you didn’t.”

  His mind slammed back into the hot, steamy jungle. Gunfire and shouting filling his ears.

  “Mostly thanks to Bulldog and Snake. The group ambushed us as we came out of the hut. Cannon got hit in the leg, then in the neck. Bulldog put pressure on it while Snake set up cover-fire for us. The CIA agent helped Bulldog get Cannon to the edge of the forest before he took one in the head. Bruno, who had taken one in the shoulder and arm, dragged him as far as he could. Snake and I took out as many of the enemy as we could, including the traitorous guide, so the others could get into the surrounding jungle. We managed to go about two klicks before I realized Snake wasn’t keeping up. He’d taken a shot just beneath his tactical vest. Bulldog said it must’ve hit his spleen.

  “By the time we found a place to take cover, we realized that the guide had lead us in a serpentine route, backing up on our own trail at few times, so finding our way out on our own with three wounded men—two near critical—was near impossible. We dug in and pulled the sat phone out to contact the agency and ask for an extraction team with a helo to get us out. It was shot to hell.”

  “Dear God, you were trapped with no help coming?”

  He nodded, biting down on his lower lip to stop the rising anger the memory elicited. “With the wounded men, Bulldog did his best. Cannon died first. Mere minutes after we found our hiding spot inside what looked like a spider web of tree trunks surrounding this huge thick tree. The bullet nicked his carotid artery. If he’d been in a city with a major trauma center and he’d gotten on the table quickly he might’ve made it.”

  “But not in a jungle with little medical aide,” Chloe said with quiet compassion.

  Tears stung his eyes. He clenched his jaw tight and fought to stop them. “Bruno didn’t tell us how bad his wounds were. Bulldog had me holding pressure on Snake’s side to stop the bleeding there and went to check on the stubborn Italian. He’d been hit in the brachial artery and what we thought was a shoulder shot turned out to be in his chest and his lung collapsed. Bulldog tried a tourniquet on his arm, but he’d already lost a lot of blood from it and in his chest. It was just after dark when Bruno died.”

  “And Snake?” she asked.

  “God, he was the worst. There was nothing Bulldog could do. The spleen is such a vascular organ, he bled internally even with us keeping pressure to the site. He lingered for hours. Begged us for water, then talked about his kid sister. Then begged us not to let him die. Then asked us to kill him. At some point, he started bleeding out his eyes and nose. Bulldog called it DIC. Something about the clotting system knowing there’s bleeding somewhere, but not sure where. All these clots form in capillaries but not where they’re needed. And your body just bleeds out.”

  “Oh, how awful.” Chloe wriggled up to press her lips to his chin, wrapping her arms tightly around him. The tears started and this time he didn’t try to stop them.

  “I’d never seen anything like it. The other guys went quickly. Poor Isaac. His lungs gave out before his heart.”

  A shudder ran through him and he clutched Chloe to him like an anchor in a violent storm, the tears and pain ripping from his body. She held him tight as he finally let those memories out. He’d refused counseling of any kind when he got home. Choosing instead, to leave the agency and wander until he landed in Westen.

  The fire had died to a few burning coals by the time he’d settled down, Chloe’s body draped over him like a warm, soft blanket.

  “How did you get home?” she asked.

  “Once we buried all four of the others, Bulldog and I headed south, following a river that wound through the jungle. We were hoping it would lead us to a bigger tributary, maybe into the Amazon. We walked for days. Then the funniest thing happened.”

  “What?”

  “We stumbled upon a team of American scientists studying flowers and trees indigenous to the area for possible use in medicines. They fed us and helped us to get to a place where we could get picked up by our agency.” He sucked in a deep breath, then let it out in a slow shuddering motion. “Such a fucking waste. The hostage lost. The young agent gone. And three of my men. I knew it was a bad set-up deep in my gut. Should’ve called the damn mission off.”

  Suddenly, Chloe was up on her arms, leaning over him. “Stop it. Stop it right now. This was not your fault. You had a job to do, get that idiot home. The CIA agent should’ve vetted his guide better. You can blame the CEO for getting himself in the mess in the first place. You can blame the guide for selling you out. You can blame the agent for not doing his job, but you will not blame yourself for not being psychic. That’s an order, do you hear me?”

  The fierceness in her face did two things to him. First it washed over his own sense of guilt like clean water over a dirty car, taking most, but not all the grit and grime away. Secondly, having her get all dominatrix on him had him hard as a rock again.

  Slowly he grinned up at her. “If I don’t follow your orders?”

  Her face softened and heated with desire at the same time. She climbed up to straddle his hips, his erection pressed between their bodies. “Then I might just have to convince you who’s in charge here.”

  As she leaned down to capture his mouth with hers, he’d decided he’d be a very willing pupil.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Just before six the next morning, Earl stepped out onto the back porch of the First Baptist Church of Westen and closed the door behind him. Thanks to the new wool winter coat Ms. Lorn
a over at the Peaches ’N Cream had given him, the cold air wasn’t so bad today.

  Pulling out his pack of smokes, he slipped one between his lips, lit the free end and inhaled a lungful of smoke, closing his eyes briefly to let the nicotine hit his system. He supposed Pastor Miller might not mind him smoking down in the church basement where his rollaway bed was, but ever since he was a small boy watching his father and the other men of his hometown church go outside to smoke after services, Earl had always considered it disrespectful to God to smoke in his house. And that man upstairs already had enough to be angry with him about. No use adding to the list of his sins.

  So, here he stood outside on a cold, crisp winter morning smoking his first Camel of the day. Old man winter had been busy dumping more snow on the town last night. Looked like he was going to have to shovel the church porch, steps and sidewalk again today. That was all right with him. Keeping the porch safe for people to come inside the warm church was a good way to earn a place to sleep and a few good meals.

  The night the blizzard roared through town, Pastor Miller had insisted he come home with him and share dinner with him and the misses. Earl had wanted to tell them no, but one whiff of her chicken soup and he couldn’t think of a reason to leave. Not even when they insisted he sleep in one of their real nice guest rooms.

  After working at the church yesterday, the pastor invited him home once more. Only the house was full, as two families with four little ones between them had come to stay. Both families were without heat at their places. Earl enjoyed the meal of delicious roast beef, potatoes and carrots, along with Mrs. Miller’s melt-in-your-mouth cornbread. He’d used the new guests as an excuse, though, to head back to the church for the night. From the look in her eyes he knew the pastor’s wife wanted to protest, but instead sent him along with an extra big slice of homemade apple pie.

  That woman sure could cook. He patted his stomach just thinking about it.

  The clock in the church’s tower chimed six times signaling it was six a.m. The loud hourly chiming was something he’d had to get used to when he first came to town years ago. Now it was like his own personal time keeper. He glanced down the road in the direction of the Peaches ’N Cream. The light was on upstairs, which meant Pete, the cook, must be up for the day.

  Guess he’d mosey on down that way. If he wandered in sober when Pete started his prep for the day’s cooking, he’d let Earl peel vegetables in exchange for a meal. Even though the pastor paid him for his work, getting to eat with Pete and sometimes Ms. Lorna’s nice daughter Rachel was worth pulling K-P duty in the back of the warm café.

  He pulled one last drag off his cigarette, stubbed it out and left it where he’d be sure to clean up when he came back to clear the steps after breakfast. With a tug on the collar of his coat, he braced it against his neck to keep out any biting wind gusts and headed down the street.

  One block down Main Street he heard a noise coming from the new apartment building, built to house some of the new comers to town after that big explosion last spring. He moved to stand beside a thick oak tree, knowing his coat and clothes would blend into its shadows in the near dark. Slowing his breathing just like he had in the war, he watched the parking lot.

  The figure emerged from the stairwell on the side of the building, dressed head-to-toe in all white, a long black gun case strapped on one shoulder. With a click of a button the headlights of a big pick-up truck flashed. The figure turned to put the gun case inside. The light of the parking lot caught the face dusted with freckles and the long ginger-colored hair that escaped from beneath a white knit cap.

  Hannah, the newest waitress over at the Peaches ’N Cream.

  She climbed into the truck and started the engine. As she drove it out of the lot and turned right, Earl hugged the tree, doing his disappearing act. She drove past him, headed out towards the North end of town.

  Now where was she headed this time of the morning, dressed like that and carrying a rifle?

  * * * * *

  Hannah parked her truck in the shelter of two old evergreens and some downed oaks and maples half a mile from the main road and equal distance from Wes’s place. She’d scoped out this spot when she first arrived in town and learned where he lived back in the fall. The roads had iced over after dusk yesterday and the new snow last night had made driving on them just as treacherous as right after the blizzard drove through. It also meant no one was on the roads to see her coming this way.

  The clock on the dashboard said six-twenty. She checked her watch to be sure they were in sync. Perfect. If anyone had a clue what she was up to, it would take them some time to get here. Wes Strong was not going to survive until they did.

  Sitting in the warm truck cab, she opened the sniper drag bag. Dad had bought her one when she hit the buck nearly five-hundred meters away just after her eighteenth birthday. Her chest ached with the memory. That had been the first time she’d gone hunting with Dad by herself. Isaac had joined the army right after graduating college and was in basic-training. They only saw him in between deployments after that, only sharing one more family hunting trip before Dad died and Isaac disappeared into the world of clandestine operations—following Wes Strong like a loyal pup.

  Her family completely gone. She was all alone.

  Anger surged through her.

  It was all Strong’s fault. He had to pay.

  When she finally located the bastard hiding out in this small Ohio town, her plan had been a simple one. Come to town, sneak into his house in the dead of night, kill him, slip out of town before anyone knew she’d been there. But he didn’t have a place in town. She’d needed to stay in the town and be inconspicuous as possible until she’d found his lair out in the woods. So, just like with hunting, she blended into her surroundings, taking a job at the café and studying her target.

  That’s when her plans changed. The moment she’d seen the deputy with the sheriff’s soon-to-be sister-in-law, she’d known he was interested in her. They couldn’t keep their eyes off each other. After the wedding, she’d seen him whisk her up to his cabin and followed them there. Whatever was going on between them had him charging like a bull after a cow in heat down to Cincinnati with a storm blowing in.

  Slashing her tires while they were in the chili joint had been a spur-of-the-moment inspiration. His reaction confirmed what Hannah had been thinking. The dark-haired woman meant something important to Strong.

  Well, too damn bad. He’d taken her last living family from her. The last person on this earth that she cared about. Turn-about was fair play. She wanted to make him suffer. Make him feel the helplessness she did. The abject emptiness. The terrifying loneliness.

  Pulling her scarf up to cover her mouth and nose from the biting cold, she cut the engine, grabbed the rifle bag and climbed out of the truck. No need to lock it. No one would come up this way in this weather today and she didn’t want to fumble with keys and locks on her return after she completed her mission.

  Moving through the brush and deep snow, she went hunting her prey.

  Come hell or highwater, before he died today, Wes Strong was losing someone.

  * * * * *

  The soft snoring in the other room stopped.

  Bulldog glanced at the hotel standard digital clock on the bedside table. Six-twenty in the morning. The sun wasn’t up yet, but apparently the doc was.

  He sat on the side of the bed and stretched, listening to her head into the suite’s bathroom. The woman was pretty amazing. Given she was on duty for forty-eight hours straight, found her sister’s condo trashed, learned the same sister had a stalker, then waited for the cops to arrive and finally finishing with them about two in the morning, a lesser soul would be dead to the world until at least noon.

  Not the doc.

  He’d heard her tell Chloe she was calling the other sister first thing this morning. First thing to the doc was seven sharp, shift change at the hospital. Probably shift change at the small town’s sheriff’s office, too.
<
br />   The shower started running. He pulled on his jeans, and tugged a clean sweatshirt out of his bag and over his head. Best to have coffee brewing when she got out of the shower. Looked like it was going to be a long day.

  Ten minutes later, Dylan came out of the bedroom, dressed in her jeans and sweater from the day before, toweling out her long dark blonde hair. Beautiful, sexy, smart and with a surgical talent like he’d never seen. If he weren’t gay he’d be in big trouble with this one.

  “Cream and sugar, Doc?” he asked, pouring her a mug of the coffee.

  “Yes to both,” she said, snagging some of the raspberry coffee cake he’d bought two days before and sliding onto one of the barstools.

  He set the cream and sugar on the counter in front of her, along with the mug of coffee. “Doctor it up the way you want.”

  She dumped a ton of both the creamer and sugar into her mug.

  He arched a brow at her. “Gonna have a little coffee with your cream and sugar?”

  She laughed. “I hated this stuff growing up, but found I needed some caffeine to get through med school, then this past year as an intern. Still don’t like the taste.”

  “There’s other kinds of caffeine, you know. Tea. Soda. You could even do the five-hour thing.” He cut himself half of what was left of the coffee cake and took a bite.

  She shook her head. “Can’t do the energy drinks. They tend to spike then crash my blood sugar. Grew up drinking sodas and tea. They’re okay. But I need a jolt that coffee gives me, especially if I’m on call and someone wakes me up out of a sound sleep.” She held up her hand when he started to comment. “Yeah, I know. When does an intern get to sleep, let alone a deep sleep. It happens, occasionally. Very, very, very occasionally.”

  “Why I never went to med school,” he said, watching her take a long drink of the coffee then make a face, with her nose all scrunched up. He wanted to laugh, but he’d seen the woman wield a scalpel like a street thug with a switchblade. Wasn’t getting on her bad side anytime soon.