by Paige Tyler
Brandon gave his friend a curious look, but Tim just shrugged it off and motioned for the priest to get on with the ceremony. Even though he was trying to play it cool, it was obvious the best man was unsettled. His eyes were scanning the area behind the seats and a sheen of sweat was starting to cover his face.
Eden gave Travis another bewildered look as if he knew what the hell was going on. Travis would have thrown his hands up in the air in mutual confusion if his phone hadn’t buzzed right then.
He dug it out of his inside jacket pocket and discovered it wasn’t his phone buzzing. It was Eden’s. She’d asked him to hold her cell, her gun, and a whole collection of make-up products he couldn’t imagine her ever needing.
He glanced at the name on the call screen—Kendra MacBride, Eden’s contact in the DCO. He was tempted to let the call go to voice mail, but decided against it. He doubted Eden’s friend from the DCO would be calling to find out how beautiful the ceremony was. He thumbed the green button and got up to go stand in the back.
“Hey Eden, I finally ID’ed those other three guys you and Travis fought in the alley, and it’s not good.”
“Hey Kendra, it’s Travis,” he interrupted. “The wedding just started. I’m holding her phone.”
That silenced Kendra for a second. “Um, okay. Do you think there’s any way you can get a message to her? I think the best man, Tim, is in some deep crap.”
Travis glanced at the dais to see Eden’s gaze locked on him. The way she was looking at him, it was almost like she could hear what Kendra was saying. Maybe she could.
“Hold on a second, Kendra. I get the feeling that Eden can hear both of us just fine,” he said into the phone.
Up front, Eden nodded at him once.
“Eden just confirmed that she can hear you, Kendra, so go ahead,” he said. “What do you have on these guys?”
“Sorry it took me so long to dig this up, but there’s a reason I couldn’t find out who those three guys are,” Kendra continued. “They’re freelance spies who work for various governments. They specialize in collecting classified information, usually of military significance. Right now they’re working for the Chinese, and they’re after information on the navy’s latest warship—the USS Freedom. Somehow, they seemed to have found a source of information in Brandon’s best man. As far as I can tell, Tim agreed to sell them the top-secret data they’re after in return for erasing his gambling debt with Sammy Spillane.”
“Shit,” Travis muttered.
Eden looked just as pissed as he was if the way she was skewering Tim with a glare was any indication.
“But if this is all about Tim being a mole for the Chinese, why the hell did that wolf shifter and his buddies beat him up?” Travis asked Kendra.
“That part I don’t know. The deal should have already been done by now. I have no idea what’s holding it up.”
Travis eyed Tim. The best man was scanning the place like he thought he was about to get shot any second. That’s when everything clicked.
“Shit,” he muttered again. “Eden, that stupid weasel made a deal for the classified info he has, and now he’s trying to renegotiate the terms. That’s why he was outside in that alley in the first place—to make the drop. I bet you dollars to doughnuts he decided he wanted more than just a clean slate. He wanted cash, too. They beat him up because he wouldn’t turn over the stuff.”
Eden looked from Travis to Tim. The best man wasn’t even pretending to pay attention to the ceremony now. Instead, he was looking around nervously, as if he expected the cops to come arrest him at any moment. Or as if he thought a nasty-ass wolf shifter and his buddies were going to come and finish what they started.
Kendra was saying something in his ear about backup, but Travis wasn’t listening. He was too busy keeping an eye on Tim. From the look on the asshole’s face, there was a good chance trouble was about to start.
“Gotta go, Kendra. Call you later.” Travis hung up and shoved the phone back in his inside pocket. “Eden, I think the bad guys are here, and Tim knows it. That’s why he’s freaking out right now. Can you smell the shifter?”
Eden shook her head, then turned to look at Tim again. Between Eden staring at him from the other side of the dais, and Travis doing it from the back of the seating area, it was all apparently too much for the best man. Tim jumped off the dais and bolted toward the country club.
Eden kicked off her heels and took off after him. The guests let out a collective gasp, but the low murmur that began to build among them was drowned out by Emily shouting that Tim still had the ring.
Okay, and the shit just hit the fan.
Travis pulled Eden’s 9mm out of his pocket and followed her and Tim. He slowed only long enough to catch Jon’s eye, giving him the cover-our-move signal, then sprinted to catch up to Eden and Tim. He wasn’t worried about Tim being a danger to Eden, but if he was right and the shifter was here, that could be a problem. Those guys had already shown a willingness to shoot, and Travis was sure nothing had changed that.
He was still twenty feet behind Eden when they darted around the country club’s main building and left the wedding ceremony behind. That was when Eden dropped all pretenses of being a normal person and hit the after burners. Even in a maid of honor’s fancy dress, she was pure greased lightning. She caught up to Tim in less than five seconds, giving him a violent shove as she raced past him, sending him tumbling and flipping across the ground.
Then everything went bad.
Automatic weapon fire broke out somewhere off to the right, punctuated by the lighter popping sound of pistols going off. A blur raced past Travis, slamming into Eden and knocking her to the ground.
The wolf shifter was immediately up and charging at Eden again before she could even get to her feet.
Out of the corner of his eye, Travis saw Tim scramble to his feet and take off running again, but he ignored the stupid idiot and focused on the only thing that mattered—getting the wolf shifter’s attention off Eden long enough for her to get to her feet so she could defend herself.
Travis was still fifteen feet away and running fast, but that didn’t stop him from aiming his borrowed weapon and popping off three rounds at the wolf shifter. The guy was standing sideways, which made for a narrower target, but Travis still hit the man in the torso at least once, possibly grazing him with another round along the back.
The asshole barely seemed to register the impact of the small 9mm bullet, but at least he turned to face Travis. The wolf shifter let out a roar, flashing his fangs and charging at him like he was deranged or on drugs—or both.
Travis slowed, ready to let the wolf shifter close on him so he could put a half dozen rounds right through the center of his chest. Something told him the guy wouldn’t be howling then. But he never got the chance to see if he was right. Eden caught up with the guy from behind and threw herself on his back.
Shit.
Eden wasn’t heavy by any means, but her attack caught the wolf shifter unprepared and he went down hard. Eden tore into him, ripping big gashes in the man’s T-shirt and clawing at skin. The wolf shifter elbowed her in the stomach, sending her flying through the air a good five feet with an audible grunt of pain.
The wolf shifter tried to regain his feet, though whether he intended to go after him or Eden, Travis didn’t know. Not that it mattered, because Eden’s attack had given Travis time to close the distance between them.
Travis brought his foot up and kicked the bastard in the face, whipping his head back so hard Travis wondered if he might have broken the guy’s neck. He didn’t, evidenced by the groaning the guy let out as he shook his head and tried to get to his feet again. Travis transferred his 9mm to his left hand, then stepped forward to punch the guy. But Eden beat him to it, tagging the wolf shifter in the jaw so hard Travis knew for damn sure something was going to end up broken.
The wolf shifter went down in a heap, and this time he didn’t move. Travis still went over to check to make sure the guy w
as out cold. That was when he found the .40 Sig the guy was wearing in a holster under his arm.
Travis glanced at Eden. “The guy had a weapon and still chose to fight us hand-to-hand instead of shoot us?”
Eden shrugged. “It’s a wolf shifter thing. They all tend to be a little hot headed and aggressive. They’d much rather rip your throat out than shoot you any day.”
“Good to know.”
Travis reached out to brush her hair back from her face. “You okay? He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
She smiled and shook her head. “I’m fine. What about you?”
“I’m good.”
That said, he wasn’t ever going to get used to seeing her go hand-to-hand with a guy who was twice her size.
Travis looked around. He didn’t hear any more shooting. That was a good thing. He was willing to bet the gunshots he’d heard were from Jon and Zane fighting the wolf shifter’s buddies. And in a one-on-one fight, he’d take the SEALs over any bunch of freelance spies any day.
“I guess we should probably go after Tim, huh? If for no other reason than to get Emily’s ring back,” he said.
Eden didn’t answer. Instead, she lifted her nose higher in the air and gave a cute little sniff. “No need. Something tells me he’s on his way back here now.”
He would have asked what she meant, but just two men and a woman walked across the lawn with a handcuffed Tim. Travis wasn’t sure what was going on until he recognized one of the men coming his way.
“Captain Donovan?” he asked.
Well, damn. It sure as hell was.
“It’s just Landon now,” the dark-haired man said. “Good seeing again, Sergeant Dalton.”
Travis chuckled as he shook his hand. “It’s just Travis now. I got out of the army a few weeks ago.”
Landon nodded and glanced at the woman beside him with the long dark hair. “This is my partner, Ivy Halliwell. Wish we could hang around and chat, but we gotta get that guy,” he gestured to the wolf shifter still lying on the ground out cold, “out of here before he wakes up. How about we trade prisoners and catch up later?”
“Yeah, sure,” Travis said. “Sounds good.”
Landon and Ivy handed Tim off to Eden, then walked over and yanked the big wolf shifter off the ground. From the graceful way Ivy moved, it was obvious she was a shifter like Eden.
Travis glanced at Eden as Ivy and Landon walked off with the wolf shifter. “Something tells me they’re not turning that guy over to the cops.”
The other man who’d come with them answered. “Shifters and normal police procedures don’t really mix, so we’ll handle him ourselves.”
Eden smiled. “Travis Dalton, this is John Loughlin—my boss.”
Loughlin held out his hand. A fit man in his fifties, he had salt-and-pepper hair and a firm grip. “Nice to finally meet you.”
“You too,” Travis said.
She glanced at the older man. “I guess Kendra told you everything, huh?”
Loughlin nodded. “Once the computers identified the wolf shifter, a flag showed up on mine. Kendra filled me in on the details when I pressed her. I was on a helicopter with Ivy and Landon within the hour.” He smiled. “Why don’t we take Mr. Ainsley here back to the country club? I’m sure the police are here by now. After your sister gets married, we can talk.”
The man glanced at Travis as he spoke, regarding him with an interest that made him wonder exactly what Loughlin wanted to talk about.
* * * * *
Emily had been thrilled to get her ring, and quickly got the wedding back on track, even without a best man. She’d even gone so far as to make the police wait until the ceremony was over before letting anyone answer questions. This forceful side of Emily was new, but Eden thought it boded well for her success as a navy spouse.
By the time the ceremony was over, Eden, Travis, Jon, and Zane had answered most of the major questions. The moment Eden and Travis explained that Tim had been trying to sell classified navy documents to spies, the police had taken Tim into custody figuring the feds, the NSA, and NCIS were going to be all over this.
At least Tim had the decency to make sure everyone knew Brandon wasn’t involved. It turned out that Brandon had been downplaying the attack in the alley because he thought it was all related to Tim’s gambling problem. He’d thought the bad guys were there to collect on a gambling debt. Brandon figured he could let his friend borrow a few thousand dollars to pay off his debt and then no one would ever have to know about the gambling issues, meaning Tim would never have lose his security clearance.
“He never realized how deeply in debt I was,” Tim told the cops. “Giving away a few navy secrets seemed like the only way to get myself out of this. But when I realized how badly they wanted the information, I got greedy and figured they would give me even more. I was stupid, and it almost got Brandon killed in that alley.”
The wolf shifter’s two friends had been taken to the hospital under armed guard. Jon and Zane had left them alive, but not by much. The cops were just glad that two nuts with automatic weapons had been taken down without any innocents getting hurt. They didn’t even bother asking too many questions about why the former SEALs had been brought in as extra security for the wedding in the first place.
It wasn’t until after all the craziness was over and Eden had taken the requisite wedding pictures that John completely surprised her by coming over and asking Travis if he’d like to work for the DCO.
“I’m sure Eden has told you something about what we do, and I’d been planning on adding a cyber-expert to Eden’s personal security team for some time,” John said. “As you can imagine, it can be difficult to find the right mix of technical and tactical abilities, but you seem to fit the bill. You obviously work well with shifters, too, which makes integrating you into the team easy.”
Jon Rudnick had been disappointed when he found out that Travis wasn’t going to be working for GAPS, but he perked up a little when her boss led him aside, saying something about outsourcing certain intel work in different parts of the world. That definitely got the man’s attention.
Travis stared at her. “Did your boss just offer me a job on your team?”
Eden nodded, her pulse racing a mile a minute. “He did. Although this might be a good time to mention that the DCO has a no-fraternization policy among team members, which means we’re going have to act like we’re not sleeping together. Are you okay with that?”
Travis considered that. “I can handle it if you can. But are you sure John doesn’t already realize we’re together? He seemed like a pretty sharp guy, and I wasn’t trying to hide my feelings for when we were standing off to the side while you were waiting to take your turn with the wedding party for pictures.”
She remembered. The things Travis had whispered in her ear while nuzzling her neck had been enough to make her blush. “Oh, he almost certainly knows. He’s just not going to say anything unless we force him to. So no office PDAs.”
His mouth twitched. “It’s a stiff price, but I’m willing to pay it if it keeps me close enough to keep an eye on you. You’re kind of dangerous out there.”
“Only to the bad guys.” She smiled. “You ready to go in and do some dancing?”
He glanced at her dress, which hadn’t come through the encounter with the wolf shifter completely intact. “Sounds good. But if that dress starts to come off you, I won’t responsible for my behavior, even if our boss is watching.”
She laughed. “I’ve arranged for a guest suite here at the country club for the night. So if my dress starts to fall off, you can whisk me to room 1580, where you can take it off the rest of the way.”
Travis pulled her close and kissed her long and lingeringly on the mouth. “Let’s go dance. I want you out of that dress in the next two hours.”
Eden thought she could arrange that. She had the next week off and was going to make every minute of it count, starting tonight. Then she was going back to work at the DCO with the best new teamm
ate a shifter could ever ask for.
If you enjoyed HER SPECIAL ALPHA check out the rest of the Department of Covert
Operations in my X-OPS Series!
HER PERFECT MATE (X-OPS 1)
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HER LONE WOLF (X-OPS 2)
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HER WILD HERO (X-OPS 3)
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HER SECRET AGENT (an X-OPS Novella)
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Look for Book 4 in the X-OPS Series Coming March 2016!
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