by Misty Evans
“Boy.” Beatrice shot him another death glare. “Our baby is a boy.”
God, she was stubborn. Always had been.
He loved that about her.
Around them, the summer night was in full swing. Tree frogs and night insects hummed and buzzed, calling to each other. An owl hooted in the trees across the road.
Cal had wanted to buy a house in the new subdivision half a mile west. Beatrice had insisted on this Tudor with a brick walkway and five-point-two acres of land. A willow graced the south side. A couple of apple trees and some wild roses dotted the slouching wooden fence in the backyard.
Cal had already used his smartphone app to turn on the outside lights and unlock the front door. One of the few upgrades he’d been able to get done in between assignments. “I don’t care if we’re having a raccoon, I’d rather we get inside to do so.”
Hunter sent him a look. “Rocking chair on three?”
Cal nodded, releasing his hold on Beatrice in order to lock arms with Hunter. “Rocking chair on three.”
Which in Shadow Force lingo stood for one…two…
Upsy daisy.
The men’s locked arms formed their own version of a chair, and they swept Beatrice’s legs out from under her, supporting her upper body as they lifted her off the ground.
She let out a startled cry and the midwife’s eyes went round. Ignoring the protests of both women, Cal and Hunter marched Beatrice up to the front door, where Cal managed to twist the knob and kick open the oak door.
The last time he’d carried Beatrice across the threshold had been after their second honeymoon only a few short months ago. Where had the time gone?
She’d fallen in love with the house the moment she’d set eyes on it. All Cal had seen was a money pit. The roof needed replacing, the chimney tuck-pointing, and the only thing remotely cool on the inside were the original wood floors.
But seeing Beatrice fall in love with the hundred-year-old house had bowled him over. She’d talked nonstop about remodeling each room, and to see his wife excited about putting down roots made him happy to sign his name on the mortgage papers.
Who would have guessed? Him with a mortgage, wife, and baby. What a difference a few months could make.
A floral arrangement sat on the wooden foyer table and one of Beatrice’s feet snagged a stem, knocking it over. Hunter, super soldier that he was, caught the vase before it spilled a single drop and righted the arrangement.
“Thank you,” Beatrice said to him, and then she laid her head on Cal’s shoulder. “Can you call Connor and have him bring Maggie home? I’ve missed her.”
Maggie, their dog, was probably living the highlife with Connor McKenzie at the SFI office, where he was dogsitting for them. The Lab had originally been Cal’s until she’d met Beatrice. Now Maggie stayed by B’s side 24/7. He was somewhat surprised his wife hadn’t taken Maggie on her trip to Chicago.
After a long estrangement, Beatrice had shown up at Cal’s boat and asked for his protection against an assassin. During their time on the run, they’d fallen in love all over again and managed to get the assassin to help them instead of killing B. In the end, Cal had stopped the president from dying and B had ended up pregnant.
Now they worked for Emit Petit. Beatrice ran the office, signing on clients and hovering over the men who made up Rock Star Security and, behind the scenes, those who also ran missions for Shadow Force. Cal was in charge of one of the Shadow Force teams that were much like the SEALs, though his time with the SEALs now seemed like a lifetime ago.
Beatrice beat weakly on his arm before he’d even cleared the kitchen. “Put me down, Cal.”
Her protest was as weak as her punch. Stubbornness and bravado could only carry you so far. She was physically in great shape, but everyone had limits.
He leaned over and kissed her temple. She was dead tired from her trip and the contractions. “There’s no shame in accepting help, B. Let us get you to the bedroom.”
“I’m not a frail old lady, and if I’m going to take care of our son and run SFI, I better be able to handle walking thirty feet to our bedroom.”
“You’re the strongest woman I know, honey.” It wasn’t a lie. He’d grown up with Beatrice, knew all the shit her mentally unstable, drug-addicted mother had put her through. He was constantly amazed at how adept Beatrice was. “Allowing Hunter and I to carry you to the bedroom will not lessen your willpower, tenacity, or determination to be Wonder Woman.”
Cal cocked his head to the right to signal Hunter the direction they were headed. Together, they carried Beatrice across the foyer, through the living room, and down the hall. Maria followed behind them, mute, but Cal could feel her displeased glare on his back.
Hunter managed to flip on the lights inside the bedroom door as they crossed the threshold. Cal had been gone for several days and seeing the unmade bed—Beatrice considered making it up a waste of time and energy—and smelling the light, floral perfume she used that permeated the room, made the tightness between his shoulder blades relax slightly.
Home. A good place to be.
As they started for the bed, Beatrice demanded they switch direction. “Take me to the bathroom,” she said. “I need to get out of these clothes.”
A few minutes later, Maria and Beatrice were shut away in the bathroom, Maria having waved Cal off to go make Beatrice a cup of tea. Cal had wrestled up a loose shirt of his for Beatrice to put on and he heard water running in the special tub he’d installed for the birth.
At first, he’d recoiled at the idea of B giving birth to their child in the water—the dangers seemed too great. But after she laid out the facts about home births and the benefits of the water helping labor, he’d had to go along. Seemed fitting that his kid would enter the world via water. He personally preferred being in water to walking on land.
Which made him miss his SEAL days all over again.
No way would he give up what he had now, though. A wife, a kid on the way, a great job that put many of his SEAL skills to use helping people who had no one else to turn to—those things all made him get out of bed every day with a sense of hope and determination.
Hunter had disappeared after helping Cal deposit Beatrice on the bathroom window seat. Now that she was home and in the midwife’s hands for the moment, Cal rubbed his eyes and went to find him.
Savanna Bunkett, Hunter’s fiancee, probably wanted to see him. The man had been with Beatrice 24/7 for nearly three weeks, and had gone on her mission to Chicago. Even though Hunter was a super soldier, he had to be tired. Burned out, too, from Beatrice’s raging hormones and downright stubbornness.
Cal almost felt sorry for him.
He found Hunter in the darkened front room that Beatrice referred to as the formal living room, standing at the bay window and staring out at the street. Hunter didn’t turn to acknowledge Cal, even though there was no way Cal could sneak up on him. Hunter’s hearing was as sharp as an eagle’s; he had some kind of sixth sense as well, being able to anticipate a person’s moves before they even made them.
“I’ve engaged the security system,” Hunter said. “How is she?”
“She’s in good hands.” Cal plopped down in his favorite lounger. “You can go now. I appreciate the help, man.”
“I think it would be fortuitous if I stay.”
“Fortuitous? Jesus, Hunter, you’ve definitely been around B too much lately. You’re starting to sound like her.”
“She does rub off on one after awhile, but, sir, I do think I’ll hang around for now.”
Sir. Cal felt old when Hunter called him that. They weren’t that far apart in age. “Savanna may not appreciate it.”
“I’m sure she won’t. She…misses me.”
The man still stared out at the night, his hands behind his back as if he were at ease in a military lineup. His body posture looked relaxed—as relaxed as Hunter ever looked, except when meditating. He was still staring down the block with an intensity that made Cal uneasy.
Maybe it was some kind of standing meditation. “I don’t want Savanna any more pissed at me than she already is after I put you on bodyguard duty.” Because Cal’s duties had caused him to be gone so much recently, he’d pulled Hunter from his own SFI team and made him Beatrice’s personal, one-man security system. “I’m here for B now. If anything goes wrong, I’ll call an ambulance to come and take her to the hospital.”
“If I’m not mistaken, something is about to go wrong.” Hunter glanced over his shoulder at Cal. “Not with the baby, but with us.”
Cal sat up, his booted feet hitting the wooden floor under him. “What?”
“Did you notice that black van parked at the end of the cul-de-sac when we pulled in?”
No, he hadn’t. He’d been too focused on Beatrice and her labor pains.
They only had two neighbors, each house a generous distance from the other on a dead-end road. Woods and hills ran around their small lots, and while they were only a few minutes outside of the town proper, it felt like they were deep in the country.
Cal edged up to the bay window, and cranked his neck so he could look the direction Hunter now pointed. The end of the road was a good quarter mile away, but there it was—the black van, just like the soldier said. “What about it?”
“I believe we’re under surveillance,” Hunter said. “I did a quick sweep of the house and found no bugs or cameras, but…”
Hunter paused, tilted his head slightly, and all of Cal’s instincts went berserk.
“But what?” he growled, already reaching for the gun he kept hidden under the side table near the door.
“I believe we’re about to have company.”
Sure enough, before the words were fully out of his mouth, the black van rolled forward.
Chapter Two
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CONNOR MCKENZIE WOKE to the phone blaring in his ear.
Probably because he was sleeping on top of it.
Drooling on it as well, because when he jerked back, his instincts automatically directed his hand to the handset, and he found slime all over the black SFI office phone.
Gross.
Of course, since he’d been working 24/7 with no time off, he hadn’t seen his bed since zero dark thirty-seven…no, make that eight, since the clock on the phone’s readout said it was after midnight.
Rubbing his eyes as the phone blared again, he pushed up off of his desk and cleared his throat. Near the desk, Maggie raised her big, black head and looked at him with her perpetually sad Labrador eyes.
Being the office manager for Rock Star Security came with a lot of perks. RSS was the front for Shadow Force International, where former SEALs roamed the hallways, covertly saving the free world on a daily basis. Connor was constantly surrounded by men he respected and who respected him. They understood each other; understood what each other had been through. Add to that the fact Beatrice let him bunk two floors up in an office he’d converted to a bedroom, and it was the best home he’d ever had. The bedroom wasn’t much, but it beat living out of his car.
Maggie was another perk. He loved that dog. Meeting his eyes, she wagged her tail with a solid thump-thump-thump against the floor.
She was always up for an adventure, and good to have around because of his PTSD. She didn’t have any training, but Cal had told Connor she’d saved his mental health many times. The dog had kept Connor from sinking into a dark hole on more than one occasion as well.
Technically since he lived upstairs, Connor could go home anytime he wanted, even though no one was in the office to man the phones but him. He and Rory had set up a system that transferred all calls to Connor’s phone in his bedroom when he quit for the day or needed down time. Beatrice didn’t trust an answering service with the particular calls that might come in from Rock Stars or SFI operatives.
Connor opened his tired eyes and caught sight of the blinking button on the phone as the damn thing continued to ring insistently. Red, not orange. The private line Emit had for the managers to use when they needed immediate assistance.
Shit. Grabbing one of the napkins from the pizza he’d half eaten earlier, he wiped off the drool from the handset and punched the button under the red, blinking light. “This is Slash. How may I direct your call?”
SFI rules were that they never identified the business when answering on the off chance it was a wrong number or one of them had been compromised. Beatrice was strict about that. While the cell phones every employee used were secure, breaches could happen. All personnel used code names and had to answer a security question before discussing any Rock Star or SFI business.
Just in case, Beatrice always said.
Connor had the feeling he didn’t want to know what just in case meant. He also didn’t want to know what might happen if he failed her.
“Con, we’re in trouble.”
Connor sat straight up, nearly knocking over his Coke. The voice on the other end was low and guarded, and the person had already broken protocol.
But it was a voice he knew well, and a person he definitely didn’t want to fail to help. If anything, he hoped to get on the guy’s SFI squad one of these days. “Sir? Please state your security clearance code.”
“Fuckin’ A, that’s my security code,” Cal Reese quipped. “We need help. We need reinforcements.”
“Are you in imminent danger?”
“Yes. The queen bee is in the hive and she is in imminent danger.”
“But sir, there are no…”
The line when dead.
“…reinforcements,” Connor finished.
He stared at the handset. The queen bee was Beatrice. The hive was her and Cal’s home.
Beatrice was in imminent danger.
At home.
From whom? From what?
Fuck on a stick. Connor dropped the handset into its cradle, his guts turning over on themselves.
Emit, Rory, Jax, and Colton were all still in Chicago, opening the new Central Division Rock Star headquarters. Obviously, Cal, Beatrice, and Trace Hunter were back, but the rest of the Rock Stars and SFI operatives were working, many of them out of the country.
RS bodyguards couldn’t simply leave their clients. Ditto for the SFI operatives who were undercover on assignments at all four corners of the earth.
Connor started to lift the handset again and call Miles, but no, Miles was in San Diego, once more running the West Coast SFI office.
Which meant he was out of options.
Zeb. Yeah, he’d call the old spymaster…
His out-of-options list grew. Zeb had gone to Chicago with Beatrice. Connor hadn’t heard from him. Had he come back with Cal and the others or stayed in Chicago?
A burning sensation started in his gut while icy pinpricks attacked the base of his spine. Both spread like blood from a gunshot wound, making his body tremble and his breathing come in short, barely-there intakes.
Beatrice was in danger. Real danger if Cal was ignoring protocol and calling him for backup. Callan Reese was a former SEAL who’d saved the president in front of the entire world.
Beatrice’s personal bodyguard was Trace Hunter. Another former SEAL with superhuman powers. The guy belonged in a Marvel comic book for realz.
If both of them couldn’t handle whatever trouble Beatrice was in, well, then… How the hell was he supposed to?
His hand shook as he jammed his fingers through his hair. Get up, he told himself, but he couldn’t make his legs move. They were frozen stiff.
Not now! He couldn’t let his PTSD handcuff him.
But then PTSD was a righteous wanker, as Miles’s fiancee, Charlotte, always said. It particularly liked to hit when you needed a clear head the most.
Breathe. Beatrice was always telling him to take a deep breath and focus on one thing. A trick she’d learned from Hunter.
It didn’t always work, especially when Connor woke in the middle of the night s
weating and gasping for air after one of his night terrors. The only thing that worked then was a bottle of Smirnoff and losing himself in his secret investigation into 12 September.
Grabbing the handset, he dialed Zeb, hoping against hope the old man was back in DC. Waiting for the call to connect, he tapped his foot under the desk. SFI headquarters was dark beyond the bubble of pale yellow his desk lamp threw off. Even his computer had gone dark after he’d fallen asleep.
Bracing the handset between his ear and shoulder, he woke up the computer and started shutdown procedures. He’d never had to do it before and another moment of indecision and self-doubt caught him with his fingers hovering over the keyboard.
He never left the office unless his backup, usually Rory or the new lab tech, Sabrina, was available to answer phones and handle emergencies.
Zeb’s phone rang three times. Voicemail answered. Connor left a quick SOS and asked Zeb to call him back.
What now? Should he gear up and head to Cal and Beatrice’s?
What about the baby?
If anything happened to any one of them…
The icy sensation attacked his toes again, spread up to his calves.
Breathe…
Maggie whimpered, drawing his gaze. She sat beside the desk, tail rapping the floor and stuck her head in his lap.
There was no time to pet the dog, but his hand had a mind of its own, naturally going to Maggie’s head and rubbing her sleek, soft fur. His breathing resumed a semi-normal in-out rhythm after a moment and his mind re-engaged.
Grasping at straws, he dialed the lab extension, hoping against hope that Sabrina might somehow still be in the building. He’d never seen her leave—one of the reasons he routinely stayed at the desk so late every night was for that very reason. He enjoyed watching her sexy legs in those righteous high-heeled boots walk past his desk every evening. He loved her red hair and the way she teased him about being a camo-wearing receptionist, even though the term ‘receptionist’ made his ego smart.
From big, tough, badass SEAL to a useless receptionist. His life had gone to hell, thanks to 12 September.