by Misty Evans
Bastards.
Still petting Maggie with one hand, he closed off the black hole that sucked at him every time he thought of the terrorist group.
Bzzz-bzzz. The phone on Sabrina’s end rang again. It was Saturday night. A beautiful, smart, hip gal like her couldn’t possibly still be working this late on a Saturday night, could she?
“Conmeister?” Her voice was rough and sexy, like he’d woken her from a nap. He heard her yawn. “It’s nearly two a.m. What are you still doing at the main desk?”
God Almighty, he hated it when people called him nicknames—flashbacks to fifth grade and Derek Martin calling him Connie always made him want to punch a wall. But hearing any version of his name coming from Sabrina’s luscious mouth was heaven. She got a free pass, regardless of what she wanted to call him.
“What are you still doing in the lab?”
She chuckled. “Touché. What’s up?”
“SOS from Cal. He and B got home from Chicago but something’s wrong. I don’t know what. He must have thought his cell was compromised because he was speaking in code, but he used my name, which is like, I don’t know what. I think he was definitely shook up.”
She was fully awake now. “Oh, shit. What can I do?”
“Man the phones and watch Maggie for me. I’m gearing up and heading their way.”
Her voice was full of indignation. “No way! Not without me. Who did you call for backup?”
“There is no one. Everyone is working or out of town.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
Connor opened his bottom drawer and pulled out his Beretta PX4 Storm and checked the clip. Full. “With the addition of the San Diego and Chicago satellites, we’re short on staff. Literally, there’s just you and me in DC at this moment. We can’t leave the phones unmanned, so tag, you’re it.”
“Why don’t you call the cops?”
If Cal had thought the police could handle it, he would have dialed 911 himself. Whatever this was, he didn’t want them involved. “I’ve got to go.”
He hung up on her protest, punched the button to transfer incoming calls to the lab phone, told Maggie to stay, and headed for the weapons room.
Preparing for the enemy was challenging when you had no clue who the enemy was.
Pretend it’s a sleeper cell of 12 September. If you were taking them on, what would you bring?
A rocket launcher.
The biggest one he could carry, in fact.
SFI’s weapons room had plenty of firepower, but they did not, in fact, have any rocket launchers.
A shame, that. He mentally added it to his inventory list for next month.
Connor snatched a black duffel from a shelf and started throwing in grenades, a couple of H&K submachine guns, ammo, and a sweet sniper rifle he’d been dying to use.
He was strapping on a vest when Sabrina came skidding into the room in her socks. Her boots were in-hand, her hair flat on one side, totally sexy and tousled on the opposite.
Probably what she looked like when she first got up in the morning.
And damn, if her big brown eyes and that crazy hair didn’t make him hard.
“You’re not leaving without me, Conmeister.” She slipped on one boot—with a 3-inch black heel—jumping and hobbling on her other foot, and breathing heavy from her run to catch him. She was dressed from head to toe in red like always.
A deep burgundy red that totally clashed with her copper colored hair.
Connor tore his gaze away from her full lips and even fuller cleavage on display from the deep V of her silky shirt. She continued hopping on her foot as she pulled on the second high heel, the action jiggling her double-Ds and making his hard-on downright painful. “I’m totally leaving without you, Red.”
“Bullshit!” She snatched a bulletproof vest from the wall and shoved her arms through the holes. “You have no idea what you’re walking into. This is Beatrice we’re talking about!”
He slammed the cage shut on the submachine gun selection and locked it. “I’ll handle it, whatever it is.”
“Look,” she said, grabbing his arm. “I know I was just a chopper pilot and I never saw action like you did when I was in the Navy, but I know how to handle a gun. At least let me fly you to their house and set up a stakeout. I can have you there in fifteen. It will take you at least thirty by car.”
Fly? “Unless you have a magic carpet hiding under your lab coat, how are you going to fly me anywhere?”
Sabrina grinned, shrugging out of the lab coat and putting on the vest. “You know the helo pad on the U-Comm building at the end of the block? There’s an EC 145 that can cruise at 150 miles per hour easy. I happen to know the owner and we can use it, no questions asked.”
This woman in red was a mystery, but then, so were many of the people that worked for SFI. “You’re friends with the owner of one of the most expensive luxury helicopters available in the marketplace today?”
She grinned again. “More than friends, actually.”
Connor’s hard-on softened. “I don’t think your boyfriend will appreciate you taking his helo on a rescue mission.”
And if your boyfriend is a millionaire, why are you here working tonight?
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Sabrina said, grabbing a .38 mil from the handguns. “He’s my dad.”
THEY WERE IN the air, the Mercedes Benz EC 145 cruising like the high-end, beautiful helicopter it was. The night was dark, the city’s lights below them fading into the distance.
Sabrina Merinos was in heaven.
“You never answered me about calling the police,” she said into her headset. “If something’s happened to B, why aren’t we getting them involved?”
Connor rode shotgun, dressed from head to toe in black, his fingers fidgeting with his phone. He’d pulled up satellite imagery on his phone’s optimized mapping program and adjusted his mic. “The locals mean well, but they aren’t trained for Special Ops or the kind of fieldwork we do. They’re likely to end up hurt. Or worse. If Cal had wanted police involvement, he would have told me so.”
“Are you sure?”
His eyes slid over to her, then nervously back to the windshield, but it wasn’t annoyance she saw in them.
It was doubt.
His fist clenched on his thigh. “I’m sure,” he said. “Where are you putting the bird down?”
Sabrina loved flying at night. Loved flying, period. It had been too long and she hadn’t felt this type of freedom since her last flight before she’d been discharged and shipped back to the States. “There’s an open field approximately a thousand meters north of their place. I’ll set her down there and we can hike back.”
He went back to scanning his phone. “I will hike to Cal and Beatrice’s. You’ll stay with the helicopter.”
Whatever. There was no way she was letting him leave her behind. “Did you try calling Cal back?”
“He’s not answering.”
Stupid question. Of course, Connor had already tried that.
A no-answer could mean Cal was in hiding or it could mean something worse—like he couldn’t answer his phone, either because whoever was after Beatrice had caught or killed him.
And that meant they had Beatrice and the unborn baby.
Which meant…
Best not to go there.
Sabrina closed her eyes for half a second and focused on clearing the dark, horrible thoughts from her head. She had a tendency to do that—let herself get sucked into sticky, ugly muck that amped up her already too-high levels of anxiety. Next stop, panic attack.
Panic attacks and flying did not go well together.
Hence her discharge.
Flipping her lids open, she found Connor staring at her. The dashboard lights made his coffee brown eyes flash with gold as he narrowed his lids. “You okay?”
Panic attack instantly averted. How could she not feel calmer looking into his rugged face and those soulful eyes?
Although when he looked at her l
ike that her pulse did a funny hop and skip, and her mouth went dry. “I, uh…yep, all good.”
As the awkward moment passed, she pretended to be busy checking the instrument gauges, feeling a warm flush rising in her cheeks. “How come you never leave the office?” she asked. As long as she had him at her mercy, she was going to find out more about him. Ask him the questions constantly burning in her brain that she never seemed to find the right moment for.
His voice was modulated somewhat by the headset, but she still heard the incredulity in his tone. “What?”
“You never seem to leave the office, except for those support group meetings at the church.”
“How do you know about those?”
“The PTSD group? Everyone knows about them.”
…didn’t they?
From the look he was giving her, it was a touchy subject. With most veterans it was.
Time to shift gears. “You’re always at SFI headquarters, whether I’m coming or going. Do you have a clone?”
He relaxed a bit like she’d hoped, giving a small snicker that caused his lips to twitch in an almost smile. “I live upstairs.”
“No way.” She shot him a surprised look, even though she’d already figured it out. “You live at SFI headquarters?”
His expression turned sour. “Yeah, so?”
She’d flown plenty of SEAL teams in and out of hotspots for top-secret operations. They were a proud lot, and who could blame them? With their training and expertise, they were definitely the elite of the elite.
But score another one for her doofus team, she’d stepped on his toes yet again. Real smooth, Sabrina. How to fix it? “I think it’s cool. Some days, I wish I could live there.”
She glanced over in time to see him about to ask why, but he hesitated and his lips snapped shut. He resumed staring out the windshield.
Okay, so the drop-dead sexy, former SEAL riding shotgun didn’t want to get personal. She could respect that, even though she wanted to jump his bones. Which in Sabrina World meant knowing him on a personal level. Lots of intimate questions and hanging out sharing deep, dark secrets.
She wasn’t into hookups or one-night stands. Never had been. Too many guys in her youth had seen her last name and figured they could somehow increase their personal wealth and/or fame by riding her coattails straight to her father. Was it so ridiculous to think a guy might want to get with her just to be with her?
So yeah, she was a total sucker for fairy tales and Disney movies where two people fall in love—even when they were clearly from opposite worlds—and live happily ever after.
Unfortunately, she was no lost princess or damsel in distress. She was simply a science geek who loved to fly, occasionally had a panic attack, and seemed to have a particular penchant for getting herself into trouble.
Case in point—Connor McKenzie. The man himself was obviously trouble, with the secrets he so carefully guarded while keeping the whole place running with careless ease. All the men who worked for Rock Star Security and Shadow Force International had something ugly in their pasts. No biggie. Sabrina was no angel either.
But Connor wasn’t like the other men. He wasn’t a bodyguard, never went on missions out of the country. He stayed in the office, answered the phones, and did Beatrice’s bidding.
Not that he didn’t have some righteous skills with the copy machine, and his coffee was to die for, but…
There was a whole lot more to Connor than met the eye, from the dragon tattoo under his usual conservative, white, button-downs to his extensive knowledge of all the latest tech gadgets and weapons he stocked in the war room.
Was he a geek, too? Except his passion was technology and guns, instead of forensic science and helicopters?
“ETA four minutes,” she told him. “We’re almost there.”
“Your orders stand, Red.” He pocketed his phone, grabbing a different type of headset from his bag. One equipped with night vision goggles and a light. “Stay with the helo. I’ll radio you with the sitrep once I’ve determined the threat. If we need a hot extraction, I need you in position and ready to fly. Do you copy?”
God, she loved that he called her Red, but he’d made it clear he wasn’t interested in her, so it was probably better not to go gaga over him. “My Rock Star code name is 21 Pilots, sir,” she said, giving him a grin, along with a proper salute. “And by the way, I’m still coming with you.”
Chapter Three
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“WHERE IS CAL?” Beatrice said, sitting on the edge of her bed. She didn’t know what to do with herself. If she stood up and walked, the labor pains were too intense, making her want to lie down and curl into a ball. When she did lie down, her nerves were too agitated to stay still and she fought her way up to standing, her feet demanding she pace. “I need him.”
The bedroom was softly lit from the overhead lighting coming from the bathroom. She could smell the lavender oil Maria had put in the birthing tub’s warm water.
“He went to make you some chamomile tea,” Maria said, positioning herself at Beatrice’s feet. “How about a foot massage? It may help with the contractions.”
The last time Maria had touched her feet, she’d started the labor. “Will it make this process go any faster?”
“Maybe.” Maria’s smile was patient. “It can’t hurt.”
Her feet weren’t usually touchy and she wasn’t ticklish, but another contraction hit at the exact moment Maria grabbed her right foot and Beatrice jerked like a mule who’d been tazed. Her foot flew out, nailing Maria in the nose and sending the midwife sprawling onto her backside.
“Oh, crimeny,” Beatrice said, curling up from the pain. “I’m so…ugghh…sorry.”
Maria was holding her nose with one hand and waving off Beatrice’s apologies with the other. Blood seeped through her fingers. “It’s all right.” Her voice sounded nasally. “I’m okay.”
She hurried into the bathroom and Beatrice overheard water running in the sink and the search for a washcloth.
I almost knocked out my midwife.
Not exactly the way she’d planned things.
Gritting her teeth and rocking on the edge of the bed, she controlled her breathing like Maria had taught her and waited for the contraction to pass. Five…four…three…two…one. Time seemed to fold in on itself and Beatrice’s brain fought to make her body do what it wanted.
Losing battle there.
But the counting helped. Her overactive brain had something to focus on during each contraction while her body had a mind of its own.
Maria was saying something but her voice sounded distant and fuzzy, a radio on the wrong frequency. The ball of fire in Beatrice’s lower abdomen and back eased a bit and her spine unlocked slowly, one vertebra at a time. Sweat trickled down her neck and she hastily brushed it away, her skin hypersensitive.
Where is my husband?
She and Cal had been through everything together since they were kids. Although they’d struggled as married adults for a few years, mostly due to jobs that required they spend too many nights away from each other hiding darks secrets, now they were as close as ever.
That they both worked for SFI helped. Even though there were still plenty of nights spent apart, they no longer kept secrets from each other. The friendship that had begun in elementary school and bloomed into a romance in their teens was alive and hotter than ever as they waited for the arrival of the child Beatrice thought they’d never have.
Three miscarriages had once ruined her dreams of being a mother. They’d been the final straw in her and Cal’s marriage before she’d become a target of the US government.
Thank God Cal hadn’t signed the divorce papers.
While on the run from the assassin, they’d rekindled their love and she’d ended up pregnant once again. This child was a fighter, just like her. Just like Cal.
Trace was always telling her that miracles di
d happen. She didn’t much believe in miracles, but occasionally, evolutionary biology had a way of overcoming obstacles in the most beautiful way imaginable.
Pushing herself off the bed, Beatrice shuffled slowly toward the closed bedroom door. She didn’t want any damn chamomile tea. Mint—that’s what she wanted. Or that new organic honey ginger tea that Savanna had sent her.
“Where are you going?” Maria said from the bathroom door. She held a wet washcloth, spotted with blood, to her nose.
Damn. She’d almost made it out of the bedroom. “To find Cal and my tea.”
She wanted her husband to be with her while she labored. It might be a long, ugly process—and it wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate everything Maria was there to do—but she needed Cal’s reassurance. His simple presence. His love for her worked better than any foot massage or tub of water could to calm her nerves and give her confidence.
Her cognition and logic could out-think just about anyone or situation, giving her plenty of mettle. The only time she’d ever found herself unable to handle a situation had been when the CIA assassin had come after her. She’d needed Cal then and she needed him now.
Because at the moment, her brain was short-circuiting, her body a mutinous mass with a mind of its own. Seeing Cal, touching him, would give her balance. Fortitude.
God knew she could use a bit of that right now. She was about to finally become a mother.
Maria hustled to catch up. “Wait, let me help you.”
“Thanks, but I’ve got it.” And she did. The labor was intense, no doubt about that, but a short walk to the kitchen would give her a sense of control. “I might move slowly, but I can do it on my own. Tend to your nose.”
“No way are you walking down the hallway alone.” Maria took her arm. “We’ll go together.”
Their first attempt to get through the bedroom door didn’t work, Beatrice’s belly like a third person between them. Which, for all intents and purposes, it was. So Maria went first, pivoting to keep her hand on Beatrice’s arm, and then help her waddle through.
The hall light was on. Beatrice could see the lamp next to Cal’s chair in the living room where it threw a cozy glow on the old oak floors.