The fact that she’d actually moved here still stunned him, humbled him. In fact, she’d embraced the adventure of it all, as he should have known she would. After seeing Misty through her surgery and recovery, Sunny had landed a job at the Patrick AFB gym and even found a tiny bungalow to rent, tucked away in a marshy cove. Nothing here would be as isolated or open as Alaska, but she assured him an ocean view provided some of the vastness her pioneer soul craved.
One shuffle at a time along the cargo deck, he moved forward as they gathered gear and made their way toward the back ramp. Anticipation hummed inside him as tangibly as the idling jet engines. He ached to hold her, catch the scent of her hair, the taste of her. They’d spent every day together before he deployed, but still had spent eight times as many days apart as with each other.
They’d done their best to stay connected, talking and cyberdating via Skype, and true to his word, he’d stuck to webcam, face-to-face discussions where they’d actually learned a lot about each other—beyond where to touch to drive her over the edge fastest. Although he was looking forward to resurrecting that knowledge the second they got to her bungalow.
As much as he’d missed sleeping with her, he most regretted not being with her during all the massive changes in her life. Not everything that had come into the community via email had been a lie. The surgeon Misty had communicated with was real and the offer to perform her surgery at his teaching hospital had been valid. It hadn’t been completely free by a long shot, but she had her hearing back. She and Flynn had decided to move back home, raise her nephew, and lead the community in rebuilding with a more open environment.
Not that a mountainside on the Aleutian Islands was ever going to be a vacation playground. But there would most definitely be watchful eyes on that little off-the-grid village from now on.
The records recovered from the boat wreckage had rocked the intelligence community. He was privy to just the tip of the iceberg, and only that much because Lasky needed help connecting some dots. Asking Wade sat better with the agent than letting Sunny in on such explosive, top-secret information. Wade was still rocked to his boots over learning Brett Livingston had been aiding Russian mob groups smuggling terrorist spies into the U.S. through Alaska. Deputy Rand Smith had been his hired assassin. Sunny had been that close to death so many times. That bastard Livingston had cut a deal to avoid the death penalty. Already over a dozen arrests had been quietly made, all prior members of Sunny’s community. She and the rest of the village would never know the full extent of how horribly they’d been manipulated.
For the best, in his opinion. Sunny already had enough pain to carry around, with her brother still missing.
Wade’s boots thudded down the metal ramp and finally the bottlenecked human traffic jam eased. He stepped out onto the tarmac, searching the masses behind the roped off area until finally he saw her.
Sunny.
Her hair loose and lifting in the wind, she wore a floaty green dress and a smile brighter than the Florida rays. A pink stripe gleamed in her hair these days and he loved her unpredictability. Hell, he just loved her.
Dropping his gear, Wade double-timed toward her. The ropes gave way and things got more than a little chaotic. He sidestepped a family of five huddle-hugging and a young couple crying buckets.
He found Sunny just as she found him, meeting him halfway. Before he could speak she was in his arms and he wasn’t sure who was holding tighter. His eyes closed and for the most awesome second he could remember, he just breathed in the scent of her hair that somehow still carried the crisp perfume of wide-open Alaska spaces. The sound of the band and other reunited couples faded away.
Cradling her face in his palms, he kissed her, then kissed her again because he could, and that was something he did not take for granted. Words became jumbled in between, but no doubt they were on the same page. I love you. I missed you. God, I’ve waited so long to hold you again.
A jolt against his leg finally hauled his attention back to the crowded runway. He looked down to find Chewie head-butting his leg, demanding equal time.
“Well hello, big guy. Sorry I didn’t see you there at first.” Wade dropped to his knees, scratching the dog behind his ears. “Thanks for taking such good care of her while I was away, pal.”
The malamute mutt garbled a half-howling response.
A second dog peeked its head around Sunny’s leg. Now that, he hadn’t expected.
Laughing, Wade patted the wirehaired scrap on a leash and looked up at Sunny. “Who’s this fella?”
Sunny scooped up the little terrier mix of some sort. “This is Princess Leia. Or Princess, for short.” She straightened the dog’s patriotic bandanna. “Your mother responded so well to Chewie when I flew out to meet her, your father and I thought a small lapdog might be a good idea. He asked me to pick out a good candidate and suggested we bring it to her.”
That she would reach out to his family on her own, that she would find a way to give his mother comfort… So much emotion welled up inside him he cleared his throat, twice, before he could push words free. “You’re too amazing, do you know that?”
“You’re not a slouch yourself there, superhero.” She pressed a hand to his chest, then his neck, his cheek, as if she couldn’t get enough of touching him in the flesh.
He folded his hand over hers and pressed it to his heart, which damn near thumped through his chest just because he stood next to her. “I don’t take for granted how difficult this move must have been for you.”
“Thank you. I appreciate you saying that.” She sidled closer, a glint of promise in her hazel eyes. “And you can show me just how grateful you are once we get back to my place.”
“Roger that, pretty lady. I’ve got you covered.”
Acknowledgments
While reading an article in National Geographic about kayaking in the Aleutian Islands, I was completely fascinated by this region that Russian missionaries labeled “the place that God forgot.” Upon further research, I realized the Aleutian Islands have a long and fascinating history, in spite of their sparse population. I knew I had found the perfect setting for a book bubbling to life in my brain. While the story may have been inspired by an article and its amazing photographs, the people and the towns I have written about are completely fictional. In telling their tale, I hope to have captured the vast Alaska spirit and the breathtaking bravery of elite pararescuemen. In my hope of doing so, I have had the generous help of many. However, any mistakes, inaccuracies, poetic license, overall stretching the realm of possibility, rests completely on my shoulders!
Thank you, Deb Werksman, a gifted editor with endless energy and wit. I’ll be forever grateful for the day you said, “I have this idea…” It’s a delight to work with you and the entire Sourcebooks team. Barbara Collins Rosenberg, my longtime agent and trusted champion, I appreciate all you do to keep me focused, steady—and under contract. Sending a huge shout-out of gratitude to my author peeps, Joanne Rock and Stephanie Newton. I don’t know what I would do without your brilliant critiques, genius brainstorming, and amazing taste in junk food.
Technical advisors rock! And I have been truly blessed to hear the daring PJ tales shared by former air force pararescueman Dr. Ronald Marshall, DC. And as always, I would be lost without my own air force aviator husband, Robert, who is always ever ready with brainstorming help and fact-checking reads. Thank you both for your brave and selfless service to our country! Much gratitude goes to Karen Tucker, RN, who so generously offered her medical knowledge and eagle eye for detail. Thanks also to my go-to pals for insider tips on Alaska living, Leah Marie Brown and Patricia Marshall Brow.
Most of all, thank you to my precious children, Brice, Haley, Robbie, and Maggie, for your love and patient restocking of my Diet Cokes during deadlines. And as always, all my love to my hero husband, Rob.
About the Author
USA Today bestseller Catherine Mann has won both the prestigious RITA Award and Booksellers’ Best Award. With
over two million books in print, her work has been released in more than twenty countries. Catherine resides on the Florida coast with her aviator husband, their four children, and an ever-growing menagerie of pets. For more information: http://www.catherinemann.com
Read on for an excerpt from
Hot Zone
Book 2 in the Elite Force series
Coming December 2011
From Sourcebooks Casablanca
Chapter 1
The world had caved in on Amelia Bailey. Literally.
Aftershocks from the earthquake still rumbled the gritty earth under her cheek, jarring her out of her hazy micronap. Dust and rocks showered around her. Her skin, her eyes, everything itched and ached after hours—she’d lost track of how many—beneath the rubble.
The quake had to have hit at least seven on the Richter Scale. Although when you ended up with a building on top of you, somehow a Richter scale didn’t seem all that pertinent.
She squeezed her lids closed. Inhaling. Exhaling. Inhaling, she drew in slow, even breaths of the dank air filled with dirt. Was this what it was like to be buried alive? She pushed back the panic as forcefully as she’d clawed out a tiny cavern for herself.
This wasn’t how she’d envisioned her trip to the Bahamas when she’d offered to help her brother and sister-in-law with the legalities of international adoption.
Muffled sounds penetrated of jackhammers and tractors. Life scurried above her, none of whom seemed to have heard her shouts. She’d screamed her throat raw until she could only manage a hoarse croak now.
Time fused in her pitch black cubby, the air thick with sand. Or disintegrated concrete. She didn’t want to think what else. She remembered the first tremor, the dawning realization that her third floor hotel room in the seaside Bahamas resort was slowly giving way beneath her feet. But after that?
Her mind blanked.
How long had she been trapped? Forever, it seemed, but probably more along the lines of half a day while she drifted in and out of consciousness. She wriggled her fingers and toes to keep the circulation moving after being immobile so long. Every inch of her body screamed in agony from scrapes and bruises and heaven only knew what else since she couldn’t move enough to check. Still, she welcomed the pain that reassured her she was alive.
Her body was intact.
Forget trying to sit up. Her head still throbbed from trying that. The ceiling was now maybe six inches above where she lay flat on her belly. Again, she willed back hysteria. The fog of claustrophobia hovered, waiting to swallow her whole.
More dust sifted around her. The sound of the jackhammers rattled her teeth. They seemed closer, louder with even a hint of a voice. Was that a dog barking?
Hope hurt after so many disappointments. Even if her ears heard right, there had to be so many people in need of rescuing after the earthquake. All those efforts could easily be for someone else a few feet away. They might not find her for hours. Days.
Ever.
Still, she couldn’t give up. She had to fight to the end. If not for herself, then for the little life beside her, her precious new nephew. She threaded her arm through the tiny hole between them to rub his back, even though he’d long ago given up crying, sinking into a frighteningly long nap. His back rose and fell evenly, thank God, but for how much longer?
Her fingers wrapped tighter around a rock and she banged steadily against the oppressive wall overhead. Again and again. If only she knew Morse code. Her arm numbed. Needle-like pain prickled down her skin. She gritted her teeth and continued. Didn’t the people up there have special listening gear?
Dim shouts echoed, like a celebration. Someone had been found. Someone else. Desperation clawed up her throat.
Time ticked away. Precious seconds. She clutched her left hand around the rock, her right hand around the tiny wrist of the child beside her. Joshua’s pulse fluttered weakly against her thumb.
Desperation thundered in her ears. She pounded the rock harder overhead. God, she didn’t want to die. There’d been times after her divorce when the betrayal hurt so much she’d thought her chance at finally having a family was over, but she’d never thrown in the towel. Damn him. She wasn’t a quitter.
Except why wasn’t her hand cooperating anymore? The opaque air grew thicker with despair. Her arm grew leaden. Her shoulder shrieked in agony, pushing a gasping moan from between her cracked lips. Pounding became taps… She frowned. Realizing…
Her hand wasn’t moving anymore. It slid uselessly back onto the rubble strewn floor. Even if her will to live was kicking ass, her body waved the white flag of surrender.
***
Master Sergeant Hugh Franco had given up caring if he died five years ago. These days, the Air Force pararescueman motto was the only thing that kept his soul planted on this side of mortality.
That others may live.
Since he didn’t have anything to live for here on earth, he volunteered for the assignments no sane person would touch. And even if they would, his buds had people who would miss them. Why cause them pain?
Which was what brought him to his current snowball’s-chance-in-hell mission.
Hugh commando-crawled through the narrow tunnel in the earthquake rubble. The light strapped to his helmet sliced a thin blade through the dusty dark. His headset echoed with chatter from above. Familiar voices looking after him and unfamiliar personnel working other missions scattered throughout the chaos. One of the search and rescue dogs aboveground had barked his head off the second he’d sniffed this fissure in the jumbled jigsaw of broken concrete.
And now, he burrowed deeper on the say so of a German shepherd named Zorro.
He half listened to the chatter in one ear, with the other tuned in for signs of life in the devastation. Years of training honed an internal filter that blocked out communication not meant for him.
“You still okay down there, Franco?”
He tapped the talk button on his safety harness and replied, “Still moving. Seems stable enough.”
“Says the guy who parachuted into a minefield on an Afghani mountainside.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Somebody had to rescue that Green Beret who’d gotten his legs blown off. “I’m good for now and I’m sure I heard some tapping ahead of me. Tough to tell, but maybe another twenty feet or so.”
He felt a slight tug, then loosening to the line attached to his safety harness as his team leader played out more cord.
“Roger that, Franco. Slow and steady man, slow and steady.”
Just then he heard the tapping again. “Wait one, Major.”
Hugh stopped and cocked his free ear. Tapping for sure. He swept his light forward, pushing around a corner and saw a widening cavern that held promise. He inched ahead, aiming the light on his helmet into the void.
The slim beam swept a trapped individual. Belly to the ground, the person sprawled with only a few inches free above. The lower half of the body was blocked. But the torso was visible, covered in so much dust and grime he couldn’t tell at first if he saw a male or female. Wide eyes stared back at him with disbelief, followed by wary hope. Then the person dropped a rock and pointed toward him.
Definitely a woman’s hand.
Trembling, she reached, her French manicure chipped, nails torn back and bloody. A gold band on her thumb had bent into an oval. He clasped her hand quickly to check the thumb for warmth and a pulse.
And found it. Circulation still intact.
Then he checked her wrist, heart rate elevated but strong.
She gripped his hand with surprising strength. “If I’m hallucinating,” she said, her raspy voice barely above a whisper, “please don’t tell me.”
“Ma’am, you’re not imagining anything. I’m here to help you.”
He let her keep holding on as it seemed to bring her comfort—and calm—while he swept the light over what he could see of her to assess medically. Tangled hair. A streak of blood across her head. But no gaping wounds.
He
thumbed his mic. “Have found live female. Trapped, but lucid. More data after I evaluate.”
“Roger that,” McCabe’s voice crackled through.
Hugh inched closer, wedging the light into the crevice in hopes of seeing more of his patient. “Ma’am, crews are working hard to get you out of here, but they need to stabilize the structure before removing more debris. Do you understand me?”
“I hear you.” She nodded, then winced as her cheek slid along the gritty ground. “My name is Amelia Bailey. I’m not alone.”
More souls in danger. “How many?”
“One more. A baby.”
His gut gripped. He forced words past his throat clogging from more than particulates in the air. “McCabe, add a second soul to that. A baby with the female, Amelia Bailey. Am switching to hot mic so you can listen in.”
He flipped the mic to constant feed, which would use more battery but time was of the essence now. He didn’t want to waste valuable seconds repeating info. “Ma’am, how old is the baby?”
“Thirteen months. A boy,” she spoke faster and faster, her voice coming out in raspy croaks. “I can’t see him because it’s so dark, but I can feel his pulse. He’s still alive, but oh God, please get us out of here.”
“Yes, ma’am. Now, I’m going to slip my hand over your back to see if I can reach him.”
He had his doubts. There wasn’t a sound from the child, no whimpering, none of those huffing little breaths children made when they slept or had cried themselves out. Still, he had to go through the motions. Inching closer until he stretched alongside her, he tunneled his arm over her shoulders. Her back rose and fell shallowly, as if she tried to give him more space when millimeters counted. His fingers snagged on her torn shirt, something silky and too insubstantial a barrier between her and tons of concrete.
Pushing further, he met resistance, stopped short. Damn it. He grappled past the jutting stone, lower down her back until he brushed the top of her—
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