Running Blind

by Cindy Gerard

  MISSION ACCOMPLISHED:

  High praise for New York Times

  and USA Today bestselling author

  CINDY GERARD

  and her scorching alpha hunks!

  “I’m hooked on Gerard’s tough-talkin’, straight-shootin’ characters.”

  —Sandra Brown

  “A true master!”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Slam-bang romantic suspense.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “Kicks romantic adventure into high gear.”

  —Allison Brennan

  “Just keeps getting better and better.”

  —Romance Junkies

  KILLING TIME

  Book One in the thrilling new One-Eyed Jacks series

  Nominated for the RT Book Reviews Best Romantic Suspense Award!

  “Cindy Gerard writes such fun books. Full of tons of action, witty lines and plenty of sexual tension, Killing Time totally lived up to my expectations.”

  —USA Today

  “A Gerard novel is always worth the time and money invested, and this one is no exception.”

  —RT Book Reviews (Top Pick!)

  “From the intensely captivating opening scene to the last tender moment, Gerard takes the reader on an emotionally complex yet action-packed roller-coaster ride of romance and conflict, capitalizing on both sexual and situational tension.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Danger-fueled romantic tension . . . [and] sizzling chemistry.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “The first chapter infuses sexual tension (and frustration) with exotic locales and a little spark of forbidden danger. It works so well in capturing readers’ attention that they are helpless but to dive right in.”

  —Under the Covers Book Blog

  “This book was everything I could have asked for. . . . Gerard really is unmatched for quality of characters and writing in the genre.”

  —Smexy Books

  “This story started off with a bang and continued throughout.”

  —The Book Nympho

  “I’ve been a LONGtime fan of Cindy Gerard’s work and this book more than lives up to her reputation as a master of building suspense and creating believable, three-dimensional characters that leave you both racing to reach the end and sorry to turn the last page. . . . I always have her latest book on pre-order.”

  —Writer Mom’s Blog

  THE WAY HOME

  A captivating stand-alone novel with some sizzling heroes you might recognize

  “A story readers can’t help but fall in love with.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Smart, romantic, exciting, and so emotionally satisfying. I hugged myself for hours after reading it. Cindy Gerard really knows how to bring it home!”

  —Robyn Carr

  “A really sweet read about second chances, finding love, and the path that leads you to your happily ever after. Gerard continues to impress me.”

  —Smexy Books

  “An interesting meditation . . . on the changing foundations of love. In many ways it challenges the first and only soul mate concept that is so prevalent.”

  —Dear Author

  “I anxiously await every new Cindy Gerard release. I’ve always thought there was nobody who wrote romantic suspense better, able to seamlessly blend romance and action while creating strong heroines and macho yet caring heroes.”

  —Fiction Vixen

  “Gerard is an author whose stories I always have an easy time falling into and thoroughly enjoying. . . . You can never go wrong with the Black Ops world.”

  —Happily Ever After-Reads

  “Gerard simply excels when it comes to writing action-packed scenes that are highly detailed and infused with passion and fun. Similarly, her heroes have been some of the hottest in RS that I’ve read.”

  —Under the Covers Book Blog

  Thank you for downloading this Pocket Books eBook.

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  To the loves of my life:

  Kyle, Eileen, Kayla, Blake, Lane, and Hailey.

  And, to Tom, for all the reasons I’ve told you and for all the reasons I can’t even put into words.

  The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

  —Thomas Jefferson

  Acknowledgments

  If ever a writer had a guardian angel, it’s me. Without my friend Joe watching over my shoulder and making sure I get all the technical “stuff” right, helping me manipulate the action part of my plot, and generally being there to aid in the creative process, this book wouldn’t have been completed.

  So thanks again to Joseph Francis Collins—a fine author in his own right—for being there with the wings and the halo, and for helping with the heavy lifting.

  Monday

  I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm.

  —Franklin D. Roosevelt

  1

  6:30 a.m., McLean, Virginia

  A trancelike calm kicked in, as it always did once she settled into her sniper’s “nest.” Oblivious to the cold, she peered through the scope of her rifle and smiled. From the sixth floor of the abandoned office building, she had a perfect sight line into Brewed Awakenings. And soon her targets would start to gather for their monthly breakfast.

  She’d been called a well-tuned killing machine, her reputation acquired from fifteen years of kill shots. But this was no ordinary contract kill; this was the mother of all kills. Her reputation in the global “work for hire” community was on the line, for one. Her newfound standing with the Russians, for another; they would pay well when she performed to their satisfaction. Even more important, however, was her personal objective: revenge.

  And she was primed and pumped to kill.

  • • •

  This early on a Monday morning was so far from Jamie Cooper’s comfort zone he felt as if he’d landed in a different zip code. All because of a woman who wouldn’t give him the time of day.

  Disgusted with himself, he sat at the large table the hostess led him to. He was the first to arrive; the members of DOD’s two off-the-books black ops teams weren’t due at Brewed Awakenings for a good fifteen minutes. Opening a menu, he sized up the twenty or so other customers. He’d give it a 99 percent probability that none of them represented a threat. Even off the clock, he never dropped full alert status.

  And right this moment, he was alert for one team member in particular: Rhonda “Bombshell” Burns.

  The new head computer analyst and security expert had thrown him way off his game. In the six months she’d been on board, the woman had single-handedly elevated the stereotype of “computer nerd” to “computer sexpot.” Taggart’s term, not his, but he damn sure agreed. The woman was a walking, talking wet dream.

  But God help the man who called her that to her face; her smackdown would be brutal. And hot.

  Get your head out of your ass and recalibrate, Coop.

  The Bombshell was strictly “look but don’t touch.” Not only was she his teammate, but she’d also made her total lack of interest in him crystal-clear.

  Yet here he sat, waiting to set eyes on her. And the woman barely spoke to him.

  How screwed up was that?

  If Taggart and Mike knew he’
d turned stupid over a woman, they’d laugh their asses off. Needle him about being a stalker. Want to check his temperature.

  Maybe they’d be right. Maybe he was sick—in the head. He’d actually set his alarm so he could watch her make her grand entrance. It was so high school. But her entrances were always grand—so he cut himself a little slack.

  Then he spotted her walking past the plate-glass windows. When she sashayed through the door, he nearly stopped breathing. It felt as if a combat boot had kicked him in the chest. Her cheeks were flushed pink with cold, her baby-blues sparkled, and her thick, glossy blond mane framed her face like the angel hair his mom used to drape on their Christmas tree.

  Except Rhonda Burns was no angel. As she slipped off her coat and hung it on the rack by the door, her skintight pink sweater, ass-hugging skirt, and nosebleed-­high heels conjured up thoughts that could send him straight to hell. He shifted in his chair because suddenly, his pants were a little too tight for comfort.

  He didn’t know where she got those soft, fuzzy sweaters, but he hoped she never ran out of them. And he hoped she never changed the way she dressed, the way she smelled, the way she walked, and the way she radiated confidence and sass and sensuality.

  With her luscious curves and “look all you want, enjoy, but don’t touch” attitude, she made his day every time she walked into a room. And now she was walking right toward his table.

  He could handle her; he had no doubt about that. But beside the fact that the Department of Defense would frown on any type of slap-and-tickle between teammates, the oh-so-tempting Rhonda would undoubtedly prove to be a massive complication. And he liked his personal life just the way it was: pie simple.

  But because he couldn’t help himself, he did his best to get a rise out of her now and then, just to feel the afterburn of her explosion.

  “Good morning,” she said crisply.

  To show that her frosty greeting hadn’t fazed him, he flashed her a smile, which she didn’t return.

  She smoothed a hand over her hair and gave a toss of her head that sent her long golden tresses flowing over one shoulder. Sitting regally on the chair he’d pulled out for her, she crossed one long leg over the other, then made the monumental effort of glancing at him. “A little early for you, isn’t it, Hondo?”

  Bada-bing.

  There was the needling he’d come to enjoy.

  “Good morning to you, too, Buttercup.” She hated cutesy nicknames as much as he hated being called Hondo.

  She dismissed him like a used napkin. “Make yourself useful. When they bring coffee, pour me a cup. I’ve got to go powder my nose.”

  Pretty darn sure that she just wanted to get away from him until more members of the team arrived, he deliberately cleared his throat. “Somebody forgot the magic word.”

  A disingenuous smile flashed, then disappeared. “Please.”

  “Your coffee will be my number one priority.”

  She turned away and, like every other man in the restaurant, he watched the sweet, deliberate sway of her hips as she walked toward the ladies’ room.

  2

  A rush of icy February air blew in as Bobby Taggart arrived. He glanced around, spotted Coop, and did a comical double take. Coop grinned and prepared for the flack the square-jawed, tough-as-nails Bronx native was bound to give him. His brown hair was military-­cut, his eyes were always watchful, and if the ink on his right forearm paying tribute to his fallen brothers hadn’t pegged him as a warrior, his Ironman build left no question. One look from those hard green eyes sent grown men scattering and women wondering if they should be fascinated or fearful.

  Yet Taggart could always make Coop laugh. Despite the fact that Coop was retired Marine and Taggart was retired Army Special Forces, they were best friends.

  Taggart reached the table and pulled out a chair. “So who lit a fire under your ass?”

  Coop gave his buddy the one-finger salute, grabbed one of the coffeepots the busboy had just brought, and poured them each a cup. “What? I can’t be the first one here for a change?

  “You? Early? It goes against all the laws of nature.” Taggart shrugged out of his worn leather jacket, hung it on the back of the chair, and sat down across from him. “And it hurts my heart to think that a pretty boy like you might not’ve gotten all your beauty sleep.”

  Taggart’s flack over Coop’s past as a model got seriously old. “I know something else that’ll make your head hurt,” Coop warned.

  “Your fist in my face if I don’t mind my own business?”

  Coop lifted his coffee cup in salute. “There ya go.”

  Brewed Awakenings was one of several places the two teams gathered once a month on an irregular rotation. Original brick walls, stained pine floors, and a shabby-chic décor made the place comfortable—not to mention that the coffee was the best he’d found outside of his own kitchen. The general public had no idea who they were or that their two units were the first line of human defense for homeland and international terrorist threats. Even so, they still varied venues and arrival and departure times as precautionary measures. It was all about security, mixed in with a healthy dose of Spec Ops paranoia, but come hell or hurricane, they kept their monthly breakfast date.

  Because even though they worked together day in and day out and all had lives outside of Uncle Sam’s domain, the deal was, they liked one another. To a man and a woman, all of them had ties to one another that only they could understand. And they needed these out-from-under-the-umbrella gatherings to stay connected.

  “Man, she’s something, huh?” Taggart said.

  Coop followed his gaze and saw Rhonda walking back toward the table.

  Combat boot. Direct hit. Solar plexus.

  Rhonda gave Taggart a big grin and an even bigger hug. “Aren’t you a fine sight on a cold Monday morning?” she drawled in a Georgia peach voice she reserved for people she liked—which explained why Coop heard it only in mixed company.

  “New shirt.” Taggart shot Coop a needling wink over Rhonda’s shoulder.

  “I noticed, and I like it.”

  Taggart beat Coop to the carafe. “Let me pour you some coffee, darlin’.”

  “Good to know I can count on someone.” The glance she shot Coop could have leveled a small building.

  He gave her a mock salute.

  Which she ignored, walking toward the door to greet more team members as they entered.

  “God, I love how she busts your balls,” Taggart said as they both watched Rhonda walk toward the new arrivals. “How does it feel to finally meet a woman who doesn’t automatically worship at the altar of your bed?”

  Coop cracked up. “Worship at the altar of my bed?”

  “Can’t decide if it’s that ugly face of yours,” Taggart speculated, slinging an arm over the back of his chair, “the smooth talk, or the sock you stuff in the front of your pants that attracts the ladies like sharks to chum.”

  So, okay. He didn’t exactly have a face that broke plates. He got a lot of long, lustful looks from the opposite sex. And yeah, sometimes he took them up on their offers.

  But he wasn’t a dick about it. He didn’t make promises he didn’t intend to keep, and he sure as hell didn’t invite most of the attention he got. But as he opened his mouth to tell Taggart to shove it, Rhonda and the others joined them.

  When she had settled back in and picked up her coffee, Taggart poured on the charm, making it clear how much it amused him that she was unaffected by Coop’s . . . sock.

  “Careful, the coffee’s really hot,” Taggart warned her.

  What was really hot was the woman who took pains to ignore him. And damn it, if she’d just flirt with him like she did with Taggart and the rest of the guys, he wouldn’t be in this fix now. But no. She had to give him all kinds of crap all the time.

  Well, she could pretend indifference until the
re were solar flares on the moon, but he’d caught her looking at him more than once. Looking a little perplexed, a little peeved, and maybe even a little turned on. He’d love to mine those cracks in her personal firewall to see what was going on inside her head—or maybe not.

  The truth was, she wound him up as tight as a recoil spring in a shotgun, which was a huge problem, because Mike had partnered them up next week to do security checks at a couple of Air Force bases.

  A week with the Bombshell. Alone.

  He glanced at her, all silken blond hair, big blue eyes, and tight sweater. He hadn’t told her yet about the field assignment; he’d do that back at the office. But he’d told himself plenty: she was hands off, and not merely because DOD wouldn’t approve. No, he’d keep his distance from the Bombshell because bombs exploded, and he didn’t want to get blown to hell.

  3

  She shivered with anticipation as she sighted down the rifle’s scope for perhaps the hundredth time since she’d set up the nest. The air was bitter cold, but adrenaline kept her blood pumping, sending heat to her extremities, keeping her fingers nimble as she made minute adjustments to the legs of the tripod mount.

  The Ruger M77 bolt-action was her new personal favorite. She loved the irony that it shot ammo similar to the M16 rifle that the U.S. military loved so much. And regardless of the range of almost three hundred yards, the cartridges she’d hand-loaded would ensure maximum destruction.

  She’d have made this hit free of charge, so it was icing on the cake that the Russians were paying her a king’s ransom. And it was no accident that they’d contacted her to take out one of the Department of Defense’s top covert tactical teams. She’d laid bread crumbs from Munich to Moscow, making certain they’d follow the trail straight to her and understand that she had the goods they needed and a product to sell.

  Her intricate planning had paid off. Yet another thing she owed to her mentor. He’d left her the means to this end, and the thought of finally exacting revenge for his death had her shaking with excitement.