Lori glanced at Avery, before her gaze found Brad again, as she licked her lips. “Cameron’s starting MARSOC training in three weeks at Camp Lejeune. When he’s done and finds out where he’s being assigned, I’ll be moving there with him.” MARSOC—Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command—was the Marines’ equivalent of the Army’s Delta Force and the Navy’s SEALs. They were the best of the best and just as badass as their counterparts.
There was a long pause as Lori’s words slowly registered in Brad’s mind. His eyes narrowed. “Moving there? As in moving in with him? Possibly across the country?” She nodded. “And your mother knows about this? Approves of it?”
“Yes; she likes Cam a lot. I’m twenty-four now—most of my friends have moved out of their parents’ house and a few have already gotten married. Mom and Richie have their own lives to lead—they want to do a lot more traveling and stuff—and it’s time for me to move on and do what feels right. I love Cam. We’ve already talked about marriage but want to wait until after he’s done with his training. Once we know where he’s being assigned, I’ll check out the shops around there—with my experience, I’ll have no trouble finding a job. Eventually, I want to open my own place, but I’ll have to build up a new clientele list and reputation there first.”
Silence fell over the table as Cameron returned, his confused gaze going from one mute person to the next, clearly trying to figure out what he’d missed but too polite to ask. Crossing his arms, Brad cleared his throat. It seemed as if he’d come to a decision—albeit reluctantly. “Um, Cameron. The . . . uh . . . ladies mentioned earlier they wanted to do some shopping tomorrow. I don’t know about you, but that’s definitely not my thing.”
His back ramrod straight, Cam shook his head once. “Definitely not mine either, sir. I avoid it whenever possible.”
“Good. Then why don’t you and I go check out those charter boats and see what kind of fish they’ve been bringing in, hmm? Maybe head out for a few hours and catch a few ourselves.”
A genuine smile spread across the younger man’s face. “That sounds great, sir.”
Brad cleared his throat again and glanced at Avery, who gave him an encouraging dip of her chin. He turned back to Cam. “I think you can knock off the ‘sir.’ Feel free to call me Brad.”
The Marine’s eyes widened a bit in surprise. “Thank you, sir . . . I mean, Brad. I appreciate that.”
Rolling his lips inward, he nodded. “Okay. Good. Now that that’s settled, who’s up for dessert?”
The heavy intensity that had been hanging over the table lifted as shoulders relaxed and the conversation changed to lighter topics. While splitting a piece of cheesecake with Lori, the hairs on Avery’s neck stood up. Once again, she felt eyes on her. She’d had the same on and off vibes yesterday and today, but she still hadn’t located the source. Whoever it was, he or she was good at blending into their surroundings.
Placing her napkin and fork on the table, Avery stood. Brad gave her a probing gaze. “Everything okay?”
She smiled down at him. “Everything’s fine. I’m just going to use the ladies’ room.” When his brow furrowed slightly, she knew he’d heard the mild tension in her tone, but he didn’t otherwise acknowledge it. The two of them had worked undercover for years and both were able to appear relaxed and unaffected during times of uncertainty and stress—to most people, that is.
Striding across the dining room, she relied on her acute peripheral vision to study everyone in the room. As she passed the bar, instead of looking at the patrons’ backs, she eyed them in the reflection of the mirror that took up most of the wall behind the rows of liquor. The gazes of several people met hers, but there were two men who nabbed her attention. Both were of Asian descent, which, in itself, didn’t raise any alarms, but one man’s eyes hardened while the other man glanced away quickly, as if he’d been caught looking. They may have just waved a red flag in her face, so maybe they weren’t as good as she’d originally thought.
Avery maintained a straight route to her destination—the ladies’ room—following two other women in. Whoever the men who’d been watching her were, they were obviously on a surveillance detail, and Avery was positive she was their target. The question was why. Once the door closed behind her, she hurried into a stall and pulled her cell phone out of her small crossbody purse. She quickly typed out a text to Kenny Reardon—geek extraordinaire. He was one of the hackers employed by Deimos with top-secret government clearance. He was also a sweet kid in his midtwenties who she’d come to adore like an adopted son. After Haven had landed in Texas, while recovering from being shot protecting Kenny, he’d asked for a transfer from California to be near her. Since the geek could work behind a computer desk anywhere in the world, it hadn’t been a problem. The property Deimos had purchased for Haven to live on, after she’d made the transition from field agent to communications and research tech, had a main house and one small guest house that Avery lived in. They’d added on to the latter and made a one-bedroom apartment for Kenny with a technology setup that would give any computer genius an orgasm just looking at it.
After rereading her text, Avery hit send.
A: Need favor. Hack resort’s security feeds. Zero in on bar next to dining room.
Less than five seconds ticked by before she got a response.
K: ?
K: u’r on va-ca
A: Just do it, pls
K: 1 sec
Leaning against the stall’s partition, she tapped her nails on the sides of the phone. She knew it wouldn’t take long. Before she’d headed over to Brad’s house the night before their flight, she’d given Haven and Kenny all the information on her and Brad’s flight, car rentals, and hotel. Another one of those old habits that wouldn’t die.
K: I’m in. What am I looking for?
A: Two Asian men. Closer to lobby. Bttn-down SS shirt on one. Polo on other. Want everything you can find out. Run them thru face recog if u have to.
K: R U ok? Need help?
A: Ok for now. Just get me intel ASAP.
K: Consider it done. I’ll get back to u in a bit. Stay safe.
Avery smiled as she typed a final response.
A: k ttyl.
Putting her phone away, she took advantage of where she was, then flushed and left the stall. After washing her hands, she headed back out to the dining room, intent on ignoring the two men, not wanting to give any indication she’d made them. But as she passed where they’d been sitting, the two bar stools were now empty. Glancing around, Avery started to wonder if she’d been wrong about them—was she so out of practice she was seeing danger where there was none?
Reaching the table, she found Brad had already taken care of the bill, and they’d just been waiting for her to return.
“Do you mind if we go meet Tommy and Kiera?” Lori asked, pointing outside the wall of windows overlooking the rest of the resort and the ocean. There was a DJ at the outdoor bar for the evening and many of the younger guests had already gathered.
After glancing at Avery, who gave him a nod, Brad smiled as if he didn’t suspect something was wrong. “Sure. You two go on. Avery and I will see you in the morning for breakfast. Have fun.”
“Thanks.”
After the younger couple waved goodbye, Brad studied Avery’s blank face. “Had that feeling again?”
“Yeah. Let’s take a walk on the beach.” She didn’t want to have this conversation in their room. While they took measures to notice if anyone had been in their room, neither one of them had brought a communications jammer. There was the potential for the room being bugged. Once Avery was through filling Brad in on Yin and Yang at the bar, they’d request a different room from the reservations desk.
The night air was warm, but a gentle breeze coming off the water made it comfortable. When they hit the sand, Avery slid her sandals off. Brad took them from her and slung his other arm around her shoulder. No one could ever accuse the sometimes-gruff colonel of not being the perfect gentlem
an. Avery loved how he did little things like holding out her chair, opening doors, and carrying anything for her that wasn’t her purse—although, if it was necessary, she was sure he’d carry that for her too.
They strolled in silence down the beach as small, gentle waves rolled over their feet. When they’d gone a good distance, and Avery was certain they hadn’t been followed, she stopped and faced the water. Usually, she hated having her back to any open area, but she trusted Brad to watch her six as he stood in front of her. He could see any threat coming their way, while she could talk low enough that any sound amplifier pointed in her direction would only hear mumbling.
Brad’s eyes darted in every direction as Avery explained about the two men at the bar and how she’d contacted Reardon. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly as she glanced up and down the beach, not seeing the two men from the bar nor anyone or anything out of the ordinary. “I’ve been out of the scene for a long time. Maybe I’m imagining things that aren’t there, but my spidey senses are screaming at me.”
“Then we listen to them,” Brad answered in a matter of fact tone. “I’d rather it be a false alarm than something we ignore that turns out to be FUBAR.”
Avery agreed—more than once in her career things had been fucked up beyond all recognition—and it was never pretty when it happened. Stepping closer, she wrapped her arms around Brad’s waist, reveling in how quickly he hugged her back. While still alert, he smiled down at her. Going up on her tiptoes, she gave him a peck on his lips then settled down again and laid her head against his hard chest. “Have I told you how much it means to me to have someone with the same thought-process level as me? Most men I’ve dated since leaving the field would probably have looked at me like I was crazy if I’d laid all this on them.”
His chuckle rumbled against her ear. “It’s nice to be with a woman who understands my thought process too. Many times, I was told I was too overprotective and paranoid.”
“It’s only paranoia if it turns out you’re wrong.”
Brad squeezed her tightly. “Exactly.”
Chapter Six
As they strolled back to the hotel, Brad held Avery’s hand. Never had he felt such a strong connection to a woman—not even his ex-wife. But Avery got him. She understood what made a man like him tick. Yet, there were still a lot of things he didn’t know about her—and vice versa. They’d been dancing around each other for the past few months, neither willing to dive any deeper than they already had. Maybe it was time.
He squeezed her hand. “You know, you never told me why you left the field.”
There was a long pause, and he started to wonder if he’d stepped over a line he shouldn’t have. But then she let out a deep sigh. “I’d been good at my job. Maybe too good. One day, I’d hit a wall and felt my soul would never find redemption if I continued down the road I was on. The people I’d been ordered to kill . . . their blood is still on my hands. Then there are the people I didn’t kill—the ones who got away, whether it was for a few hours, days, or more—the ones who ended up killing others. Innocents who didn’t deserve to die. The blood of those people is on my hands too.”
She reached up and tucked a few strands of her hair behind her ear. “I was in a remote part of northern China, tracking a target and waiting for my orders. I was only supposed to gather intel. My cover was that the embassy wanted to help the poor people in that region, and I was there with a team to assess what improvements were needed to help them survive. “The man I was tracking was a ruthless bastard, just like his father. To me, they were the devil and his spawn.”
Another couple, out for a moonlight walk, approached them, and Avery paused, waiting until they were out of earshot again. “The family’s empire had been built on the backs of others, and they didn’t care who they hurt in the process. As long as the money was rolling in, nothing else mattered. Lin Chao, the father, had inherited the legitimate family businesses, but that wasn’t enough for him. He got involved in the drug, arms, and slavery trades. He found dirt on every politician and member of law enforcement he could, guaranteeing they were in his back pocket.”
Brad knew all about men like that and even a few women. They kept his teams busy trying to take them down and save the innocent. “Sounds all too familiar. China, Colombia, Korea, Russia, Mexico. Hell, there are even some of those bastards in the US. It doesn’t matter who they step on in their effort to rule the world, or at least their part of it. So, what happened?”
“The reason Lin Delan and his men were in the area was that they were forging a new route for their arms dealing. His men had terrorized the locals—assaults, rapes, stealing what little they had. One day, in the middle of the village, Delan shot a pregnant woman in the chest at point-blank range because she hadn’t moved out of his way fast enough. Just pulled out his gun, shot her, then stepped over her bloody body like she was a mud puddle he was trying to avoid.” Her voice had gone cold at the memory, and Brad gave her hand another squeeze, reminding her he was there for her. “One of the men with me was a doctor. Out there, in the middle of nowhere, there wasn’t anything he could do to save her, but he could save the baby—she’d been days away from giving birth. He did a Caesarean, as the life was draining out of her. Mere seconds after hearing her baby boy’s cry, she died. Hours later, I got the order to take Delan out. My superiors had found out he and his father had plans to eliminate the US ambassador to China in retaliation for the US’s interference in some of their illegal activities. Had it come in earlier, that woman would still be alive, and her child wouldn’t have been orphaned.”
Brad stopped in front of their resort and pulled her into his arms. He wasn’t sure if she was aware she was crying as she made no attempt to wipe away the tears, so he did it for her, cupping her cheeks and using his thumbs. “That’s why you went into nursing.”
She nodded as best she could with him holding her head. “Mm-hmm. I needed to help save lives. I knew I’d done that with every person I’d killed and every piece of intelligence I’d intercepted, but after taking that bastard down, I was done. I never wanted to take another life again. I called Gene and told him if he didn’t pull me out, I’d be a walking time bomb. I was back on US soil within forty-eight hours.”
Gene McDaniel had been the head of Deimos since its inception nearly twenty-five years ago and was well-respected by those who worked for him and the presidents he’d served under. There were very few people he reported to and POTUS was one of them. From what Brad had heard about the man, McDaniel would be holding onto his leadership position until he was either forced out or carried out to the morgue.
“Smart man. I’m sure if you’d made that demand while you’d still been with the CIA things would have turned out a lot differently.”
His hands skimmed down her arms to rest on her hips as Avery cocked her head to the side and smirked. “I’m sure too. But Gene knew I was serious. He also knew I could still be an asset to the agency. When I told him I wanted to leave for good and go into nursing, he was the one who suggested combining the two careers. I’ve been taking care of injured or sick operatives ever since I became a licensed practical nurse. While about half the states have reciprocity for my certification, the others don’t, and I would have had to jump through a few hoops to make that happen. Gene took care of all that, so it didn’t matter where my patient was located INCONUS.”
“Well, I’m just glad Texas was where Haven ended up because I would have missed out on someone who’s become very, very special to me.”
Bending down, he brushed his lips against hers. It was there, right on the tip of his tongue, to tell her exactly how he felt about her. Was this the right time? He’d never thought he’d get remarried, but now he couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to stand before their family and friends, with Avery in a beautiful, white dress, as they professed their undying love for each other. Or maybe they would elope, and it would just be the two of them. Either way, he would love to grow old with her by his s
ide.
He gazed into her eyes and suddenly he knew. Avery felt the same way about him, but she was scared and uncertain. She’d gotten to this point in her life without ever marrying. Hell, as far as he could tell, there’d never been someone special, long term, in her life—someone who had cherished her no matter what came their way. How the men who’d crossed her path over the years had never tried to snatch her up permanently, he’d never understand, but their loss was his gain. While she wasn’t ready to hear his intent to someday put a ring on her finger—yup, Bradley Barton was officially off the market—he could at least start things moving in that direction.
With the moon and stars high above them and the ocean lapping against the shoreline, Brad prepared to say the three words he’d only said to one other woman who hadn’t been a blood relative. He was certain he’d never say them to any other woman ever again. Taking her hands in his, he brought them to his mouth and kissed her knuckles as he stared into her eyes, letting her see all the emotion welling up inside of him. “Avery, I love you.”
Tears filled her eyes as her jaw dropped. It took her a moment to gather herself before she threw her arms around his neck and held him tightly. “Oh, thank God! I’ve wanted to say that for weeks now, but I was so scared you didn’t feel the same.”
A grin spread across Brad’s face as he chuckled then leaned back so he could see her. “I think that means you love me too, right?” He desperately needed to hear the words.
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