Forged in Ash (A Red-Hot SEALs Novel)

by Trish McCallan

  “Unbelievable.”

  He’d noticed her the moment she’d pulled onto Silver Strand Boulevard behind him. She’d been impossible to miss. If the backfiring hadn’t caught his attention, the jet-engine muffler would have. The damn thing was noisier than a Black Hawk on liftoff, which was why he hadn’t realized at first that she was following him. Sure she’d mirrored him turn for turn, but coincidences happened. By the fourth turn he’d started to wonder, so he’d tested her by taking sudden random corners, by speeding up and slowing down, by sailing through yellow lights and stopping at green. She’d matched every maneuver.

  Yep, he was being tailed—by an idiot.

  It would have been laughable if his knee weren’t howling and his life clinging to the edge of an abyss.

  She was probably a reporter, another vulture eager to pick over the carcass of his naval career. He scowled, that familiar python of frustration wrapping around his chest and squeezing the air from his lungs.

  Damn it!

  The media shitfest was finally settling down. They were able to step off base without being mobbed by the press. Yeah, this hiatus would disappear if the DOJ decided to launch a criminal investigation, but for the moment they’d been given some breathing room. The last thing they needed was another opinionated piece hitting the papers, or airing across the networks.

  A molten ice pick stabbed through his knee and he exhaled a tight curse, shifting to take the pressure off his leg. When the pain didn’t lessen, he dug his fingers into the protesting joint. He should have eased back on the bike, but he’d wanted to work his body to the point of exhaustion.

  His mind shifted to Kait Winchester, to long aristocratic fingers and a waterfall of sleek, pale hair. With luck his body wouldn’t have the energy to react to the hour of torture he’d signed it up for.

  Grimacing, he groaned. Christ, this visit was a bad idea. There was a reason he’d avoided Kait for the past five years. But he didn’t turn the truck around. Apparently his need for a miracle overrode his sense of self-preservation.

  The last thing he wanted, though, was to bring the press down on Kait’s door, so when he arrived at her apartment complex he drove past. He’d dump his tail and circle back to keep his appointment. Of course, his tail would just attach herself to him again, later. Or maybe she’d fixate on Rawls, or Zane, or heaven help them—Beth. Zane would blow a gasket if some whack job started tailing Beth. He might as well put an end to this woman’s game and send her on her noisy way.

  With that in mind, he pulled into the restaurant parking lot for Coronado Ferry Landing Shopping. His tail had to wait for several cars to pass before she could follow. He cruised around the center parking aisle and picked a space on the far left. The woman pulled into a slot in front of the sidewalk, which ran the length of the restaurant strip. Perfect, she’d have to cross the entire parking lot to reach him, giving him plenty of time to assess her approach.

  He hit the latch to the glove box and the compartment fell open, exposing his Glock. After stashing the weapon in the waistband of his jeans, he slid out of the truck, doing his best to ignore the slivers of ice piercing his kneecap. The hot breeze brought a whiff of barbeque and his stomach growled. Too bad all this unwelcome attention had made him late for his appointment, that barbeque smelled damn good.

  He doubted the woman was dangerous, but it never paid to trust one’s life to assumptions, so he tucked his T-shirt behind the Glock for easier access, and watched her slam the rusted door of the sedan and start toward him.

  Marcus Simcosky was better looking in person than he’d been in the newspapers or on the television. There was a cold intensity to the flesh-and-blood man that the digital and print images lacked.

  Jillian Michaels shoved her hands into the pockets of the poncho she’d liberated from a clothesline south of Portland, Oregon. Even with the summer sun overhead and the heavy wool shielding her, she couldn’t seem to warm up. She’d been freezing for months.

  She studied the man she’d come thousands of miles to kill—or at least, one of the men—as she headed across the parking lot. His face was guarded, watchful. It had been a miracle she’d recognized him when his truck passed her stakeout point along Silver Strand Boulevard. She’d been parked along that stretch of road for days, hoping one of the men she’d come to kill would cruise past. Praying she’d recognize them, trying, without success, to think of another way to track them down.

  The newspapers hadn’t been exactly forthcoming with addresses, and they were unlisted in the yellow pages. Googling their names hadn’t produced any results, either.

  Her steps slowed as she stared at him. She hadn’t expected him to be so tall or tanned or muscular. She hadn’t expected the confidence and strength he exuded, or the subtle sense of threat. She hadn’t expected him to look so damn…capable.

  He’d hovered near death for days. Spent weeks in the hospital. But he didn’t look sick. Not like she did. But then he’d had the luxury of recovering in the hospital, or in the homes of family and friends. Nor was he on the run, sleeping in stolen cars, scrounging out of trash cans, ransacking empty houses in the hope of finding enough cash to fill his gas tank or enough food to fill his belly.

  A horn blared. The squeal of brakes followed. Jillian jumped back, realizing she’d stepped in front of an oncoming car. Not that the car could do any damage. She was already dead. A lifeless husk held together by vengeance and determination. She glanced across the pavement and found her soon-to-be victim watching her with cold detachment. He must have seen the car headed directly for her, but he hadn’t bothered to shout a warning.

  Bastard.

  Had he hoped the car would finish the job, kill her where bullets and icy water had failed? He wasn’t one of the men who’d kicked down her door, kidnapped her family, and stolen her life from her; nor one of the men who’d come after her in the hospital, after she’d reported what happened to the police. But he was involved. He was one of the bastards who’d killed her brother, and spread those lies about him.

  A flush of rage warmed her. Her fingers curled into claws. She shoved them deeper into the pockets of her poncho. When her hand bumped against the cold steel of the revolver she’d stolen from a house in San Diego, she forced her fingers to unfurl and take hold. The voluptuous folds of the poncho hid the bulge of the gun. She wouldn’t have to pull it out; she’d just point and fire through the cotton.

  And while he lay there, the parking lot filling with his lying, murderous blood, she’d shoot him again and again. One shot for each of her babies and another for her brother.

  He’d be the first to pay for what they’d taken from her, but they were all going to pay. Every last one of them. She was going to make sure of it.

  Her muscles tensed in determination and she took another step forward, the gun warming in her tense grip. She’d start with him, this murderous SEAL, and then she’d go after his friends. And before she killed the last of them, she’d force him to tell her how to find the others. Those bastards who’d broken into her house and kidnapped her family and taken her life from her.

  The rage swelled with each step, liquefying her frozen chest, warming arms and legs that never shed the chill picked up in that icy lake all those months ago.

  As her hand tightened around the gun, a cry rose behind her. A thick, sobbing wail. The sound stopped her in her tracks. Her fingers lost their grip on the gun. The cry came again. So familiar. So beloved.

  Time and space warped in and out, surrounding her like ripples on sunbaked asphalt. She turned in slow motion, the sun spinning dizzy and brilliant overhead. She stopped breathing, waiting for that familiar, beloved cry.

  A stroller rattled down the sidewalk. Her gaze locked on the fragile blond head that bounced slightly with each rotation of the wheels. On the lift and flop of wheat-gold hair.

  Blond curls, a dimpled smile, bluer-than-blue eyes.

  Don’t cry, baby. Don’t cry. Mommy’s here. Mommy’s coming.

  Jill
ian turned.

  Smile for me, sweetie. Smile for Mommy. Let Mommy see those dimples.

  She stepped onto the sidewalk and fell in behind the stroller, her vision tunneled on that beacon of a blond head. Her heart stuttered as chubby, denim-clad legs kicked in time to those hiccupping sobs.

  Chubby little legs, stocky little body. Round arms giving sticky hugs.

  In the distance a woman wept. Broken gasps of grief. Jillian blocked the sound and focused on the stroller.

  Don’t cry, baby. Don’t cry. Mommy’s here. Mommy’s coming.

  What the hell?

  Cosky watched the woman who’d been tailing him turn and head in the opposite direction. Maybe she hadn’t been following him after all. Coronado Ferry Landing was a popular shopping and eating area; maybe the whole thing had been a weird coincidence. But that many turns, for that long? An unlikely coincidence.

  It was more likely she’d thought he was someone else and hadn’t realized her mistake until she’d climbed out of her car and gotten a good look at him. Maybe she’d been too embarrassed to approach.

  He frowned and shook his head slightly. He could have sworn there’d been recognition on her face, a fixed, frozen expression, as though she knew him—or thought she did.

  Relaxing, he watched her head down the sidewalk. She never looked back. When his knee locked up and his thigh started to spasm, he climbed back in the truck and fired the engine.

  Before exiting the parking lot, he shot another glance toward his stalker. Some terrorist she’d turned out to be. The whole thing was weird though. And not just the tailing, but the coat she was wearing too. Wool was too heavy for Coronado in the summer. It was in the mid-eighties. She should have been sweltering. He shook the questions aside and headed back the way he’d come.

  Ten minutes earlier

  Robert Biesel pulled into Coronado Ferry Landing’s restaurant parking behind a rusted, sputtering sedan. The exhaust-riddled eye-ear-and-nose sore had been a lifeline since he’d been following Simcosky closer than normal. The weekend traffic was thick, the drivers aggressive and impatient, which upped the chances he’d lose his target. Sure he had a partner to tag team Simcosky with, which cut down on the threat of discovery; but he couldn’t tell Phillip where to intercept the SEAL unless he knew what street the bastard was headed down.

  And then that crazy-ass sedan had joined the fun. The car’s exhaust had shielded him from view and given him a beacon to follow once he realized the frizzy-haired woman behind the wheel was tailing the big bastard too.

  He circled the parking lot and found a space twenty feet from Simcosky. His vantage point gave him a clear view of both cars. Shoving his beige and boring Oldsmobile into park, he turned off the engine and slumped down to limit exposure, wishing he could kick back and take a nap.

  “It’s a one-nighter,” Manheim had told him. “You’ll be back on surveillance in twenty-four hours, forty-eight tops.”

  Robert snorted in disgust. There was more work involved in grabbing eight scientists and faking their deaths than Manheim realized. Hell, making the explosion look like a laboratory accident had taken precision and timing. But had the bosses given them a couple of extra days? Hell no—they expected everyone to work around the clock.

  The sedan had grabbed a parking space along the sidewalk. Robert eyed the woman behind the wheel and twisted to look behind him. Simcosky was waiting next to his truck with his feet spread and arms crossed. A rendezvous was definitely in the works, but from the cold expression on Simcosky’s face and the intimidation in his stance, it didn’t look like a friendly one. Maybe he was having girlfriend troubles.

  As the woman climbed out of the sedan, he picked up the bottle of Coke from the console beside him. Twisting off the cap, he took a sip, and grimaced as warm fizz flooded his mouth. The woman headed in Simcosky’s direction. His gaze traveled up a thick, wooly overcoat—was she fucking insane? It was ninety degrees out there—and settled on a thin, haggard face.

  Which he instantly recognized.

  He choked, and soda went down the wrong pipe, burning all the way to his lungs. A seizure of coughing gripped him.

  Holy freaking shit.

  Through streaming eyes, Robert watched the woman he’d shot twice and dumped into the icy depths of Lake Katcheca almost step in front of an oncoming car—and wouldn’t that have been sweet? It would have saved him from this sudden, immense headache. Except she caught herself at the last minute and jumped back.

  The damn woman had more lives than an alley cat.

  What the hell was Jillian Michaels doing in Coronado? More importantly, why was she meeting Marcus Simcosky?

  The old man was going to freak over this, and guess who’d feel the full force of all that rage?

  Robert broke into another rabid round of coughing, his heart pounding so hard he felt it in his head. He’d come close to joining Branson in the grave when Jillian had given them the slip at the hospital. The only thing that had saved his ass was Phillip stepping up to corroborate Robert’s insistence that he’d checked the woman’s pulse.

  Which she hadn’t had when he’d buckled her into the van, because she’d been dead. He knew dead when he saw it. She’d been dead. Just like her kids.

  He dragged in a couple of breaths and smothered the coughing. By the time he swiped the tears from his eyes, Jillian was walking down the sidewalk, away from Simcosky.

  Robert turned to watch her. Had she noticed him and abandoned the meeting? He checked the pickup again. Simcosky was watching her with confusion too.

  The fact she was in Coronado and interacting with one of the SEALs the bosses were so obsessed with was going to bring the hornets of fury down on his head.

  And running was useless. How the hell was he supposed to hide when his entire body was one gigantic tracking device? Nothing could keep him from joining Russ in the grave this time.

  Unless…he watched Jillian grow smaller and smaller. If he could grab her before his men caught sight of her, before the bosses were any the wiser…

  He grabbed his cell phone. For this to work, Phillip needed to stay across town.

  “Hey,” he said as soon as the call was picked up. “Looks like Simcosky’s headed home. Why don’t you head over to Orange Avenue and catch him at Tenth?”

  “Sure,” Phillip said. “Give me a heads-up if he changes course.”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” Robert said and ended the call.

  Dropping the cell onto the passenger seat, he checked on Simcosky again. His original target was climbing back into his truck.

  Swearing, he turned to glare after Jillian. He could hardly grab the woman here. Not with half the city in the parking lot, and a Goddamn SEAL watching.

  A few minutes later, Simcosky took off, but in the opposite direction of Jillian.

  What the hell was going on?

  Jillian was his priority, so he let Simcosky go. Settling back he waited. As soon as the chance presented itself, he’d grab her.

  And make sure he used up every one of those lives of hers.

  * * *

  Chapter Three

  * * *

  COSKY DOUBLED BACK to Kait’s apartment complex. The building was surrounded by parks. Across the street from the main entrance was a grassy, tree-studded swath of ground complete with baseball diamond, metal bleachers, and a set of pillared, open buildings with picnic benches and barbeque pits. Nestled against the building’s back was another grassy area, this one housing tennis and basketball courts and a bike trail.

  The apartment complex itself was huge; it swallowed the entire block, a seven-story tower of steel and glass. It looked expensive as hell, which probably meant it had an elevator. An amenity that wouldn’t have concerned him four months ago, but since she lived on the sixth floor that elevator was a major concern at the moment.

  He parked in the visitor slot next to the sidewalk. How the hell could she afford a place like this? Coronado apartments were budget breakers. He had to s
hare a three-bedroom condo with Rawls and Zane—now Aiden—just to afford a place off base and that was with their military discount.

  And their place didn’t have anywhere near the amenities this place boasted, yet Aiden said Kait lived alone. But then he didn’t know anything about the woman, regardless of how many times he hammered into her during those damn dreams.

  An image took shape in his mind: long legs wrapped around his waist, and a sweet ass in his hands. Tension seized him, the kind of tension his earlier workout was supposed to discourage. He scowled as his cock swelled.

  Son of a bitch.

  He’d only seen Kait Winchester twice. Or at least, he’d only seen the actual woman two times. A slender, stoic beauty with shaking hands accepting the flag draping her father’s casket—and a drawn, white-faced angel at Aiden’s bedside.

  He’d been dreaming about her since.

  Except, in his dreams she hadn’t been hurting. Not like she’d been in reality. He’d recognized the pain in her eyes. He’d seen that same pain often enough in his mother’s eyes after his father died.

  Their second meeting was crystal clear in his mind; they’d brushed past each other in the hall outside Aiden’s hospital room. The contact had only lasted a split second, but it had stopped him in his tracks, and set every nerve on fire. His pulse had warped into overdrive. He’d started to turn, to follow her back into the room. That’s when alarm bells had kicked in. She was dangerous. If one glance stopped him cold and one touch caused instant arousal, then he needed to steer clear.

  Now.

  Before he got a taste of her.

  Such instant, overwhelming attraction led to things he had no intention of exploring—like obsession and need.

  So he’d retreated, and avoided her for the next five years, but even now, five years later, he could still smell that sweet citrusy scent that had clung to her skin.