Blue Forever (Men in Uniform)

by Bruhns, Nina

  “I agree,” Walker said. “Once it passes through security at Yulin, kiss it goodbye.”

  “There’s not enough time to prepare,” Quinn argued, shaking his head. “The truck has already left the factory.” He held up a hand to forestall Zane’s response. “Yeah, it’s up north near Shanghai. It’ll take another day to get to Yulin, but that’s still too short a time to put together a plan with any chance of success and getting away alive.”

  They’d gone around and around on that same argument at least ten times.

  Commander Bridger had stayed silent for the most part, leaning back in his chair, ankles crossed, keeping one ear on the conversation while devoting most of his attention to his tablet. Darcy assumed he was getting constant reports on the other ops STORM Corps was conducting worldwide. It was highly unusual for Bridger to be out on a mission at all, let alone hanging about for so long. Especially with another STORM Board of Command member already on the team. She wondered about that.

  Bobby Lee was coming up to his two-year mark as a commander. Maybe Bridger was here to do an eval on his performance.

  Rand Jaeger was also staying quiet, but that was par for the course. The South African Jaeger was terse and more than a little mysterious. Like her, he was a computer geek of the first order and grand master of anything high-tech. Tall, rangy, and sandy-haired, he had wire-rimmed glasses framing eyes that missed nothing. If he’d spend more than five minutes a year outside and put a little color onto that pale skin, he’d be a great-looking guy.

  For a com spec, Jaeger rarely spoke, just fixed it so others could. So when he suddenly sat up at his laptop and said in his quirky Afrikaans accent, “Hey. That spy. He drove off a cliff and got killed,” everyone turned to him in surprise.

  “What spy?” Zane asked, clueless.

  “He’s got a girl with him, too. Some woman from the State Department he kidnapped at a village market.”

  “Is she dead, too?” Bridger asked, fingers poised over his tablet.

  “Looks that way.”

  “What fucking spy?” repeated Zane.

  Just then, Captain Jenson strode up to the table looking annoyed. “He’s not a real spy. He’s an MCOIB operator we sent in as a decoy for your op. Some damn idiot in D.C. leaked his cover a day early,” he muttered, slashing a hand through his hair. “What a damn goatfuck.”

  Stunned, Darcy didn’t even see Commander Bridger get to his feet. But all at once he was towering over the much shorter Jenson, scowling down at him.

  Uh-oh. Speaking of idiots . . .

  Darcy kept her face scrupulously neutral. If she weren’t sitting, she’d be taking a giant step backward. Bridger had been her boss for more than six years and she knew the man did not suffer fools.

  This guy was definitely a fool.

  “Are you actually saying,” the commander said deceptively mildly, “that you sent a U.S. Marine into a high risk area inside enemy territory on a ghost mission? And then deliberately blew his cover?”

  Bridger’s expression was so unreadable the oblivious idiot had no idea he was about to get an ass-whooping of epic proportions.

  “You know as well as I do, Commander, that good military strategy sometimes requires sacrifices from the men on the ground.” Jenson waved it off. “Major Llowell volunteered for this mission. He knew the risks, Commander.”

  She could see Bridger’s jaw work. Just a little. He said, “Apparently he didn’t know the risks.”

  Jenson continued to dig his career grave. “The point is, his part of the plan was critical. He was creating a diversion. Drawing fire so your men could sneak in and do the real job.” The navy captain’s eyes narrowed, jumping to all the wrong conclusions at Bridger’s interrogation. “A job STORM Corps already took, along with the hefty government check that came with it. I trust you’re not trying to back out, Commander, now that you see how difficult it’s going to be.”

  The sudden silence was deafening.

  Darcy snorted into it. Aloud. She couldn’t help it. What a freaking ass-hat.

  Bridger darted her a hard look.

  “Sorry, sir. Just slipped out.” She knew better than to smile.

  The job may be complicated, but the team totally had this. Hell, they’d only just started brainstorming. They were damn good at what they did. The best in the world. They’d get that AUV, there wasn’t a doubt in her mind. And the navy knew it, too, or she wouldn’t be sitting here now in the South China Sea getting the rundown on a mission the navy wanted to maintain deniability on.

  “Would you come with me for a moment?” the Commander said to Jenson and strode out of the room without a backward glance. The captain huffed indignantly at being ordered around by a PMC, regardless of his rank, but stalked after him nonetheless.

  “It’s not nice to annoy the clients, sugar,” Quinn said, no doubt referring to the escaped snort, but there was a steel edge to his slow drawl.

  “The guy must not value his balls,” she muttered. “I’d hate to be him right about now. Or the brain trust who gave that order. When the Commander gets back to D.C. it’ll be soprano city.”

  Zane and Jaeger singsonged in unison, “Dog-meat.”

  Clint Walker looked positively grim. “Fuckers,” he growled. “Don’t know about you all, but I am now officially angry.”

  “That makes five of us.” Bobby Lee turned to face them all, his tired eyes burning with purpose. “All right, people, time to get serious.”

  8

  DeAnne and Kip had walked for over an hour when they reached the crest of a rise. He halted suddenly and she nearly ran into him.

  “What is it?” she asked, catching her breath. She hoped he intended to stop for a break. He’d been driving them relentlessly on their trek up the mountain, through the dense lower jungles and up into the higher elevations of the evergreen forests above the fields and valleys. She wasn’t used to this much exercise all in one dose. She wasn’t complaining, though. The more distance they put between themselves and those maniacs with the machine guns, the better.

  He just gave her a smile and indicated the view. He slipped off his backpack and to her surprise, pulled out a camera.

  She stepped up next to him in a small clearing at the very top of the rise. People must have stopped here to admire the view for centuries. Heck, millennia.

  He fiddled with the camera.

  “Gee, you really are taking pictures.”

  “Yep. Well, hopefully. The camera was damaged, so I’m still testing it under different conditions. Want to make sure it works correctly.”

  He raised it to his eye, and she turned to the view, taking it all in as he started to click away.

  Before them, the lush, emerald hillside cascaded downward, curving elegantly away from the high, amethyst mountains that framed it perfectly to either side, and dipping down to a crisp, meandering valley. Every acre below the ridge was covered either in a fluttering white blanket of flowering fruit trees, or carved into stair-step terraces overflowing with a patchwork of verdant green fields. The warm breeze carried the scents of peach blossoms and freshly turned soil. Small flocks of birds soared and swooped through the valley calling to one another, and the sound of cowbells jingled softly in the distance.

  You could almost reach out and touch the tranquility.

  “Oh!” she whispered on a sigh, completely enchanted.

  This was the China she loved.

  But deep down, she knew it was more than the beauty that drew her. It was what the scene below represented. The snug, simple normalcy of it.

  A perfection that for her was at once both achingly familiar . . . and achingly elusive. Unobtainable.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” he said, and let the camera dangle by a strap around his neck. He pulled a bottle of water from his backpack. With a smile, he cracked the top off and handed it to her.

&n
bsp; “Incredibly. And so peaceful.” It was hard to imagine that just two hours ago they’d been driving like madmen, being pursued by angry soldiers determined to kill them.

  “Calm before the storm,” he murmured.

  “Don’t you mean after?” She tipped back the bottle gratefully and drank.

  He lifted his camera and clicked several pictures of her drinking, then slanted her a look. “Doubtful.”

  She matched his wry expression and handed him back the bottle. “We’ll see.”

  He just grunted, but didn’t appear particularly concerned. He tipped the bottle to his lips, closed his eyes, and drank heavily. Under his square jaw, the cords in his throat stood out and his Adam’s apple bobbed. She watched, mesmerized by the raw sensuality of the man, until he lowered the bottle and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

  He could slip seamlessly into the scene below. Honest. Uncomplicated. Elemental.

  He caught her staring, and gave her a lazy smile. “Penny for your thoughts.”

  She fought a blush but couldn’t look away to save her life. “You’d be overpaying,” she managed lightly.

  He held her gaze for a long moment and his eyes said he didn’t agree. But he didn’t push it.

  “Why don’t you try the cell phone?” He reached into his pocket and handed it to her.

  “Hmm?” She gave herself a mental shake, emerging from her brain fog. Phone? “Oh. Right.” Good grief, what was wrong with her today?

  Then she realized what he’d just done. She frowned. “Wait. This is my phone!”

  “Uh-huh.” He lifted the camera and snapped her picture.

  “You took it out of your pocket.”

  “Uh-huh.” The camera whirred again.

  “Would you stop that!” She was flabbergasted. “You stole my phone?”

  He lowered the camera and the look on his face was singularly unrepentant. “I prefer the term ‘borrowed.’”

  Her jaw dropped. “Permanently borrowed! Why would you do that?”

  He shrugged. “I needed a phone, and I thought we were about to part company. The soldiers would have taken it from you at the checkpoint, anyway, when you turned yourself in.”

  Of all the—

  She snapped her mouth shut. Oddly disappointed. “You could just have asked.”

  “Next time.” He winked, and stuffed the camera back in his backpack. When she didn’t smile, he said, “Princess, I’m sorry. You’re right. I should have asked.”

  Princess?

  She jerked her attention back to the phone in her hand. With an exhale, she gave up and turned it on. “No. You have no reason to be. You had more important things to think about than—”

  “DeAnne.”

  Reluctantly, she looked up at him.

  His eyes were gentle. Sincere. “Next time I’ll trust you.”

  She felt a little twist in her heart. She wanted to nod, but couldn’t. “Okay,” she said, her voice sounding embarrassingly vulnerable. She cleared her throat, shook herself out of it, and said lightly, “I’m kind of hoping there won’t be a next time.”

  He turned back to the view, banded his arms over his chest, one hand still clutching the water bottle, and said, “Yeah. Me, too.”

  She held the phone up higher—as if that would make a difference—and checked for bars, pointing it at the mountain he’d indicated with a cell tower sprouting from the top. She could just make it out, a vertical silver glint against the robin’s egg sky in the fading sunlight.

  A bar flickered onto the screen. Success! Sort of.

  “The signal’s very weak, but it might go through.”

  “I assume it’s your throwaway?” he suddenly asked.

  She nodded as she punched numbers. “Yeah.”

  Every FSO had an official duty phone while in-country, but they were also encouraged to obtain a couple of prepaid—therefore untraceable—phones for their private use and for emergencies. The Chinese government was notorious for carefully monitoring all phone and Internet traffic within its borders. No right to privacy here.

  She listened closely, but the signal kept breaking up, and finally cut off completely. “Nope,” she said. “No luck.”

  “Didn’t think so,” he said, watching her with an unreadable expression. “We have to get higher up the mountain, closer to the tower.”

  She groaned inwardly, but forced a smile. “Yeah.”

  His intent gaze scanned her from head to toe, then lingered on her legs. “You okay to go on? That was quite a hill we just climbed.”

  “I’m good,” she assured him.

  As if she’d say otherwise. The truth was, her thighs were on fire and her feet were about to fall off. But she’d asked to come along on this jaunt, and she had her pride.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  She searched the crest of the next ridge for the path. “How much farther do you think we should go?”

  “I’m thinking,” he said slowly, “we should go all the way.”

  A shift in his tone made her look back at him. He was still studying her body, his arms folded over his chest. His expression hadn’t changed a millimeter. But his eyes . . .

  Ho-boy.

  His eyes were dark as sin. Slumberous. Hungry.

  A sudden ache of sexual awareness flared in her throat.

  “Definitely all the way,” he murmured, his voice low and suggestive. “Here. Drink.” He pulled his gaze up and handed her back the water bottle, which still contained an inch or two of liquid. “You need to stay hydrated.”

  A vivid memory of his lips caressing the plastic rim as he drank rushed through her whole body. She swallowed down a burst of desire.

  His eyes held hers as the shadow of a challenge passed through them.

  A spear of heat arrowed straight to the tips of her breasts. The languid invitation was unmistakable.

  He wanted her.

  Her pulse thundered.

  Should she accept? Or run like hell?

  She would never consider a serious relationship with this man. She knew his type all too well; she’d never inflict that kind of misery on herself. Eighteen years had been plenty, thankyouverymuch.

  But . . .

  She knew exactly what Major Llowell was asking her for.

  And it wasn’t a relationship.

  They had more chemistry together than she’d ever felt before in her life. More than she’d ever known was even possible. They were stuck on a mountain, thrown together by fate, kept together by necessity, but once she’d negotiated his safe passage out of the country, they’d likely never see each other again.

  Did that matter?

  The thought produced a prick of disappointment in her chest. But despite that— No, it was better this way.

  He seemed nice. Considerate. Stable. But that could all be a mask hiding the real man underneath. Nice, considerate men did not become military spec operators or spies. Those men were aggressive thrill-seekers who needed a constant adrenaline rush, however they had to find it.

  Which didn’t make for a good relationship.

  Other than the kind he was offering.

  The rush of male adrenaline could make that kind of relationship very, very good.

  Thrilling. Exciting. Breathless.

  But this wasn’t like her.

  And yet, he was so darn sexy he made her toes curl.

  They were both adults.

  And she wanted this. Just once in her life, she wanted to experience the rush of sexual adrenaline. Be the object of that kind of explosive desire.

  Just once.

  What was the harm?

  Without letting herself think, she reached out and took the bottle from him.

  Deliberately letting her tongue touch the rim of the opening, she raised it to her lips. And savored the res
t of the water. It was probably her imagination—which was definitely working overtime—but she swore she could taste him on it.

  Musty, spicy, male.

  His eyes darkened as he watched her drink, his lids lowering. She gathered up the last drop with her tongue, then slowly handed the bottle back to him.

  The intensity of his regard made her knees weaken. Goose bumps shivered over her breasts.

  “Okay,” he said, his voice deep and low.

  Then, he turned and started to walk, heading up toward the next mountain. Where God alone knew what would happen between them.

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  Terrified.

  Exhilarated.

  And wondered if she’d just made the very worst decision of her entire life.

  Or . . . quite possibly . . . the very best?

  9

  The woman was seriously messing with his head.

  Hell. Both heads.

  Kip ground his teeth in frustration. One had been in a constant state of turmoil and the other in a constant state of arousal since meeting the unexpectedly tempting DeAnne Lovejoy.

  Hell.

  As they continued trudging their way up the steep trail, he attempted to make himself see reason. He did not need any more complications right now. This mission had already been compromised enough. First the destructive parachute landing. Then his cover being mysteriously blown. Getting chased and shot at. And he’d deliberately made it look like he’d kidnapped a U.S. State Department official—which had been the right thing to do to keep her career out of trouble . . . but not great for his. Having sex with her on top of all that would probably put Colonel Jackson right over the edge. And get Kip yanked from the field and stuck behind a desk so fast his head would spin.

  Which was the absolute last thing Kip wanted.

  He’d wanted this op.

  More like needed it.

  He was sliding down the back side of his thirties, and was nervous about keeping his position as a field intelligence operator. For the past couple of years he’d been volunteering for the toughest, most dangerous ops that came up. Just to prove he still had it in him.