by Meryl Sawyer
“Is there any reason your dog is with you?” He couldn’t help himself. “Do you get lost often?”
The guys chuckled, but Jennifer shot him a look that could have melted an iceberg.
“I’m on call, so I have my cell phone with me. Sheriff Prichett may need us.”
“People get lost in Margaritaville all the time.”
That cracked up the guys. Jennifer waited until the laughter died down before speaking.
“The most common Search and Rescue call is to find someone with Alzheimer’s. Florida is full of retired people. Many of them have the disease.”
“Thank you, Miz Whitmore. That’s very enlightening. Earlier, you asked why we’re going to the firing range. You may have only one opportunity to take out a terrorist before he kills hundreds.”
Jennifer and Sadie followed the group of men that Kyle was leading along the path from the training center to the firing range. This was going to be more difficult than she’d anticipated. Seeing Kyle again after all this time was one thing; working with him all day for the next three weeks was another.
She had tried hard—and it had taken years—to get over what had happened. Blocking the past from her mind was the only way she could cope. Being around him would bring back memories that could destroy her.
Today Kyle was dressed in a black T-shirt two sizes too small and baggy camouflage pants that hung low on his narrow hips. His dark hair was cinched back at the nape of his neck into a ponytail the size of an eraser tip. He hadn’t bothered to shave, and what had been dark stubble when she had seen him at the club was now the beginnings of a beard.
There was an intensity about him that she hadn’t picked up when he’d shown up so unexpectedly. Not that she’d given him a chance. The way he’d stared at her in the classroom said he knew a lot about terrorism firsthand, and he intended to give her a crash course.
A sensible person would have quit and gone back to Search and Rescue, but no one had ever accused her of being sensible.
The men went into the firing range, but Kyle waited at the door until she walked up with Sadie. He’d put on shades that concealed his eyes, but from the grim set of his jaw, she knew he wasn’t a happy camper.
“You might want to leave the dog outside,” he said.
“Why?”
“It gets pretty noisy in there.”
“Sadie began going to the firing range when she was three months old.” She didn’t add that the “range” was the bales of hay and targets behind her stepfather’s barn. “A Search and Rescue dog can’t be gun shy.” She marched past him. “Come on, Sadie.”
The bloodhound showed no sign of budging. She was wagging her tail and gazing up at Kyle as if he’d hung the moon.
“Come, Sadie.”
The dog took her sweet time ambling through the door into the firing range where the rest of the group was at the counter checking out guns. She didn’t hear Kyle walking behind her, but she could feel him looking at her.
It put her at a disadvantage to know she was a walking bad hair day and overdressed to boot. Tomorrow she was wearing denim cut-offs and a T-shirt that was one washing from disintegrating, like the rest of the guys.
She checked out a gun and a pair of earphones to muffle the sound. Trailing behind the group, she wished she liked guns. If she did, she might have spent time target shooting. As it was, she could barely hit the side of a barn.
Kyle would probably laugh his tight butt off when he saw her shoot.
“Ladies first,” Kyle said.
He’d taken off his shades, and his green eyes seemed to be fired with an inner light. He was a dangerous man to cross, and dumb bunny that she was, she had not only crossed him but humiliated him.
It was his turn to have a laugh now.
She tried to put on the earphones, but her hairclip was in the way. She finally managed to get them in place, aware of everyone watching her. Especially Kyle, who was right beside her.
Standing feet slightly apart, she aimed. She’d been dimly aware that the targets were cardboard cutouts of men, which was standard. But the bull’s-eye wasn’t on the chest. It was on the head.
“We’re shooting them in the head?”
Kyle lifted the earphone off her left ear and said, “This isn’t a tea party. We’re dealing with terrorists. They’re smart enough to wear bulletproof vests.”
He let go of the earphone and it snapped into place. She fought the urge to come back with a cutting remark mainly because she couldn’t think of one. She aimed at the target and fired.
After each shot, the kick of the gun wrenched her shoulder, but she kept the pain off her face by biting down on her lower lip. She might hide the pain, but as each shot missed the target, she felt heat inch up her neck into her face. By some miracle, the last shot hit the cardboard man.
She bounced on the balls of her feet, thrilled to have at least hit the target. She couldn’t help crying out, “Yes!”
Then she realized the men were laughing. She pulled off her earphones and let them dangle around her neck, knocking off the hairclip. Her hair tumbled around her face.
Now she could hear them better. The men weren’t laughing; they were howling. Brushing the hair out of her eyes, she looked at the target again. The bullet had gone between his legs, ripping the cardboard to shreds in the groin area.
“If you could hit that spot every time, it would be more effective than the head,” Kyle told her with a hard-eyed smile that set her teeth on edge.
“Real funny.”
“I guess Search and Rescue doesn’t call for guns.”
“Of course it does. We have to be prepared for snakes or—”
“Snakes? Do you honestly think you could hit a snake?” He whacked his forehead with the heel of his palm.
“I’ll have you know, I shot a rattler.”
“How many rounds did it take?”
He wouldn’t want to know.
“Miz Whitmore, I have no intention of certifying you until you can blow the head off a rattlesnake with one shot. Plan on spending a lot of time at the firing range starting this afternoon after class.”
“Let’s see you shoot,” she said before she could stop herself.
“I don’t have to prove anything.” His tone was positively lethal. “But since you asked, let me show you the final firearms test.”
Chapter 3
Jennifer ignored the rolling eyeballs and muffled snickers as Kyle led them down the hall. As much as she hated to admit it, Kyle had a point. Even though she would be handling the K-9 unit, she might have the opportunity to stop a terrorist. She needed to be able to shoot better than she did now.
“Heel, Sadie,” she told the bloodhound.
She scooped her hair up with one hand and secured it with a clip. No telling what she looked like, but she didn’t give a hoot. The certificate she would receive in this course was more important than what Kyle thought of her. Being selected for the Miami-Dade County Antiterrorism Task Force had been a coup. These elite tactical units were located in only a handful of major cities, commanding prestige and status that would normally take her years to attain.
But first, she had to be certified by Kyle Parker.
She watched Kyle stride, cocksure into the outdoor area behind the firing range. This was a field course, a sector of the base where the targets wouldn’t be cardboard. They would be the more sophisticated moving dummies and much harder to hit.
“Oh, my, God,” she muttered to herself.
The group came to a halt near a trip wire, and Kyle said, “This will be part of your final test for certification. You will have thirty seconds to run the course and take out the required number of terrorists.”
He pointed to the burms of sand and clusters of trees lining the course. “There’s no point in trying to memorize the order the targets appear. The computer program makes them to pop up in random order.”
“That’s hitting a man every five seconds,” said Brad, the SWAT sharpshooter
she’d met earlier.
“What’s a perfect shot?” Kyle asked Brad.
“A sharpshooter must hit a one inch target from a quarter of a mile away. The SWAT team spends twenty hours a week on the firing range.”
Kyle cast a quick glance in her direction. His smile looked suspiciously like a smirk. The man was delusional if he thought she was going to spend twenty hours a week with a gun in her hand.
“To make this even more challenging,” Kyle said, “we’ll be wearing sensors.”
“Sensors?” she heard herself say.
Kyle didn’t bother to look at her as he shoved one hand in his pocket. He showed the men a small red device the size of a button. He pulled off the tape on the back and slapped it on his shoulder.
“These targets will be shooting at us, aiming for the sensors,” Kyle informed them. “The guns are equipped with the same technology as heat-seeking missiles. If you don’t take them out first, you’re history.”
Jennifer managed to control a groan.
“How many of them do we have to hit to pass the course?” Brad asked.
“Four out of six,” he said, but his tone indicated he didn’t find such a score acceptable.
She didn’t imagine the silent gasp coming from the men. Their shock should have made her feel more confident, but it didn’t. If they were afraid they couldn’t master the course, what hope did she have?
“Let’s see you do it,” she said without thinking.
Kyle didn’t glance in her direction. Instead, he unsnapped the holster at his hip and touched the gun as if it were an old friend. He charged across the trip wire, triggering a loud buzz.
Wham! Up sprang a dummy wearing a ski mask, making it impossible to tell if the person was a man or woman. In the dummy’s hand was a type of gun Jennifer didn’t recognize. It must be a special weapon that fired heat-seeking bullets.
In a heartbeat, Kyle hit the ground and rolled, firing. A flash of light like a big spark shot out of the dummy’s gun and a bullet pinged off the dirt near Kyle’s shoulder. The bullets weren’t deadly but they would sting and leave a bruise. He leaped to his feet and streaked across the space, blasting away at the next two targets, which appeared a split second apart. At warp speed, he covered ground, zigzagging back and forth, ducking, dodging, his gun spraying bullets.
“Oh, Sadie,” she moaned. “Will I ever be able to do this?”
Before she could finish the sentence, Kyle had “taken out” five of the six terrorists gunning for him. He surged to his feet, pivoted on a dime—with just the slightest hitch in his bad leg—and fired his last shot.
Bull’s-eye.
The sixth dummy collapsed. Kyle walked off the field, holstering his gun.
“Six out of six,” she said to herself.
Brad took the course next. The sharpshooter wasn’t quite as good as Kyle. He missed one of the targets, but he managed to finish without getting shot himself. He walked off the range with a smile.
“Great,” she whispered to Sadie. “The male equivalent of a chest-thumping contest.”
Kyle hoisted a military duffel over each shoulder and walked up the foot path to Thunder Island. Key West was nothing more than a tiny island at the end of a long chain of small islands trailing down from Florida’s mainland. Known as keys, the small islands were all bright sunshine, gentle trade winds, and a laid-back lifestyle.
He’d never had a real home. His father had moved from Navy base to Navy base, taking Kyle with him. When Kyle was on his own, he’d traveled the world with the Navy’s SEAL antiterrorism unit, SEAL 6. Now that he was no longer in the military, he needed to consider settling down. Key West was the place for him, a place where he could work, a town that accepted everyone.
No questions asked.
“What in hell did you think you were doing?” he muttered under his breath as he thought about the way he’d charged across the field course earlier that day.
He couldn’t believe he’d shown off, responding to Jennifer’s smart ass challenge. He didn’t have to prove anything, he reminded himself as he came closer to the island guest house.
Months ago he’d spoken with Thelma Mae Horton, the owner of Thunder Island. She had invited him for cocktails, which he knew was an interview. His name had gone onto the waiting list for a vacancy. Yesterday, she’d called and told him that she had a room for him.
Thelma’s guest house was the most sought after residence in Key West. There were a handful of overnight guest rooms, but most of Thunder Island’s rooms were suites, consisting of a sitting area and an adjacent bedroom. These suites were rented on a long-term basis.
After Thelma Mae’s approval.
“Obviously, I passed muster,” he said to himself as he opened the white picket gate and stepped onto the brick path leading across the lush green lawn up to the front door of the guest house.
It was a wooden Key West-style house painted gloss white with coral shutters. A wide verandah with graceful columns supported the roof and gave the two story mansion a stately appearance. Like many of the houses in town, Thunder Island had fancy scrollwork along the eaves.
“Oh, hello,” Thelma Mae coolly greeted Kyle at the front door and handed him a sheet of paper. “Here’s a list of my house rules.”
Tall and thin with lively gray eyes, and white hair pulled back in a bun, Thelma Mae had a no nonsense, distant attitude.
“Your suite is this way.”
Kyle followed her through a maze of corridors, glimpsing some of the public rooms he’d seen on the earlier visit. They all had polished wood floors and comfortable wicker furniture. From the high ceilings crowned by intricate moldings, Casablanca fans slowly turned. Everything was immaculate.
Damn straight. A crumb would have the good sense to hop in the wastebasket rather than risk Thelma Mae’s anger.
“Everyone picks up after themselves,” she said almost as if she’d read his thoughts. “That’s rule one.”
He didn’t mention that she’d already told him this during the interview. Three times.
“Thunder Island was a ship’s captain’s home,” she told him as they walked up a wide staircase to the second floor. “He named it Thunder Island because the cannon fire from the fort sounded like thunder to his young son. Subsequent owners added on to the house several times. Like Topsy—it just grew.”
They finally arrived at a suite on the second floor that faced the back of Thunder Island and overlooked the private beach. In the distance, he could see Sunset Key where he’d been house-sitting while he waited for a suite here.
“Dinner’s at eight every evening. I’ll bill you unless you cancel two hours in advance.”
Kyle barely had the chance to say okay before Thelma closed the door behind her. He dropped both duffels and looked out the window at the ocean, rolling up to the sand in gentle waves. Low-slung Adirondack style chairs lined the beach, some shaded by umbrellas.
“What are you doing up here?” Kyle said out loud.
He quickly changed into his swimming trunks. What was he supposed to do, spend his time thinking about Jennifer? No friggin’ way. He wanted to forget her, which was impossible! He had to nurse the little ditz through the course.
Or flunk her.
He refused to believe women were ready for counterterrorism. But he had to admit this was different. Jennifer belonged to a Search and Rescue unit that probably wouldn’t be involved in life-threatening activities.
“Except that terrorism is a reality in the United States these days,” he mumbled under his breath.
He went down to the beach, nearly getting lost in the warren of hallways. Finally, he found the back door and walked across the burm of wild sea oats marking the perimeter of Thunder Island’s artfully manicured landscape and the white sand beach.
He flopped down in a beach level chair and stretched his long legs out on the warm sand. His bad leg ached, thanks to the showing off he’d done on the field course.
Under his breath, he cussed
himself as he watched the couple cavorting in the surf. Undoubtedly, they lived at Thunder Island. The cluster of palms at one end of the beach and the outcropping of boulders on the other side isolated the private cove from the other estates nearby.
Droplets of water purling down their sleek bodies, the couple emerged from the surf. As they approached, Kyle noted the way their heads bent together and the intimacy of their behavior. They were about his age—maybe a little older—early thirties.
Lovers, Kyle thought.
“Hello. You must be Kyle,” said the platinum blonde in the thong bikini.
“That’s right. I just moved in.”
“The food’s great,” the man said as he toweled off his dark hair.
“That’s what I hear,” Kyle said. “I’m Kyle Parker.”
“I’m Lisa Wilson and this is my twin brother, Charles.” She leaned closer and batted her eyelashes. “Everyone calls him Chuck.”
Kyle managed a smile, but he silently cursed himself. He hadn’t thought this couple was related. Earlier, he’d messed up with Jennifer. Was he losing his touch?
He took a closer look and realized they were identical twins. Like matched thoroughbreds, they had the classic good looks Kyle always associated with professional models. High cheekbones. Perfect teeth. Blue eyes.
For some reason, Lisa bleached her hair rather than leave it brown. Personally, he thought the rich chestnut color would suit her better.
“Cocktail time,” Chuck announced. “Thelma Mae has an honor bar. Serve yourself and write what you took on the pad. It’ll be on your bill.”
“I’ll have the usual,” Lisa told her brother.
“Do you want me to get you anything?” Chuck asked Kyle.
“No, thanks. I’m okay for now.”
Lisa leaned closer, her blond hair falling across her tanned shoulders. She had a model’s face and bod that wouldn’t quit. He resisted the urge to take a closer look at breasts barely concealed by two triangles of floral print fabric.
Did he love bikinis, or what?
“That’s Plotzy Smith,” Lisa told him, her voice low, flirtatious. “He’s richer than King Midas.”