The Diehard Warrior

by Youngblood, Jennifer

  “Thanks,” Piper croaked as she ended the call.

  Addie just sat there, clutching the phone with both hands as she stared into nothing, her mind spinning a million miles a minute. She had to tell Piper everything that happened. However, now wasn’t the appropriate time. Jordan was from Birchwood Springs. His funeral and burial would most likely be here. Piper and her dad would come into town. She’d wait and talk to Piper in person, after Piper had a few days to digest the tragedy.

  Addie gulped, an avalanche of emotion engulfing her.

  Jordan was dead. How was it possible? One minute he was talking to her and the next, he was killed.

  Or was he murdered?

  * * *

  By the time Addie arrived home that evening, she was physically and mentally exhausted. She wanted nothing more than to fall into bed and go unconscious. Crap! She gave her key to Jordan and hadn’t thought to get it back…after his accident. Reflexively, her hand went to the doorknob as she turned it in frustration. It was unlocked. Had she forgotten to lock it this morning? She never did that.

  She pushed open the door and stepped inside, then gasped at what she saw, her hand clutching her throat.

  The cabin had been ransacked.

  Her knees went wobbly as she backed up against the door and leaned on it for support. She surveyed the damage. Bookshelves were face-down on the floor, books scattered everywhere. Pillows were thrown from the couch, chairs overturned. The refrigerator door was open, the contents spilled over the floor. Cupboard doors were open, food boxes half pulled out. She didn’t need to check the other rooms to know that every single household item had been rifled through. This was like something out of a horror movie. With trembling hands, she reached in her purse for her phone. Was someone still here? She looked around, her skin crawling as she feared an attack. She’d put off calling Corbin earlier, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Please answer, she prayed.

  “Hey, sis.”

  She realized she’d been holding her breath, waiting for him to answer. “Hey. I’m so sorry to bother you right now with all that you have going.”

  “No worries. What’s up?”

  She couldn’t keep her voice from shaking. “Jordan Phelps was killed today outside the resort.” Tears filled her eyes as the terrible events came rushing back.

  “What? How?”

  “It was a hit and run.”

  “Wow. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “There’s more.”

  “What else?”

  Her heart thudded in her chest like a bowling ball bouncing on concrete. “Someone broke into the cabin and ransacked everything.”

  Instantly, Corbin went into SEAL mode, firing questions at her. “Are you okay?”

  “I think so. I just got home and realized.” Her voice dribbled off.

  “Where are you now?”

  “At home,” she said irritably. Had Corbin not heard her the first time?

  “I mean, where are you in the cabin?”

  “Standing beside the front door.”

  “So, you don’t know if anything was taken?”

  “No.” The thought of going into the other rooms was more than Addie could take right now.

  “Has the intruder left?”

  She shuddered. “I’m not sure.”

  “Get out of there now! Call 911.”

  Her head began to spin. “Okay.” She rushed to the car, her heart sputtering a sickly beat as she jammed in the key with a shaky hand and opened the door. She got in and locked it, looking around at the empty space surrounding her. Shakes started in her hands going down to her toes. Her pulse was making whooshing sounds against her ears. “I’m in the car. Now what?”

  “Call 911. They’ll come out and search the house and file a report. This is crazy. Why would someone ransack the cabin?”

  She let out a harsh laugh. “I have no idea.”

  “Do you think it’s connected with Jordan’s death?”

  A headache pounded across the bridge of her nose. “I don’t know.” She rubbed her forehead, letting out a humorless laugh. “I don’t know anything anymore. One minute Jordan was talking to me on the terrace, the next he walked out of the resort and got hit by a black sedan that sped off.”

  Corbin blew out a breath. “Can you get a room at the resort?”

  “Yeah, we’re not booked at full capacity.”

  “Okay. Do that. I’ll be there first thing in the morning.”

  “No!” she exploded. “You can’t! What about Delaney?” The silence on the other end of the line spoke volumes. “Delaney needs you there. You can’t desert her right now.” She clenched her jaw, eyes narrowing. If she called Corbin away and something happened to Delaney while he was gone, Addie would never forgive herself. “I didn’t call you so you’d come here. I called because I was hoping you might be able to use your connections to find out what’s going on.”

  Long pause. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, call 911 right now. Then call me back so I’ll know you’re okay.”

  “Will do.” She ended the call and did as Corbin instructed.

  As she was calling 911, Addie glanced at the darkening sky. It occurred to her that she was alone in a remote area. Pops rented cabins to tourists who visited the Bear Claw Ski Resort and the nearby hot springs. He and Addie lived in one of the cabins. Just this morning, Addie had appreciated the coolness in the fall, Colorado air and how the leaves were starting to change colors, but now everything seemed ominous and threatening. Shivers snaked down her spine. If someone wanted to harm her, now would be the perfect time. The police wouldn’t be able to get here fast enough. While being on the phone with Corbin helped calm her, there was little he could do from San Diego.

  Should she leave right now and go to the resort? No, she wanted to be here when the police came. That way, she could see if anything was missing. Her jaw hardened as anger took hold. She had to remain strong—see this thing through.

  “911. What is your emergency?” a professional-sounding dispatcher asked.

  “Someone broke into my home… Please hurry,” she added after she’d given her name and address.

  3

  A feeling of exhilaration swept through Maddox as the water came up over the sea kayak and splashed him in the face. “Woo hoo!” he yelled, loving the blast of cold wind that whipped through his hair. The kayak nose lifted in the air with the oncoming wave, then dropped a good ten feet down into the ocean with bone-jarring intensity as the wave rushed passed them. “Hold on,” he yelled to Felicity, who was sitting in the front.

  Felicity shrieked and then cursed. “My hair,” she lamented.

  “Don’t worry. You still look great.”

  “Yeah, right,” she smirked.

  It was true. Felicity was beautiful. Too bad he couldn’t be as complimentary about her attitude. From the time he picked her up this morning, she’d complained about everything. At the diner, the coffee was too weak, the toast stale. Maddox thought she was going to have an out-of-body experience when she saw the wet suit that the guy at the rental place gave her to put on. “You really want me to wear that grimy thing?” she scoffed, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

  “You don’t have to wear it,” Maddox responded with a casual shrug.

  “Good,” Felicity sniffed.

  “If you want to go into the freezing cold water with nothing more than a t-shirt and shorts, it’s your choice.”

  He swore he could see steam coming out her ears as she snatched the wet suit from the employee and stomped into the dressing room to put it on. A minute or so later, she called out to him saying the wretched thing didn’t fit. As it turned out, she had it on backwards.

  Maddox leaned forward, paddling with all his might to get them past the breaking waves. Getting the kayak into the water was the hardest part. Once they got past the break, it would be easier to navigate. Splatters of rain hit his face. He looked up at the leaden sky. The water was choppy, the wind picking
up. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the best day to come out here. Felicity claimed to love kayaking, but watching her reaction to a few waves and rain, he wondered if she’d only said that to impress him.

  Felicity was slapping the water with her oar. An incredulous laugh gurgled in Maddox’s throat. “What’re you doing?”

  “Rowing. What does it look like?” she grumbled.

  “Certainly not rowing,” he responded under his breath. “Dip your oar down deeper into the water. Use smooth strokes. Put some muscle into it.”

  He used his oar as a rudder to turn them in the direction of the La Jolla Sea Caves. The seven caves all had their own names and unique features. Maddox never grew tired of exploring them. “Paddle on the right side now,” he instructed. “Your other right,” he said dryly when she kept rowing on the left. Finally, she switched.

  When they got turned in the right direction, Maddox placed his oar in his lap, letting the motion of the current push them forward. “Okay, you can relax a bit,” he said when he realized Felicity was still paddling.

  She stopped and looked back at him. He did a double-take. She had streaks of mascara running down her face, and her hair looked like blonde glue, matted to her head. Unfortunately, she caught the startled look on his face before he had time to recover.

  “What?” She touched her hair. “I look awful, don’t I?”

  “You look fine.” He hoped lightning wouldn’t strike him down for telling a lie. No wonder Felicity didn’t want to get wet. She looked like a drowned poodle that had black zigzags running down her face. Addie’s face flashed before him and with it came a longing that ached through his entire body. He’d brought Addie kayaking. Like him, she was in her element and couldn’t get enough of the stories about the folklore and legends surrounding each cave. Addie had whooped and laughed when the waves rushed over them. She’d looked stunningly beautiful with her flawless olive skin, water droplets nestling in her corkscrew curls and shimmering like diamonds in the sun.

  He’d not been back to Birchwood Springs since that fateful evening when he saw Addie with another man. Despite everything, he still found himself hoping that Addie would reach out to him. Several times, he’d been tempted to call or text her to see how she was doing. Then he reminded himself that she’d dumped him—said she couldn’t handle being with a guy who ate danger for breakfast. “Every time you get deployed, I live in constant fear that you won’t come back,” she said.

  Maddox almost didn’t come back. The mission to Syria where he and his fellow SEAL members were captured and tortured by ISIS operatives nearly turned out to be his undoing. The horrors of the ensuing torture at the hands of his captors still haunted Maddox. He’d gone through several rounds of therapy, including eye movement desensitization and reprocessing psychotherapy or EMDR. Surprisingly, EMDR had been the most helpful of all his treatments. While focusing on a repetitive motion or sound, he revisited the upsetting memory. This technique was repeated until Maddox could process the trauma so that it wasn’t as distressing.

  He’d first heard about EMDR from Creed, a fellow SEAL member who’d been in Syria with him. It seemed like a crock of crap to Maddox, but Creed kept raving about it, so he finally tried it. He was grateful to find something that helped ease his PTSD. Too bad he couldn’t find a treatment that would stop him from comparing every girl he went out with to Addie. Talking to Addie’s grandfather, Wallace, yesterday brought everything back. It made him miss Addie so much he could hardly stand it. Wallace hinted that Addie missed him and suggested that he reach out to her. He scowled. As much as he wanted Addie back, a relationship required the cooperation of two people, hence the old saying, It takes two to tango. Addie had made it crystal clear that she wanted nothing to do with him.

  “What is that in the water?” Felicity asked, her voice crackling with tension. “Please tell me it’s not a shark.”

  He looked to where she was pointing and saw a fin. It dipped under the water and back up. He spotted another fin about two feet behind the first. “Those are dolphins.”

  Her voice grew shrill. “No, they’re sharks! Oh, no. What’re we going to do?”

  Maddox laughed. “Nothing. Just enjoy them. It’s not every day you get an up-close look at dolphins.”

  She shuddered, hugging her arms. “I knew we should’ve just gone to the movies like normal people. I can’t believe I let you drag me out here. It’s freezing.” She groaned. “And raining!”

  Maddox glanced up. It was raining, or rather sprinkling. He’d gotten so caught up in thinking about Addie that he hadn’t noticed. “Oh, yeah,” he said absently. “Sorry.” He chuckled inwardly. What had he been reduced to? Apologizing for the weather? Sheesh.

  His gaze went up to the mansions perched on the edge of the seventy-foot, craggy cliff running parallel with them as they made their way to the sea caves. He pointed. “See the mansion at twelve o’clock?” Whenever Maddox needed to take the edge off a conversation he went into trivia mode. Before becoming a SEAL, Maddox had worked as a freelance travel writer and photographer, storing up a trove of seemingly insignificant details about people and places. Although, the facts had served him well in Syria when dealing with the guards that held him prisoner. Maddox’s motto was, If you want to get to know the person, get to know his culture.

  “Which one?” Felicity asked dubiously.

  Maddox rolled his eyes. Felicity probably had no idea what twelve o’clock meant. She was a total airhead. “The sand-colored mansion directly in front of us.” He had to fight to keep the condescension out of his voice. He didn’t want to come across as a know-it-all.

  “Yeah? What about it?” she said in a bored tone.

  Why was he even bothering to carry on a conversation with Felicity? She lived in his same condominium complex. When they first met, she seemed fun and upbeat, a nice diversion from his heartache and frustration over Addie. The more time he spent with Felicity, however, the more he realized this was a dead end. They had nothing in common, and her diva attitude was getting old.

  “It used to have a guest house below it. Last year, it crashed to the beach.”

  “You’re making this up.”

  “No, I’m one hundred percent serious. The land is constantly eroding. Where people used to have twenty or more feet of land beyond their decks and pools, the structures are now teetering on the edge. In another fifty years, there’s a good chance that all the mansions you see right now will be gone. If investors were smart, they’d buy up the homes one row behind the ones on the edge. Then as soon as their neighbors’ homes crash to the beach below, they’ll have an unencumbered view of the ocean.” He’d hoped for at least a courtesy laugh for his joke, but she remained quiet, an awkward silence descending over them.

  He pointed. “See that mansion three houses to the right of the sandstone one?”

  “Yep.”

  “The children’s author Dr. Seuss was friends with the owner. Legend has it that Dr. Seuss loved to attend parties there. He’d stay late into the evening. And his—”

  She let out a loud sigh. “Is there a point to this story?”

  Maddox flinched like he’d been slapped. Had she really just said that to him? “I was getting to the point, before you so rudely interrupted me.”

  She grunted. “Fine. Continue.”

  For a second, Maddox almost didn’t tell her the rest, but then he decided to be the bigger person. “His wife didn’t like going to the parties. She’d stay home and get irritated that her husband was gone so long. She’d call and nag him to come home. The experience gave him material to write The Grinch that Stole Christmas.”

  “Huh. Interesting,” she said in a flat tone.

  Maddox made a split-second decision. “All right. Date’s over. I’m taking you home.” And I won’t be asking you out again, he added mentally.

  “Finally!” she exclaimed. “I’m ready to get out of this horrid wet suit. I hate to even think of the germs lurking inside it.”

 
When they were back at the rental company changing into their regular clothes, Maddox got a call from Corbin. He answered on the first ring. “Hey, man.”

  “Hey,” Corbin clipped.

  Maddox’s pulse jumped up a beat. “Has Delaney had the baby?” During his visit the day before, he could tell that Corbin was worried about her delivering too early. If she’d gone into labor this soon, it could be precarious for the baby.

  “No, not yet. Thankfully, the medicine seems to be controlling her blood pressure.”

  “Good. I’m glad Delaney and the baby are okay. What’s up?”

  Slight pause. “I’m calling to ask a favor.”

  “You got it. What can I do for you?” Maddox and Corbin had first met when they were both in the SEALs. Even though they were never in the same platoon, their paths kept crossing. They hit it off instantly and became fast friends. When Corbin married Delaney, another connection was added to their friendship. Like Maddox, Delaney was from Alabama. Also, Maddox was a big fan of Delaney’s music, listening to it long before he’d ever met her. Now that Maddox was working for Sutton Smith’s security company—same as Corbin—the two were closer than ever.

  “Addie’s house was broken into last night. She’s in trouble. I need you to protect her. I’d go, but I can’t leave Delaney right now.”

  The air left Maddox’s lungs. The urge to get to Addie was all-consuming.

  “I can’t get this stinking thing off,” Felicity complained from the dressing room stall. “I hate this putrid thing! Maddox, help!”

  He moved the phone away from his mouth. “Just a minute.”

  Felicity countered with a string of complaints, but Maddox ignored her, moving to the other side of the dressing room.

  He turned his attention back to the conversation. “What’s going on?” As Corbin gave him the rundown, his muscles tensed. If anyone dared to hurt Addie, he’d shred him to pieces.

  “I spoke to Sutton. He’s going to check into Jordan Phelps. Sutton’s getting a plane ready for you.”

  Maddox calculated the time it would take to drop Felicity off and then gather his things. “I can be wheels up in less than two hours.”