Chapter 3
Chapter Three
A sense of unreality filled Lucky as she stepped off the plane at Baltimore-Washington International Airport in the early morning hours.
DC was not where she’d expected to be when she’d headed down to the beach with her surfboard yesterday morning, but here she was, walking off a plane and feeling a bit shell-shocked.
For one thing it was nearly Christmas, and it would definitely feel like winter outside, unlike in Hawaii.
There, in spite of the Christmas lights and trees and decorations, it was easy to ignore the approaching holiday because it was always hot and sunny.
Here, not so much. The lights and trees on the concourse seemed to jump out at her and hammer her over the head with the idea it was almost Christmas.
In just a couple of weeks, she was supposed to head to Montana to be with family.
She’d tried to get out of it, but she feared if she didn’t go, her mother would drag her stepfather and the triplets to Hawaii.
Which was something Lucky did not need. Dealing with the cheerfulness—and downright alien-ness—of those five was not something she wanted to do on her own turf. In Montana, she could suffer a few days and then be on her way home again.
They passed down the escalator and into the baggage claim area.
Kev grabbed a cart and they stood to wait for her luggage.
Not his, of course. He’d traveled with carry-on only, which told her a few things.
First, this trip had been last minute. Second, he hadn’t been expected to stay for long. Third, Mendez knew she would come.
Of course he did. The bastard. John Mendez was one of the toughest career soldiers she’d ever run across. She had a lot of respect for him. And a lot of fury too. Especially now. He would use whatever tool for the job it took, and to hell with the consequences.
She was a tool. She knew it, and she’d come willingly. No backing out now, chickie. No, whatever the consequences, she was here.
Kev stood with his arms folded and stared at the baggage carousel as if he could will it to start moving.
He was so quiet, so enigmatic. Always had been.
All he’d ever done had confused her. Once, she’d thought he was interested in her, when she’d first arrived at HOT.
He’d smiled and flirted, and she’d flirted right back.
But then came North Africa and Al Ahmad, and everything had changed. Lucky bit the inside of her lip. She’d been so uncertain of herself after that. She’d married Marco when what she should have done was run far and fast in the other direction until she could get herself together again.
It hadn’t been fair to Marco. Or to her.
Dammit. Lucky pulled in a deep breath and swore she wouldn’t cry. Not now.
She looked up at Kev and realized he was frowning. “You okay?”
“Hell, no,” she bit out. “I was minding my own business, surfing and having a good life, and then you showed up and ruined it all.”
A good life. That was a lie.
“I’m sorry.”
“You aren’t. You’re following orders and there’s nothing else you would prefer. If Mendez told you to leap from the top of the Capitol, you’d ask him how soon he wanted it done.”
Cool blue eyes stared at her. “I am following orders. You know that I have to. You’d do the same thing if you were still in. There’s no choice. But I do care.”
He took a step toward her, loomed over her while her heart kicked up a beat. Something flashed in his eyes then, and she realized there was a whole lot more emotion burning deep inside Kev’s soul than she’d given him credit for.
“I’m pissed as hell that Mendez is bringing you back in. I want nothing more than for you to be back in Hawaii, doing whatever you want, far away from HOT and everything we stand for.”
Lucky swallowed. She could smell the anger rolling from him, could feel the heat of his body so near hers. He smelled good, like sunshine and water, and she wanted to close her eyes and drink him in.
His anger shocked her. And touched her.
“I’m sorry for what I said about Marco. About his death.” Her voice was soft, strained. She should have said this before now, but she hadn’t been able to bring it up again. “I know you loved him too.”
Now he was the one who seemed stunned. His jaw flexed. “Yeah, I did. If I could have taken his place out there, I would have.”
Her heart thumped hard. She touched him, nearly withdrew when the sensation of skin against skin was almost too much.
She didn’t like touching people when she could avoid it.
In the months after she’d returned from North Africa, it had been everything she could do to work up to touching—and being touched—by Marco.
She swallowed. She’d gotten much better about touching, but it wasn’t something she went out of her way to do. This touch was almost sensory overload. Her nerve endings leapt to attention, her skin blazing hot. It was everything she could do not to jerk away and tuck her hand beneath her armpit.
“Don’t say that, Kev. He wouldn’t have wanted that at all.”
“No, but I do. If I could have given him back to you—”
His voice choked off as the buzzer rang for the baggage carousel. It lurched to a start, and Kev moved away from her, going to stand near the mouth of the carousel as the first bags began to disgorge. Lucky stared at his broad back, pulled in one deep breath after another.
The thought of Kev dying out there the way Marco had…
She shuddered. It wasn’t right, not for any of them, and yet it was what these men risked every time.
They put their lives on the line to protect this country, and most people would never know it.
Marco should have had a hero’s welcome, but he’d come back in a lonely casket met at Dover by an honor guard.
And then he’d been buried quietly at a ceremony featuring as much of HOT as could come to the funeral, and her.
No, it wasn’t right, but it was what they’d signed up for.
Lucky wrapped her arms around herself. Marco had deserved so much better than that. Than her.
She sniffed and waited for the jumpy sensation beneath her skin to ebb. Finally, Kev hefted her bags from the carousel.
When he came over to her, he was frowning again. “You got a coat in here? That sweatshirt won’t do you much good outside.”
She ran her hands over the soft material and frowned. “I have a jacket. Nothing thick though.”
He led them off to the side, away from the crowd. “Which suitcase?”
“It’ll be fine. We’re going to get into a car, right? The heater will warm me up.”
“It’s just as easy to get the jacket now.”
She sighed. “Fine. I think it’s in the red one.”
Kev set the suitcase on the floor, and Lucky bent to unzip it.
After rummaging around for a few moments, she came up with a wrinkled jacket that said U.S.
Army on it. She didn’t know why she’d kept the damn thing, but she stood and put it on before zipping the suitcase closed again.
Then they were rolling out of the airport and into the parking deck.
The air was a shock to her system after the months in Hawaii.
Her breath frosted and her fingers grew stiff in the chill air.
Kev led them to a white pickup where he slung her bags in the back and then started the engine.
It took a while for the heater to finally feel warm instead of frigid, but by then she didn’t think she would ever get warm again.
Soon they were on the road, and Lucky turned her head to look at the endless buildings and land. That was one thing about living on an island—you got used to seeing ocean just about everywhere you looked. To see land—endless land—was strange after the last few months.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked after they’d passed several miles in silence.
“My orders are to bring you to HOT HQ. After that, I don’t know.”
“And where is HQ?”
“Not far.”
She hugged herself and sniffed. “HOT has come up in the world.”
He shrugged. “You know that Mendez has been trying for years. He finally got someone to say yes.”
Lucky scrubbed a hand through her hair and yawned. She never slept well on a plane, and last night had been no exception. “I don’t think anyone could say no to that man for long.”
Even her, apparently. It hadn’t escaped her attention that she’d pretty much caved in to precisely what Mendez wanted within hours of being told.
“Don’t beat yourself up,” Kev said quietly. “He was bringing you back one way or the other. This way, you have more control.”
She snorted softly. “Some control. Yesterday I was surfing and contemplating my day, and now I’m here. The power of Mendez.”
Kev’s fingers tightened on the wheel. “We’re gonna get Al Ahmad. This time, we’re getting him.”
“I sure hope so. Because I won’t come back again.”
Kev glanced over at her, his expression fierce. “You won’t have to. Believe me. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll make sure that bastard is good and dead this time.”
Her heart skipped a beat. And then a current of anger whipped through her. “Don’t you do anything stupid, Kevin MacDonald. I buried one of you already. I won’t do it again.”
His eyes flashed with some emotion she couldn’t read, and then he was staring straight ahead again, his knuckles white on the wheel.
Lucky closed her eyes and leaned her head back.
She didn’t know why she’d said that, but Marco and Kev had been inseparable when she’d first met them.
They were like brothers instead of best friends, their pasts so similar it was spooky.
They both had deadbeat dads, both had drunk mothers.
Neither of them was in contact with their family.
She’d thought they would always be tight, but then she’d entered the picture and everything changed.
Marco tried to pretend it hadn’t, but he’d known it too.
Kev pulled away from them both after they married, though he still accepted invitations and then showed up with wildly inappropriate women.
He never stayed long, always slipping his arm around whatever trashy babe he was with and saying something about how he had to get her home.
Lucky had hated thinking of him taking those women home and undressing them, caressing them in ways that made her throat dry.
It hadn’t been any of her business, and yet it had bothered her anyway.
“I’m not going to do anything stupid.” His voice broke into her thoughts and she opened her eyes. His profile always caused that little hitch in her heart. Strong lines, handsome lines. She wanted to press her mouth to his jaw and work her way around to his lips.
It was a disconcerting thought to have, and she shifted in her seat, uncomfortable.
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“What happened out there with Marco… He didn’t do anything stupid. He was just the one who got picked. None of us knew what would happen to him and Jim.”
Her throat ached. She’d spent so much time blaming herself. What if she’d caused Marco to screw up? What if he’d been preoccupied with her and the things that had being going on between them?
Matt Girard had told her everything that happened, but she’d still vacillated between helpless fury and self-blame.
She cleared her throat. “I talked to Karen Matuzaki a few times after… She moved back to California, you know. She and the kids moved in with her parents so she could go back to school and finish her degree.”
Karen had gotten Jim’s Servicemen’s Group Life Insurance, same as she’d gotten Marco’s.
It was a substantial amount of money, but not enough to live on for the rest of your life.
She’d talked to Karen a few times, and then over the last couple of months they’d only e-mailed once in a while.
She’d taken it as a sign that Karen was moving on and coping with her new reality.
“I’m glad to hear she’s all right.”
“As all right as anyone can be after losing her husband and the father of her children.”
Kev sighed. “Yeah,” he said softly.
They lapsed into silence. Lucky closed her eyes.
She was so tired. She hadn’t slept on the plane, and her gut was churning with stress.
She had no idea what Mendez expected from her, and while the prospect of getting anywhere near Al Ahmad was ulcer inducing, she was determined to do the job and get out quickly.
Yeah, she’d wanted to run at first—but all night long all she’d thought about was that evil, slimy bastard and the things he’d done to her.
The way he’d affected every day of her life since.
He had to die. And she would do whatever it took to make that happen.