Crossfire Creek Ambush (Hard Justice, Crossfire Creek #4)

Chapter One

Beck Culver needed to get this blood off him, and he decided it was his top priority when he got home. He had enough reminders about the man he’d stitched up.

About the man who’d nearly died right in front of him.

No need to have the guy’s blood triggering the memories of it and all the other injuries Beck had treated over the years.

Combat was hell. Combat often led to blood and wounds and death. So did working in the civilian world of Crossfire Ops private security. And while the scent and memories of the blood bothered the hell out of him, he figured he wouldn’t be opting for a career change anytime soon.

No. Being a combat medic suited him to a proverbial tee. Even when the combat wasn’t happening in a faraway place but rather right here, close to home in Crossfire Creek.

Beck turned his truck off the county road and onto the long dirt drive that led to his house.

The morning frost still clung to the winter-burned grass, glittering in the weak Texas sun.

Crossfire Creek didn’t get much snow, but this particular January had a bite, and the land around his place looked sharp and brittle under the pale light.

A mile back, behind him, sat the fortress-like sprawl of Crossfire Ops headquarters. His house and the twenty acres around it were the opposite. Quiet. Empty. No neighbors, no noise, no one to bother him.

That was the point.

He dragged a hand over his face. He’d been on his feet since three a.m., called in to stitch up a fellow operative who’d been sliced up during a rescue, something that Crossfire Ops excelled at. And many of those rescues involved injuries. Big ones. Little ones.

And everything in between.

They were the reason he needed the solitude, the distance between the shitstorm flashbacks and the place he called home.

He glanced down again at the blood that stained the front of his shirt, stark against the faded navy cotton.

There’d been showers at the compound, spare clothes too, but once he’d finished patching his teammate up and getting him to the hospital, Beck hadn’t wanted company, hadn’t wanted anything except the drive home.

What he wanted now was simple. A shower to scrub off the smell of disinfectant and blood, a quick bite to eat from whatever was left in his fridge, and a solid nap. In that order.

He parked and stepped out into the cold air. He rolled his shoulders, exhaustion a solid weight pressing between them. The quiet spread around him, the kind of stillness you only got this far out of town. Beck had paid for solitude, and he guarded it like a treasure.

That’s why the sight of his front porch made every instinct in him snap awake. The white rocking chair was at an angle as if someone or something had bumped into it.

The weariness burned off in a rush of adrenaline. Beck’s hand went automatically to the sidearm in his shoulder holster.

Something was wrong.

There were plenty of deer and other critters in the woods surrounding his house, but none had ever gone up the six steep steps to get to the porch. He could also dismiss any high wind shifting the rocker since there wasn’t even as much as a mild breeze.

Beck drew his gun and eased forward, boots silent on the frosted porch. With his every muscle tight, he unlocked the front door and stepped in. The faint green light on the wall panel caught his eye. The security system was disengaged. Whoever had done it knew exactly what they were doing.

He swept the living room first, eyes cutting over the wide space that held his dining table and kitchen beyond. Nothing. The air was still, too still, but then he caught it. A faint scrape, a shift of weight. The sound came from the back of the house.

From his bedroom.

Beck moved toward it, weapon up, breath steady, senses keyed for the fight waiting for him. The door stood cracked open. He pushed it wide and froze.

Gun to gun.

The figure standing there had hers aimed straight at his chest, both of them a heartbeat from pulling the trigger.

Before recognition slammed into him.

Grace Donovan.

For a split second the world tilted, memory colliding with the sight of her pale face, blood on her shirt, and a pistol steady in her hands.

His body locked, the instinct to fight bleeding into something heavier, sharper.

Grace was his former co-worker from Strike Force security agency. And the love of his life.

Or rather once she had been that.

But that was three years ago. Three years since she had walked away. Three years since she had crushed him in the process.

Grace winced and lowered her gun. The fight seemed to drain out of her in an instant, her shoulders sagging.

“I wasn’t sure it’d be you,” she muttered, her voice hoarse. She sank down onto the foot of his bed, one hand pressed against her side.

Beck’s mind was still reeling. He had a thousand questions, but before he could force a single one out, she spoke again.

“I’m sorry,” Grace murmured. “For breaking in. For dripping blood all over your floor.”

His gaze tracked to where she motioned. Drops of crimson dotted the hardwood, trailing from the doorway to where she now sat. The sight punched through his shock, bringing his medic’s instincts roaring to the surface.

“I wasn’t sure where else to go,” she added, her voice low, almost lost in the silence of the room.

Beck tightened his grip on his weapon, then slowly lowered it. His heart still thundered, but another instinct was already taking over.

She was hurt.

And for all the years between them, for all the ways she had once broken him, Beck knew one thing with absolute certainty.

He could not let Grace Donovan bleed out in his bed.

“How’d you get in?” he had to ask.

Grace’s eyes flicked toward the front of the house. “I picked the lock but didn’t reset the security. Sorry about that. It should be set in case she comes looking for me.”

Beck froze on the word. She. Every instinct in him sharpened. He wanted to demand a name right then, but the medic in him overrode the man.

He left her sitting there and hurried back through the house, locking the front door with a hard twist before resetting the security system.

The keypad chirped, and only then did he breathe again.

He snagged his medical bag from the supply closet, the familiar weight grounding him as he headed back toward the bedroom.

She was gone.

Beck’s pulse jumped, and then he caught the sound of water running.

He found her in the adjoining bathroom, braced over the sink, her top stripped away and tossed aside.

She wore only a black sports bra, her skin way too pale against the blood smeared down her left side.

A deep gash scored her upper arm, another along her ribs where it looked as if a bullet had grazed her.

She was trying to clean herself up with a wad of tissue and cold water, her hands trembling.

“Sit,” Beck ordered, his voice sharper than he intended. He pointed to the edge of the tub.

Grace hesitated, then lowered herself, looking unsteady. Beck dropped his bag to the tile, unzipped it, and pulled out gauze and antiseptic.

“I’ll work on you,” he said, meeting her eyes, “while you tell me what the hell is going on.”

Grace hissed as the antiseptic touched her arm. Beck kept his focus steady, his hands sure as he pressed gauze into place.

“I’m a victims’ rights advocate now,” she finally said, surprising him with how she’d started that explanation. He’d expected her to jump right into the reason for these injuries. “I work with wounded warriors, help them navigate the system, get them what services and equipment they need.”

Beck already knew. He had known for a long time. He had kept tabs on her even when he told himself he was done with her, even when he tried to pretend he did not care.

“One of ours reached out to me,” Grace continued, her gaze fixed on the bathroom tile. “A former teammate. Jonah Kemp. He said he needed help. Sounded desperate.” Her voice tightened. “And now he’s gone. No one has heard from him.”

He hadn’t thought about Jonah in years, but the name carried weight. A troubled man whose past had bled into his civilian life once he’d left the military.

Beck mulled that over and treated the injuries on both her ribs and arm with medical skin glue, an alternative to stitches, and he wrapped the bandage around her ribs.

Grace drew in a shaky breath. “I was on my way to Crossfire Ops to see if anyone there had heard from him. That’s when it happened. Someone opened fire. Not warning shots. Not random.” Her eyes lifted to his, steady despite the tremor in her voice. “It was targeted, Beck. Precision.”

He pressed the tape down firmly, but his mind was already racing ahead.

“I barely escaped,” she went on. “My car’s a mess, riddled with bullet holes, but it still ran. I managed to drive it here. I parked behind your place.”

Beck taped the last bandage into place and sat back on his heels. “Who shot you?” he asked. His voice came out lower than he intended, rough with the tension coiling in his chest.

Grace didn’t hesitate. “Elena Voss.”

The name hit like a shot to the gut, and Beck felt it reverberate in his bones. Like Jonah, Elena had been in private security with them. Not Crossfire Ops but rather its predecessor, Strike Force.

Grace’s gaze stayed locked on his. “Elena was there when the Strike Force extraction turned into a slaughter. She was part of it all, part of what broke us. I’ve heard she’s gone black ops now, off the books. She isn’t one of the good guys anymore.”

Beck’s jaw clenched. He remembered the smoke, the screams, the chaos of that mission. The teammate they had lost in the ambush. The blood on his hands. Grace being in critical condition for weeks. Then afterwards, Grace walking away from him, carrying her grief in a different direction.

“You’re sure it was Elena?” His voice was quiet, but steel lined every syllable.

“Yes,” Grace said without flinching. “It was her. I saw her. She came after me today.”