Under Fire (Elite Force #3)(32)
Author: Catherine Mann

“I’m with you.”

He smiled. God, how he smiled in a way that creased the corners of his eyes and made her ache to kiss those crinkles. “Good. Because I would hate to have to knock you out, too.”

His words sunk in, icing the warmth in her belly.

“Too?”

He looked away and accelerated through the intersection. “You don’t need to know.”

Frustration stirred. She’d lived independently for all her adult life, and this kind of full-scale control did not sit well, even if he was trying to protect her. “If we’re in this together, how about we talk, rather than me asking questions that go unanswered. Tell me what I can know of your plan in progress.”

Steering off the highway, he drove over a narrow bridge. The moon reflected off the marshy water along the barrier island. “We’re going to see one of my team members before anyone sounds an alarm. We should have about an hour’s lead.”

Okay, that was something. Which team member would Liam choose to ask for help? She thought back to the other pararescuemen she’d met during their time in the Bahamas. The team member named Franco had been injured in the Bahamas and transferred out of the unit. So she moved on to… Cuervo, a charmer who wore marathon shirts and a smile. The guy they called Brick, because he was hardheaded but steady. Then there was Data, who’d managed to scrounge up electricity and an Internet connection before most of the specialists sent in. And an eerily quiet guy they’d simply called Bubbles…

They all seemed to have different strengths and she didn’t know any of them well enough to guess. She didn’t know any of them as well as she did Liam… a man she trusted more than anyone. She needed to keep that in mind.

“What can your team member do for us that you and the OSI couldn’t?”

“We have good toys. Sometimes we keep an extra stash of each other’s toys for cases like now when it’s more… expedient that I not return to my own house.”

“Toys?”

“Guns. IDs.”

“IDs? Plural?” She knew he was military, but different forms of identification? A little spooky.

“The kind of search and rescue extractions we’re called to do aren’t always straight-up, in-and-out kinds of deals,” he explained as if detailing an uneventful, everyday kind of career. “Sometimes we need to go deep into hostile country. It can be… well, let’s just say helpful to have a different identity.”

There it was again, in her face, how badass elite his training was and how that placed him in dangerous positions beyond what even she could imagine—and she had a pretty good idea of the risks out there, given her prior work. He could die in a mission next week and she would never know.

Stop. She forced herself to take it down a notch. Breathe. Focus on the crisis at hand.

“Okay, this may sound like a nitnoid concern, but I’m just me. So if we’re sticking together, your new identity plan has a flaw.” Could he be planning to leave her with his friends while he went off Rambo-style to find Brandon?

“I feel confident I can rustle up something that will get us by until we locate your buddy and find some answers.” He turned onto a sand and gravel roadway leading into a tropical thicket. “We won’t have to fly under the radar for long.”

“Thank goodness. I’d like to pick up my dogs by tomorrow.”

“Um, I’m thinking more like a week.” Tires crunched along the rocky road.

“A week? I work. I have a job. I have… well, I don’t have plants or a house anymore.” She slumped in her seat. “My job doesn’t mean jack if I’m dead.”

“Smart woman.”

“What about Brandon?” Did he have any clue what kind of nightmare had been unleashed from their attempts to find help? Had she made things even more dangerous for him? “The same authorities you say we have to run from are already looking for Brandon. How are we going to get to him first?”

The headlights swept across a clearing in the palm trees, revealing a tiny, secluded beach bungalow. The one-story green stucco structure was raised up on stilts and had white hurricane shutters over the windows, shielding it from the elements as well as from prying eyes.

Liam killed the headlights. “Do you seriously expect me to believe you told them the truth on where to find him?”

Goose bumps prickled up her arms. “You think I lied to the authorities?”

“I know you did.”

She didn’t bother denying the truth. She had deliberately misled the OSI regarding Brandon’s whereabouts. “Are you angry with me?”

“I will be if you lie to me from here on out.”

“Fair enough.” She owed him the truth, given all he’d done for her. “After his therapy sessions, he works out for the rest of the afternoon. Sometimes he disappears for a day or two. So he leaves Harley at the same doggy day care I use.”

“Harley is his therapy dog?”

“An Australian shepherd–beagle mix.” Memories rolled over her of the day Brandon had been paired with Harley, the hope she’d felt then, how she’d allowed herself to buy into some rosy future where she fixed everyone’s problems. Where there would be no more risk. No more pain of loss.

Could she really have been that naive?

Liam unlocked the doors. “We’ll check in at the dog-sitter’s once we finish up here.”

Rachel gripped his arm, stopping him. “How would you know that I lied and they didn’t?”

His muscles flexed and bunched under her fingers, his eyes a little sad. “I didn’t know. I only suspected. Now I know.”

Turning away, he stepped out of the SUV. She clambered out to join him around front, Disco leaping out and running to the nearest squat sago palm tree to mark it. At least he opted for a tree instead of the neatly fenced-in vegetable garden.

Satisfied her dog was safe, she tore her eyes off Disco and did a quick scan of the locale, orienting herself. Marsh grass leaned in the wind blowing a briny breeze across the lawn.

Old skills fired to life. They’d driven southeast, maybe fifteen miles from base. The drive had gone quickly in the night but would undoubtedly take much longer during daytime beach traffic.

Snapping for her dog, she caught up with Liam along the slate pathway. “I wasn’t sure if they would toss Brandon in some military jail or lock him up for a psych eval. I just wanted a chance to get to him first.”