Down Range
Down Range
Lindsay McKenna
Captain Morgan Boland is at the top of her game, as is her former lover, navy SEAL Jake Ramsey. Then a military computer selects them to partner in a special op.The mission can’t be compromised by their personal history – and they have truckloads of it. But the Afghan assignment might provide the discipline they need to finally get it together – outside the bedroom, that is.A lot has happened over the two years since they last went their separate ways. And there’s way more to Morgan than Jake has ever given her credit for…
Trained to kill, but built for love…
Captain Morgan Boland is at the top of her game, as is her former lover, Navy SEAL Jake Ramsey. Then a military computer selects them to partner in a special op. The mission can’t be compromised by their personal history—and they have truckloads of it.
But the Afghan assignment might provide the discipline they need to finally get it together—outside the bedroom, that is. A lot has happened over the two years since they last went their separate ways. And there’s way more to Morgan than Jake has ever given her credit for.…
Praise for
LINDSAY McKENNA
“McKenna’s latest is an intriguing tale…a unique twist
on the romance novel, and one that’s sure to please.”
—RT Book Reviews on Dangerous Prey
“Riveting.”
—RT Book Reviews on The Quest
“An absorbing debut for the Nocturne line.”
—RT Book Reviews on Unforgiven
“Gunfire, emotions, suspense, tension and sexuality abound in this fast-paced, absorbing novel.”
—Affaire de Coeur on Wild Woman
“Another masterpiece.”
—Affaire de Coeur on Enemy Mine
“Emotionally charged…riveting and deeply touching.”
—RT Book Reviews on Firstborn
“Ms. McKenna brings readers along for a fabulous odyssey in which complex characters experience the danger,
passion and beauty of the mystical jungle.”
—RT Book Reviews on Man of Passion
“Talented Lindsay McKenna delivers excitement and romance in equal measure.”
—RT Book Reviews on Protecting His Own
“Lindsay McKenna will have you flying with the
daring and deadly women pilots who risk their lives.…
Buckle in for the ride of your life.”
—Writers Unlimited on Heart of Stone
Down Range
Lindsay McKenna
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Dear Reader,
Lindsay McKenna did a great job creating Down Range. There were times I didn’t want to put her book down. It hit on some of the emotions that I had locked up for a long time. So it will be an ongoing healing process for me after reading it. A deep, reflective book is rare.
Jake Ramsey, the hero, had reached a point where he was able to express his emotions in a way few SEALs openly do. This would be a great educational book for SEALs to read, because, like many warriors, their emotions are locked up so they can perform their jobs. It would not be uncommon for warriors to leave the military after unlocking their hearts, like Jake and Morgan did with one another, because the killing would become more difficult.
In my opinion, this book will appeal to a broad range of people and interests. Plus, the book relays important life lessons, like love, fear and dealing with emotional and physical trauma. The action scenes are excellent and realistic, and I found myself, even with my background, engrossed in them. I didn’t have to suspend my disbelief, which is what often shuts me down on most action scenes in books and especially movies.
This is one of the best books in any category I’ve read. It would be a great movie if it could capture and relay these points.
I hope you enjoy Down Range as much as I did.
Chief Michael Jaco, U.S. Navy SEAL (retired), author of The Intuitive Warrior.
To U.S. Navy SEAL Chief Michael Jaco, who gave twenty-four years of service to our country and is now retired. More than anything, thank you for your service. Thank you for your help with some of the technical aspects in this novel. And thank you for writing The Intuitive Warrior.
And
To the U.S. Navy SEALs. Thank you for your heart, your courage and your sacrifices. To the wives and children of a SEAL, who indeed sacrifice in their own way while their husband is gone and protecting all of us as a country. You are ALL heroes in my eyes and heart.
Contents
Chapter One (#u6473451d-085b-5343-b2e7-de5675f728a8)
Chapter Two (#u8c2bc602-b03c-5962-bddc-dc734d5d00c4)
Chapter Three (#u22ec16be-80ae-50e8-8bee-5caa2cdbe65c)
Chapter Four (#u0ec83cd7-56eb-5254-bcda-2df2d090166a)
Chapter Five (#ue70b1596-ceff-5eb8-b27b-b3433f281ec5)
Chapter Six (#uecadd3c8-65bc-53cf-b27c-c0124ec208c5)
Chapter Seven (#u0f57d2f9-97e6-5c3d-b72d-f38687d685fd)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
What the hell? He had to be seeing things. SEAL Lieutenant Jake Ramsey froze as he climbed out of his rented red Jeep Wrangler. He’d just parked at the Pentagon, ordered here for an appointment with U.S. Army General Stevenson. He had no idea what this meeting entailed. It was top secret.
His heart thudded in his chest as he stared one row of cars up. A Marine Captain emerged from her black SUV. Jake removed his wraparound sunglasses, remaining motionless, watching her pull her black leather purse over the left shoulder. The gesture was all too familiar to him.
She wore her khaki summer uniform short-sleeved blouse along with dark green gabardine trousers that emphasized her long legs. In short-heeled, polished black pumps, she was all spit and polish. Morgan Boland had an hourglass figure, and though her clothes fitted her comfortably, Jake knew how beautiful she was without any clothes at all.
His mouth tightened. What the hell was Morgan Boland doing here?
Stunned, Jake wrestled with a lot of old feelings leaping to life within him. Oh, he remembered tunneling his fingers through that mass of silky red hair now softly framing her oval face and stubborn chin. The strands curled slightly across her proud shoulders.
She hadn’t seen him—yet.
Two years ago they’d met in the Hindu Kush mountains near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. They’d collided like two comets, renewing their relationship that had started at the Naval Academy, Annapolis. His lower body tightened in memory of those three incredible days with her in his arms in that Afghan village. Three of the most incredible nights of his life since… He ruthlessly tried to crush the grief-stricken memories from when he was twenty-four years old. Jake had lost his wife, Amanda, and two-week-old baby, Joshua, in a car accident. They’d only been married a year.
At twenty-seven, Jake had unexpectedly met Morgan once again. And whether she ever realized it or not, she’d salvaged his bleeding, wounded soul. Those few days had transformed him, pulled him out of a three-year depression. She’d breathed new life into him.
His mouth pursed, the corners pulling in as he watched her shut the door on the SUV. The May morning’s breeze was inconstant, lifting a few gold-and-copper strands of hair across her face. He stared with a mixture of grief and longing as she lifted her long, expressive fingers and pulled the strands away from her cheek.
Morgan was still hauntingly beautiful to him. His mind spun with a hundred questions as to why she was here at the same time he was. Jake worked to suppress those unrequited feelings about their shared history. He’d had that impulse, of never allowing her to escape his arms again. But she had. And it had been his damned fault. For the second time in his life, he’d driven Morgan away from him.
There was a file beneath her left arm. She pointed the clicker at the SUV to lock it. Jake swallowed hard, trying to ignore his desire. It had been a lethal attraction from the first moment, in Annapolis, while going through the Naval Academy. They were a powerful match in bed, but dammit, she was bullheaded and wildly independent. She refused to be what he wanted her to be. When they came together in bed, it was like the Fourth of July every time. Yet, afterward, it always descended into a heated argument, hurtful words flying between them like bullets being fired from an M-4 rifle.
His breath jammed in his throat as he saw her lift her head, her green-eyed gaze meeting his. For a moment, Jake felt like a proverbial deer paralyzed in a set of car headlights. Her eyes narrowed. Of course, she recognized him. Her oval face with high cheekbones and a sprinkle of pale freckles tightened. Her mouth…oh, God, her mouth…Jake remembered hotly covering those full lips, feeling her hungry response, her sleek, athletic body pressed demandingly against his, wanting him as much as he wanted her. Now that soft, full mouth thinned with displeasure. He forced himself to hold her gaze. Even from this distance, he could see the spark of surprise and then anger flare in her green eyes.
What the hell were the chances of meeting Morgan two years later, here in a damned Pentagon parking lot? Jake decided he had to be a gentleman and walk over and say hello. He shut the door on his Jeep, locked it and shoved the key into a pocket of his tan Navy summer trousers. Pulling the garrison cap from beneath his left arm, he settled it on his head.
Jake felt as if he was going downrange into a direct action combat mission. Born of a Navy SEAL, he walked with an easy, natural confidence toward the only other woman in his life who had held his heart—and he’d screwed it up both times. Now, as he closed the distance between them, tension was evident in her, but she was a warrior like him. Jake tried to prepare himself. Morgan was definitely not happy to see him. And he knew why.
“You’re the last person I expected to see here in this parking lot,” he said, trying to soften his normally hard expression. He came to a halt a few feet away from her, but he could still see her emerald eyes flash with what he interpreted as disgust. Or maybe, distrust. Probably both.
“Makes two of us, Ramsey.”
“What business do you have here, Morgan?”
She quirked her lips. “It’s top secret. How about you?”
He managed a sliver of a smile, appreciating the way the uniform hid her breasts. He knew those breasts well, and even now, his body hotly remembered their firm curves, too. “Same. Where you headed?”
“The E-ring. You?”
His brows rose. “Same ring.” What the hell kind of cosmic joke was being played upon him? Jake saw confusion for a moment in her eyes, too.
The breeze blew enough to lift strands of her red hair across her flushed cheeks. He had the urge to lift his hand, catch those errant strands with his fingers and gently tuck them behind her delicate ear as he’d done on so many other occasions. Why the hell couldn’t he erase Morgan from his body and memory forever?
He’d been in the military since he was eighteen. He’d gone to Annapolis and went into the Marine Corps. Later, he moved to the U.S. Navy to become a SEAL. At twenty-nine, Jake felt snared by a joke being pulled on him by Marine Corps god Odin himself. The last person he ever wanted to meet again was Morgan. And here she was: all six feet of woman warrior who proved him wrong about her being the weaker sex.
She glanced down at the watch on her right wrist. “I’ve gotta go, Ramsey.” Morgan drilled him with a hard look. “And I can’t say it’s been nice seeing you again.”
Jake watched her turn on her heel and walk toward the main doors of the Pentagon. It almost felt as if she’d physically slapped him. He stood for a moment, letting her quiet rage pass through him. It wasn’t her fault, he sourly admitted. He’d been the one to hurl the indictment that women were weak. That they shouldn’t be allowed into combat. He and Morgan had gotten into that very argument after making love on Christmas morning as a blizzard hit the Afghan village.
He and his SEAL team had holed up at the American-friendly Shinwari village to wait out the coming storm. To his everlasting surprise, Morgan had been there, too, with another SEAL team. The SEALs operated in small four- and eight-person fire teams throughout the Hindu Kush, rooting out the bad guys and taking them down. He hadn’t been able to swallow his surprise or disguise his pleasure at discovering she was there. Morgan had been assigned as a linguist with another team on a separate black-ops mission.
Rubbing his recently shaved jaw, Jake saw her disappear inside the building. He had just enough time to make his appointment with General Stevenson of the U.S. Army. His emotions, no matter how he tried, burned bright and intense over meeting Morgan once again. She had stood out at Annapolis from the moment he’d seen her in their plebe year. They were in the same class, and for two years, Jake had fought to ignore the tall, assertive redhead. Morgan was as physically strong as most of the men going through the four-year military program. Jake had watched her begin to shine and bloom in her third year. She’d been at the top of the academic list, a champion fencer on the fencing team, and her keen intelligence had been recognized.
He quickly walked across the asphalt parking lot, in deep thought over her. When had he fallen under her charismatic spell at the Academy? How had it happened? Jake had accidentally met Morgan as a third-year student at a local civilian pizza parlor everyone frequented on Saturday evenings. There were plenty of guys who wanted her. She’d always been surrounded by them, but she didn’t seem to care or notice any of them. Yet, when they’d met up at the bar to order pitchers of beer, something had happened.
“Damn,” he rasped, scowling. They’d accidentally grazed one another’s elbows. Jake remembered Morgan’s gaze meeting his. Those deep green eyes that made his heart melt, made his body go hot and hard with longing. Her nickname at the Academy had been Amazon because she was tall, physically strong and she had a bruising, in-your-face independence.
Jake remembered taking Morgan’s hand and leading her into the hall of the bar to be alone with her. He’d done something he’d wanted to do for years: kiss the hell out of her. Morgan, he’d discovered, had been watching him for a long time, too. He’d asked if she was protected, and she’d said yes, she was on the pill. They’d never made it back to the Academy until very early on Sunday morning. And their hearts and fates had been sealed, for better or worse.
He needed to stop remembering. Morgan wasn’t in his life anymore. Jake scowled and climbed the stone steps of the Pentagon. Up ahead were soldiers with M-16 rifles. Since the bombing of the Pentagon on 9/11, security had markedly changed. He would go through an X-ray machine before ever being allowed into the military bastion.
Jake aimed himself toward the outer ring, the E-ring. It was the only level that had windows looking out into the civilian world. Only senior military officers got those posh office assignments. This was where many top secret and black-ops missions originated. Curious as to why he was called off PRODEV, sixty days of leave granted to him after coming back from Afghanistan with his SEAL platoon, he arrived at the E-ring. Looking at the file he held, he saw the number of the office and turned to the right.
Captain Morgan Boland was sitting in a chair opposite the secretary’s desk when the door opened. Her eyes widened. Jake Ramsey, again? Her lips parted for a moment. What was he doing here? He stopped when he realized she was sitting there staring up at him. He had a stunned look across his normally unreadable expression. Shock bolted through her.
Morgan lowered her gaze, and her heart sped up. Why couldn’t she just ignore Ramsey’s darkly tanned face? His rugged good looks and those stormy-looking gray eyes of his? Her fingers tightened imperceptibly around the file in her lap. The only other empty chair in the small, cramped office was two feet away from where she sat. She listened as Jake went to the fortysomething-year-old blonde administrative assistant and gave his name to her.
“Thank you, Lieutenant Ramsey. General Stevenson will see you in just a bit. Would you like some coffee or tea while you wait?”
Jake took off his cap. “No, thank you, ma’am.” He hated having to sit next to Morgan, who was staring at him as if he were going to bite her. His traitorous body and heart clamored over being so close to this fiery woman. Jake wanted to be close. Wanted, somehow, to undo the wrong he’d done to her two years earlier.
Sitting down, he glanced over at her. Morgan was staring straight ahead, her hands tense over the file in her lap. He relished viewing her profile and then realized her once-perfect nose now had a bump on it. Had she broken it? He almost asked but thought better of it. There was an assistant sitting six feet away from them, and Jake didn’t want her to know how much Morgan hated him.
What to say to Jake Ramsey? Morgan felt heat radiating off his hard male body. The uniform showed how athletic and fit he really was. SEALs took exercise to a whole new level, plus six months climbing mountains in Afghanistan had honed his body into a dangerous weapon. She saw the SEAL gold trident on his well-sprung chest, rows of colorful ribbons beneath it. Jake was part of the best of the best black-ops teams the military had. She remembered those pale eyes of his going dove-gray as he’d made love with her. God, they were good in bed together. Too good. And above all, Morgan knew she had to keep a secret she would always carry from that last meeting they had. Jake would never know. Pursing her lips, she refused to say anything to him. Her mind churned with questions on why both of them were here, in the same office of the Pentagon. It made no sense to her.
A buzzer sounded on the assistant’s desk. She looked over at Morgan. “Go right through this door, Captain Boland. General Houston will see you. Room two, please.”
Rising, Morgan nodded, ignored Ramsey and opened the door. Inside, she saw two offices, one on either side of the hall. Turning to the left, she saw a frosted glass window with “2” painted in gold upon it and knocked firmly.
“Enter,” a male voice ordered.
Morgan’s heart picked up a beat as she opened it. Inside was a man in his late-fifties, fit, in a dark green U.S. Army uniform. The salad, or ribbons, across his powerful chest attested to his time and experience in the Army. There was silver on the sidewalls of his closely cropped hair. His eyes were sharp and intelligent-looking. Morgan came to attention in front of his desk.
“Captain Morgan Boland reporting as ordered, sir.”
“At ease, Captain. Have a seat. We need to chat.”
Indeed, Morgan thought as she took the only chair in front of the General’s desk. The man smiled a little as he clasped his hands and rested them on the dark cherrywood desk.
“What I’m about to tell you is top secret, Captain. But I already think you know what this mission is all about.”
“I’m hoping it’s an op to go after Sangar Khogani, sir. I’ve been pushing for it to find and kill him for the last couple of years.”
A grin leaked through the hardened line of his mouth. He handed her a file folder. “We’ve been listening, Captain. Read along with me?”
Opening the folder, Morgan felt her spirits lift. Her emotions shimmered as she quickly read the one-paragraph synopsis on the mission. Looking up, she saw the General giving her a penetrating look. Morgan waited for him to speak, even though she wanted to tear through the rest of the assignment and read the details. She hoped like hell she had been assigned to it.
“You’re a part of Operation Shadow Warriors,” he began, opening the file. “Forty women volunteers from all the military branches were trained either in Ranger or Special Forces schools and are now in ground combat to prove women have what it takes to do the job in the field. We’re in the third year of a seven-year top secret experiment. I’m pleased to tell you, it’s going very well in showing women can handle combat.”
“Yes, sir.” Hope rose in her breast. Morgan had never wanted an assignment more than this one. Was General Houston letting her have it or not? She couldn’t read the man’s deeply tanned face.
“You’ve been very active and vocal about mounting a mission to take out Khogani. He’s an opium drug lord with the Hill tribe near the border area with Pakistan.”
“Yes, sir, I have.” She’d spoken to General Maya Stevenson, who had spearheaded women in combat, starting with the Black Jaguar Squadron down in Peru years earlier. Maya had put together a plan of an all-woman Apache combat squadron to halt cocaine shipments out of that country. It had been approved and had been a spectacular success. Then Stevenson had organized Operation Shadow Warriors three years ago. It was a program putting women’s boots on the ground in various combat theaters.
Morgan wasted no time in pleading her case directly to the General to mount a mission. She wanted to even the terrible score over in Afghanistan. Morgan had been caught up in the battle along with a group of Green Berets, wounded and one of the few survivors of Khogani’s attack on a Shinwari tribe village.
Houston nodded. “You’re going to get your wish, Captain. You’ve been a SEAL trained sniper for three years now, and you’ve exemplified yourself in that department. You’ve been downrange with SEAL and Special Forces units for the past three years.”
“I have the background it takes to successfully complete this mission, sir.”
“There’s no question about that, Captain.”
“I’ve lobbied hard to get this op on the board, sir.”
Houston smiled a little at the brash woman officer. “If you could suffer a little more with me, Captain, let’s talk about the mission details?”
Chastised, Morgan relaxed against the chair. She saw humor in his eyes, as if he were putting up with a petulant, pushy child. “Yes, sir, sorry, sir. I’ve got a few guns in this fight.”
Houston nodded and sobered. He was familiar with SEAL slang. “A gun in the fight” meant the person had a personal, vested interest in the undertaking. Morgan had never gone through SEAL training. Instead, she’d been working off and on with them for years over in Afghanistan. Their slang and lingo were bound to rub off on her.
“I understand. General Stevenson and I are responsible for the inception of Operation Shadow Warriors. We took your request seriously when you submitted this mission to General Stevenson. We’ve worked with SOCOM, Special Operation Command, up and down the chain of command to ensure this mission, which is now called Operation Peregrine, is successful.”
“Thank you, sir. You don’t know how much this means to me.” Morgan held her breath as he slowly leafed through several pages of the mission. Would they let her be on the op? Just because they approved it didn’t mean she was assigned. They had to allow her to be a part of it! Never had Morgan ever wanted anything more in life right now than to go after Sangar Khogani. She had two scores to settle with him.
At the same time, she knew Houston was well aware she was a sniper and a damned good one. She’d proved her skill out in the field many times over. Snipers weren’t supposed to be emotionally involved in the hunting of their quarry. They couldn’t do their job if revenge was uppermost on their minds. Emotions clouded a sniper’s mind-set; something no one wanted in the field during an op. Morgan realized she’d revealed her personal and emotional need to have a stake in this op. A stupid move on her part.
And now General Houston knew how badly she wanted Khogani. Would he overlook her passion? Or not? Unsure, Morgan forced herself to sit quietly and wait. After all, that was what snipers did best. Patience was a virtue among the sniper cadre, and ordinarily, Morgan had the patience of Job. But Khogani stirred up violent, angry emotions in her, and there was no way around it. She wanted that bastard dead. His head on a platter. And she wanted to be the one who put it there.
“Go to page four, Captain. This entails the guts of the op.”
Morgan’s gaze went to page four. There were two names chosen for the op. One was her, which sent a giddy emotion of joy through her. When her eyes dropped to the second name, her heart plunged with disbelief. Gulping, she snapped a look up across the desk at Houston. Struggling to speak, she rasped, “But—sir, I’m assigned to this op with Lieutenant Jake Ramsey?” For a moment, she felt as if someone had hit her with an armor-piercing round to her Kevlar vest, sucking the breath out of her.
“That’s right,” Mike Houston said. “General Stevenson and I want this to be a SEAL mission. You’ve worked well with them in the past. We needed a SEAL sniper who could be sniper leader on the op.”
Morgan swallowed her disappointment. “Yes, sir,” she barely mouthed. There would be no way in hell she could voice protest over Ramsey being assigned. On top of that, he had been designated as lead sniper. In the sniping business, they were both equally qualified, but one sniper would be the leader, the final decision maker. And it would be him! Dammit! The ramifications of the assignment whirled like a nightmare around her. Obviously, these generals did not know their long personal history. Maybe that was a blessing in disguise. Morgan was sure she’d never have been assigned to the op if General Houston realized what she and Jake had once been to each other.
Lifting her head, she said, “Sir? What led you to choose Lieutenant Ramsey?”
Mike sat back in his leather chair and said, “His name was spit out by the computer, Captain. Any problems with that?”
“None, sir,” she lied, her voice husky as she carefully closeted her roiling feelings. That was why she’d met Jake in the parking lot.
“General Stevenson is interviewing First Lieutenant Ramsey as we speak. If she feels he’s the right man for the job, we’ll be setting up the briefing tomorrow at 0900 here in this office. We’ll all go over the details of this op at that time.” He picked up a voucher and handed it to her. “You’ll both be staying at this hotel located near the Pentagon. I know you just came out of Afghanistan, flying for almost twenty-four hours to make this meeting, Captain. Get a hot meal under your belt tonight and get a good night’s sleep. I need you a hundred percent tomorrow morning. Understand?”
Quickly coming to her feet at attention, Morgan said, “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“Dismissed.”
Morgan forced herself to turn and walk to the door. Emotions clashed within her. She felt a little dizzy. As she left the office, she was grateful not to see Jake Ramsey. She kept walking toward the front doors, trying to deal with this new development. Closing her eyes for a moment, she dragged in an uneven breath, forcing all those feelings down into her once more. It didn’t work.
Morgan fought the deep jet lag. She’d only been able to grab some sleep aboard the C-5 that had flown her from Bagram air base in Afghanistan to Rota, Spain, and then on to Andrews Air Force Base just outside Washington, D.C.
Pushing herself, Morgan left the Pentagon, glad to be out in the warm May sunlight once more. The breeze reminded her she was home, if but for a little while, not in the harsh desert mountains of Afghanistan with a hunter-killer SEAL team. Aiming herself at the rented SUV, Morgan looked at the voucher. She was so damned tired, she was weaving. Houston was right: she needed a hot shower and then bed. If she woke up sometime this evening, she’d get dinner to fortify herself. Because the turnaround on this op was immediate. The schedule had them leaving within twenty-four hours, headed back into Afghanistan.
As she opened the door to the SUV, Morgan wanted to check in to the hotel and make a call to her parents in Gunnison, Colorado. And even more, she wanted to talk to her two-year-old daughter, Emma. Just thinking about her family buoyed Morgan. She tried to force her thoughts away from Jake Ramsey. What did he think of the sniper pairing on this op? He had to be feeling like an IED had exploded beneath him. Morgan knew, without any doubt, the last woman Jake would ever want on a mission with him would be her. Correction, he’d never want any woman on a mission with him, believing they were incapable of operating in combat.
All hell was about to break loose….
Chapter Two
Jake Ramsey wondered what kind of bad karma was hanging over his head. When he opened door number one, he came face-to-face with an Army woman General. He snapped to attention in front of her desk and reported as ordered.
“At ease,” General Maya Stevenson said, gesturing to the chair in front of her desk. “Have a seat, Lieutenant Ramsey. We have a lot to cover in a short amount of time.”
Sitting, Jake got his first good look at the female General. His mind spun in shock, but somewhere, in his memory, he had heard this woman’s name. Where? And he almost blurted, what is a woman doing mission planning on a black ops? But didn’t. Judging from the serious look on her face, he’d keep his mouth shut. Her hair was black with some silver strands and barely brushed the shoulders of her green uniform. It was the burning intelligence in her large emerald eyes that warned him she wasn’t some weak woman like his mother. Far from it; so he sat there on edge, trying to appear interested but not anxious.
“Lieutenant, you were chosen for Operation Peregrine by our computers.” She leaned forward, handing him the mission brief. “We need two snipers to go after Sangar Khogani, a Hill tribe leader who is an opium warlord.” She rested her hands on the file. “We have chosen a sniper team to go after him and remove his presence from the fight.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Are you interested in this type of op, Lieutenant?”
“Absolutely, ma’am.” Jake felt himself sweat. This woman General had the kind of look that could cut an officer into so many ribbons. Why would she ask such a question?
“Open the file to page four, Lieutenant.”
Jake opened it. His mouth dropped as he read who his assigned sniper partner would be: Captain Morgan Boland. He snapped his mouth shut, feeling shock bolt through him. “Ma’am,” he said, struggling, looking at her, “this can’t be right.”
“What isn’t right, Lieutenant?”
“This…this is a woman, ma’am.”
The General’s long, arched brows turned downward. Her once-relaxed facial features turned glacial. He knew he’d said the wrong thing but didn’t care. There was no way he was going on a black op with a woman! Not even Morgan Boland. Especially not her. Adrenaline began to leak into his bloodstream. What kind of sick joke was this?
“You got a problem with that, Lieutenant?”
Wincing internally, Jake heard the frost in her husky voice, her eyes narrowed speculatively upon him. Okay, so he saw the choice: argue that a woman had no place being a sniper on a dangerous black op and ask for a man to be assigned with him instead. As Jake sat there in those seconds, he suddenly remembered Maya Stevenson. Scuttlebutt had circulated among the SEALs that a female Army General had formed an all-woman combat unit. The women had been divided among the black-ops community. The all-volunteer force had been trained in Ranger or Special Forces schools. They had then been assigned to a black-ops team to become a working part of it in combat. And he remembered hearing the plan was working very well. Dammit.
Mouth dry, Jake tried to temper his answer. “Ma’am, with all due respect, I honestly don’t feel a woman could handle this kind of op. Just perusing some of the challenges on this mission, it’s in the Hindu Kush mountains. We could be at twelve thousand feet on rocks and scree. I’ve been up in those mountains many times, and I know how brutal the elements and challenges are for a sniper.”
“Which is why you were chosen for this mission, Lieutenant. You bring experience to the table. But so does Captain Boland.”
There was a hard edge in her voice, and Jake felt trapped. She wasn’t even going to discuss a woman being assigned to the op. It was a done deal to her, normal SOP, standard operating procedure. He held her unblinking gaze. “Yes, ma’am.”
“There’s a but in your voice, Lieutenant.” She gave him a cutting look. “This meeting between you and me is to simply iron out any major problems before we meet at 0900 back here tomorrow morning to go over the details of this op.”
Swallowing hard, Jake felt her power. He could see she was holding back her emotions. “Again, with all due respect, General, I will not allow a woman on an op like this.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Jake felt as if a bomb went off in the small, cramped room. It wasn’t physical, but invisible, as if he got slapped with angry energy. The General straightened, her face going hard. He tried to prepare himself against the anger he saw.
“We’re not asking for your ‘allowance,’ Lieutenant Ramsey. I don’t know what rock you’ve been hiding under, but women are in combat. And they’ve been in combat from day one of the Iraq War. They’re in combat in Afghanistan. For the last ten years. Where have you been?”
“SEALs have no female operatives in their ranks,” he shot back. This op assignment terrified Jake. He couldn’t take Morgan as a sniper partner. No way in hell.
The General gave him a patient look. “Again, Lieutenant, for your edification, women have gone on SEAL ops. I suggest you study Captain Boland’s training and background. That should change your prejudicial mind.”
“Ma’am, it’s not prejudice. I’m concerned for a woman’s well-being.” Jake’s mouth thinned. He felt the beginnings of real threat to him by taking the op. He and Morgan had a challenging relationship. He was positive Stevenson knew nothing of their personal history. Otherwise, they would never have thrown them together in this op.
“Regardless of her gender, Lieutenant, you should be concerned for your partner. Sniping is an art as much as experience to remain hidden so you can take out your target.”
His palms grew damp, his heart pounding with adrenaline as it flooded his body. “I take care of my men, ma’am. They are my priority.”
“Taking care of your personnel is expected of every officer. Well, this time, it’s a woman, Lieutenant. And I can tell by the way you’re looking at me that you think you just landed on Mars. Get over it. This is the twenty-first century, and there is a group of women out there who have been in combat for the last three years in Operation Shadow Warriors, Lieutenant. A very dark, deep SOCOM-produced experiment to see if women could handle combat beside their male counterparts.” She leaned forward, her voice a rasp. “They’ve been proving it, Lieutenant. There are other SEAL teams that Captain Boland has been working with for the past three years. Successfully, I might add.”
Mind spinning, Jake sat back, stunned. SEAL units were small and a tight-knit family. “I’ve been a SEAL for seven years,” he challenged strongly, “and I’ve never heard anything about a woman assigned to a platoon for combat purposes.” If there had been a woman assigned to certain SEAL units, word would have gotten around, for damned sure. Jake saw the General’s face grow even harder, if that was possible. Sweat dribbled down the sides of his ribs. He felt under fire, in a combat situation.
“We’ve looked at your record. You’ve had women assigned to your team on several patrols, Lieutenant. They were there as a linguist, an 18 Delta medic and a forensics and FBI specialist. Were these not direct action missions?”
Jake felt trapped. He did remember women being assigned. But that was different. “That wasn’t as a principal shooter, ma’am.”
“The missions these women were assigned to illustrate each woman was shot at and all successfully returned fire, Lieutenant. The selection of ‘principal’ members is beyond your pay grade. Are you telling me that you are refusing this op?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Good to hear. I want your word, Lieutenant, that you will not treat Captain Boland in a prejudicial manner. She’s equally qualified as you.”
Stunned, Jake jerked a look down at the open file on his lap. He hadn’t had time to read anything about Morgan’s sniper background. He didn’t even know she had one. He knew she’d gotten a major in civil engineering and a minor in linguistics back at Annapolis in Pashto, but that was all. Working his mouth, sweat forming on his upper lip, he muttered, “I’ll do my best, ma’am.”
“That’s not good enough, Lieutenant. And you damn well know it.”
Stevenson’s growling voice stunned him into silence. Jake sat stiffly, holding her glare. She was a General. He was a lowly Lieutenant. Refusing this op would end his career. “Yes, ma’am. I won’t have a problem with Captain Boland being my sniper partner.”
“You sure?” She drilled him with an intent look.
Jake felt as if she had X-ray vision, staring holes through him. His career was far more important to him than arguing women were weak to this Army General. The SEALs were his family; the men, his brothers. Maybe not by birth, but they’d spilled blood among one another on too many occasions. Mouth pursed, he gave her a crisp nod. “It won’t be a problem, ma’am. I’ll make it work.”
Her nostrils flared as she sat up. “By God, you’d better, Lieutenant Ramsey. Or I’ll have your career. This op is not about you. It’s got a lot of other ramifications you aren’t even aware of. And if other SEAL platoons can work well with Captain Boland, so can you. Dismissed.”
Morgan had just given the waiter her menu choices when Jake Ramsey, in civilian clothes, entered the restaurant. It was 2200, or ten at night. She groaned. She’d hoped not to meet him until 0900 tomorrow morning.
As Morgan sat at the table for two in the corner of the busy hotel restaurant, she couldn’t stop her heart from expanding with old, warm feelings. Jake was dressed in a light blue short-sleeve shirt, tan chinos and loafers. Even twenty feet away, she could tell he was a SEAL. He carried himself with a well-earned confidence, his shoulders back, his gaze always roving slowly around an area, checking it out. His black hair gleamed, indicating he’d probably just taken a shower. There was no question, he was a damned good-looking man. He was in control, powerful and intense.
Morgan’s mouth quirked as his gaze moved her way. And then his eyes locked on hers. Surprise flared in his gray eyes for a split second, and then that hard, unreadable SEAL game face dropped into place.
She smiled to herself as she picked up the delicate china coffee cup in both hands and took a sip. Now what was he going to do? Pretend he didn’t see her and get the maître d’ to seat him on the other side of the room so he wouldn’t have to talk to her? Or would he bite the bullet and invite himself to her table? Morgan wished Jake would disappear to the other side of the room. But when the maître d’ approached, he pointed toward her table.
Friggin’ great. She was barely awake, her lack of sleep so deep she was barely functioning mentally. Never mind emotionally. She forced herself to try to be more alert.
“Mind if I join you?” Jake asked.
Morgan said, “Sit down.”
The maître d’ left the menu with him after he’d taken a chair and sat down. Morgan stared across the table at Jake. Hell, if they didn’t share such an awful history between them, she’d find herself drawn to the SEAL officer. His square face had been recently shaved, and that dangerous feeling that was always around him appealed powerfully to her.
“You look tired,” Jake observed, trying to find some safe ground. Though he did notice, too, how beautiful Morgan was. She had on a pale lilac pantsuit and cream-colored tee with a dark purple scarf around her shoulders. Jake had forgotten just how she could take his breath away. Her hair lay like a gleaming red cloak about her proud shoulders. Morgan never wore makeup, but she never had to. Her green eyes were large and well spaced with thick red lashes to frame them. But he saw shadows beneath those eyes, and whether he wanted to or not, he became concerned for her.
“I just got hauled off an op in the Hindu Kush to make this meeting,” she said. “Don’t worry. I’m up for our mission.”
His nerves nettled as he forced himself to look down at the menu. Jake still wanted her, dammit. His heart did, too, because a ribbon of happiness soared through him. He scowled, focused on the menu. “I was making conversation,” he told her, lifting his chin and meeting her flat stare.
Morgan had the most arresting eyes he’d ever encountered. Jake could feel himself being lured into their depths, the forest-green mixed with glimmers of willow-green color. He remembered hotly that as they made love, there would be gold highlights dappled throughout them. Shifting uncomfortably, Jake felt himself responding to her, much as he wanted to remain aloof.
“You just came off an op? Where?”
“Same area where we met December, two years ago.” It had changed Morgan’s life in ways Jake would never find out about. In one way, it broke her heart and she felt guilty. In another, there was an unbridgeable chasm between them.
Ouch. Damn. Jake scowled, decided on something simple and straightforward to eat. The waiter came over and took his order for a hamburger and fries. He folded his hands, sensing how tense she was. Morgan’s gaze was wary. And that delicious mouth he’d tasted and kissed was pursed. “Did you hitch a C-5 out of Bagram?”
“Yes.” Morgan tried not to be swayed by Jake, but dammit, the toughest thing to do was ignore his blatant maleness. He was a man’s man, a SEAL, and they had male charisma to burn. The expression in his gray eyes was neutral. She saw him struggling to try to find some purchase with her that wasn’t argumentative or threatening. Truth be known, she was too tired to pick a fight with him. “I’m whipped,” she admitted, sliding her long fingers around the china cup.
“Flights halfway around the world will do that to you,” Jake agreed, keeping the edge out of his tone. “In fact, you don’t look quite awake.”
Snorting, Morgan sipped her coffee. “Understatement. I feel beat-up. As soon as I left my meeting with General Houston, I came over here and crashed and burned.” She looked at the watch on her wrist. “I’ve slept since 1000 and it’s 2200.”
“You need another twenty-four hours of downtime to get your body and mind back on the same page,” Jake agreed. In fact, because Morgan was exhausted, her normal defenses weren’t in place. And for that, he breathed a sigh of relief. Anything he’d ever heard about red-haired women applied to Morgan ten times over. She was a risk taker, hotheaded and no-nonsense. Her feistiness had always drawn him. Even now.
The waiter brought over Morgan’s meal, a hamburger and a large plate of French fries. She thanked him, and he left. She saw him eyeing her food. Good God, why did the man have to have such a sensual mouth? Morgan remembered kissing that mouth. He was such a damn good lover, a thoughtful one, despite how they fought outside the bedroom. That was the past. She had to let it go. Seeing Jake stare at the stack of hot French fries, she pushed the plate toward the middle of the table.
“Go on. I know how much you like them.”
“Guilty,” Jake admitted, grinning sheepishly and thanking her. She handed him the bottle of ketchup, knowing that was how he liked his fries. “Been six months since I tasted real French fries.”
She fixed her hamburger, watching Jake through her lashes. “You just get back from Afghanistan and you’re on PRODEV, professional development, with your platoon now?”
“Yes, I was supposed to be on my sixty days of leave.” Jake’s face melted with pleasure as he ate the first few fries. The man was so easy to read when he dropped his SEAL game face. He sat back in the chair, his eyes shuttering closed as he relished and appreciated the food. Some of Morgan’s testiness dissolved.
Morgan understood that the SEALs pined for real American junk food when they were in their six-month rotation into a combat zone. As she bit into the juicy hamburger, she knew six months in combat wore on everyone. SEALs didn’t go into any area that wasn’t life threatening. Since 9/11, sixty SEALs had died in combat. Far too many, but it attested to the sheer dangerousness in their work. They were frontline warriors, black-ops commandos who hunted down the enemy to make this world a safer place for all Americans.
“Gawd,” Ramsey whispered, opening his eyes, “who knew French fries could taste so damned good?” He reached for more.
“The hamburger is to die for, too.”
Jake nodded. “Mine’s coming.” He met and held her green gaze. For once, there was no animosity in Morgan’s stare. He absorbed the peaceful moment between them. God knew, there were never many. He wondered how they were ever going to get along on a sniper op. Would she be able to put her sword away? Could he? But tonight, Jake didn’t want to address those concerns with Morgan. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to bring it up tomorrow morning at the briefing with the two Generals, either.
“Here,” Morgan muttered, cutting her hamburger in half. “Get some good food into your stomach.” She handed half of it to him.
Surprised and pleased, Jake took the proffered hamburger. “Thanks…” Their fingers briefly met. The shock, the pleasure running up his fingers, amazed him. Trying not to be swayed by it, he bit eagerly into the hamburger. Maybe, just maybe, Morgan wasn’t going to be hard to work with after all. It didn’t necessarily mean the war between them was over.
Chapter Three
Morgan girded herself for an intense hour of briefing on Operation Peregrine. Jake Ramsey sat opposite of her at a rectangular maple table in a large room deep in the bowels of the Pentagon. The two Generals arrived precisely at 0900. Both officers snapped to attention when they walked into the room.
“At ease,” Maya Stevenson told them with a wave of her hand. She sat at one end of the table, Mike Houston at the other. Houston placed his leather briefcase on the table and opened it up.
“Here’s the mission,” he told them, distributing a thick red plastic folder to each of them.
Morgan saw an Army Sergeant, a woman with blond hair, enter with a tray that held a large pot of coffee, four white mugs, sugar, cream and a plate of Oreo cookies. She smiled to herself, knowing that General Stevenson was addicted to Oreos. Even at 0900.
After the door closed, leaving the four of them in the soundproof, lead-lined room, Morgan tried to relax. She cast a quick look over at Jake. He was handsome, unreadable, his gray eyes somewhat narrowed. Tension radiated from him, but she didn’t see it in his face.
Morgan wondered if he’d argued against her being on the mission. He considered women weak and incapable. If Jake had, there was no outward sign. Glancing at Maya, whom she knew very well because of Operation Shadow Warriors, Morgan saw the General was focused on thumbing through the briefing. At fifty-four, she was one of the youngest women ever to achieve the rank of General.
“All right,” Maya said, “let’s go to page five.”
Morgan opened the red briefing folder, noting it was top secret.
Houston poured coffee for everyone and passed it around. “The cookies are for General Stevenson,” he intoned, a grin coming to his face. “Off-limits to the rest of us non-Oreo lovers.”
Maya smiled briefly. “Roger that.”
Morgan couldn’t help a small chuckle. Right then, Jake looked up, confused, glancing first at Maya and then over at her for some explanation. None was forthcoming as Mike Houston picked up the plate and set it near the General’s left hand.
Jake shifted uncomfortably, which made her wonder how he’d reacted to knowing she was his sniper partner. Sniper teams could go out in the field as a single operator, or as a twosome, depending on the mission. She couldn’t read into his bloodshot gray eyes. Jake must not have gotten much sleep last night.
Houston looked over at Maya. “General Stevenson, want to tell them why this op has been initiated?”
Maya nodded, folded her hands over the briefing. She pinned both officers with an intense look. “Sangar Khogani is an opium warlord in Afghanistan. He’s chief of the Hill tribe, and they are at war with the Shinwari tribe, next door. We couldn’t care less about this except that the Shinwari are under our government’s protection. We’ve given them millions of dollars in the past few years because they asked for our help. They want infrastructure, schools, medical clinics and help in creating a viable economy for the four-hundred-thousand strong in their tribe.
“The biggest reason why we’re involved with them is that the Khyber Pass, between Pakistan and Afghanistan, occurs in their territory. They are the front door to all al Qaeda coming from Pakistan into their country. They’ve promised to give us intel, and they have. They are Pashtuns who live by a fifteen-hundred-year-old code where your word is your bond.”
Jake nodded. He slipped a glance over at Morgan. She had turned her chair, fully facing General Stevenson. Maybe he should, too? A sign of respect?
“Questions?” Stevenson demanded.
Jake said, “Ma’am, it’s my understanding, after being assigned to that region of the Hindu Kush, Sangar Khogani is a menace to everyone in the area.” Jake opened his hands. “The Shinwari call him the Phantom. He’s got two hundred men on horseback and literally strikes and hides in one of those thousands of caves in those mountains. This is the same man we’re talking about?”
Maya looked pleased. “Yes, it is, Lieutenant Ramsey.”
Jake relaxed a little, the General’s smile easing some of his inner tension.
“But let’s move forward to three months ago. Turn to page ten. You’ll see a map.”
Jake turned to the map, instantly recognizing the village of Margha. It was the same one where he and his team had holed up to wait out a blizzard two years ago in December. Heat tunneled through him. It was the village where he’d unexpectedly met Morgan. They’d shared three days of incredible sex and intimacy. Until he’d opened his big mouth about women being weak and everything had gone to hell in a handbasket. Gulping, Jake didn’t dare look over at Morgan. She had to be thinking the same thing. Damned karma…
“Margha,” Maya said, jabbing her index finger at it, “had a hundred and fifty Shinwari men, women and children. All pro-American. Captain Boland was in that village along with an Army Special Forces team a year ago. They were there rendering medical aid to the populace for five days and were going to leave the next day. Khogani descended at dusk and attacked the village.” Her voice lowered. “The Special Forces team tried to protect the villagers, but it was eleven people against an estimated two hundred riders on horseback. Even they can’t buck odds like that. And it was impossible to bomb the village with a drone or fighter jet or they would end up killing the very people we were trying to protect from Khogani.”
Maya gestured toward Morgan. “Captain Boland had a couple of guns in that fight, Lieutenant Ramsey. What you don’t know is that the Special Forces team had to evacuate and hightail it to a rally point to be lifted out by the Night Stalkers MH-47 helicopter. Every person in that team was more or less wounded. So was Captain Boland. They fought until they ran out of ammunition, and only then did they run for their lives.”
Jake sucked in a quiet breath, twisting a look toward Morgan. She refused to look at him, her attention on her clasped hands in her lap. His heart squeezed with pain for her. Unconsciously, Jake rubbed his chest, remaining silent but wrestling with unexpected emotions about her being wounded.
“The next day,” Maya went on, “Captain Boland returned with reinforcements, but the damage had already been done. When Captain Boland landed with two SEAL teams and two Special Forces teams, they found a hundred and fifty people murdered.” Her voice lowered even more. “Khogani slaughtered innocent people because the elders of the village had refused to allow opium transport through their valley. This is why we’re initiating this op. We feel it’s best to send in a sniper team. And that’s the two of you. You will have time on target for as long as it takes. Snipers know how to stalk. And they know how to track and be patient in finding someone like Khogani. Questions?”
“This is a SEAL op?” Ramsey demanded.
Houston said, “Yes, but you’ll have any other military assets available you need via GPS satellite and/or radio communications. Camp Bravo, an FOB, has a squadron of Apaches on standby, a medevac squadron, the CIA is there with drones and so are a number of Special Forces teams. There are a number of Operation Shadow Warrior women combat operators who are already assigned to some of these teams.”
Jake asked, “Who’s my SEAL contact? Is he out of Camp Bravo or J-bad, Jalalabad?”
“Lieutenant Ramsey, let’s starting thinking plural here, shall we?” Maya met his startled look. “You said ‘my contact.’ It should have been our contact.”
Realizing his mistake, Jake nodded. “My apologies, ma’am. I meant our.”
Morgan almost felt sorry for Jake. He wasn’t about to back up on a General, man or woman. He’d backed up on her in many a furious argument about women being weak. She saw the banked anger and confusion in his eyes for a moment, but being a SEAL, he moved on to the next important item.
“Who’s running radio comms?” Jake asked.
“Captain Boland will,” Mike Houston said. “She’s taken SEAL schooling in every kind of communications gear you presently utilize.”
Relief sizzled through Jake, because that was not his specialty. “That’s good to know,” he murmured, lifting his gaze and meeting Morgan’s cool green eyes. He’d leafed through the report last night and seen her impressive list of training. If Morgan wasn’t in Afghanistan with black-ops teams, she was stateside getting more training. He respected her for that. And it could save their lives out in the field.
“You’re going to be working with Lieutenant-Commander Viera out of J-bad,” Houston said.
More relief showered through Jake. He might be forced to have a woman on this mission, but at least he had a solid SEAL officer supporting it. “Yes, sir. He’s the best.” And Julio Viera, or Vero, his nickname in the SEALs, was a badass Puerto Rican from the slums who had worked his way up through the ranks. He was a mustang, someone who started out as an enlisted person but eventually got to officer’s school. With a decade of experience behind him, Vero’s reputation in the community was as one of the best SEAL planners in the business. Vero would have their back, and Jake was grateful. His karma had just turned into dharma.
Houston looked at his watch. “You’re wheels up at 1100 from Andrews. You’ll be hopping a C-130 flight to Travis Air Force Base, California. From there, you’ll fly across the Pacific and get a hop on a C-5 heading for Hawaii. You’ll stay overnight at the Schofield Army barracks in Honolulu. The next morning, you’ll grab another C-5 flight heading into Bagram Air Base north of Kabul, Afghanistan. From there, you’ll meet Captain Khalid Shaheen, U.S. Army. He’s an Apache combat pilot, but works closely with the Black Jaguar Squadron out of Camp Bravo. He’ll fly you into J-bad. From there, the Night Stalkers will drop you into the valley where you’ll meet our ground asset, Reza.”
“Afghan local?” Jake wondered.
“He’s more than that.” Morgan spoke up, her quiet voice carrying emotion behind it. She quickly looked at General Houston, apology in her expression. She shouldn’t have interrupted a briefing.
“Go on,” Houston said, unruffled by her comment.
“Thank you, sir.” Morgan turned her attention to Jake. “Reza is a thirty-five-year-old Afghan from the Shinwari tribe. He’s worked with SEALs and Special Forces over the last seven years. He’s pro-American.” Her voice caught, and she cleared her throat, getting ahold of escaping emotions. When she spoke again, Morgan’s voice was husky. “Reza lived in the village of Margha that Khogani attacked. The only reason he lived was because he was out with another SEAL team twenty miles south of the village at the time it was attacked.”
“I see,” Jake murmured. But maybe he didn’t. He could have sworn he saw moisture come to Morgan’s eyes. For just a split second. Her lips, full and soft, twisted. He knew that gesture. She was trying to hide emotions. And when she tucked her lower lip between her teeth for a second, Jake knew there was a lot more to this story.
“Reza,” Morgan added, her voice low, “is the soul of Islamic kindness. He lives the Koran as it should be. He’s kind, gentle and helps others. He was beloved by everyone in Margha. He was responsible for bringing in the Special Forces and getting medical help for the children seven years ago.” Morgan blinked, pushing the tears away. She forced herself to go on. “He lost his wife and five children in the attack.” Bowing her head, she muttered, “I couldn’t even save one of his children….”
An unexpected lump formed in Jake’s throat. He swallowed a few times. There was pain mirrored in Morgan’s face, even though the wall of red hair hid most of her expression from him. This time, she wasn’t trying to hide anything in spite of the fact there were two Generals present. Her cheeks had gone pale.
Jake found himself wanting to reach out, touch Morgan’s tightly gripped hands on the table. But he remained still, buffeted by her grief. And that was probably how she ended up getting injured during the attack, trying to rescue Reza’s kids. She loved children with a passion.
Old memories began to rise in him. God, he had to contain them. He couldn’t afford to relive that two years back at the Academy when they’d been lovers. It had been a mixture of incredible happiness, brutal sorrow and serrating pain.
“War sucks,” Maya agreed in a quiet tone. “You did what you could. Sometimes, it’s not enough, Captain.”
Morgan nodded, blinking away unshed tears. “Yes, ma’am, you’re right.”
Jake saw the natural warmth between Maya Stevenson and Morgan. Clearly, they knew each other very well. For a moment, he wondered if the General was Morgan’s sponsor. Every young officer hoped that a higher-ranking officer would take them under their wing and give them opportunities other officers would never get. They were groomed for leadership and put on a fast track for higher rank and responsibility. Yes, he would bet his right hand Stevenson was her sponsor and mentor. “Any other questions?” Houston demanded.
“No, sir,” Morgan said.
“No, sir,” Jake said.
“Good hunting out there,” Maya told them, meaning it as she rose.
Both officers leaped to their feet, coming to attention.
“At ease,” Houston murmured, standing and placing two folders into his briefcase. The other two would go with the snipers. “Do yourself a favor and take advantage of the chow in the Pentagon cafeteria.” He smiled a little. “Pig out on hamburgers and French fries. Where you’re going, there won’t be any for a damn long time until you nail this son of a bitch. Stay safe out there.”
Morgan smiled at the tall, broad-shouldered General. “Thank you, sir. We will.”
“Makes two of us,” Jake said, standing aside to allow General Stevenson by him.
“Better load up on Butterfingers,” Maya called over her shoulder to Morgan as she left.
Morgan grinned, especially as Jake cocked his head. He knew her favorite candy was Butterfinger. For a moment, she felt happy. An emotion she hadn’t felt since… Morgan’s smile faded. She picked up her black leather purse and bucket hat. That spark of happiness died quickly in the wake of a wall of grief and loss. Her husband, SEAL Lieutenant Mark Evans, had been killed by Khogani five years earlier. She had two good reasons to hunt Khogani down, once and for all.
Jake gestured for her to leave the room first, his hand on the doorknob. His whole body responded when she managed a slight smile of thanks. Morgan’s face and those mesmerizing green eyes of hers radiated such intimate warmth. It was a peek into the real Morgan when she didn’t have to maintain officer and military decorum.
Morgan hesitated in the outer office where the secretary was busy. Jake was her sniper partner, and she should wait for him. A part of her wanted to run away as fast as she could. That was the wounded woman in her. The rest of her, the military officer, knew they needed time to go over the op, look at it, figure out the details, fill in any holes that could be found in it and get on the same page with the mission—together.
When Jake emerged, hat in hand, she felt a rush of heat blossom deep inside her. Startled by it, Morgan thought that two years would have ended their tempestuous on-again, off-again relationship. She pursed her lips as he walked up to her. It hadn’t.
Morgan could feel raw male energy radiating off him like invisible sunlight. Did he realize how damned charismatic and sexy he was? She didn’t think so. Jake’s whole life, his entire focus, was about his SEAL fraternity. He never wanted a serious personal relationship standing between him and his SEAL career. A roll in a bed was fine with him, but he was Mr. No Strings Attached. As she’d found out too late, in her third year at Annapolis. Jake Ramsey had devastated her, sheared her world in half and never looked back. Never apologized. She should know better. How many times had she fallen for him? Twice. Twice too many times.
“Ready to rock it out?” he asked her quietly, looking down into her eyes.
“Funny you should use that word,” she murmured, turning. It was a favorite SEAL saying when live fire or an attack was just about to be initiated against an enemy. “Let’s go chow down.”
Chapter Four
Jake sat opposite Morgan at one of the many lunch tables in the cafeteria. Most uniformed personnel who came in at this hour of the morning went for coffee, doughnuts or rolls. They sat with huge platters of hamburgers and French fries, plus a Pepsi on the side. Jet lag did wonders for the digestion.
“I don’t know where to start with you, Morgan,” Jake admitted.
“Makes two of us. I didn’t know you were selected for this mission, either. It was a shock.”
He watched her eat, and his lower body tightened, which didn’t make him happy. Taking a deep breath, he decided to ignore their history together. And there was plenty of time in the next two days to get clear on the op. “I’m sorry for what happened to you at that Afghan village. It had to be tough.”
The vibration of his voice, that whiskey tone of his, sent a keening ache through her. Morgan lifted her head and met his tender gray gaze. Jake was really trying to be humble and caring. On occasion he could be so damn warm and persuasive, moving her from ice to fire.
She gave him a hard look. “Let’s stick to business, Ramsey. It’s the only place I want to be with you. I don’t want to discuss that attack.” It was too painful for her. She’d break down in tears, something Jake had never seen her do. And Morgan wasn’t about to bare her soul to him in, of all places, the Pentagon cafeteria.
Jake sat back, his mouth tightening. His gray eyes going glacial as he stared into her stubborn-looking face. “This is business,” he ground out. “I didn’t know you were a sniper. When did you get your training?”
“Three years ago.”
“As part of Operation Shadow Warriors?” He searched, trying to piece her training. Oh, he’d read her résumé, but he wanted a hell of a lot more.
“Yes, ten of the women from Shadow Warriors were sent to SEAL sniper school. Five made it through.” Her heart fluttered, and she hated herself for wanting Jake. She could see through him like glass. He was twisting in the wind, not sure how to handle or approach her.
“Did either of your parents hunt?”
Mouth quirking, Morgan picked up a fry. “Since when did you ever want to know anything about my home life, Ramsey? Funny, you had a year at Annapolis to find out everything you ever wanted to know about me. But you never asked me once about my family.”
He winced.
Served him right. Would Jake ever grow up? He was twenty-nine, same age as her. And he had the personal irresponsibility of a fifteen-year-old hormone-driven teenager. Relationships meant nothing to him. She’d meant nothing to him outside of the bed. Even if Jake hadn’t grown up, Morgan had.
Holding up his hands, he rasped, “Look, that was a long time ago. I’ve changed.” He smarted beneath her accusations. Morgan didn’t know he’d married to settle down to raise a family.
“Really?” The word came out filled with derision.
“I’m waving a white flag. Can I surrender and we talk about the mission?” It was then Jake began to understand the depth of hurt he’d caused Morgan in the past. She couldn’t hide anything from him, no matter how hard she tried. Running his fingers through his short hair in frustration, Jake sat back, staring at her.
“A SEAL surrendering.” Morgan smiled a little, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Jake, you always say the right thing at the right time. The problem is, it doesn’t stick for long. You’re like the Velcro you use on your gear. Sticks when you want it to, rip if off when you no longer need it.”
“I’ve changed, Morgan.”
She heard an edge to his voice, his eyes going a slate-gray. That color meant he was emotionally upset about something. Her, most likely. Morgan took the last bite of the delicious hamburger and wiped her fingers on a nearby paper napkin. “You haven’t changed since I met you at Annapolis, Jake.”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Well, I guess you’re going to have to find out differently on this op, then.” He paused for a moment. “Look, I don’t even know anything other than you’re a sniper. General Stevenson seems to think you’re very good at it.” He searched her hooded eyes. “Can we at least talk about that?”
“Sure,” she said, wadding up the napkin and dropping it on her plate. “Since becoming a qualified sniper, I’ve been out nine months out of every year with either SEAL or Special Forces teams in Afghanistan. I would be assigned when a team lost one of their two snipers and would take over that position as a straphanger.”
“You asked to go along? I’m trying to understand how this top secret Operation Shadow Warriors works.”
She sat back, arms across her chest. “I was asked to volunteer for it the second year I was assistant commanding officer of a Marine Corps company in Kandahar.”
Surprised, Jake’s brows rose. “You’d always wanted to fill a billet in a combat company.”
“Yes, and I got my wish.” Morgan hitched a shoulder. “In part, it was because I had four years of Pashtun language under my belt. My CO, Captain Davis, was desperate for anyone other than an Afghan terp, interpreter, he had to use to speak to the elders. He was trying to make serious headway with a number of villages, and he felt the interpreter was not giving him accurate info.”
“So, your minor in linguistics landed you in Kandahar?” he said, almost to himself.
“Yes. And when Davis found out I was a damn good executive officer for the company, he was a happy man. He gave me more and more responsibility. By the end of my first year I was running missions with the recon Marines. I’d rather be out in the field than in a stuffy tent at a hundred and ten degrees. At least outside, you can breathe in fresh, hot air instead.”
He smiled a little, nodding. “You always wanted combat.”
“I wanted a shot at what I knew I’d be good at, that’s all.”
“You must have been.”
“Davis gave me rave reports for my leadership ability. I had three months left in my second tour when I was invited to volunteer for Operation Shadow Warriors.”
“So, what does this operation do?”
“It takes volunteer officer or enlisted women who want to be in combat and they’re trained up for it. Then a woman is rotated into a SOF team, special operations forces.”
He shook his head. “You were with SEAL teams? I never heard anything about it.”
Morgan rolled her eyes. “You weren’t supposed to, Ramsey. It was, after all, top secret. The men in that platoon signed their lives away legally on paper to the Pentagon, never to breathe a word of it.”
“Well, it’s sure as hell worked.” He couldn’t help but look at her left hand. No wedding ring, though he didn’t expect to see one. People in combat never wore jewelry. It could get hung up on a rifle and screw things up in a damned hurry. This didn’t mean she wasn’t married. He couldn’t ask. Morgan was prickly with him anyway, and he couldn’t blame her. He didn’t deserve much respect for what he’d done to her. He’d been a first-class bastard. But damn, she was hotheaded, and when she got wound up, he felt overwhelmed by her intense, focused anger at him.
Morgan allowed her arms to drop to her sides. “My gear is in Hawaii, at the Army barracks. I want to use my sniper rifle on this mission.”
Jake nodded. In a sniper op, there was one sniper rifle shared by both snipers. The other team member always had another weapon on him—or her, in this case—to protect the sniper and play rearguard action if they were discovered. “Okay. I’ll take an M-4 with a grenade launcher on it with me.”
“Good choice. Grenades come in handy upon occasion.”
“Oh? You found that out?”
She grinned wickedly. “Yeah, but that’s a story for another day. I’ve got a SIG Sauer 9 mm pistol. I’m assuming you’re bringing yours along, too?”
His mouth dropped open, and just as quickly, he snapped it shut. “How in the hell did you get your hands on a SIG?” It was a special German pistol made only for active-duty SEALs. He saw her grow sad for a moment.
“It was a gift,” Morgan admitted in a voice riddled with barely held emotions. “The Commander in charge of the SEAL squadron approved the gift to be given to me. He said I’d earned it even though I wasn’t a SEAL.” Her voice dropped, a hint of sadness in it. “He said I was a SEAL by proxy.”
“That’s—” Jake struggled for words “—a hell of a gift.”
“It saved my life a few times. Every time it does, I write to the Commander and thank him all over again. He gets a chuckle out of it.”
Morgan had always wanted to head into danger. It was in her genes. Now, from what she was saying, and Jake did believe her, she was in combat most of the time. “Look, let’s get over to Andrews. I’ve got my gear in the Jeep, and I need to stow it on that Herky Jerky, a C-130, we’re taking at 1100.”
Nodding, Morgan pushed the chair away and stood. “I’m going back to the hotel and jumping in my SEAL work uniform and boots. I’ll meet you at Andrews at noon.”
“Sounds good,” Jake said, standing there, feeling a bit overwhelmed. She was a woman. And she carried a SIG. And she was working in SEAL teams! Damn, what was the world coming to?
Picking up his cover, he left the cafeteria. No doubt, a lot had happened to Morgan, and she was closedmouthed about it. If she was going to be his sniper partner, he needed to know a hell of a lot more, because right now, he didn’t trust her with his back in a firefight.
Morgan had taken the opportunity to sleep, no matter how noisy and loud the aircraft around her was. She’d hung up her hammock in the rear of the C-130 and dozed off. By the time they landed in Honolulu, Hawaii, it was late afternoon because of time-zone changes.
Jake had slept a lot but had also worked on his Toughbook laptop, which every SEAL officer carried with him. When Morgan awoke, she figured he was probably trying to check up on her, find out what she was made of. Jake had such little belief a woman could be strong, resourceful or half as smart as he was.
As they walked into the terminal and requisitioned a military vehicle to drive to the BOQ, he seemed deep in thought.
They located the dark olive-green car in the black asphalt parking lot; Morgan breathed in the warm, moist air. “I love Hawaii. It’s one of my favorite places on earth.”
Jake smiled a little, responding to her unexpected spontaneity. This was the Morgan he knew from his Annapolis days, and he wanted to see more of that side to her. But would she reveal herself? To do that she had to trust him. Not an easy issue to resolve in two days’ time. Not with their spotty record. “They’ve got a nice pool at the BOQ.”
“I want to grab my swimsuit out of my duffel bag and head for the beach.” She gave him a droll look. “You’re a SEAL. Water’s your home.”
“Is that an invite to come along?” His hopes rose. Maybe another six hours of sleep had put her in a better mood. The serious look on her face melted his heart. He wanted her so damn bad.
“Up to you. After all these flights, murderous jet lag, I need to move into Mom Ocean’s arms and just be.”
“I’ll come along in case some nasty undertow starts to drag you away. Or some shark decides to think you’re a delicious dessert.”
She shook her head as she opened the driver’s-side door on the military car. Reaching in, Morgan sprung the trunk open so they could put all of his equipment, including his duffel bag, into it. “You SEALs own the water. But somehow, Ramsey, I don’t need any rescuing or protecting.” She slid into the car.
Jake felt his spirit lift a little. Morgan was more like her old self. The woman he knew. The woman who loved so damned hotly that he felt scalded inside and out by her raw sensuality. Climbing into the car, he said, “Maybe you’ll have to rescue me, then.”
She threw her head back, husky laughter rolling out of her. God, how he’d missed that laugh. And yet, Jake knew she was an emotional minefield. As badly as he wanted her to surrender to him, he knew she didn’t dare. He couldn’t break her heart the way he knew he would. Not ever.
“Mmm, I’ve died and gone to heaven,” Morgan sighed, the warm ocean water moving slowly around her. She had swum out beyond the breakers with Jake, floating on her back. The sun was lower in the sky, dapples of light dancing around on the smooth, turquoise water.
Sharks were big in these waters. And by floating on her back, Morgan would look like a sea turtle to one of them. “The water was a good choice.”
Barely opening one eye, Morgan saw Jake treading water nearby. He hadn’t shaved since this morning, and the dark growth made him look dangerous in a sexy kind of way. “Your dad was a SEAL.”
Jake nodded. “Yes, he was.”
His shoulders were incredibly broad, tightly muscled, his chest darkly haired and well sprung. Morgan remembered his body as if it were yesterday, much to her consternation.
“Did he teach you a love of water, I wonder?” The water soothed her aggravation and always having to be on guard against Jake. The warmth lulled her, made her feel safe.
“No. I taught myself to swim. My father wasn’t around much.” He had died when he was twenty, killed by an enemy in a foreign land, but Jake had never told Morgan. Jake allowed the wave to push him closer to her. The dark purple bathing suit was one piece, but on her body, it made her look like a Titian or Raphael woman.
Morgan had a tall, proud frame. She was all legs, and Jake watched the water flowing sensually across them. Frowning, he saw what he thought were several new, pink scars on her left, upper thigh. He couldn’t see much, because most of the scarring was below the water surface. Were these the injuries she’d gotten when Khogani had attacked that Afghan village? He didn’t like to think her beautiful flesh was scarred. Or that she’d suffered pain, because he’d made her suffer enough. Morgan didn’t deserve it. She was a good person with a trusting heart. Well, she had been trusting…. He’d taught her to trust no man.
Lifting her head, Morgan forced her legs down into the water, gracefully moving her arms outward to steady herself. Jake was close and terribly handsome, the water running off in rivulets down his face to his neck and shoulders. His eyes went slate-gray again, as if realizing her question had probably dug up a lot of unwanted and hurtful memories from the past.
Morgan wanted to reach out and simply rest her hand on his shoulder and tell him it was all right. In some ways, Jake had been born behind the eight ball, and he’d had to struggle all his life for everything he’d earned.
A wave splashed her, and she wiped the stinging salt out of her eyes. Jake continued to be a big SEAL guard dog. “You think a Big White’s gonna see me as a turtle out here, don’t you?”
His mouth drew into a hesitant grin. “Something like that.”
Shaking her head, she said, “Ramsey, you’re a piece of work. You really are.”
“What? Can’t I make sure you can enjoy your swim? What’s wrong with being watchful? There have been plenty of shark attacks on the beaches of the Hawaiian Islands.”
Spitting out water she’d accidentally swallowed, Morgan shook her head. “Someday, I hope you stop being so damned overprotective, Jake. You were that way with me at Annapolis. You never thought I could take care of myself once because I was a woman.”
“Look, I don’t want to argue with you, Morgan. We got a job to do.”
The growl in his tone was a warning. His face went blank and unreadable, a glitter in his icy gray eyes. “That’s right—we do have to get along or we’re both dead meat out there on some godforsaken, ass-freezing Afghan mountain.” Morgan lifted her hand and flung off beads of water and pushed the wet strands off her face. “Your mother contracted multiple sclerosis when you were ten years old. I remember you were the one saddled with being her caregiver until you were eighteen.” Her voice lowered with feeling. “Jake, I know you loved your mother, but you grew up fast in that family because your father was never there. You took care of her until she died when you’d just graduated high school.” She noticed how his eyes went stormy. Morgan gave him a pleading look. “You think all women are weak because your mother was weak. You think because you had to take care of her 24/7, you have to burden yourself thinking you have to take care of me out here. You don’t, Jake. You don’t….”
Chapter Five
They had just returned to the BOQ after having a Thai dinner at Morgan’s favorite restaurant in Honolulu. The moon was rising in the east, the Pacific Ocean gleaming with a pale corridor of light across the darkened ocean. Jake put the car in Park, the low sulfur lighting revealing a crowded parking lot in back of the building. His hands tightened on the steering wheel for a moment. It was time.
Morgan released her safety belt when he said, “We need to talk.”
When Jake’s voice lowered to that intimate growl, she couldn’t refuse to look at him. Her heart skidded in her breast. As Morgan turned and met his shadowy gaze, he placed one arm across the back of the seat, his hand less than an inch from her shoulder.
“What do you want to talk about?”
Jake compressed his lips. He moved his fingers lightly across her shoulder. It was the first time he’d touched her in two years. “There are some things we need to discuss. Get right between us. We’re going downrange tomorrow morning, and we have to be focused.”
“Yes,” she admitted, her flesh needy as his calloused fingers barely brushed her blouse. Though aching to kiss him, to rekindle what they’d had before, Morgan fought herself. Jake would walk away again, like he always did. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Us,” he said huskily, seeing confusion in her green eyes. “You’ve had an apology coming from me for nine years. Back when we were at Annapolis together. We were twenty years old then.”
His fingers came to rest on her shoulder, as if to steady her in some small way for what he was about to say. With a mix of anguish and uncertainty in his gray eyes, he was being vulnerable with her. The only time she’d ever seen him like this was when they’d made love.
“For what?” Morgan managed, her voice tight with defensiveness.
Taking an uneven breath, Jake plunged in. “Your miscarriage…”
Bowing her head, Morgan shut her eyes, unable to look at him. She’d not seen this one coming. Her heart squeezed with old pain. His fingers became more firm on her shoulder. Steadying. “What about it?” she said in a broken whisper.
“Neither of us wanted it to happen. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.” His mouth thinned, and Jake forced himself to go on. “Morgan, when you needed me the most, I wasn’t available.” He felt her tremble. “I’m sorry to bring this up, but I haven’t liked myself very much ever since it happened. I should have stayed at your side after I got the call from the hospital.”
Morgan went very still. He couldn’t even hear her breathing. He braced himself for her reaction, knowing he had coming whatever she wanted to throw back at him.
Hot tears slipped beneath her tightly shut eyes. As much as she tried, Morgan couldn’t control them. Jake moved his hand across her shoulder, as if to soothe away some of her raw pain. At least he wasn’t running now. So many emotions flooded her: the grief over the miscarriage, needing him to hold her in the aftermath, his absence.
She could feel Jake watching her in the thickening silence. She fought with everything she had not to cry.
Finally, Morgan lifted her hands and covered her face. She took several broken breaths. The past overwhelmed her. “I never expected you to say you were sorry,” she whispered bitterly. “Never.”
Jake wanted to touch her hair, to touch her. He wasn’t sure what Morgan would do if he tried. Pain moved through his chest. “I owe you the apology. I’m so damned sorry, Morgan. I’ve had a long time to think about my actions. I was dead wrong.” He did not expect her forgiveness. When she raised her head, turned and stared at him, her eyes were marred with darkness, and he felt as if he’d been gut punched.
“Let me fill you in,” she began hoarsely. “I was a twenty-year-old girl. You were my first and only lover. The doctor had me on the pill, which you knew. I was three months pregnant and didn’t even know it. I felt odd on some days, but I just shrugged it off as the stress everyone was under at Annapolis.” Morgan pushed tears angrily away from her cheeks. “It was February, Jake, and I contracted a horrible flu. I lay in my room with a one-hundred-and-five-degree fever. My roommate, Deanna, wanted to get me to the dispensary, but I refused. I was going to tough it out.”
His eyes narrowed. “I—didn’t know.”
“Deanna wanted to call you, but I said no. All you wanted was a good time, Jake. You just liked me in your bed. That was it. And God help me, I liked being there, too.” Morgan sniffed and went on in a robotlike tone. “Deanna left for a date. I was hallucinating, moving in and out of the fever. I thought I was going to die. I remember going to sleep. I woke up sometime later, maybe near midnight. I felt this awful, tearing pain in my womb, and I doubled over on my side, screaming. The next thing I knew, I had blood pouring out of me. At first, when I looked at myself, I thought I was having a bad nightmare. Deanna came back from her date and found me. She called 911. I remember just before I blacked out she held my hand, telling me the ambulance was on its way and not to die.”
Jake forced himself to hold her marred gaze. “You were taken to the hospital. I knew that much.” Her eyes grew sad as more tears slid down her face.
“I woke up in E.R. A doctor was there and she was very kind. She told me I’d miscarried my baby, that my high fever had caused it. She said I’d be okay. She also said I was on too low a dose of birth control pills and that was why I got pregnant. She gave me a new prescription to ever prevent that from happening again.” She sighed. “Physically, I was fine.”
“Damn,” he muttered, “I’m sorry, Morgan….”
“Deanna called you when I was in the hospital. She told you what happened.” Her words came out shredded with disbelief. “You never came. You told Deanna you had other important things going on and couldn’t make it. I left the hospital the next morning feeling hollow, feeling lost.” She held Jake’s guilt-ridden gaze. “I needed you, Jake. That was our baby! On the way back to Annapolis, I figured out why you refused to see me. You thought by me being pregnant, I would become like an anchor around your feet like your chronically ill mother had been, someone you had to take care of for the rest of your life.” Her fingers trembled as she wiped the tears from her face. “You didn’t want a pregnant girlfriend. You weren’t going to get trapped by another weak, sick woman, were you?”
Sitting back, Jake removed his hand from her shoulder, a mass of grief and misery overwhelming him. Morgan looked like he felt. “It was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made,” he managed, his voice low with apology. “I shouldn’t have abandoned you, Morgan. And I did.”
She sat there stiffly, struggling to grapple with all her grief and put it in a box once again, deep down inside herself. Jake’s gray eyes were stormy-looking, filled with remorse. Now that he had finally apologized nine years too late, it didn’t make her feel as good as she thought it would. If anything, she saw an answering grief in his expression. How would he know what it was like to lose a baby?
“The only reason you’re apologizing now,” Morgan said in a quavering tone, “is because we’re going downrange tomorrow. You don’t want anything to make us lose our edge.” She leaned against the car door, as far away from him as she could get. He withdrew his arm from the top of the seat. As Jake lifted his gaze, she could see how miserable he was over her story.
“No,” he rasped, his voice tight with emotion. “Whether you believe me or not, Morgan, I’ve matured since our last encounter.” His eyes grew dark with sorrow. “I’ve carried this guilt over my actions toward you. As much as you believe I didn’t care, I did.” Jake’s mouth tightened. “This was a chance for me to tell you to your face, I am sorry. I was screwed up, Morgan. This doesn’t excuse my choices. I wish in some way I could make up for it, but I know I can never do that.” He held up his hands. “I just wanted to be honest with you, Morgan, because I never was before.”
Morgan absorbed his admission. The silence thickened between them.
“At least you’re finally being emotionally honest. That’s new.”
Wincing internally, Jake sighed. “Morgan, I hope I’ve matured a little bit more.”
His gaze fell to her abdomen covered by the pink skirt. She’d held their child in her body. Their baby. Misery drifted through Jake in a new and unfamiliar way. He’d already lost his son, Joshua. This new grief hit him doubly hard. He’d made so many mistakes with her. “I thought you didn’t want a family until you were thirty or so?”
“That’s true, but when I accidentally got pregnant, I knew I’d want to have the baby,” she muttered defiantly.
“So you would… Would you have kept the baby?”
“In a heartbeat, Jake.” Morgan stared at him. “And if I hadn’t miscarried, that baby would be mine, not yours. You weren’t ready to settle down. You didn’t want to marry me or be responsible for what we created.”
Mouth thinning, Jake tried to absorb her icy anger. “You’re right. I wasn’t ready to settle down.” He would now, but it was far too late.
“Well, things got handled differently,” Morgan said, her voice quavering. “We were both set free to pursue our military careers.”
“Damn,” he whispered, holding her gaze, “I wish…I wish I could go back and change what I did to you. You didn’t deserve it, Morgan.”
She grew quiet. Morgan held on to an even bigger secret. One that Jake would never, ever know about. When they’d had a brief affair two years ago, fate had intervened once again, even with protection. This time, she’d left her team and gone stateside. Emma Boland had been born with black hair and gray eyes, the spitting image of her father. Morgan didn’t dare tell Jake since he might prove twice that he wasn’t ready to be with her. Protectively, she placed her hand across her abdomen. “Don’t try. You cut and run when things get serious relationship-wise.”
“I don’t have a good track record with you, Morgan.” Feeling sad, Jake added, “That was then. This is now.”
Shaking her head, Morgan opened the door and climbed out of the car. “I’ll see you at 0600, Jake. I’m done going over the past with you. Thanks for the apology.” She slammed the door shut and walked off.
Sitting alone in the car, Jake wrestled with so many damned emotions. His SEAL father had died in combat that very evening when Morgan needed him the most. Jake was overwhelmed with paperwork because he was the executor of his father’s will. He’d been at the personnel office wrestling with so many decisions, funeral arrangements and his own grief; he couldn’t handle Morgan’s plea to come to the hospital, too. It wasn’t an excuse. Jake knew he’d been too young, made some bad decisions on that night. If he’d had it to do all over again, he’d have gone to see Morgan, regardless.
As he rubbed his jaw, the prickle of beard against his calloused fingers, his conscience ate at him. In the SEAL community, family, wife and children were just as important as the operators out in the field to the command structure.
SEAL ethos set the family as much of a priority as they did the men going downrange. Studying the light and dark shadows across the parking lot, Jake realized it had been SEAL culture that finally had brought him back into the fold. Made it possible for him to stop running away from relationships. He’d met Amanda and fallen in love with her at twenty-three years old. He’d spent six months in Afghanistan and arrived home just in time to be there for the birth of his son, Joshua.
Jake shut his eyes, remembering the loss of his wife and baby two weeks later to a car accident. He couldn’t share his past with Morgan. It wouldn’t be right under the circumstances. He understood as never before what it was like to lose his child. Just as she’d felt the devastating loss with the miscarriage that he’d run away from. What a mess. All of it his own doing.
As he climbed out of the car, Jake resolved to say no more. He’d done what he could to clear the decks between them. He felt deeply, the past overlaying the present. This was an unresolved situation and he was still trapped within it. God help him, he wanted Morgan. Needed her as never before. But after their long history, he knew she’d never come back to him again.
Jake wasn’t prepared next morning to see Morgan in SEAL gear as he entered Operations. She was in desert cammies, the SIG pistol riding low on her right thigh in a drop holster, a SOG SEAL knife in a sheath in the same position on her left thigh, and wearing dark leather Merrell hiking boots. She looked like a SEAL from a distance. Earlier, he’d found out Morgan had checked out of the BOQ and gotten a separate ride over to Operations.
Her gear sat near the door as she waited to be called out to the C-5 now parked in the revetment area. Setting his gear down next to hers, Jake wore desert cammies, as well. Although dressed similarly, every SEAL liked his gear in certain places. Jake preferred his knife on his left side of his waist.
Still torn up over last night’s conversation, Jake removed his utility cap and walked over to her. Worse, he’d made Morgan cry, and she’d never cried in front of him before. His heart felt like so much pulp, the ache deep and constant.
“How are you doing?” he asked quietly, catching Morgan’s sideward glance. Her profile was beautiful. She was a strong, confident woman.
“I’m fine, Jake. Don’t worry. I’ll hold up my end of this op whether you believe I can or not.”
Okay, the old, defensive Morgan was back. Her eyes were clear, but he could still see remnants of sorrow deep within them. Grief he’d caused. Nodding, he gestured to a sheath on top of her third-line gear, a large desert-camouflaged rucksack with about sixty-five pounds of gear contained in it.
“That’s your AW Magnum?” It was one of the sniper rifles chosen by SEALs to use on certain types of ops. The rifle was covered with a tan nylon fabric sleeve to protect it from weather, dirt and dust.
“Yes.” Still raw, Morgan didn’t want to talk to Jake. She’d barely slept, reliving their conversation all over again. Most humiliating of all, she’d cried in front of him. She wished with all her heart he’d apologized because he cared about her, not because they had to trust each other for this assignment. She pursed her lips, wishing the C-5 would hurry up and allow passengers to load. Then she could get away from him, grab some desperately needed sleep and get her act together.
“You look tired,” he observed, remaining at her side.
“I didn’t sleep much.”
“I didn’t, either.” Jake felt her tension. “Plenty of room on this flight to catch some shut-eye. It will be empty except for the crew of doctors and nurses going over to Bagram to pick up another group of soldiers who are wounded.”
“I hope those guys all make it,” Morgan whispered, thinking of them and their families.
“The U.S. has the best-trained medical teams on the planet,” he told her, resting his hands on the H-gear pockets around his waist. “Those grunts and soldiers have the best chance in the world to survive.”
“When we get on board, I’m finding a hole to bunk into and sleep,” she said. As she searched Jake’s face, Morgan saw the darkness beneath his eyes. He was growing a beard, which was common among the black-ops groups. Without a beard, the men stood out like sore thumbs to the Taliban and al Qaeda.
“Me, too. We have to get rested.”
Jake didn’t want to leave her side. He sensed Morgan’s feelings; he always had whether she shared them with him or not. SEAL sixth sense, he supposed. Or…his heart whispered, it was something more. Something beautiful and profound. And he instantly suppressed those feelings. He’d loved twice in his life, and both times, it had turned into a life-numbing tragedy.
Turning away, Jake ambled over to his equipment sitting on the polished white floor. No, he couldn’t risk his heart a third time. He simply didn’t have the strength to reach out and try to love again. The potential losses were just too great. And no one knew better than he, there was no promise of happily ever after….
He hefted his ruck, swung it easily across his broad shoulders and then belted it up. An M-4 rifle, barrel downward for safety reasons and safed, chamber empty, was strapped on the outside of it.
He watched as Morgan walked over to her gear, not at all surprised she could lift a sixty-five-pound ruck and make it look light as a feather. Yesterday, as she’d walked into the Pacific Ocean in her purple bathing suit, he’d seen just how fit she really was. Maybe a little too thin, he supposed, but she was all firm muscle, not an ounce of fat. He’d winced when he’d seen those recent pink scars on the back of her left thigh.
Jake was sure those were shrapnel wounds she’d received at that village three months earlier. He wanted to touch them, kiss each of them and remove the pain and memory of how she’d received them. Jake knew he could heal Morgan with his touch, his voice and his hands, if she’d give him a chance. He could be tender toward her. She brought out the best in him, made him feel like a man. Leaning down, he grabbed his eighty-pound weapons bag, slipping it into his right hand. An airman opened the glass doors for them, gesturing for them to go to the parked C-5.
The sunlight was bright, the sky a pale blue. A few clouds were in the distance as Jake walked toward the ramp at the rear of the C-5. A number of nurses, doctors and medics were boarding the largest transport aircraft in the U.S. military. Following Morgan, who walked with an incredible confidence, he compared her to the other women ahead of them.
Morgan stood out. Her red hair was caught up in a ponytail, the strands moving between her shoulder blades. There was just something so damned different about Morgan compared to any other woman Jake had ever known. There was no question, she was a combat warrior. It was in her stride, the way she squared her shoulders, her chin tilted slightly up. Despite the bulky cammies, she didn’t look like a man. Not with the sway of those hips of hers and her natural grace.
Once on board, they stowed their gear in a storage locker below the cockpit area of the C-5. The rest of the crew had already boarded. Jake stood near Morgan. Lights went on overhead, revealing three tiers of litters along both sides of the fuselage. Jake wondered what she was thinking as she watched the medical teams prepare to take on newly wounded men once they arrived at Bagram.
“Morgan,” he said quietly, “let’s crash. We need all the sleep we can get.”
Barely turning her head, she absorbed Jake’s calm, steadying presence. His low voice soothed that anguish they’d shared last night. All Morgan wanted to do was turn around, throw her arms around his solid, powerful shoulders and seek solace against him. It wasn’t protection she had ever sought from him. Jake knew how to hold her.
“Yes,” she managed, her voice husky and sounding far away to her. “We’re going downrange….”
Chapter Six
Morgan tried to tame her excitement as the Night Stalker pilots landed the MH-47 helicopter at the Afghan village of Margha. It was barely dawn, and out the window, she spotted thin Reza in his wool cap, baggy pants, vest and coat, waiting near the few mud houses still left standing. Her heart broke for the Afghan. This had been his home. The place he lost his wife and five children to Khogani’s raid. It had to be painful for him to stand where his life had once been.
Within minutes, the helo was down, kicking up clouds of dust, grit and small rocks into the air as they rapidly disembarked with their weapons and gear. Once they cleared the helo, Jake gave the pilot the okay to take off via the radio. The helo powered up, the thunder of the powerful engines heard for miles across the long, fertile valley that was just awakening for the day.
“Reza!” Morgan shouted, hauling her gear to where the Afghan stood. Reza was five foot six, lean, his skin tobacco-brown from thirty-five years spent in these rugged mountains. The Afghan’s face was deeply etched, smile lines deepening around his eyes and mouth as he stepped forward.
“As-Salāmu ’alayki, Wajiha,” he said, bowing to Morgan as she dropped her gear. The ancient greeting meant “Peace be upon you.” He formally hugged her and then chastely kissed each of her cheeks. Long ago, he’d given her the name of Wajiha, which meant “beautiful one” in Pashto.
His greeting was a very warm, loving welcome bestowed upon family members only. Morgan had been injured trying to save his family. A man was never supposed to hug a woman in Islamic culture, but Reza felt strongly she should know how grateful he was for her willingly putting her life on the line to try to save his youngest child from Khogani’s slaughter.
“Wa ’alaykumu s-salāmu wa rahmatu l-lāhi wa barakātuh, Reza.” Morgan returned the ancient greeting in Pashto. It meant “May peace, mercy and blessing of God be upon you.” She hugged him and placed a kiss on each of his bearded cheeks. And then she grinned, threw her arms around him and squeezed the hell out of the wiry Afghan. He pounded her happily on the back of her Kevlar vest, enthusiastically welcoming her.
Jake walked over, watching the warmth between them. He smiled, glad to see Morgan happy. Her face, even in dawn light, was suffused a pink color. It was her eyes, wide with affection for the Afghan guide, that touched him the most. Jake dropped his gear and Reza released Morgan.
“As-Salāmu ’alayka, Lieutenant Ramsey,” Reza greeted him, placing his palm across his thin chest. “Welcome. I am Reza. I will be your guide.”
Jake returned the proper Pashto greeting and then thrust out his hand to the short, wiry man. Reza eagerly took it, pumping it up and down with unbounded earnestness.
“Come, both of you.” Reza gestured for them to follow him into the nearest mud home that had a huge hole blown through one side of it. “We must hurry. Taliban watch us from the mountains.”
Morgan entered and saw four small, hardy horses munching on some dried grass. One of them had a Western saddle on its back. The other two had the typical Afghan saddle made of wood and nails covered with a rug. The fourth animal was a packhorse.
“Hey, you remembered,” she told Reza, pointing to the Western saddle.
“Of course, Wajiha. You told me to look after your saddle, and I did. You promised to return, and here you are.”
Morgan choked up as she saw tears of gratefulness come to Reza’s eyes. He was the only survivor of his destroyed village. Her smile disappeared as Jake entered. Moving to the Afghan, she pulled the Velcro pocket open on her Kevlar vest and retrieved a number of photos.
“Just a minute, Jake,” she called.
Jake nodded his response, leaving them as she went to Reza’s side and spoke to him in a low voice. He couldn’t hear what she said in Pashto, but the look on the Afghan’s face was one of surprise. Tears began to trail down his high cheekbones as he took the photos from Morgan. She placed her arm around the man’s shoulders, pointing to each one, telling him something about it.
Jake felt like an outsider and busied himself appraising the four animals. They were small bay horses with black manes and tails. Horses in Afghanistan always looked short and stocky, but then Jake knew they ate whatever the barren, rocky mountains gave to them, which wasn’t much.
He heard Reza sob. Turning, he saw the man clasping the photos to his breast, his other hand pressed against his face, crying openly. He gave a quizzical look, but Morgan held up her hand into a fist. It was a signal that said, “stop.” Jake respected the sign and remained with the animals.
Reza got ahold of himself after five minutes, carefully tucking the plastic bag of pictures inside his dark brown wool vest. His eyes were bright, his face in anguish as he bowed and profusely thanked Morgan.
The Afghan picked up the lead rope of the packhorse and led him outside, wiping his eyes with the back of his sleeve.
“What was that all about?” Jake asked, concerned. Morgan wiped her eyes and then turned to face him.
“I had taken pictures of his family and many others who lived here,” she said in a strained tone. “I always take photos wherever I go. I thought Reza would like photos of his five kids and his wife.” Her voice broke. “It was the least I could do…. He loved his family so much….”
Morgan drew in an uneven breath. “I was in this area with two different black-ops teams. Reza doted on his children, and my God, how they loved him in return. His wife was the sweetest, kindest person you would ever meet. If a widow who was starving and begging for a meal came to their door, she’d be welcomed and fed. A lot of the villagers won’t feed widows because food is so scarce.” Morgan rubbed her cheeks dry and gave him a broken smile. “It feels good to do something kind in return for him, Jake. Reza is the epitome of the Islamic belief of living your life through your heart.”
Jake nodded, far more touched than he expected. The fact Morgan would think to bring photos back to Reza made him want to reach out, pull her into his arms and simply hold her. A well of suffering rose through Jake as he stood on the brink of doing just that. Dragging in a breath, he shoved all his needs down deep within himself. In an effort to lighten the moment, Jake said, “Sounds like you read Rumi, the Sufi poet?”
Her brows rose. “You know about Rumi?”
“Sure,” Jake said, pretending his pride was hurt. “I might be a country bumpkin of sorts, but I am widely read.” SEALs tended to be voracious readers about foreign countries they worked in.
Morgan felt his warmth and care in that moment. “Now it’s my turn to apologize.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Jake gestured to the three horses. “That one has an American saddle on it.”
Morgan saw him eyeing it with great interest. “Yes, and it’s mine. I brought it over three years ago. I got sick and tired of my butt being carved up by nails and wood splinters in my behind from those damned Afghan saddles.”
He put his hands on his hips and nodded. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“You didn’t ask me,” Morgan pointed out, untying the reins to her gelding and leading it out of the house.
Jake grinned. He untied the other two horses and led them outside. To the east, the Hindu Kush sat like silent, powerful giants, a pink dawn outlining the very tops of the snow-covered peaks. Reza had just finished packing their gear and threw a dark brown tarp over the contents. With more light, Jake could see it was a long, narrow valley, green and fertile. A river ran through it, providing irrigation so that the villages would have water for their crops.
Reza smiled and tied the lead line of the packhorse to the back of the saddle on the horse he was going to ride.
Jake saw Morgan already on the sat, satellite, phone to J-bad, calling in and letting Vero know they’d made contact with Reza and were now going to head south through the valley. She was efficient, he decided, watching her place the sat phone in the leather saddlebag behind the cantle of her saddle.
Jake gave Reza a radio headset to wear. They would each wear the headgear and be on the same frequency so they would always be in contact. The send-receive was good for up to a mile.
“We good to go?” he asked, walking over to her.
“Four square. Vero sounded relieved.”
“I imagine.” Jake looked around, always uneasy about being out in the open. Taliban and al Qaeda operatives lurked and hid in the scree slopes of every mountain that surrounded this valley. The only thing that they couldn’t do was shoot at them because the distance was too far. Jake was sure they had glass, binoculars, on them. The Taliban would pass the intel along to other Taliban spotters in the area via radio transmissions.
Reza walked up. “You must know that a goat herder from Dor Babba—” and he pointed south “—saw Khogani yesterday at the snow line with twenty men.”
Jake nodded. “And we’re headed that way?”
“Yes,” Reza said. He had a huge pile of clothes draped over his saddle. “Now, you and Wajiha must wear these Afghan clothes. It will fool our enemy.” He handed Jake a set of dark brown clothes to wear over his cammies and H-gear.
“Ah, we’re going hajji,” Morgan teased Reza, taking the black wool cape, brown vest and black turban. They were large enough to fit over all her gear. Going hajji was slang the operators used when they wore Afghan clothing. It would help them fade into the population, harder for the Taliban to spot them at a distance.
Reza put his hands on his hips, critically assessing them. He went over to Morgan and adjusted the black turban covering most of her red hair. Along with it was a woven blue-and-white Shemagh scarf, identifying her as a Shinwari tribesman, which she would wear over her lower face so she couldn’t be recognized so easily as a woman by the enemy. “A man would wear the turban like this….” He grinned in apology as he tweaked how it was to sit properly on her head.
Morgan nodded and thanked him. Jake definitely looked like an Afghan. His beard was well started and the dark brown color of the rolled cap on his black hair would fool everyone. Reza checked him out carefully. He arranged the vest a little more across Jake’s powerful chest. Probably trying to hide it, Morgan thought.
“You pass inspection,” Reza told them. He pointed to the packhorse. “We go undercover, Wajiha. If the enemy sees us through their binoculars, we look like a family selling shoes.” He tapped the tarp, a black silhouette of a shoe that had been painstakingly hand painted on the material. It had his name above it, announcing he was a cobbler. “They will think we repair and sell shoes, going from one village to another.”
“Brilliant,” Morgan said. Reza had been a cobbler all his life. And he regularly rode from one end of this valley to the other, stopping at each village along the way once a month. In the winter, he remained home and fashioned shoes and boots he would sell to villages the following spring.
Morgan checked the tightness of the cinch on her fourteen-hand-high horse. Everything seemed okay, and she mounted and arranged the long, draping cape and vest that would hide her uniform and her pistol. Over her left shoulder, she carried an AK-47 in a sling so it was readily available if she needed the weapon. The disguise wasn’t perfect, but it would fool the enemy at a distance. “Let’s go,” Reza said. “We have twenty miles to reach the first village.”
Jake mounted, grimacing. He hated these wooden saddles. The Special Forces guys rode them all the time. They had scarred asses, too. He shoved some of his wool cape beneath the saddle to give him some added padding and protection.
“God, I don’t think I’ll be able to dismount by the time we get there,” Jake groaned. He heard Morgan’s husky laugh. She seemed very comfortable in her leather saddle, back straight, shoulders squared, riding like someone who had done it all her life.
“Don’t worry,” Morgan said, chuckling. “I’ll haul your sorry ass off that saddle tonight.”
Jake grimaced as they started out at a leisurely walk beside one another. “Hey, this isn’t funny. The last time I had to ride in one of these damn torture traps, I got a nail puncture right there.” He jabbed a finger at his right cheek.
“Oh,” Morgan said, trying to look serious, “did you have your tetanus shot updated before we left Hawaii?” She saw Jake grin a little. She enjoyed the unexpected camaraderie. Who else got nail wounds in their butt? No Purple Hearts were given out for them, either.
“Yeah, I got another shot, plus a round of antibiotics for my ruck. I also got rid of that damn saddle I had to ride last year and traded it in for a better-made one. Cost me five hundred U.S. dollars from an Afghan horse trader, but it was worth it. I should have held on to it.”
Morgan laughed and then relaxed as they rode. She was back into swiveling her head, paying attention to the least little thing that seemed to be out of place, and she constantly perused the dirt road for any suspicious IEDs or wires that might have been strung across it to kill them.
Morgan felt at home, in a way. Pressing her hand to the pocket on her Kevlar vest beneath the Afghan clothes, she felt the one photo she hadn’t shown Reza. She always carried a photo of her daughter, Emma. Maybe later, when they were alone and Jake wasn’t around, she would share it with her dear Afghan friend. There wouldn’t be many opportunities because a sniper team was joined at the hip.
That night, in the first village, they spent it out in a goat barn. Jake hated the odor. There were no windows in the building, and the potent goat-dung odor was choking him, making his eyes water. He wanted to go outside, but Morgan cautioned against it. Reza was sleeping just outside the door of the mud building, their horses’ lead ropes tied to his ankle, snoring away.
Jake sat up on his bedroll, cursing softly. Morgan was six feet away, sleeping near the door. “How the hell can you sleep in this stink?”
Drowsily, Morgan opened her eyes. “Ramsey, shut the hell up, will you? I’m whipped. Isn’t your ass tired enough to fall asleep?”
Jake sat up, scowling. The goats were all lying down, crowded next to one another in a small, wooden corral a few feet away from him. One bleated at him. He never took off his boots, but he had laid his Kevlar vest next to his rifle in case he needed them. “Hell, no!”
“Gawd,” Morgan mumbled, rubbing her face. “We’ve got friggin’ jet lag, we haven’t slept in twenty-four hours and you’re wide-awake. If you’re going to bitch all night, get out of here. Go sleep outside with Reza.”
Amazed she could handle the foul, intense odor, Jake got up, jerked his sleeping bag off the dirt floor and muttered, “I’ll do that.” He headed for the door. He could barely see Morgan, milky slats of the full moon leaking light into the barn.
“You need to stay in here,” she growled, throwing out her hand and grabbing his lower pant leg so he couldn’t leave. “You know better, Jake. Now, get a grip, will you?”
He halted, her hand strong on his pant leg. Looking down, he snorted. “I’ll die of asphyxiation by dawn if I don’t get out of this hellhole. Then you’d feel guilty.”
“Oh, stop the drama, Jake. Sit down. We’ll talk. Maybe that will make you drowsy. Once you’re asleep, you won’t smell this crap.” She jerked twice on his pant leg. “Sit!”
After he dropped his sleeping bag next to hers, Jake walked over and picked up his rifle and Kevlar. Placing them near his head, he lay down. Morgan was six inches away. He swore he could feel her body heat. He placed his hands behind his head and muttered, “This sucks.”
“What a whiny baby,” she grunted, sitting there cross-legged, looking down at him. Jake’s face was deeply shadowed, but she could see those icy gray eyes and saw he was really upset. “I thought you’d be griping about your ass, not the goat smell in here.”
Mouth quirking, Jake enjoyed looking over at Morgan. The moonlight was soft. He could barely see the freckles sprinkled across her cheeks. “My butt aches like hell, but who’s going to listen to me bitch about that? And—” he raised one brow, his voice deepening “—just for the record, SEALs don’t whine.”
Morgan shook her head. “I swear. A man can be eighty years old and still be a sulky fourteen-year-old teenager when he wants to be.”
“I’m not sulking.”
“Are you going to be like this the rest of this mission, Ramsey?”
There was a teasing glint in her eyes. Her mouth was soft and relaxed, more like her old, feisty self. Had Morgan rebounded from the emotional meat grinder he’d put her through in Hawaii?
On the flight here, Jake had run out of options on how to try to atone for his past behavior. His way of helping would be hauling her into his bed and loving her. He knew Morgan wouldn’t approve of those tactics at all. In fact, she’d fight him. He smiled a little. “This barn and the goat smell isn’t a five-star quality hotel over here in the badlands, is it?”
Clasping her hands around her drawn-up knees, Morgan shook her head. “There isn’t even a one-star in this poor country. At least you have a roof over your head. If it was raining, you’d be happy to be in here.”
“Well, the sky’s clear and it’s not raining.”
She sighed. “I love rain….”
Hearing the wistfulness in her soft voice, Jake decided to make a daring request. “Tell me a bedtime story, Morgan. And then I’ll let you go back to sleep.”
She tilted her head, as if seriously considering his request.
“What kind of story? Jack and the Beanstalk, so you can visualize yourself climbing out of this barn?” She gave him an evil laugh.
Her laughter went straight through his heart. Morgan rarely laughed, and in truth, there hadn’t been much to be happy about, either. “You know, I’ve missed hearing you laugh. It’s the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard.”
Morgan’s smile instantly dissolved as she heard the sincerity in his voice.
For a moment, Jake wanted to reach out and graze her clasped hands wrapped around her knees. Her hair was loose, framing her face. She looked so damned feminine in such a rough, godforsaken place. And yet, he was glad she was here. “Okay, the story I want to hear is about your family. Tell me about your mom and dad.”
Morgan instantly scowled, suddenly wary. “Why?”
“There you go again. Accusing me.”
“You always have a reason for any question you ask, Ramsey. Remember? I know you too damned well.”
He held up his hands. “Okay, guilty.” He tucked his hands behind his head once more. “Seriously, I’d like to know, Morgan.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to understand you better is all.” That was the truth, and Jake could see she was surprised by his honesty. “Look,” he argued equitably, “you accused me of never asking you about your growing-up years or your folks. Now I am. Are you going to gig me on that, too?”
Morgan rubbed her brow. “Ramsey, I never know when to trust you or not,” she griped, moving and lying down on her sleeping bag. She used the saddle for a pillow. Laying her head on it, facing him, Morgan jerked the thick wool cape over her body. He was giving her that little-boy look she could never resist. And she knew damn well he was doing it on purpose. So, what was the downside of telling him? Morgan didn’t see any.
“Okay,” she growled, “but so help me God, Jake, if you fall asleep in the middle of my telling you, I’ll never say anything about my family again to you.”
“Fair enough,” Jake murmured, grinning and meeting her dark, serious gaze. For a moment, he thought he saw laughter in her eyes. Morgan sighed loudly. “Nothing has changed about you.”
His grin increased. “Thank you. Now, tell me about your growing-up years. I want to know.” And Jake really did, but he didn’t ask himself why. Why was it so important to him now?
Chapter Seven
“My mother is Cathy Fremont. My father is Jim Boland. They were part of a military grand experiment two decades ago.” Morgan tilted her head. “Do you remember that conflict between Laos and Thailand that erupted?”
“Yeah, tempest in a teapot, as I recall.”
“It was more than that.” Morgan frowned. “The military wanted to see if women could handle combat. Major Louise Lane, a woman Marine, had a senator who sponsored her ideas. He had enough power to persuade the Joint Chiefs of Staff to create a volunteer group of military women to form a company. It was called the WLF, Women’s Liberation Forces. They then went over with a brigade of Marines out of Camp Pendleton.”
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Lindsay McKenna
Captain Morgan Boland is at the top of her game, as is her former lover, navy SEAL Jake Ramsey. Then a military computer selects them to partner in a special op.The mission can’t be compromised by their personal history – and they have truckloads of it. But the Afghan assignment might provide the discipline they need to finally get it together – outside the bedroom, that is.A lot has happened over the two years since they last went their separate ways. And there’s way more to Morgan than Jake has ever given her credit for…
Trained to kill, but built for love…
Captain Morgan Boland is at the top of her game, as is her former lover, Navy SEAL Jake Ramsey. Then a military computer selects them to partner in a special op. The mission can’t be compromised by their personal history—and they have truckloads of it.
But the Afghan assignment might provide the discipline they need to finally get it together—outside the bedroom, that is. A lot has happened over the two years since they last went their separate ways. And there’s way more to Morgan than Jake has ever given her credit for.…
Praise for
LINDSAY McKENNA
“McKenna’s latest is an intriguing tale…a unique twist
on the romance novel, and one that’s sure to please.”
—RT Book Reviews on Dangerous Prey
“Riveting.”
—RT Book Reviews on The Quest
“An absorbing debut for the Nocturne line.”
—RT Book Reviews on Unforgiven
“Gunfire, emotions, suspense, tension and sexuality abound in this fast-paced, absorbing novel.”
—Affaire de Coeur on Wild Woman
“Another masterpiece.”
—Affaire de Coeur on Enemy Mine
“Emotionally charged…riveting and deeply touching.”
—RT Book Reviews on Firstborn
“Ms. McKenna brings readers along for a fabulous odyssey in which complex characters experience the danger,
passion and beauty of the mystical jungle.”
—RT Book Reviews on Man of Passion
“Talented Lindsay McKenna delivers excitement and romance in equal measure.”
—RT Book Reviews on Protecting His Own
“Lindsay McKenna will have you flying with the
daring and deadly women pilots who risk their lives.…
Buckle in for the ride of your life.”
—Writers Unlimited on Heart of Stone
Down Range
Lindsay McKenna
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Dear Reader,
Lindsay McKenna did a great job creating Down Range. There were times I didn’t want to put her book down. It hit on some of the emotions that I had locked up for a long time. So it will be an ongoing healing process for me after reading it. A deep, reflective book is rare.
Jake Ramsey, the hero, had reached a point where he was able to express his emotions in a way few SEALs openly do. This would be a great educational book for SEALs to read, because, like many warriors, their emotions are locked up so they can perform their jobs. It would not be uncommon for warriors to leave the military after unlocking their hearts, like Jake and Morgan did with one another, because the killing would become more difficult.
In my opinion, this book will appeal to a broad range of people and interests. Plus, the book relays important life lessons, like love, fear and dealing with emotional and physical trauma. The action scenes are excellent and realistic, and I found myself, even with my background, engrossed in them. I didn’t have to suspend my disbelief, which is what often shuts me down on most action scenes in books and especially movies.
This is one of the best books in any category I’ve read. It would be a great movie if it could capture and relay these points.
I hope you enjoy Down Range as much as I did.
Chief Michael Jaco, U.S. Navy SEAL (retired), author of The Intuitive Warrior.
To U.S. Navy SEAL Chief Michael Jaco, who gave twenty-four years of service to our country and is now retired. More than anything, thank you for your service. Thank you for your help with some of the technical aspects in this novel. And thank you for writing The Intuitive Warrior.
And
To the U.S. Navy SEALs. Thank you for your heart, your courage and your sacrifices. To the wives and children of a SEAL, who indeed sacrifice in their own way while their husband is gone and protecting all of us as a country. You are ALL heroes in my eyes and heart.
Contents
Chapter One (#u6473451d-085b-5343-b2e7-de5675f728a8)
Chapter Two (#u8c2bc602-b03c-5962-bddc-dc734d5d00c4)
Chapter Three (#u22ec16be-80ae-50e8-8bee-5caa2cdbe65c)
Chapter Four (#u0ec83cd7-56eb-5254-bcda-2df2d090166a)
Chapter Five (#ue70b1596-ceff-5eb8-b27b-b3433f281ec5)
Chapter Six (#uecadd3c8-65bc-53cf-b27c-c0124ec208c5)
Chapter Seven (#u0f57d2f9-97e6-5c3d-b72d-f38687d685fd)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
What the hell? He had to be seeing things. SEAL Lieutenant Jake Ramsey froze as he climbed out of his rented red Jeep Wrangler. He’d just parked at the Pentagon, ordered here for an appointment with U.S. Army General Stevenson. He had no idea what this meeting entailed. It was top secret.
His heart thudded in his chest as he stared one row of cars up. A Marine Captain emerged from her black SUV. Jake removed his wraparound sunglasses, remaining motionless, watching her pull her black leather purse over the left shoulder. The gesture was all too familiar to him.
She wore her khaki summer uniform short-sleeved blouse along with dark green gabardine trousers that emphasized her long legs. In short-heeled, polished black pumps, she was all spit and polish. Morgan Boland had an hourglass figure, and though her clothes fitted her comfortably, Jake knew how beautiful she was without any clothes at all.
His mouth tightened. What the hell was Morgan Boland doing here?
Stunned, Jake wrestled with a lot of old feelings leaping to life within him. Oh, he remembered tunneling his fingers through that mass of silky red hair now softly framing her oval face and stubborn chin. The strands curled slightly across her proud shoulders.
She hadn’t seen him—yet.
Two years ago they’d met in the Hindu Kush mountains near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. They’d collided like two comets, renewing their relationship that had started at the Naval Academy, Annapolis. His lower body tightened in memory of those three incredible days with her in his arms in that Afghan village. Three of the most incredible nights of his life since… He ruthlessly tried to crush the grief-stricken memories from when he was twenty-four years old. Jake had lost his wife, Amanda, and two-week-old baby, Joshua, in a car accident. They’d only been married a year.
At twenty-seven, Jake had unexpectedly met Morgan once again. And whether she ever realized it or not, she’d salvaged his bleeding, wounded soul. Those few days had transformed him, pulled him out of a three-year depression. She’d breathed new life into him.
His mouth pursed, the corners pulling in as he watched her shut the door on the SUV. The May morning’s breeze was inconstant, lifting a few gold-and-copper strands of hair across her face. He stared with a mixture of grief and longing as she lifted her long, expressive fingers and pulled the strands away from her cheek.
Morgan was still hauntingly beautiful to him. His mind spun with a hundred questions as to why she was here at the same time he was. Jake worked to suppress those unrequited feelings about their shared history. He’d had that impulse, of never allowing her to escape his arms again. But she had. And it had been his damned fault. For the second time in his life, he’d driven Morgan away from him.
There was a file beneath her left arm. She pointed the clicker at the SUV to lock it. Jake swallowed hard, trying to ignore his desire. It had been a lethal attraction from the first moment, in Annapolis, while going through the Naval Academy. They were a powerful match in bed, but dammit, she was bullheaded and wildly independent. She refused to be what he wanted her to be. When they came together in bed, it was like the Fourth of July every time. Yet, afterward, it always descended into a heated argument, hurtful words flying between them like bullets being fired from an M-4 rifle.
His breath jammed in his throat as he saw her lift her head, her green-eyed gaze meeting his. For a moment, Jake felt like a proverbial deer paralyzed in a set of car headlights. Her eyes narrowed. Of course, she recognized him. Her oval face with high cheekbones and a sprinkle of pale freckles tightened. Her mouth…oh, God, her mouth…Jake remembered hotly covering those full lips, feeling her hungry response, her sleek, athletic body pressed demandingly against his, wanting him as much as he wanted her. Now that soft, full mouth thinned with displeasure. He forced himself to hold her gaze. Even from this distance, he could see the spark of surprise and then anger flare in her green eyes.
What the hell were the chances of meeting Morgan two years later, here in a damned Pentagon parking lot? Jake decided he had to be a gentleman and walk over and say hello. He shut the door on his Jeep, locked it and shoved the key into a pocket of his tan Navy summer trousers. Pulling the garrison cap from beneath his left arm, he settled it on his head.
Jake felt as if he was going downrange into a direct action combat mission. Born of a Navy SEAL, he walked with an easy, natural confidence toward the only other woman in his life who had held his heart—and he’d screwed it up both times. Now, as he closed the distance between them, tension was evident in her, but she was a warrior like him. Jake tried to prepare himself. Morgan was definitely not happy to see him. And he knew why.
“You’re the last person I expected to see here in this parking lot,” he said, trying to soften his normally hard expression. He came to a halt a few feet away from her, but he could still see her emerald eyes flash with what he interpreted as disgust. Or maybe, distrust. Probably both.
“Makes two of us, Ramsey.”
“What business do you have here, Morgan?”
She quirked her lips. “It’s top secret. How about you?”
He managed a sliver of a smile, appreciating the way the uniform hid her breasts. He knew those breasts well, and even now, his body hotly remembered their firm curves, too. “Same. Where you headed?”
“The E-ring. You?”
His brows rose. “Same ring.” What the hell kind of cosmic joke was being played upon him? Jake saw confusion for a moment in her eyes, too.
The breeze blew enough to lift strands of her red hair across her flushed cheeks. He had the urge to lift his hand, catch those errant strands with his fingers and gently tuck them behind her delicate ear as he’d done on so many other occasions. Why the hell couldn’t he erase Morgan from his body and memory forever?
He’d been in the military since he was eighteen. He’d gone to Annapolis and went into the Marine Corps. Later, he moved to the U.S. Navy to become a SEAL. At twenty-nine, Jake felt snared by a joke being pulled on him by Marine Corps god Odin himself. The last person he ever wanted to meet again was Morgan. And here she was: all six feet of woman warrior who proved him wrong about her being the weaker sex.
She glanced down at the watch on her right wrist. “I’ve gotta go, Ramsey.” Morgan drilled him with a hard look. “And I can’t say it’s been nice seeing you again.”
Jake watched her turn on her heel and walk toward the main doors of the Pentagon. It almost felt as if she’d physically slapped him. He stood for a moment, letting her quiet rage pass through him. It wasn’t her fault, he sourly admitted. He’d been the one to hurl the indictment that women were weak. That they shouldn’t be allowed into combat. He and Morgan had gotten into that very argument after making love on Christmas morning as a blizzard hit the Afghan village.
He and his SEAL team had holed up at the American-friendly Shinwari village to wait out the coming storm. To his everlasting surprise, Morgan had been there, too, with another SEAL team. The SEALs operated in small four- and eight-person fire teams throughout the Hindu Kush, rooting out the bad guys and taking them down. He hadn’t been able to swallow his surprise or disguise his pleasure at discovering she was there. Morgan had been assigned as a linguist with another team on a separate black-ops mission.
Rubbing his recently shaved jaw, Jake saw her disappear inside the building. He had just enough time to make his appointment with General Stevenson of the U.S. Army. His emotions, no matter how he tried, burned bright and intense over meeting Morgan once again. She had stood out at Annapolis from the moment he’d seen her in their plebe year. They were in the same class, and for two years, Jake had fought to ignore the tall, assertive redhead. Morgan was as physically strong as most of the men going through the four-year military program. Jake had watched her begin to shine and bloom in her third year. She’d been at the top of the academic list, a champion fencer on the fencing team, and her keen intelligence had been recognized.
He quickly walked across the asphalt parking lot, in deep thought over her. When had he fallen under her charismatic spell at the Academy? How had it happened? Jake had accidentally met Morgan as a third-year student at a local civilian pizza parlor everyone frequented on Saturday evenings. There were plenty of guys who wanted her. She’d always been surrounded by them, but she didn’t seem to care or notice any of them. Yet, when they’d met up at the bar to order pitchers of beer, something had happened.
“Damn,” he rasped, scowling. They’d accidentally grazed one another’s elbows. Jake remembered Morgan’s gaze meeting his. Those deep green eyes that made his heart melt, made his body go hot and hard with longing. Her nickname at the Academy had been Amazon because she was tall, physically strong and she had a bruising, in-your-face independence.
Jake remembered taking Morgan’s hand and leading her into the hall of the bar to be alone with her. He’d done something he’d wanted to do for years: kiss the hell out of her. Morgan, he’d discovered, had been watching him for a long time, too. He’d asked if she was protected, and she’d said yes, she was on the pill. They’d never made it back to the Academy until very early on Sunday morning. And their hearts and fates had been sealed, for better or worse.
He needed to stop remembering. Morgan wasn’t in his life anymore. Jake scowled and climbed the stone steps of the Pentagon. Up ahead were soldiers with M-16 rifles. Since the bombing of the Pentagon on 9/11, security had markedly changed. He would go through an X-ray machine before ever being allowed into the military bastion.
Jake aimed himself toward the outer ring, the E-ring. It was the only level that had windows looking out into the civilian world. Only senior military officers got those posh office assignments. This was where many top secret and black-ops missions originated. Curious as to why he was called off PRODEV, sixty days of leave granted to him after coming back from Afghanistan with his SEAL platoon, he arrived at the E-ring. Looking at the file he held, he saw the number of the office and turned to the right.
Captain Morgan Boland was sitting in a chair opposite the secretary’s desk when the door opened. Her eyes widened. Jake Ramsey, again? Her lips parted for a moment. What was he doing here? He stopped when he realized she was sitting there staring up at him. He had a stunned look across his normally unreadable expression. Shock bolted through her.
Morgan lowered her gaze, and her heart sped up. Why couldn’t she just ignore Ramsey’s darkly tanned face? His rugged good looks and those stormy-looking gray eyes of his? Her fingers tightened imperceptibly around the file in her lap. The only other empty chair in the small, cramped office was two feet away from where she sat. She listened as Jake went to the fortysomething-year-old blonde administrative assistant and gave his name to her.
“Thank you, Lieutenant Ramsey. General Stevenson will see you in just a bit. Would you like some coffee or tea while you wait?”
Jake took off his cap. “No, thank you, ma’am.” He hated having to sit next to Morgan, who was staring at him as if he were going to bite her. His traitorous body and heart clamored over being so close to this fiery woman. Jake wanted to be close. Wanted, somehow, to undo the wrong he’d done to her two years earlier.
Sitting down, he glanced over at her. Morgan was staring straight ahead, her hands tense over the file in her lap. He relished viewing her profile and then realized her once-perfect nose now had a bump on it. Had she broken it? He almost asked but thought better of it. There was an assistant sitting six feet away from them, and Jake didn’t want her to know how much Morgan hated him.
What to say to Jake Ramsey? Morgan felt heat radiating off his hard male body. The uniform showed how athletic and fit he really was. SEALs took exercise to a whole new level, plus six months climbing mountains in Afghanistan had honed his body into a dangerous weapon. She saw the SEAL gold trident on his well-sprung chest, rows of colorful ribbons beneath it. Jake was part of the best of the best black-ops teams the military had. She remembered those pale eyes of his going dove-gray as he’d made love with her. God, they were good in bed together. Too good. And above all, Morgan knew she had to keep a secret she would always carry from that last meeting they had. Jake would never know. Pursing her lips, she refused to say anything to him. Her mind churned with questions on why both of them were here, in the same office of the Pentagon. It made no sense to her.
A buzzer sounded on the assistant’s desk. She looked over at Morgan. “Go right through this door, Captain Boland. General Houston will see you. Room two, please.”
Rising, Morgan nodded, ignored Ramsey and opened the door. Inside, she saw two offices, one on either side of the hall. Turning to the left, she saw a frosted glass window with “2” painted in gold upon it and knocked firmly.
“Enter,” a male voice ordered.
Morgan’s heart picked up a beat as she opened it. Inside was a man in his late-fifties, fit, in a dark green U.S. Army uniform. The salad, or ribbons, across his powerful chest attested to his time and experience in the Army. There was silver on the sidewalls of his closely cropped hair. His eyes were sharp and intelligent-looking. Morgan came to attention in front of his desk.
“Captain Morgan Boland reporting as ordered, sir.”
“At ease, Captain. Have a seat. We need to chat.”
Indeed, Morgan thought as she took the only chair in front of the General’s desk. The man smiled a little as he clasped his hands and rested them on the dark cherrywood desk.
“What I’m about to tell you is top secret, Captain. But I already think you know what this mission is all about.”
“I’m hoping it’s an op to go after Sangar Khogani, sir. I’ve been pushing for it to find and kill him for the last couple of years.”
A grin leaked through the hardened line of his mouth. He handed her a file folder. “We’ve been listening, Captain. Read along with me?”
Opening the folder, Morgan felt her spirits lift. Her emotions shimmered as she quickly read the one-paragraph synopsis on the mission. Looking up, she saw the General giving her a penetrating look. Morgan waited for him to speak, even though she wanted to tear through the rest of the assignment and read the details. She hoped like hell she had been assigned to it.
“You’re a part of Operation Shadow Warriors,” he began, opening the file. “Forty women volunteers from all the military branches were trained either in Ranger or Special Forces schools and are now in ground combat to prove women have what it takes to do the job in the field. We’re in the third year of a seven-year top secret experiment. I’m pleased to tell you, it’s going very well in showing women can handle combat.”
“Yes, sir.” Hope rose in her breast. Morgan had never wanted an assignment more than this one. Was General Houston letting her have it or not? She couldn’t read the man’s deeply tanned face.
“You’ve been very active and vocal about mounting a mission to take out Khogani. He’s an opium drug lord with the Hill tribe near the border area with Pakistan.”
“Yes, sir, I have.” She’d spoken to General Maya Stevenson, who had spearheaded women in combat, starting with the Black Jaguar Squadron down in Peru years earlier. Maya had put together a plan of an all-woman Apache combat squadron to halt cocaine shipments out of that country. It had been approved and had been a spectacular success. Then Stevenson had organized Operation Shadow Warriors three years ago. It was a program putting women’s boots on the ground in various combat theaters.
Morgan wasted no time in pleading her case directly to the General to mount a mission. She wanted to even the terrible score over in Afghanistan. Morgan had been caught up in the battle along with a group of Green Berets, wounded and one of the few survivors of Khogani’s attack on a Shinwari tribe village.
Houston nodded. “You’re going to get your wish, Captain. You’ve been a SEAL trained sniper for three years now, and you’ve exemplified yourself in that department. You’ve been downrange with SEAL and Special Forces units for the past three years.”
“I have the background it takes to successfully complete this mission, sir.”
“There’s no question about that, Captain.”
“I’ve lobbied hard to get this op on the board, sir.”
Houston smiled a little at the brash woman officer. “If you could suffer a little more with me, Captain, let’s talk about the mission details?”
Chastised, Morgan relaxed against the chair. She saw humor in his eyes, as if he were putting up with a petulant, pushy child. “Yes, sir, sorry, sir. I’ve got a few guns in this fight.”
Houston nodded and sobered. He was familiar with SEAL slang. “A gun in the fight” meant the person had a personal, vested interest in the undertaking. Morgan had never gone through SEAL training. Instead, she’d been working off and on with them for years over in Afghanistan. Their slang and lingo were bound to rub off on her.
“I understand. General Stevenson and I are responsible for the inception of Operation Shadow Warriors. We took your request seriously when you submitted this mission to General Stevenson. We’ve worked with SOCOM, Special Operation Command, up and down the chain of command to ensure this mission, which is now called Operation Peregrine, is successful.”
“Thank you, sir. You don’t know how much this means to me.” Morgan held her breath as he slowly leafed through several pages of the mission. Would they let her be on the op? Just because they approved it didn’t mean she was assigned. They had to allow her to be a part of it! Never had Morgan ever wanted anything more in life right now than to go after Sangar Khogani. She had two scores to settle with him.
At the same time, she knew Houston was well aware she was a sniper and a damned good one. She’d proved her skill out in the field many times over. Snipers weren’t supposed to be emotionally involved in the hunting of their quarry. They couldn’t do their job if revenge was uppermost on their minds. Emotions clouded a sniper’s mind-set; something no one wanted in the field during an op. Morgan realized she’d revealed her personal and emotional need to have a stake in this op. A stupid move on her part.
And now General Houston knew how badly she wanted Khogani. Would he overlook her passion? Or not? Unsure, Morgan forced herself to sit quietly and wait. After all, that was what snipers did best. Patience was a virtue among the sniper cadre, and ordinarily, Morgan had the patience of Job. But Khogani stirred up violent, angry emotions in her, and there was no way around it. She wanted that bastard dead. His head on a platter. And she wanted to be the one who put it there.
“Go to page four, Captain. This entails the guts of the op.”
Morgan’s gaze went to page four. There were two names chosen for the op. One was her, which sent a giddy emotion of joy through her. When her eyes dropped to the second name, her heart plunged with disbelief. Gulping, she snapped a look up across the desk at Houston. Struggling to speak, she rasped, “But—sir, I’m assigned to this op with Lieutenant Jake Ramsey?” For a moment, she felt as if someone had hit her with an armor-piercing round to her Kevlar vest, sucking the breath out of her.
“That’s right,” Mike Houston said. “General Stevenson and I want this to be a SEAL mission. You’ve worked well with them in the past. We needed a SEAL sniper who could be sniper leader on the op.”
Morgan swallowed her disappointment. “Yes, sir,” she barely mouthed. There would be no way in hell she could voice protest over Ramsey being assigned. On top of that, he had been designated as lead sniper. In the sniping business, they were both equally qualified, but one sniper would be the leader, the final decision maker. And it would be him! Dammit! The ramifications of the assignment whirled like a nightmare around her. Obviously, these generals did not know their long personal history. Maybe that was a blessing in disguise. Morgan was sure she’d never have been assigned to the op if General Houston realized what she and Jake had once been to each other.
Lifting her head, she said, “Sir? What led you to choose Lieutenant Ramsey?”
Mike sat back in his leather chair and said, “His name was spit out by the computer, Captain. Any problems with that?”
“None, sir,” she lied, her voice husky as she carefully closeted her roiling feelings. That was why she’d met Jake in the parking lot.
“General Stevenson is interviewing First Lieutenant Ramsey as we speak. If she feels he’s the right man for the job, we’ll be setting up the briefing tomorrow at 0900 here in this office. We’ll all go over the details of this op at that time.” He picked up a voucher and handed it to her. “You’ll both be staying at this hotel located near the Pentagon. I know you just came out of Afghanistan, flying for almost twenty-four hours to make this meeting, Captain. Get a hot meal under your belt tonight and get a good night’s sleep. I need you a hundred percent tomorrow morning. Understand?”
Quickly coming to her feet at attention, Morgan said, “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“Dismissed.”
Morgan forced herself to turn and walk to the door. Emotions clashed within her. She felt a little dizzy. As she left the office, she was grateful not to see Jake Ramsey. She kept walking toward the front doors, trying to deal with this new development. Closing her eyes for a moment, she dragged in an uneven breath, forcing all those feelings down into her once more. It didn’t work.
Morgan fought the deep jet lag. She’d only been able to grab some sleep aboard the C-5 that had flown her from Bagram air base in Afghanistan to Rota, Spain, and then on to Andrews Air Force Base just outside Washington, D.C.
Pushing herself, Morgan left the Pentagon, glad to be out in the warm May sunlight once more. The breeze reminded her she was home, if but for a little while, not in the harsh desert mountains of Afghanistan with a hunter-killer SEAL team. Aiming herself at the rented SUV, Morgan looked at the voucher. She was so damned tired, she was weaving. Houston was right: she needed a hot shower and then bed. If she woke up sometime this evening, she’d get dinner to fortify herself. Because the turnaround on this op was immediate. The schedule had them leaving within twenty-four hours, headed back into Afghanistan.
As she opened the door to the SUV, Morgan wanted to check in to the hotel and make a call to her parents in Gunnison, Colorado. And even more, she wanted to talk to her two-year-old daughter, Emma. Just thinking about her family buoyed Morgan. She tried to force her thoughts away from Jake Ramsey. What did he think of the sniper pairing on this op? He had to be feeling like an IED had exploded beneath him. Morgan knew, without any doubt, the last woman Jake would ever want on a mission with him would be her. Correction, he’d never want any woman on a mission with him, believing they were incapable of operating in combat.
All hell was about to break loose….
Chapter Two
Jake Ramsey wondered what kind of bad karma was hanging over his head. When he opened door number one, he came face-to-face with an Army woman General. He snapped to attention in front of her desk and reported as ordered.
“At ease,” General Maya Stevenson said, gesturing to the chair in front of her desk. “Have a seat, Lieutenant Ramsey. We have a lot to cover in a short amount of time.”
Sitting, Jake got his first good look at the female General. His mind spun in shock, but somewhere, in his memory, he had heard this woman’s name. Where? And he almost blurted, what is a woman doing mission planning on a black ops? But didn’t. Judging from the serious look on her face, he’d keep his mouth shut. Her hair was black with some silver strands and barely brushed the shoulders of her green uniform. It was the burning intelligence in her large emerald eyes that warned him she wasn’t some weak woman like his mother. Far from it; so he sat there on edge, trying to appear interested but not anxious.
“Lieutenant, you were chosen for Operation Peregrine by our computers.” She leaned forward, handing him the mission brief. “We need two snipers to go after Sangar Khogani, a Hill tribe leader who is an opium warlord.” She rested her hands on the file. “We have chosen a sniper team to go after him and remove his presence from the fight.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Are you interested in this type of op, Lieutenant?”
“Absolutely, ma’am.” Jake felt himself sweat. This woman General had the kind of look that could cut an officer into so many ribbons. Why would she ask such a question?
“Open the file to page four, Lieutenant.”
Jake opened it. His mouth dropped as he read who his assigned sniper partner would be: Captain Morgan Boland. He snapped his mouth shut, feeling shock bolt through him. “Ma’am,” he said, struggling, looking at her, “this can’t be right.”
“What isn’t right, Lieutenant?”
“This…this is a woman, ma’am.”
The General’s long, arched brows turned downward. Her once-relaxed facial features turned glacial. He knew he’d said the wrong thing but didn’t care. There was no way he was going on a black op with a woman! Not even Morgan Boland. Especially not her. Adrenaline began to leak into his bloodstream. What kind of sick joke was this?
“You got a problem with that, Lieutenant?”
Wincing internally, Jake heard the frost in her husky voice, her eyes narrowed speculatively upon him. Okay, so he saw the choice: argue that a woman had no place being a sniper on a dangerous black op and ask for a man to be assigned with him instead. As Jake sat there in those seconds, he suddenly remembered Maya Stevenson. Scuttlebutt had circulated among the SEALs that a female Army General had formed an all-woman combat unit. The women had been divided among the black-ops community. The all-volunteer force had been trained in Ranger or Special Forces schools. They had then been assigned to a black-ops team to become a working part of it in combat. And he remembered hearing the plan was working very well. Dammit.
Mouth dry, Jake tried to temper his answer. “Ma’am, with all due respect, I honestly don’t feel a woman could handle this kind of op. Just perusing some of the challenges on this mission, it’s in the Hindu Kush mountains. We could be at twelve thousand feet on rocks and scree. I’ve been up in those mountains many times, and I know how brutal the elements and challenges are for a sniper.”
“Which is why you were chosen for this mission, Lieutenant. You bring experience to the table. But so does Captain Boland.”
There was a hard edge in her voice, and Jake felt trapped. She wasn’t even going to discuss a woman being assigned to the op. It was a done deal to her, normal SOP, standard operating procedure. He held her unblinking gaze. “Yes, ma’am.”
“There’s a but in your voice, Lieutenant.” She gave him a cutting look. “This meeting between you and me is to simply iron out any major problems before we meet at 0900 back here tomorrow morning to go over the details of this op.”
Swallowing hard, Jake felt her power. He could see she was holding back her emotions. “Again, with all due respect, General, I will not allow a woman on an op like this.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Jake felt as if a bomb went off in the small, cramped room. It wasn’t physical, but invisible, as if he got slapped with angry energy. The General straightened, her face going hard. He tried to prepare himself against the anger he saw.
“We’re not asking for your ‘allowance,’ Lieutenant Ramsey. I don’t know what rock you’ve been hiding under, but women are in combat. And they’ve been in combat from day one of the Iraq War. They’re in combat in Afghanistan. For the last ten years. Where have you been?”
“SEALs have no female operatives in their ranks,” he shot back. This op assignment terrified Jake. He couldn’t take Morgan as a sniper partner. No way in hell.
The General gave him a patient look. “Again, Lieutenant, for your edification, women have gone on SEAL ops. I suggest you study Captain Boland’s training and background. That should change your prejudicial mind.”
“Ma’am, it’s not prejudice. I’m concerned for a woman’s well-being.” Jake’s mouth thinned. He felt the beginnings of real threat to him by taking the op. He and Morgan had a challenging relationship. He was positive Stevenson knew nothing of their personal history. Otherwise, they would never have thrown them together in this op.
“Regardless of her gender, Lieutenant, you should be concerned for your partner. Sniping is an art as much as experience to remain hidden so you can take out your target.”
His palms grew damp, his heart pounding with adrenaline as it flooded his body. “I take care of my men, ma’am. They are my priority.”
“Taking care of your personnel is expected of every officer. Well, this time, it’s a woman, Lieutenant. And I can tell by the way you’re looking at me that you think you just landed on Mars. Get over it. This is the twenty-first century, and there is a group of women out there who have been in combat for the last three years in Operation Shadow Warriors, Lieutenant. A very dark, deep SOCOM-produced experiment to see if women could handle combat beside their male counterparts.” She leaned forward, her voice a rasp. “They’ve been proving it, Lieutenant. There are other SEAL teams that Captain Boland has been working with for the past three years. Successfully, I might add.”
Mind spinning, Jake sat back, stunned. SEAL units were small and a tight-knit family. “I’ve been a SEAL for seven years,” he challenged strongly, “and I’ve never heard anything about a woman assigned to a platoon for combat purposes.” If there had been a woman assigned to certain SEAL units, word would have gotten around, for damned sure. Jake saw the General’s face grow even harder, if that was possible. Sweat dribbled down the sides of his ribs. He felt under fire, in a combat situation.
“We’ve looked at your record. You’ve had women assigned to your team on several patrols, Lieutenant. They were there as a linguist, an 18 Delta medic and a forensics and FBI specialist. Were these not direct action missions?”
Jake felt trapped. He did remember women being assigned. But that was different. “That wasn’t as a principal shooter, ma’am.”
“The missions these women were assigned to illustrate each woman was shot at and all successfully returned fire, Lieutenant. The selection of ‘principal’ members is beyond your pay grade. Are you telling me that you are refusing this op?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Good to hear. I want your word, Lieutenant, that you will not treat Captain Boland in a prejudicial manner. She’s equally qualified as you.”
Stunned, Jake jerked a look down at the open file on his lap. He hadn’t had time to read anything about Morgan’s sniper background. He didn’t even know she had one. He knew she’d gotten a major in civil engineering and a minor in linguistics back at Annapolis in Pashto, but that was all. Working his mouth, sweat forming on his upper lip, he muttered, “I’ll do my best, ma’am.”
“That’s not good enough, Lieutenant. And you damn well know it.”
Stevenson’s growling voice stunned him into silence. Jake sat stiffly, holding her glare. She was a General. He was a lowly Lieutenant. Refusing this op would end his career. “Yes, ma’am. I won’t have a problem with Captain Boland being my sniper partner.”
“You sure?” She drilled him with an intent look.
Jake felt as if she had X-ray vision, staring holes through him. His career was far more important to him than arguing women were weak to this Army General. The SEALs were his family; the men, his brothers. Maybe not by birth, but they’d spilled blood among one another on too many occasions. Mouth pursed, he gave her a crisp nod. “It won’t be a problem, ma’am. I’ll make it work.”
Her nostrils flared as she sat up. “By God, you’d better, Lieutenant Ramsey. Or I’ll have your career. This op is not about you. It’s got a lot of other ramifications you aren’t even aware of. And if other SEAL platoons can work well with Captain Boland, so can you. Dismissed.”
Morgan had just given the waiter her menu choices when Jake Ramsey, in civilian clothes, entered the restaurant. It was 2200, or ten at night. She groaned. She’d hoped not to meet him until 0900 tomorrow morning.
As Morgan sat at the table for two in the corner of the busy hotel restaurant, she couldn’t stop her heart from expanding with old, warm feelings. Jake was dressed in a light blue short-sleeve shirt, tan chinos and loafers. Even twenty feet away, she could tell he was a SEAL. He carried himself with a well-earned confidence, his shoulders back, his gaze always roving slowly around an area, checking it out. His black hair gleamed, indicating he’d probably just taken a shower. There was no question, he was a damned good-looking man. He was in control, powerful and intense.
Morgan’s mouth quirked as his gaze moved her way. And then his eyes locked on hers. Surprise flared in his gray eyes for a split second, and then that hard, unreadable SEAL game face dropped into place.
She smiled to herself as she picked up the delicate china coffee cup in both hands and took a sip. Now what was he going to do? Pretend he didn’t see her and get the maître d’ to seat him on the other side of the room so he wouldn’t have to talk to her? Or would he bite the bullet and invite himself to her table? Morgan wished Jake would disappear to the other side of the room. But when the maître d’ approached, he pointed toward her table.
Friggin’ great. She was barely awake, her lack of sleep so deep she was barely functioning mentally. Never mind emotionally. She forced herself to try to be more alert.
“Mind if I join you?” Jake asked.
Morgan said, “Sit down.”
The maître d’ left the menu with him after he’d taken a chair and sat down. Morgan stared across the table at Jake. Hell, if they didn’t share such an awful history between them, she’d find herself drawn to the SEAL officer. His square face had been recently shaved, and that dangerous feeling that was always around him appealed powerfully to her.
“You look tired,” Jake observed, trying to find some safe ground. Though he did notice, too, how beautiful Morgan was. She had on a pale lilac pantsuit and cream-colored tee with a dark purple scarf around her shoulders. Jake had forgotten just how she could take his breath away. Her hair lay like a gleaming red cloak about her proud shoulders. Morgan never wore makeup, but she never had to. Her green eyes were large and well spaced with thick red lashes to frame them. But he saw shadows beneath those eyes, and whether he wanted to or not, he became concerned for her.
“I just got hauled off an op in the Hindu Kush to make this meeting,” she said. “Don’t worry. I’m up for our mission.”
His nerves nettled as he forced himself to look down at the menu. Jake still wanted her, dammit. His heart did, too, because a ribbon of happiness soared through him. He scowled, focused on the menu. “I was making conversation,” he told her, lifting his chin and meeting her flat stare.
Morgan had the most arresting eyes he’d ever encountered. Jake could feel himself being lured into their depths, the forest-green mixed with glimmers of willow-green color. He remembered hotly that as they made love, there would be gold highlights dappled throughout them. Shifting uncomfortably, Jake felt himself responding to her, much as he wanted to remain aloof.
“You just came off an op? Where?”
“Same area where we met December, two years ago.” It had changed Morgan’s life in ways Jake would never find out about. In one way, it broke her heart and she felt guilty. In another, there was an unbridgeable chasm between them.
Ouch. Damn. Jake scowled, decided on something simple and straightforward to eat. The waiter came over and took his order for a hamburger and fries. He folded his hands, sensing how tense she was. Morgan’s gaze was wary. And that delicious mouth he’d tasted and kissed was pursed. “Did you hitch a C-5 out of Bagram?”
“Yes.” Morgan tried not to be swayed by Jake, but dammit, the toughest thing to do was ignore his blatant maleness. He was a man’s man, a SEAL, and they had male charisma to burn. The expression in his gray eyes was neutral. She saw him struggling to try to find some purchase with her that wasn’t argumentative or threatening. Truth be known, she was too tired to pick a fight with him. “I’m whipped,” she admitted, sliding her long fingers around the china cup.
“Flights halfway around the world will do that to you,” Jake agreed, keeping the edge out of his tone. “In fact, you don’t look quite awake.”
Snorting, Morgan sipped her coffee. “Understatement. I feel beat-up. As soon as I left my meeting with General Houston, I came over here and crashed and burned.” She looked at the watch on her wrist. “I’ve slept since 1000 and it’s 2200.”
“You need another twenty-four hours of downtime to get your body and mind back on the same page,” Jake agreed. In fact, because Morgan was exhausted, her normal defenses weren’t in place. And for that, he breathed a sigh of relief. Anything he’d ever heard about red-haired women applied to Morgan ten times over. She was a risk taker, hotheaded and no-nonsense. Her feistiness had always drawn him. Even now.
The waiter brought over Morgan’s meal, a hamburger and a large plate of French fries. She thanked him, and he left. She saw him eyeing her food. Good God, why did the man have to have such a sensual mouth? Morgan remembered kissing that mouth. He was such a damn good lover, a thoughtful one, despite how they fought outside the bedroom. That was the past. She had to let it go. Seeing Jake stare at the stack of hot French fries, she pushed the plate toward the middle of the table.
“Go on. I know how much you like them.”
“Guilty,” Jake admitted, grinning sheepishly and thanking her. She handed him the bottle of ketchup, knowing that was how he liked his fries. “Been six months since I tasted real French fries.”
She fixed her hamburger, watching Jake through her lashes. “You just get back from Afghanistan and you’re on PRODEV, professional development, with your platoon now?”
“Yes, I was supposed to be on my sixty days of leave.” Jake’s face melted with pleasure as he ate the first few fries. The man was so easy to read when he dropped his SEAL game face. He sat back in the chair, his eyes shuttering closed as he relished and appreciated the food. Some of Morgan’s testiness dissolved.
Morgan understood that the SEALs pined for real American junk food when they were in their six-month rotation into a combat zone. As she bit into the juicy hamburger, she knew six months in combat wore on everyone. SEALs didn’t go into any area that wasn’t life threatening. Since 9/11, sixty SEALs had died in combat. Far too many, but it attested to the sheer dangerousness in their work. They were frontline warriors, black-ops commandos who hunted down the enemy to make this world a safer place for all Americans.
“Gawd,” Ramsey whispered, opening his eyes, “who knew French fries could taste so damned good?” He reached for more.
“The hamburger is to die for, too.”
Jake nodded. “Mine’s coming.” He met and held her green gaze. For once, there was no animosity in Morgan’s stare. He absorbed the peaceful moment between them. God knew, there were never many. He wondered how they were ever going to get along on a sniper op. Would she be able to put her sword away? Could he? But tonight, Jake didn’t want to address those concerns with Morgan. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to bring it up tomorrow morning at the briefing with the two Generals, either.
“Here,” Morgan muttered, cutting her hamburger in half. “Get some good food into your stomach.” She handed half of it to him.
Surprised and pleased, Jake took the proffered hamburger. “Thanks…” Their fingers briefly met. The shock, the pleasure running up his fingers, amazed him. Trying not to be swayed by it, he bit eagerly into the hamburger. Maybe, just maybe, Morgan wasn’t going to be hard to work with after all. It didn’t necessarily mean the war between them was over.
Chapter Three
Morgan girded herself for an intense hour of briefing on Operation Peregrine. Jake Ramsey sat opposite of her at a rectangular maple table in a large room deep in the bowels of the Pentagon. The two Generals arrived precisely at 0900. Both officers snapped to attention when they walked into the room.
“At ease,” Maya Stevenson told them with a wave of her hand. She sat at one end of the table, Mike Houston at the other. Houston placed his leather briefcase on the table and opened it up.
“Here’s the mission,” he told them, distributing a thick red plastic folder to each of them.
Morgan saw an Army Sergeant, a woman with blond hair, enter with a tray that held a large pot of coffee, four white mugs, sugar, cream and a plate of Oreo cookies. She smiled to herself, knowing that General Stevenson was addicted to Oreos. Even at 0900.
After the door closed, leaving the four of them in the soundproof, lead-lined room, Morgan tried to relax. She cast a quick look over at Jake. He was handsome, unreadable, his gray eyes somewhat narrowed. Tension radiated from him, but she didn’t see it in his face.
Morgan wondered if he’d argued against her being on the mission. He considered women weak and incapable. If Jake had, there was no outward sign. Glancing at Maya, whom she knew very well because of Operation Shadow Warriors, Morgan saw the General was focused on thumbing through the briefing. At fifty-four, she was one of the youngest women ever to achieve the rank of General.
“All right,” Maya said, “let’s go to page five.”
Morgan opened the red briefing folder, noting it was top secret.
Houston poured coffee for everyone and passed it around. “The cookies are for General Stevenson,” he intoned, a grin coming to his face. “Off-limits to the rest of us non-Oreo lovers.”
Maya smiled briefly. “Roger that.”
Morgan couldn’t help a small chuckle. Right then, Jake looked up, confused, glancing first at Maya and then over at her for some explanation. None was forthcoming as Mike Houston picked up the plate and set it near the General’s left hand.
Jake shifted uncomfortably, which made her wonder how he’d reacted to knowing she was his sniper partner. Sniper teams could go out in the field as a single operator, or as a twosome, depending on the mission. She couldn’t read into his bloodshot gray eyes. Jake must not have gotten much sleep last night.
Houston looked over at Maya. “General Stevenson, want to tell them why this op has been initiated?”
Maya nodded, folded her hands over the briefing. She pinned both officers with an intense look. “Sangar Khogani is an opium warlord in Afghanistan. He’s chief of the Hill tribe, and they are at war with the Shinwari tribe, next door. We couldn’t care less about this except that the Shinwari are under our government’s protection. We’ve given them millions of dollars in the past few years because they asked for our help. They want infrastructure, schools, medical clinics and help in creating a viable economy for the four-hundred-thousand strong in their tribe.
“The biggest reason why we’re involved with them is that the Khyber Pass, between Pakistan and Afghanistan, occurs in their territory. They are the front door to all al Qaeda coming from Pakistan into their country. They’ve promised to give us intel, and they have. They are Pashtuns who live by a fifteen-hundred-year-old code where your word is your bond.”
Jake nodded. He slipped a glance over at Morgan. She had turned her chair, fully facing General Stevenson. Maybe he should, too? A sign of respect?
“Questions?” Stevenson demanded.
Jake said, “Ma’am, it’s my understanding, after being assigned to that region of the Hindu Kush, Sangar Khogani is a menace to everyone in the area.” Jake opened his hands. “The Shinwari call him the Phantom. He’s got two hundred men on horseback and literally strikes and hides in one of those thousands of caves in those mountains. This is the same man we’re talking about?”
Maya looked pleased. “Yes, it is, Lieutenant Ramsey.”
Jake relaxed a little, the General’s smile easing some of his inner tension.
“But let’s move forward to three months ago. Turn to page ten. You’ll see a map.”
Jake turned to the map, instantly recognizing the village of Margha. It was the same one where he and his team had holed up to wait out a blizzard two years ago in December. Heat tunneled through him. It was the village where he’d unexpectedly met Morgan. They’d shared three days of incredible sex and intimacy. Until he’d opened his big mouth about women being weak and everything had gone to hell in a handbasket. Gulping, Jake didn’t dare look over at Morgan. She had to be thinking the same thing. Damned karma…
“Margha,” Maya said, jabbing her index finger at it, “had a hundred and fifty Shinwari men, women and children. All pro-American. Captain Boland was in that village along with an Army Special Forces team a year ago. They were there rendering medical aid to the populace for five days and were going to leave the next day. Khogani descended at dusk and attacked the village.” Her voice lowered. “The Special Forces team tried to protect the villagers, but it was eleven people against an estimated two hundred riders on horseback. Even they can’t buck odds like that. And it was impossible to bomb the village with a drone or fighter jet or they would end up killing the very people we were trying to protect from Khogani.”
Maya gestured toward Morgan. “Captain Boland had a couple of guns in that fight, Lieutenant Ramsey. What you don’t know is that the Special Forces team had to evacuate and hightail it to a rally point to be lifted out by the Night Stalkers MH-47 helicopter. Every person in that team was more or less wounded. So was Captain Boland. They fought until they ran out of ammunition, and only then did they run for their lives.”
Jake sucked in a quiet breath, twisting a look toward Morgan. She refused to look at him, her attention on her clasped hands in her lap. His heart squeezed with pain for her. Unconsciously, Jake rubbed his chest, remaining silent but wrestling with unexpected emotions about her being wounded.
“The next day,” Maya went on, “Captain Boland returned with reinforcements, but the damage had already been done. When Captain Boland landed with two SEAL teams and two Special Forces teams, they found a hundred and fifty people murdered.” Her voice lowered even more. “Khogani slaughtered innocent people because the elders of the village had refused to allow opium transport through their valley. This is why we’re initiating this op. We feel it’s best to send in a sniper team. And that’s the two of you. You will have time on target for as long as it takes. Snipers know how to stalk. And they know how to track and be patient in finding someone like Khogani. Questions?”
“This is a SEAL op?” Ramsey demanded.
Houston said, “Yes, but you’ll have any other military assets available you need via GPS satellite and/or radio communications. Camp Bravo, an FOB, has a squadron of Apaches on standby, a medevac squadron, the CIA is there with drones and so are a number of Special Forces teams. There are a number of Operation Shadow Warrior women combat operators who are already assigned to some of these teams.”
Jake asked, “Who’s my SEAL contact? Is he out of Camp Bravo or J-bad, Jalalabad?”
“Lieutenant Ramsey, let’s starting thinking plural here, shall we?” Maya met his startled look. “You said ‘my contact.’ It should have been our contact.”
Realizing his mistake, Jake nodded. “My apologies, ma’am. I meant our.”
Morgan almost felt sorry for Jake. He wasn’t about to back up on a General, man or woman. He’d backed up on her in many a furious argument about women being weak. She saw the banked anger and confusion in his eyes for a moment, but being a SEAL, he moved on to the next important item.
“Who’s running radio comms?” Jake asked.
“Captain Boland will,” Mike Houston said. “She’s taken SEAL schooling in every kind of communications gear you presently utilize.”
Relief sizzled through Jake, because that was not his specialty. “That’s good to know,” he murmured, lifting his gaze and meeting Morgan’s cool green eyes. He’d leafed through the report last night and seen her impressive list of training. If Morgan wasn’t in Afghanistan with black-ops teams, she was stateside getting more training. He respected her for that. And it could save their lives out in the field.
“You’re going to be working with Lieutenant-Commander Viera out of J-bad,” Houston said.
More relief showered through Jake. He might be forced to have a woman on this mission, but at least he had a solid SEAL officer supporting it. “Yes, sir. He’s the best.” And Julio Viera, or Vero, his nickname in the SEALs, was a badass Puerto Rican from the slums who had worked his way up through the ranks. He was a mustang, someone who started out as an enlisted person but eventually got to officer’s school. With a decade of experience behind him, Vero’s reputation in the community was as one of the best SEAL planners in the business. Vero would have their back, and Jake was grateful. His karma had just turned into dharma.
Houston looked at his watch. “You’re wheels up at 1100 from Andrews. You’ll be hopping a C-130 flight to Travis Air Force Base, California. From there, you’ll fly across the Pacific and get a hop on a C-5 heading for Hawaii. You’ll stay overnight at the Schofield Army barracks in Honolulu. The next morning, you’ll grab another C-5 flight heading into Bagram Air Base north of Kabul, Afghanistan. From there, you’ll meet Captain Khalid Shaheen, U.S. Army. He’s an Apache combat pilot, but works closely with the Black Jaguar Squadron out of Camp Bravo. He’ll fly you into J-bad. From there, the Night Stalkers will drop you into the valley where you’ll meet our ground asset, Reza.”
“Afghan local?” Jake wondered.
“He’s more than that.” Morgan spoke up, her quiet voice carrying emotion behind it. She quickly looked at General Houston, apology in her expression. She shouldn’t have interrupted a briefing.
“Go on,” Houston said, unruffled by her comment.
“Thank you, sir.” Morgan turned her attention to Jake. “Reza is a thirty-five-year-old Afghan from the Shinwari tribe. He’s worked with SEALs and Special Forces over the last seven years. He’s pro-American.” Her voice caught, and she cleared her throat, getting ahold of escaping emotions. When she spoke again, Morgan’s voice was husky. “Reza lived in the village of Margha that Khogani attacked. The only reason he lived was because he was out with another SEAL team twenty miles south of the village at the time it was attacked.”
“I see,” Jake murmured. But maybe he didn’t. He could have sworn he saw moisture come to Morgan’s eyes. For just a split second. Her lips, full and soft, twisted. He knew that gesture. She was trying to hide emotions. And when she tucked her lower lip between her teeth for a second, Jake knew there was a lot more to this story.
“Reza,” Morgan added, her voice low, “is the soul of Islamic kindness. He lives the Koran as it should be. He’s kind, gentle and helps others. He was beloved by everyone in Margha. He was responsible for bringing in the Special Forces and getting medical help for the children seven years ago.” Morgan blinked, pushing the tears away. She forced herself to go on. “He lost his wife and five children in the attack.” Bowing her head, she muttered, “I couldn’t even save one of his children….”
An unexpected lump formed in Jake’s throat. He swallowed a few times. There was pain mirrored in Morgan’s face, even though the wall of red hair hid most of her expression from him. This time, she wasn’t trying to hide anything in spite of the fact there were two Generals present. Her cheeks had gone pale.
Jake found himself wanting to reach out, touch Morgan’s tightly gripped hands on the table. But he remained still, buffeted by her grief. And that was probably how she ended up getting injured during the attack, trying to rescue Reza’s kids. She loved children with a passion.
Old memories began to rise in him. God, he had to contain them. He couldn’t afford to relive that two years back at the Academy when they’d been lovers. It had been a mixture of incredible happiness, brutal sorrow and serrating pain.
“War sucks,” Maya agreed in a quiet tone. “You did what you could. Sometimes, it’s not enough, Captain.”
Morgan nodded, blinking away unshed tears. “Yes, ma’am, you’re right.”
Jake saw the natural warmth between Maya Stevenson and Morgan. Clearly, they knew each other very well. For a moment, he wondered if the General was Morgan’s sponsor. Every young officer hoped that a higher-ranking officer would take them under their wing and give them opportunities other officers would never get. They were groomed for leadership and put on a fast track for higher rank and responsibility. Yes, he would bet his right hand Stevenson was her sponsor and mentor. “Any other questions?” Houston demanded.
“No, sir,” Morgan said.
“No, sir,” Jake said.
“Good hunting out there,” Maya told them, meaning it as she rose.
Both officers leaped to their feet, coming to attention.
“At ease,” Houston murmured, standing and placing two folders into his briefcase. The other two would go with the snipers. “Do yourself a favor and take advantage of the chow in the Pentagon cafeteria.” He smiled a little. “Pig out on hamburgers and French fries. Where you’re going, there won’t be any for a damn long time until you nail this son of a bitch. Stay safe out there.”
Morgan smiled at the tall, broad-shouldered General. “Thank you, sir. We will.”
“Makes two of us,” Jake said, standing aside to allow General Stevenson by him.
“Better load up on Butterfingers,” Maya called over her shoulder to Morgan as she left.
Morgan grinned, especially as Jake cocked his head. He knew her favorite candy was Butterfinger. For a moment, she felt happy. An emotion she hadn’t felt since… Morgan’s smile faded. She picked up her black leather purse and bucket hat. That spark of happiness died quickly in the wake of a wall of grief and loss. Her husband, SEAL Lieutenant Mark Evans, had been killed by Khogani five years earlier. She had two good reasons to hunt Khogani down, once and for all.
Jake gestured for her to leave the room first, his hand on the doorknob. His whole body responded when she managed a slight smile of thanks. Morgan’s face and those mesmerizing green eyes of hers radiated such intimate warmth. It was a peek into the real Morgan when she didn’t have to maintain officer and military decorum.
Morgan hesitated in the outer office where the secretary was busy. Jake was her sniper partner, and she should wait for him. A part of her wanted to run away as fast as she could. That was the wounded woman in her. The rest of her, the military officer, knew they needed time to go over the op, look at it, figure out the details, fill in any holes that could be found in it and get on the same page with the mission—together.
When Jake emerged, hat in hand, she felt a rush of heat blossom deep inside her. Startled by it, Morgan thought that two years would have ended their tempestuous on-again, off-again relationship. She pursed her lips as he walked up to her. It hadn’t.
Morgan could feel raw male energy radiating off him like invisible sunlight. Did he realize how damned charismatic and sexy he was? She didn’t think so. Jake’s whole life, his entire focus, was about his SEAL fraternity. He never wanted a serious personal relationship standing between him and his SEAL career. A roll in a bed was fine with him, but he was Mr. No Strings Attached. As she’d found out too late, in her third year at Annapolis. Jake Ramsey had devastated her, sheared her world in half and never looked back. Never apologized. She should know better. How many times had she fallen for him? Twice. Twice too many times.
“Ready to rock it out?” he asked her quietly, looking down into her eyes.
“Funny you should use that word,” she murmured, turning. It was a favorite SEAL saying when live fire or an attack was just about to be initiated against an enemy. “Let’s go chow down.”
Chapter Four
Jake sat opposite Morgan at one of the many lunch tables in the cafeteria. Most uniformed personnel who came in at this hour of the morning went for coffee, doughnuts or rolls. They sat with huge platters of hamburgers and French fries, plus a Pepsi on the side. Jet lag did wonders for the digestion.
“I don’t know where to start with you, Morgan,” Jake admitted.
“Makes two of us. I didn’t know you were selected for this mission, either. It was a shock.”
He watched her eat, and his lower body tightened, which didn’t make him happy. Taking a deep breath, he decided to ignore their history together. And there was plenty of time in the next two days to get clear on the op. “I’m sorry for what happened to you at that Afghan village. It had to be tough.”
The vibration of his voice, that whiskey tone of his, sent a keening ache through her. Morgan lifted her head and met his tender gray gaze. Jake was really trying to be humble and caring. On occasion he could be so damn warm and persuasive, moving her from ice to fire.
She gave him a hard look. “Let’s stick to business, Ramsey. It’s the only place I want to be with you. I don’t want to discuss that attack.” It was too painful for her. She’d break down in tears, something Jake had never seen her do. And Morgan wasn’t about to bare her soul to him in, of all places, the Pentagon cafeteria.
Jake sat back, his mouth tightening. His gray eyes going glacial as he stared into her stubborn-looking face. “This is business,” he ground out. “I didn’t know you were a sniper. When did you get your training?”
“Three years ago.”
“As part of Operation Shadow Warriors?” He searched, trying to piece her training. Oh, he’d read her résumé, but he wanted a hell of a lot more.
“Yes, ten of the women from Shadow Warriors were sent to SEAL sniper school. Five made it through.” Her heart fluttered, and she hated herself for wanting Jake. She could see through him like glass. He was twisting in the wind, not sure how to handle or approach her.
“Did either of your parents hunt?”
Mouth quirking, Morgan picked up a fry. “Since when did you ever want to know anything about my home life, Ramsey? Funny, you had a year at Annapolis to find out everything you ever wanted to know about me. But you never asked me once about my family.”
He winced.
Served him right. Would Jake ever grow up? He was twenty-nine, same age as her. And he had the personal irresponsibility of a fifteen-year-old hormone-driven teenager. Relationships meant nothing to him. She’d meant nothing to him outside of the bed. Even if Jake hadn’t grown up, Morgan had.
Holding up his hands, he rasped, “Look, that was a long time ago. I’ve changed.” He smarted beneath her accusations. Morgan didn’t know he’d married to settle down to raise a family.
“Really?” The word came out filled with derision.
“I’m waving a white flag. Can I surrender and we talk about the mission?” It was then Jake began to understand the depth of hurt he’d caused Morgan in the past. She couldn’t hide anything from him, no matter how hard she tried. Running his fingers through his short hair in frustration, Jake sat back, staring at her.
“A SEAL surrendering.” Morgan smiled a little, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Jake, you always say the right thing at the right time. The problem is, it doesn’t stick for long. You’re like the Velcro you use on your gear. Sticks when you want it to, rip if off when you no longer need it.”
“I’ve changed, Morgan.”
She heard an edge to his voice, his eyes going a slate-gray. That color meant he was emotionally upset about something. Her, most likely. Morgan took the last bite of the delicious hamburger and wiped her fingers on a nearby paper napkin. “You haven’t changed since I met you at Annapolis, Jake.”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Well, I guess you’re going to have to find out differently on this op, then.” He paused for a moment. “Look, I don’t even know anything other than you’re a sniper. General Stevenson seems to think you’re very good at it.” He searched her hooded eyes. “Can we at least talk about that?”
“Sure,” she said, wadding up the napkin and dropping it on her plate. “Since becoming a qualified sniper, I’ve been out nine months out of every year with either SEAL or Special Forces teams in Afghanistan. I would be assigned when a team lost one of their two snipers and would take over that position as a straphanger.”
“You asked to go along? I’m trying to understand how this top secret Operation Shadow Warriors works.”
She sat back, arms across her chest. “I was asked to volunteer for it the second year I was assistant commanding officer of a Marine Corps company in Kandahar.”
Surprised, Jake’s brows rose. “You’d always wanted to fill a billet in a combat company.”
“Yes, and I got my wish.” Morgan hitched a shoulder. “In part, it was because I had four years of Pashtun language under my belt. My CO, Captain Davis, was desperate for anyone other than an Afghan terp, interpreter, he had to use to speak to the elders. He was trying to make serious headway with a number of villages, and he felt the interpreter was not giving him accurate info.”
“So, your minor in linguistics landed you in Kandahar?” he said, almost to himself.
“Yes. And when Davis found out I was a damn good executive officer for the company, he was a happy man. He gave me more and more responsibility. By the end of my first year I was running missions with the recon Marines. I’d rather be out in the field than in a stuffy tent at a hundred and ten degrees. At least outside, you can breathe in fresh, hot air instead.”
He smiled a little, nodding. “You always wanted combat.”
“I wanted a shot at what I knew I’d be good at, that’s all.”
“You must have been.”
“Davis gave me rave reports for my leadership ability. I had three months left in my second tour when I was invited to volunteer for Operation Shadow Warriors.”
“So, what does this operation do?”
“It takes volunteer officer or enlisted women who want to be in combat and they’re trained up for it. Then a woman is rotated into a SOF team, special operations forces.”
He shook his head. “You were with SEAL teams? I never heard anything about it.”
Morgan rolled her eyes. “You weren’t supposed to, Ramsey. It was, after all, top secret. The men in that platoon signed their lives away legally on paper to the Pentagon, never to breathe a word of it.”
“Well, it’s sure as hell worked.” He couldn’t help but look at her left hand. No wedding ring, though he didn’t expect to see one. People in combat never wore jewelry. It could get hung up on a rifle and screw things up in a damned hurry. This didn’t mean she wasn’t married. He couldn’t ask. Morgan was prickly with him anyway, and he couldn’t blame her. He didn’t deserve much respect for what he’d done to her. He’d been a first-class bastard. But damn, she was hotheaded, and when she got wound up, he felt overwhelmed by her intense, focused anger at him.
Morgan allowed her arms to drop to her sides. “My gear is in Hawaii, at the Army barracks. I want to use my sniper rifle on this mission.”
Jake nodded. In a sniper op, there was one sniper rifle shared by both snipers. The other team member always had another weapon on him—or her, in this case—to protect the sniper and play rearguard action if they were discovered. “Okay. I’ll take an M-4 with a grenade launcher on it with me.”
“Good choice. Grenades come in handy upon occasion.”
“Oh? You found that out?”
She grinned wickedly. “Yeah, but that’s a story for another day. I’ve got a SIG Sauer 9 mm pistol. I’m assuming you’re bringing yours along, too?”
His mouth dropped open, and just as quickly, he snapped it shut. “How in the hell did you get your hands on a SIG?” It was a special German pistol made only for active-duty SEALs. He saw her grow sad for a moment.
“It was a gift,” Morgan admitted in a voice riddled with barely held emotions. “The Commander in charge of the SEAL squadron approved the gift to be given to me. He said I’d earned it even though I wasn’t a SEAL.” Her voice dropped, a hint of sadness in it. “He said I was a SEAL by proxy.”
“That’s—” Jake struggled for words “—a hell of a gift.”
“It saved my life a few times. Every time it does, I write to the Commander and thank him all over again. He gets a chuckle out of it.”
Morgan had always wanted to head into danger. It was in her genes. Now, from what she was saying, and Jake did believe her, she was in combat most of the time. “Look, let’s get over to Andrews. I’ve got my gear in the Jeep, and I need to stow it on that Herky Jerky, a C-130, we’re taking at 1100.”
Nodding, Morgan pushed the chair away and stood. “I’m going back to the hotel and jumping in my SEAL work uniform and boots. I’ll meet you at Andrews at noon.”
“Sounds good,” Jake said, standing there, feeling a bit overwhelmed. She was a woman. And she carried a SIG. And she was working in SEAL teams! Damn, what was the world coming to?
Picking up his cover, he left the cafeteria. No doubt, a lot had happened to Morgan, and she was closedmouthed about it. If she was going to be his sniper partner, he needed to know a hell of a lot more, because right now, he didn’t trust her with his back in a firefight.
Morgan had taken the opportunity to sleep, no matter how noisy and loud the aircraft around her was. She’d hung up her hammock in the rear of the C-130 and dozed off. By the time they landed in Honolulu, Hawaii, it was late afternoon because of time-zone changes.
Jake had slept a lot but had also worked on his Toughbook laptop, which every SEAL officer carried with him. When Morgan awoke, she figured he was probably trying to check up on her, find out what she was made of. Jake had such little belief a woman could be strong, resourceful or half as smart as he was.
As they walked into the terminal and requisitioned a military vehicle to drive to the BOQ, he seemed deep in thought.
They located the dark olive-green car in the black asphalt parking lot; Morgan breathed in the warm, moist air. “I love Hawaii. It’s one of my favorite places on earth.”
Jake smiled a little, responding to her unexpected spontaneity. This was the Morgan he knew from his Annapolis days, and he wanted to see more of that side to her. But would she reveal herself? To do that she had to trust him. Not an easy issue to resolve in two days’ time. Not with their spotty record. “They’ve got a nice pool at the BOQ.”
“I want to grab my swimsuit out of my duffel bag and head for the beach.” She gave him a droll look. “You’re a SEAL. Water’s your home.”
“Is that an invite to come along?” His hopes rose. Maybe another six hours of sleep had put her in a better mood. The serious look on her face melted his heart. He wanted her so damn bad.
“Up to you. After all these flights, murderous jet lag, I need to move into Mom Ocean’s arms and just be.”
“I’ll come along in case some nasty undertow starts to drag you away. Or some shark decides to think you’re a delicious dessert.”
She shook her head as she opened the driver’s-side door on the military car. Reaching in, Morgan sprung the trunk open so they could put all of his equipment, including his duffel bag, into it. “You SEALs own the water. But somehow, Ramsey, I don’t need any rescuing or protecting.” She slid into the car.
Jake felt his spirit lift a little. Morgan was more like her old self. The woman he knew. The woman who loved so damned hotly that he felt scalded inside and out by her raw sensuality. Climbing into the car, he said, “Maybe you’ll have to rescue me, then.”
She threw her head back, husky laughter rolling out of her. God, how he’d missed that laugh. And yet, Jake knew she was an emotional minefield. As badly as he wanted her to surrender to him, he knew she didn’t dare. He couldn’t break her heart the way he knew he would. Not ever.
“Mmm, I’ve died and gone to heaven,” Morgan sighed, the warm ocean water moving slowly around her. She had swum out beyond the breakers with Jake, floating on her back. The sun was lower in the sky, dapples of light dancing around on the smooth, turquoise water.
Sharks were big in these waters. And by floating on her back, Morgan would look like a sea turtle to one of them. “The water was a good choice.”
Barely opening one eye, Morgan saw Jake treading water nearby. He hadn’t shaved since this morning, and the dark growth made him look dangerous in a sexy kind of way. “Your dad was a SEAL.”
Jake nodded. “Yes, he was.”
His shoulders were incredibly broad, tightly muscled, his chest darkly haired and well sprung. Morgan remembered his body as if it were yesterday, much to her consternation.
“Did he teach you a love of water, I wonder?” The water soothed her aggravation and always having to be on guard against Jake. The warmth lulled her, made her feel safe.
“No. I taught myself to swim. My father wasn’t around much.” He had died when he was twenty, killed by an enemy in a foreign land, but Jake had never told Morgan. Jake allowed the wave to push him closer to her. The dark purple bathing suit was one piece, but on her body, it made her look like a Titian or Raphael woman.
Morgan had a tall, proud frame. She was all legs, and Jake watched the water flowing sensually across them. Frowning, he saw what he thought were several new, pink scars on her left, upper thigh. He couldn’t see much, because most of the scarring was below the water surface. Were these the injuries she’d gotten when Khogani had attacked that Afghan village? He didn’t like to think her beautiful flesh was scarred. Or that she’d suffered pain, because he’d made her suffer enough. Morgan didn’t deserve it. She was a good person with a trusting heart. Well, she had been trusting…. He’d taught her to trust no man.
Lifting her head, Morgan forced her legs down into the water, gracefully moving her arms outward to steady herself. Jake was close and terribly handsome, the water running off in rivulets down his face to his neck and shoulders. His eyes went slate-gray again, as if realizing her question had probably dug up a lot of unwanted and hurtful memories from the past.
Morgan wanted to reach out and simply rest her hand on his shoulder and tell him it was all right. In some ways, Jake had been born behind the eight ball, and he’d had to struggle all his life for everything he’d earned.
A wave splashed her, and she wiped the stinging salt out of her eyes. Jake continued to be a big SEAL guard dog. “You think a Big White’s gonna see me as a turtle out here, don’t you?”
His mouth drew into a hesitant grin. “Something like that.”
Shaking her head, she said, “Ramsey, you’re a piece of work. You really are.”
“What? Can’t I make sure you can enjoy your swim? What’s wrong with being watchful? There have been plenty of shark attacks on the beaches of the Hawaiian Islands.”
Spitting out water she’d accidentally swallowed, Morgan shook her head. “Someday, I hope you stop being so damned overprotective, Jake. You were that way with me at Annapolis. You never thought I could take care of myself once because I was a woman.”
“Look, I don’t want to argue with you, Morgan. We got a job to do.”
The growl in his tone was a warning. His face went blank and unreadable, a glitter in his icy gray eyes. “That’s right—we do have to get along or we’re both dead meat out there on some godforsaken, ass-freezing Afghan mountain.” Morgan lifted her hand and flung off beads of water and pushed the wet strands off her face. “Your mother contracted multiple sclerosis when you were ten years old. I remember you were the one saddled with being her caregiver until you were eighteen.” Her voice lowered with feeling. “Jake, I know you loved your mother, but you grew up fast in that family because your father was never there. You took care of her until she died when you’d just graduated high school.” She noticed how his eyes went stormy. Morgan gave him a pleading look. “You think all women are weak because your mother was weak. You think because you had to take care of her 24/7, you have to burden yourself thinking you have to take care of me out here. You don’t, Jake. You don’t….”
Chapter Five
They had just returned to the BOQ after having a Thai dinner at Morgan’s favorite restaurant in Honolulu. The moon was rising in the east, the Pacific Ocean gleaming with a pale corridor of light across the darkened ocean. Jake put the car in Park, the low sulfur lighting revealing a crowded parking lot in back of the building. His hands tightened on the steering wheel for a moment. It was time.
Morgan released her safety belt when he said, “We need to talk.”
When Jake’s voice lowered to that intimate growl, she couldn’t refuse to look at him. Her heart skidded in her breast. As Morgan turned and met his shadowy gaze, he placed one arm across the back of the seat, his hand less than an inch from her shoulder.
“What do you want to talk about?”
Jake compressed his lips. He moved his fingers lightly across her shoulder. It was the first time he’d touched her in two years. “There are some things we need to discuss. Get right between us. We’re going downrange tomorrow morning, and we have to be focused.”
“Yes,” she admitted, her flesh needy as his calloused fingers barely brushed her blouse. Though aching to kiss him, to rekindle what they’d had before, Morgan fought herself. Jake would walk away again, like he always did. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Us,” he said huskily, seeing confusion in her green eyes. “You’ve had an apology coming from me for nine years. Back when we were at Annapolis together. We were twenty years old then.”
His fingers came to rest on her shoulder, as if to steady her in some small way for what he was about to say. With a mix of anguish and uncertainty in his gray eyes, he was being vulnerable with her. The only time she’d ever seen him like this was when they’d made love.
“For what?” Morgan managed, her voice tight with defensiveness.
Taking an uneven breath, Jake plunged in. “Your miscarriage…”
Bowing her head, Morgan shut her eyes, unable to look at him. She’d not seen this one coming. Her heart squeezed with old pain. His fingers became more firm on her shoulder. Steadying. “What about it?” she said in a broken whisper.
“Neither of us wanted it to happen. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.” His mouth thinned, and Jake forced himself to go on. “Morgan, when you needed me the most, I wasn’t available.” He felt her tremble. “I’m sorry to bring this up, but I haven’t liked myself very much ever since it happened. I should have stayed at your side after I got the call from the hospital.”
Morgan went very still. He couldn’t even hear her breathing. He braced himself for her reaction, knowing he had coming whatever she wanted to throw back at him.
Hot tears slipped beneath her tightly shut eyes. As much as she tried, Morgan couldn’t control them. Jake moved his hand across her shoulder, as if to soothe away some of her raw pain. At least he wasn’t running now. So many emotions flooded her: the grief over the miscarriage, needing him to hold her in the aftermath, his absence.
She could feel Jake watching her in the thickening silence. She fought with everything she had not to cry.
Finally, Morgan lifted her hands and covered her face. She took several broken breaths. The past overwhelmed her. “I never expected you to say you were sorry,” she whispered bitterly. “Never.”
Jake wanted to touch her hair, to touch her. He wasn’t sure what Morgan would do if he tried. Pain moved through his chest. “I owe you the apology. I’m so damned sorry, Morgan. I’ve had a long time to think about my actions. I was dead wrong.” He did not expect her forgiveness. When she raised her head, turned and stared at him, her eyes were marred with darkness, and he felt as if he’d been gut punched.
“Let me fill you in,” she began hoarsely. “I was a twenty-year-old girl. You were my first and only lover. The doctor had me on the pill, which you knew. I was three months pregnant and didn’t even know it. I felt odd on some days, but I just shrugged it off as the stress everyone was under at Annapolis.” Morgan pushed tears angrily away from her cheeks. “It was February, Jake, and I contracted a horrible flu. I lay in my room with a one-hundred-and-five-degree fever. My roommate, Deanna, wanted to get me to the dispensary, but I refused. I was going to tough it out.”
His eyes narrowed. “I—didn’t know.”
“Deanna wanted to call you, but I said no. All you wanted was a good time, Jake. You just liked me in your bed. That was it. And God help me, I liked being there, too.” Morgan sniffed and went on in a robotlike tone. “Deanna left for a date. I was hallucinating, moving in and out of the fever. I thought I was going to die. I remember going to sleep. I woke up sometime later, maybe near midnight. I felt this awful, tearing pain in my womb, and I doubled over on my side, screaming. The next thing I knew, I had blood pouring out of me. At first, when I looked at myself, I thought I was having a bad nightmare. Deanna came back from her date and found me. She called 911. I remember just before I blacked out she held my hand, telling me the ambulance was on its way and not to die.”
Jake forced himself to hold her marred gaze. “You were taken to the hospital. I knew that much.” Her eyes grew sad as more tears slid down her face.
“I woke up in E.R. A doctor was there and she was very kind. She told me I’d miscarried my baby, that my high fever had caused it. She said I’d be okay. She also said I was on too low a dose of birth control pills and that was why I got pregnant. She gave me a new prescription to ever prevent that from happening again.” She sighed. “Physically, I was fine.”
“Damn,” he muttered, “I’m sorry, Morgan….”
“Deanna called you when I was in the hospital. She told you what happened.” Her words came out shredded with disbelief. “You never came. You told Deanna you had other important things going on and couldn’t make it. I left the hospital the next morning feeling hollow, feeling lost.” She held Jake’s guilt-ridden gaze. “I needed you, Jake. That was our baby! On the way back to Annapolis, I figured out why you refused to see me. You thought by me being pregnant, I would become like an anchor around your feet like your chronically ill mother had been, someone you had to take care of for the rest of your life.” Her fingers trembled as she wiped the tears from her face. “You didn’t want a pregnant girlfriend. You weren’t going to get trapped by another weak, sick woman, were you?”
Sitting back, Jake removed his hand from her shoulder, a mass of grief and misery overwhelming him. Morgan looked like he felt. “It was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made,” he managed, his voice low with apology. “I shouldn’t have abandoned you, Morgan. And I did.”
She sat there stiffly, struggling to grapple with all her grief and put it in a box once again, deep down inside herself. Jake’s gray eyes were stormy-looking, filled with remorse. Now that he had finally apologized nine years too late, it didn’t make her feel as good as she thought it would. If anything, she saw an answering grief in his expression. How would he know what it was like to lose a baby?
“The only reason you’re apologizing now,” Morgan said in a quavering tone, “is because we’re going downrange tomorrow. You don’t want anything to make us lose our edge.” She leaned against the car door, as far away from him as she could get. He withdrew his arm from the top of the seat. As Jake lifted his gaze, she could see how miserable he was over her story.
“No,” he rasped, his voice tight with emotion. “Whether you believe me or not, Morgan, I’ve matured since our last encounter.” His eyes grew dark with sorrow. “I’ve carried this guilt over my actions toward you. As much as you believe I didn’t care, I did.” Jake’s mouth tightened. “This was a chance for me to tell you to your face, I am sorry. I was screwed up, Morgan. This doesn’t excuse my choices. I wish in some way I could make up for it, but I know I can never do that.” He held up his hands. “I just wanted to be honest with you, Morgan, because I never was before.”
Morgan absorbed his admission. The silence thickened between them.
“At least you’re finally being emotionally honest. That’s new.”
Wincing internally, Jake sighed. “Morgan, I hope I’ve matured a little bit more.”
His gaze fell to her abdomen covered by the pink skirt. She’d held their child in her body. Their baby. Misery drifted through Jake in a new and unfamiliar way. He’d already lost his son, Joshua. This new grief hit him doubly hard. He’d made so many mistakes with her. “I thought you didn’t want a family until you were thirty or so?”
“That’s true, but when I accidentally got pregnant, I knew I’d want to have the baby,” she muttered defiantly.
“So you would… Would you have kept the baby?”
“In a heartbeat, Jake.” Morgan stared at him. “And if I hadn’t miscarried, that baby would be mine, not yours. You weren’t ready to settle down. You didn’t want to marry me or be responsible for what we created.”
Mouth thinning, Jake tried to absorb her icy anger. “You’re right. I wasn’t ready to settle down.” He would now, but it was far too late.
“Well, things got handled differently,” Morgan said, her voice quavering. “We were both set free to pursue our military careers.”
“Damn,” he whispered, holding her gaze, “I wish…I wish I could go back and change what I did to you. You didn’t deserve it, Morgan.”
She grew quiet. Morgan held on to an even bigger secret. One that Jake would never, ever know about. When they’d had a brief affair two years ago, fate had intervened once again, even with protection. This time, she’d left her team and gone stateside. Emma Boland had been born with black hair and gray eyes, the spitting image of her father. Morgan didn’t dare tell Jake since he might prove twice that he wasn’t ready to be with her. Protectively, she placed her hand across her abdomen. “Don’t try. You cut and run when things get serious relationship-wise.”
“I don’t have a good track record with you, Morgan.” Feeling sad, Jake added, “That was then. This is now.”
Shaking her head, Morgan opened the door and climbed out of the car. “I’ll see you at 0600, Jake. I’m done going over the past with you. Thanks for the apology.” She slammed the door shut and walked off.
Sitting alone in the car, Jake wrestled with so many damned emotions. His SEAL father had died in combat that very evening when Morgan needed him the most. Jake was overwhelmed with paperwork because he was the executor of his father’s will. He’d been at the personnel office wrestling with so many decisions, funeral arrangements and his own grief; he couldn’t handle Morgan’s plea to come to the hospital, too. It wasn’t an excuse. Jake knew he’d been too young, made some bad decisions on that night. If he’d had it to do all over again, he’d have gone to see Morgan, regardless.
As he rubbed his jaw, the prickle of beard against his calloused fingers, his conscience ate at him. In the SEAL community, family, wife and children were just as important as the operators out in the field to the command structure.
SEAL ethos set the family as much of a priority as they did the men going downrange. Studying the light and dark shadows across the parking lot, Jake realized it had been SEAL culture that finally had brought him back into the fold. Made it possible for him to stop running away from relationships. He’d met Amanda and fallen in love with her at twenty-three years old. He’d spent six months in Afghanistan and arrived home just in time to be there for the birth of his son, Joshua.
Jake shut his eyes, remembering the loss of his wife and baby two weeks later to a car accident. He couldn’t share his past with Morgan. It wouldn’t be right under the circumstances. He understood as never before what it was like to lose his child. Just as she’d felt the devastating loss with the miscarriage that he’d run away from. What a mess. All of it his own doing.
As he climbed out of the car, Jake resolved to say no more. He’d done what he could to clear the decks between them. He felt deeply, the past overlaying the present. This was an unresolved situation and he was still trapped within it. God help him, he wanted Morgan. Needed her as never before. But after their long history, he knew she’d never come back to him again.
Jake wasn’t prepared next morning to see Morgan in SEAL gear as he entered Operations. She was in desert cammies, the SIG pistol riding low on her right thigh in a drop holster, a SOG SEAL knife in a sheath in the same position on her left thigh, and wearing dark leather Merrell hiking boots. She looked like a SEAL from a distance. Earlier, he’d found out Morgan had checked out of the BOQ and gotten a separate ride over to Operations.
Her gear sat near the door as she waited to be called out to the C-5 now parked in the revetment area. Setting his gear down next to hers, Jake wore desert cammies, as well. Although dressed similarly, every SEAL liked his gear in certain places. Jake preferred his knife on his left side of his waist.
Still torn up over last night’s conversation, Jake removed his utility cap and walked over to her. Worse, he’d made Morgan cry, and she’d never cried in front of him before. His heart felt like so much pulp, the ache deep and constant.
“How are you doing?” he asked quietly, catching Morgan’s sideward glance. Her profile was beautiful. She was a strong, confident woman.
“I’m fine, Jake. Don’t worry. I’ll hold up my end of this op whether you believe I can or not.”
Okay, the old, defensive Morgan was back. Her eyes were clear, but he could still see remnants of sorrow deep within them. Grief he’d caused. Nodding, he gestured to a sheath on top of her third-line gear, a large desert-camouflaged rucksack with about sixty-five pounds of gear contained in it.
“That’s your AW Magnum?” It was one of the sniper rifles chosen by SEALs to use on certain types of ops. The rifle was covered with a tan nylon fabric sleeve to protect it from weather, dirt and dust.
“Yes.” Still raw, Morgan didn’t want to talk to Jake. She’d barely slept, reliving their conversation all over again. Most humiliating of all, she’d cried in front of him. She wished with all her heart he’d apologized because he cared about her, not because they had to trust each other for this assignment. She pursed her lips, wishing the C-5 would hurry up and allow passengers to load. Then she could get away from him, grab some desperately needed sleep and get her act together.
“You look tired,” he observed, remaining at her side.
“I didn’t sleep much.”
“I didn’t, either.” Jake felt her tension. “Plenty of room on this flight to catch some shut-eye. It will be empty except for the crew of doctors and nurses going over to Bagram to pick up another group of soldiers who are wounded.”
“I hope those guys all make it,” Morgan whispered, thinking of them and their families.
“The U.S. has the best-trained medical teams on the planet,” he told her, resting his hands on the H-gear pockets around his waist. “Those grunts and soldiers have the best chance in the world to survive.”
“When we get on board, I’m finding a hole to bunk into and sleep,” she said. As she searched Jake’s face, Morgan saw the darkness beneath his eyes. He was growing a beard, which was common among the black-ops groups. Without a beard, the men stood out like sore thumbs to the Taliban and al Qaeda.
“Me, too. We have to get rested.”
Jake didn’t want to leave her side. He sensed Morgan’s feelings; he always had whether she shared them with him or not. SEAL sixth sense, he supposed. Or…his heart whispered, it was something more. Something beautiful and profound. And he instantly suppressed those feelings. He’d loved twice in his life, and both times, it had turned into a life-numbing tragedy.
Turning away, Jake ambled over to his equipment sitting on the polished white floor. No, he couldn’t risk his heart a third time. He simply didn’t have the strength to reach out and try to love again. The potential losses were just too great. And no one knew better than he, there was no promise of happily ever after….
He hefted his ruck, swung it easily across his broad shoulders and then belted it up. An M-4 rifle, barrel downward for safety reasons and safed, chamber empty, was strapped on the outside of it.
He watched as Morgan walked over to her gear, not at all surprised she could lift a sixty-five-pound ruck and make it look light as a feather. Yesterday, as she’d walked into the Pacific Ocean in her purple bathing suit, he’d seen just how fit she really was. Maybe a little too thin, he supposed, but she was all firm muscle, not an ounce of fat. He’d winced when he’d seen those recent pink scars on the back of her left thigh.
Jake was sure those were shrapnel wounds she’d received at that village three months earlier. He wanted to touch them, kiss each of them and remove the pain and memory of how she’d received them. Jake knew he could heal Morgan with his touch, his voice and his hands, if she’d give him a chance. He could be tender toward her. She brought out the best in him, made him feel like a man. Leaning down, he grabbed his eighty-pound weapons bag, slipping it into his right hand. An airman opened the glass doors for them, gesturing for them to go to the parked C-5.
The sunlight was bright, the sky a pale blue. A few clouds were in the distance as Jake walked toward the ramp at the rear of the C-5. A number of nurses, doctors and medics were boarding the largest transport aircraft in the U.S. military. Following Morgan, who walked with an incredible confidence, he compared her to the other women ahead of them.
Morgan stood out. Her red hair was caught up in a ponytail, the strands moving between her shoulder blades. There was just something so damned different about Morgan compared to any other woman Jake had ever known. There was no question, she was a combat warrior. It was in her stride, the way she squared her shoulders, her chin tilted slightly up. Despite the bulky cammies, she didn’t look like a man. Not with the sway of those hips of hers and her natural grace.
Once on board, they stowed their gear in a storage locker below the cockpit area of the C-5. The rest of the crew had already boarded. Jake stood near Morgan. Lights went on overhead, revealing three tiers of litters along both sides of the fuselage. Jake wondered what she was thinking as she watched the medical teams prepare to take on newly wounded men once they arrived at Bagram.
“Morgan,” he said quietly, “let’s crash. We need all the sleep we can get.”
Barely turning her head, she absorbed Jake’s calm, steadying presence. His low voice soothed that anguish they’d shared last night. All Morgan wanted to do was turn around, throw her arms around his solid, powerful shoulders and seek solace against him. It wasn’t protection she had ever sought from him. Jake knew how to hold her.
“Yes,” she managed, her voice husky and sounding far away to her. “We’re going downrange….”
Chapter Six
Morgan tried to tame her excitement as the Night Stalker pilots landed the MH-47 helicopter at the Afghan village of Margha. It was barely dawn, and out the window, she spotted thin Reza in his wool cap, baggy pants, vest and coat, waiting near the few mud houses still left standing. Her heart broke for the Afghan. This had been his home. The place he lost his wife and five children to Khogani’s raid. It had to be painful for him to stand where his life had once been.
Within minutes, the helo was down, kicking up clouds of dust, grit and small rocks into the air as they rapidly disembarked with their weapons and gear. Once they cleared the helo, Jake gave the pilot the okay to take off via the radio. The helo powered up, the thunder of the powerful engines heard for miles across the long, fertile valley that was just awakening for the day.
“Reza!” Morgan shouted, hauling her gear to where the Afghan stood. Reza was five foot six, lean, his skin tobacco-brown from thirty-five years spent in these rugged mountains. The Afghan’s face was deeply etched, smile lines deepening around his eyes and mouth as he stepped forward.
“As-Salāmu ’alayki, Wajiha,” he said, bowing to Morgan as she dropped her gear. The ancient greeting meant “Peace be upon you.” He formally hugged her and then chastely kissed each of her cheeks. Long ago, he’d given her the name of Wajiha, which meant “beautiful one” in Pashto.
His greeting was a very warm, loving welcome bestowed upon family members only. Morgan had been injured trying to save his family. A man was never supposed to hug a woman in Islamic culture, but Reza felt strongly she should know how grateful he was for her willingly putting her life on the line to try to save his youngest child from Khogani’s slaughter.
“Wa ’alaykumu s-salāmu wa rahmatu l-lāhi wa barakātuh, Reza.” Morgan returned the ancient greeting in Pashto. It meant “May peace, mercy and blessing of God be upon you.” She hugged him and placed a kiss on each of his bearded cheeks. And then she grinned, threw her arms around him and squeezed the hell out of the wiry Afghan. He pounded her happily on the back of her Kevlar vest, enthusiastically welcoming her.
Jake walked over, watching the warmth between them. He smiled, glad to see Morgan happy. Her face, even in dawn light, was suffused a pink color. It was her eyes, wide with affection for the Afghan guide, that touched him the most. Jake dropped his gear and Reza released Morgan.
“As-Salāmu ’alayka, Lieutenant Ramsey,” Reza greeted him, placing his palm across his thin chest. “Welcome. I am Reza. I will be your guide.”
Jake returned the proper Pashto greeting and then thrust out his hand to the short, wiry man. Reza eagerly took it, pumping it up and down with unbounded earnestness.
“Come, both of you.” Reza gestured for them to follow him into the nearest mud home that had a huge hole blown through one side of it. “We must hurry. Taliban watch us from the mountains.”
Morgan entered and saw four small, hardy horses munching on some dried grass. One of them had a Western saddle on its back. The other two had the typical Afghan saddle made of wood and nails covered with a rug. The fourth animal was a packhorse.
“Hey, you remembered,” she told Reza, pointing to the Western saddle.
“Of course, Wajiha. You told me to look after your saddle, and I did. You promised to return, and here you are.”
Morgan choked up as she saw tears of gratefulness come to Reza’s eyes. He was the only survivor of his destroyed village. Her smile disappeared as Jake entered. Moving to the Afghan, she pulled the Velcro pocket open on her Kevlar vest and retrieved a number of photos.
“Just a minute, Jake,” she called.
Jake nodded his response, leaving them as she went to Reza’s side and spoke to him in a low voice. He couldn’t hear what she said in Pashto, but the look on the Afghan’s face was one of surprise. Tears began to trail down his high cheekbones as he took the photos from Morgan. She placed her arm around the man’s shoulders, pointing to each one, telling him something about it.
Jake felt like an outsider and busied himself appraising the four animals. They were small bay horses with black manes and tails. Horses in Afghanistan always looked short and stocky, but then Jake knew they ate whatever the barren, rocky mountains gave to them, which wasn’t much.
He heard Reza sob. Turning, he saw the man clasping the photos to his breast, his other hand pressed against his face, crying openly. He gave a quizzical look, but Morgan held up her hand into a fist. It was a signal that said, “stop.” Jake respected the sign and remained with the animals.
Reza got ahold of himself after five minutes, carefully tucking the plastic bag of pictures inside his dark brown wool vest. His eyes were bright, his face in anguish as he bowed and profusely thanked Morgan.
The Afghan picked up the lead rope of the packhorse and led him outside, wiping his eyes with the back of his sleeve.
“What was that all about?” Jake asked, concerned. Morgan wiped her eyes and then turned to face him.
“I had taken pictures of his family and many others who lived here,” she said in a strained tone. “I always take photos wherever I go. I thought Reza would like photos of his five kids and his wife.” Her voice broke. “It was the least I could do…. He loved his family so much….”
Morgan drew in an uneven breath. “I was in this area with two different black-ops teams. Reza doted on his children, and my God, how they loved him in return. His wife was the sweetest, kindest person you would ever meet. If a widow who was starving and begging for a meal came to their door, she’d be welcomed and fed. A lot of the villagers won’t feed widows because food is so scarce.” Morgan rubbed her cheeks dry and gave him a broken smile. “It feels good to do something kind in return for him, Jake. Reza is the epitome of the Islamic belief of living your life through your heart.”
Jake nodded, far more touched than he expected. The fact Morgan would think to bring photos back to Reza made him want to reach out, pull her into his arms and simply hold her. A well of suffering rose through Jake as he stood on the brink of doing just that. Dragging in a breath, he shoved all his needs down deep within himself. In an effort to lighten the moment, Jake said, “Sounds like you read Rumi, the Sufi poet?”
Her brows rose. “You know about Rumi?”
“Sure,” Jake said, pretending his pride was hurt. “I might be a country bumpkin of sorts, but I am widely read.” SEALs tended to be voracious readers about foreign countries they worked in.
Morgan felt his warmth and care in that moment. “Now it’s my turn to apologize.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Jake gestured to the three horses. “That one has an American saddle on it.”
Morgan saw him eyeing it with great interest. “Yes, and it’s mine. I brought it over three years ago. I got sick and tired of my butt being carved up by nails and wood splinters in my behind from those damned Afghan saddles.”
He put his hands on his hips and nodded. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“You didn’t ask me,” Morgan pointed out, untying the reins to her gelding and leading it out of the house.
Jake grinned. He untied the other two horses and led them outside. To the east, the Hindu Kush sat like silent, powerful giants, a pink dawn outlining the very tops of the snow-covered peaks. Reza had just finished packing their gear and threw a dark brown tarp over the contents. With more light, Jake could see it was a long, narrow valley, green and fertile. A river ran through it, providing irrigation so that the villages would have water for their crops.
Reza smiled and tied the lead line of the packhorse to the back of the saddle on the horse he was going to ride.
Jake saw Morgan already on the sat, satellite, phone to J-bad, calling in and letting Vero know they’d made contact with Reza and were now going to head south through the valley. She was efficient, he decided, watching her place the sat phone in the leather saddlebag behind the cantle of her saddle.
Jake gave Reza a radio headset to wear. They would each wear the headgear and be on the same frequency so they would always be in contact. The send-receive was good for up to a mile.
“We good to go?” he asked, walking over to her.
“Four square. Vero sounded relieved.”
“I imagine.” Jake looked around, always uneasy about being out in the open. Taliban and al Qaeda operatives lurked and hid in the scree slopes of every mountain that surrounded this valley. The only thing that they couldn’t do was shoot at them because the distance was too far. Jake was sure they had glass, binoculars, on them. The Taliban would pass the intel along to other Taliban spotters in the area via radio transmissions.
Reza walked up. “You must know that a goat herder from Dor Babba—” and he pointed south “—saw Khogani yesterday at the snow line with twenty men.”
Jake nodded. “And we’re headed that way?”
“Yes,” Reza said. He had a huge pile of clothes draped over his saddle. “Now, you and Wajiha must wear these Afghan clothes. It will fool our enemy.” He handed Jake a set of dark brown clothes to wear over his cammies and H-gear.
“Ah, we’re going hajji,” Morgan teased Reza, taking the black wool cape, brown vest and black turban. They were large enough to fit over all her gear. Going hajji was slang the operators used when they wore Afghan clothing. It would help them fade into the population, harder for the Taliban to spot them at a distance.
Reza put his hands on his hips, critically assessing them. He went over to Morgan and adjusted the black turban covering most of her red hair. Along with it was a woven blue-and-white Shemagh scarf, identifying her as a Shinwari tribesman, which she would wear over her lower face so she couldn’t be recognized so easily as a woman by the enemy. “A man would wear the turban like this….” He grinned in apology as he tweaked how it was to sit properly on her head.
Morgan nodded and thanked him. Jake definitely looked like an Afghan. His beard was well started and the dark brown color of the rolled cap on his black hair would fool everyone. Reza checked him out carefully. He arranged the vest a little more across Jake’s powerful chest. Probably trying to hide it, Morgan thought.
“You pass inspection,” Reza told them. He pointed to the packhorse. “We go undercover, Wajiha. If the enemy sees us through their binoculars, we look like a family selling shoes.” He tapped the tarp, a black silhouette of a shoe that had been painstakingly hand painted on the material. It had his name above it, announcing he was a cobbler. “They will think we repair and sell shoes, going from one village to another.”
“Brilliant,” Morgan said. Reza had been a cobbler all his life. And he regularly rode from one end of this valley to the other, stopping at each village along the way once a month. In the winter, he remained home and fashioned shoes and boots he would sell to villages the following spring.
Morgan checked the tightness of the cinch on her fourteen-hand-high horse. Everything seemed okay, and she mounted and arranged the long, draping cape and vest that would hide her uniform and her pistol. Over her left shoulder, she carried an AK-47 in a sling so it was readily available if she needed the weapon. The disguise wasn’t perfect, but it would fool the enemy at a distance. “Let’s go,” Reza said. “We have twenty miles to reach the first village.”
Jake mounted, grimacing. He hated these wooden saddles. The Special Forces guys rode them all the time. They had scarred asses, too. He shoved some of his wool cape beneath the saddle to give him some added padding and protection.
“God, I don’t think I’ll be able to dismount by the time we get there,” Jake groaned. He heard Morgan’s husky laugh. She seemed very comfortable in her leather saddle, back straight, shoulders squared, riding like someone who had done it all her life.
“Don’t worry,” Morgan said, chuckling. “I’ll haul your sorry ass off that saddle tonight.”
Jake grimaced as they started out at a leisurely walk beside one another. “Hey, this isn’t funny. The last time I had to ride in one of these damn torture traps, I got a nail puncture right there.” He jabbed a finger at his right cheek.
“Oh,” Morgan said, trying to look serious, “did you have your tetanus shot updated before we left Hawaii?” She saw Jake grin a little. She enjoyed the unexpected camaraderie. Who else got nail wounds in their butt? No Purple Hearts were given out for them, either.
“Yeah, I got another shot, plus a round of antibiotics for my ruck. I also got rid of that damn saddle I had to ride last year and traded it in for a better-made one. Cost me five hundred U.S. dollars from an Afghan horse trader, but it was worth it. I should have held on to it.”
Morgan laughed and then relaxed as they rode. She was back into swiveling her head, paying attention to the least little thing that seemed to be out of place, and she constantly perused the dirt road for any suspicious IEDs or wires that might have been strung across it to kill them.
Morgan felt at home, in a way. Pressing her hand to the pocket on her Kevlar vest beneath the Afghan clothes, she felt the one photo she hadn’t shown Reza. She always carried a photo of her daughter, Emma. Maybe later, when they were alone and Jake wasn’t around, she would share it with her dear Afghan friend. There wouldn’t be many opportunities because a sniper team was joined at the hip.
That night, in the first village, they spent it out in a goat barn. Jake hated the odor. There were no windows in the building, and the potent goat-dung odor was choking him, making his eyes water. He wanted to go outside, but Morgan cautioned against it. Reza was sleeping just outside the door of the mud building, their horses’ lead ropes tied to his ankle, snoring away.
Jake sat up on his bedroll, cursing softly. Morgan was six feet away, sleeping near the door. “How the hell can you sleep in this stink?”
Drowsily, Morgan opened her eyes. “Ramsey, shut the hell up, will you? I’m whipped. Isn’t your ass tired enough to fall asleep?”
Jake sat up, scowling. The goats were all lying down, crowded next to one another in a small, wooden corral a few feet away from him. One bleated at him. He never took off his boots, but he had laid his Kevlar vest next to his rifle in case he needed them. “Hell, no!”
“Gawd,” Morgan mumbled, rubbing her face. “We’ve got friggin’ jet lag, we haven’t slept in twenty-four hours and you’re wide-awake. If you’re going to bitch all night, get out of here. Go sleep outside with Reza.”
Amazed she could handle the foul, intense odor, Jake got up, jerked his sleeping bag off the dirt floor and muttered, “I’ll do that.” He headed for the door. He could barely see Morgan, milky slats of the full moon leaking light into the barn.
“You need to stay in here,” she growled, throwing out her hand and grabbing his lower pant leg so he couldn’t leave. “You know better, Jake. Now, get a grip, will you?”
He halted, her hand strong on his pant leg. Looking down, he snorted. “I’ll die of asphyxiation by dawn if I don’t get out of this hellhole. Then you’d feel guilty.”
“Oh, stop the drama, Jake. Sit down. We’ll talk. Maybe that will make you drowsy. Once you’re asleep, you won’t smell this crap.” She jerked twice on his pant leg. “Sit!”
After he dropped his sleeping bag next to hers, Jake walked over and picked up his rifle and Kevlar. Placing them near his head, he lay down. Morgan was six inches away. He swore he could feel her body heat. He placed his hands behind his head and muttered, “This sucks.”
“What a whiny baby,” she grunted, sitting there cross-legged, looking down at him. Jake’s face was deeply shadowed, but she could see those icy gray eyes and saw he was really upset. “I thought you’d be griping about your ass, not the goat smell in here.”
Mouth quirking, Jake enjoyed looking over at Morgan. The moonlight was soft. He could barely see the freckles sprinkled across her cheeks. “My butt aches like hell, but who’s going to listen to me bitch about that? And—” he raised one brow, his voice deepening “—just for the record, SEALs don’t whine.”
Morgan shook her head. “I swear. A man can be eighty years old and still be a sulky fourteen-year-old teenager when he wants to be.”
“I’m not sulking.”
“Are you going to be like this the rest of this mission, Ramsey?”
There was a teasing glint in her eyes. Her mouth was soft and relaxed, more like her old, feisty self. Had Morgan rebounded from the emotional meat grinder he’d put her through in Hawaii?
On the flight here, Jake had run out of options on how to try to atone for his past behavior. His way of helping would be hauling her into his bed and loving her. He knew Morgan wouldn’t approve of those tactics at all. In fact, she’d fight him. He smiled a little. “This barn and the goat smell isn’t a five-star quality hotel over here in the badlands, is it?”
Clasping her hands around her drawn-up knees, Morgan shook her head. “There isn’t even a one-star in this poor country. At least you have a roof over your head. If it was raining, you’d be happy to be in here.”
“Well, the sky’s clear and it’s not raining.”
She sighed. “I love rain….”
Hearing the wistfulness in her soft voice, Jake decided to make a daring request. “Tell me a bedtime story, Morgan. And then I’ll let you go back to sleep.”
She tilted her head, as if seriously considering his request.
“What kind of story? Jack and the Beanstalk, so you can visualize yourself climbing out of this barn?” She gave him an evil laugh.
Her laughter went straight through his heart. Morgan rarely laughed, and in truth, there hadn’t been much to be happy about, either. “You know, I’ve missed hearing you laugh. It’s the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard.”
Morgan’s smile instantly dissolved as she heard the sincerity in his voice.
For a moment, Jake wanted to reach out and graze her clasped hands wrapped around her knees. Her hair was loose, framing her face. She looked so damned feminine in such a rough, godforsaken place. And yet, he was glad she was here. “Okay, the story I want to hear is about your family. Tell me about your mom and dad.”
Morgan instantly scowled, suddenly wary. “Why?”
“There you go again. Accusing me.”
“You always have a reason for any question you ask, Ramsey. Remember? I know you too damned well.”
He held up his hands. “Okay, guilty.” He tucked his hands behind his head once more. “Seriously, I’d like to know, Morgan.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to understand you better is all.” That was the truth, and Jake could see she was surprised by his honesty. “Look,” he argued equitably, “you accused me of never asking you about your growing-up years or your folks. Now I am. Are you going to gig me on that, too?”
Morgan rubbed her brow. “Ramsey, I never know when to trust you or not,” she griped, moving and lying down on her sleeping bag. She used the saddle for a pillow. Laying her head on it, facing him, Morgan jerked the thick wool cape over her body. He was giving her that little-boy look she could never resist. And she knew damn well he was doing it on purpose. So, what was the downside of telling him? Morgan didn’t see any.
“Okay,” she growled, “but so help me God, Jake, if you fall asleep in the middle of my telling you, I’ll never say anything about my family again to you.”
“Fair enough,” Jake murmured, grinning and meeting her dark, serious gaze. For a moment, he thought he saw laughter in her eyes. Morgan sighed loudly. “Nothing has changed about you.”
His grin increased. “Thank you. Now, tell me about your growing-up years. I want to know.” And Jake really did, but he didn’t ask himself why. Why was it so important to him now?
Chapter Seven
“My mother is Cathy Fremont. My father is Jim Boland. They were part of a military grand experiment two decades ago.” Morgan tilted her head. “Do you remember that conflict between Laos and Thailand that erupted?”
“Yeah, tempest in a teapot, as I recall.”
“It was more than that.” Morgan frowned. “The military wanted to see if women could handle combat. Major Louise Lane, a woman Marine, had a senator who sponsored her ideas. He had enough power to persuade the Joint Chiefs of Staff to create a volunteer group of military women to form a company. It was called the WLF, Women’s Liberation Forces. They then went over with a brigade of Marines out of Camp Pendleton.”
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Lindsay McKenna
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Captain Morgan Boland is at the top of her game, as is her former lover, navy SEAL Jake Ramsey. Then a military computer selects them to partner in a special op.The mission can’t be compromised by their personal history – and they have truckloads of it. But the Afghan assignment might provide the discipline they need to finally get it together – outside the bedroom, that is.A lot has happened over the two years since they last went their separate ways. And there’s way more to Morgan than Jake has ever given her credit for…