Headed for Trouble

CHAPTER THREE

“Our intel was incorrect, the target is not here. I’m aborting this mission, and I’m ordering you,” Shane said, looking steadily from Rick to Owen to Magic to the senior chief, “to go back over the border, with the rest of the team. With the understanding—”

“With all due respect, sir,” Owen interrupted earnestly, looking up from the equipment he was using to try to tap into the mystery team’s radio signals. He, like the senior and Rick and Magic, was now dressed like a goat herder—down to the cap that helped cover his face. “We’re not leaving you here, alone.”

“That’s enough,” the senior spoke over him, giving the kid his best dead-eye glare.

“With the understanding,” Shane repeated, talking over them both, “that you may be delayed by humanitarian efforts to help innocent civilians move to safety in the face of a coming attack from an unknown, unidentified, potentially deadly enemy.”

“Jesus, sir, that was a mouthful,” the senior said.

“Semantics, Senior Chief,” Shane told the older man. “And this is where you say Aye, aye, sir. All of you.”

They murmured it back to him without a whole hell of a lot of conviction, and he went on. “I’m in command. I made the call to abort, and gave the order. You obeyed said order. If and when you’re asked, you’ll be telling the truth. These are now simple facts that will protect you.”

Because of the SAT signal jamming, there’d be no timeline or record of when the team had left the area. And since Shane alone would remain, and would be picked up by the helicopter at the planned extraction point, he would insist that he’d acted alone in his efforts to save the misidentified woman.

The wording he’d been so careful to use would allow his men to pass lie detector tests, if it came to that.

Except for Magic Kozinski, who knew the truth, but who had the bizarre ability to control his pulse and blood pressure while lying wildly.

They’d all been trained to fool rudimentary lie detectors to some degree. But it was actually kind of freaky how adept Magic was at achieving the necessary calm. In fact, he’d once lowered his pulse to fifty in the middle of a firefight.

So Shane wasn’t worried about him, which was a good thing, because Magic knew details, like Tomasin Montague’s name. Shane had decided it was best to withhold that information from the rest of the team. The less they knew, the better their chances of surviving the administrative shitstorm hovering on the horizon.

“And what protects you, sir?” Magic asked now. The tone of his sir was back to a*shole. “From the senior corporate officials who want the incorrectly identified target taken out anyway?”

“I’ll be okay,” Shane said again. Maybe, with Ashley and her powerful father and uncle on his side … Maybe he could survive this.

But it really didn’t matter. He didn’t have a choice.

He wasn’t going to give the order to kill an innocent woman.

The senior chief broke the silence. “With all due respect, LT,” he said, repeating the very words that he’d glowered at Owen for saying, “we’re not leaving you here.”

Shane was ready for that, too, as he took out the needle and syringe that he’d been hiding up his sleeve. “The pain got too intense, so I—just now, after giving the order to abort this mission—used the meds Rick gave me,” he told them as he handed the team’s hospital corpsman the syringe he’d in truth emptied while Magic had been fetching the senior and Owen. He’d drained the powerful painkiller into the dusty ground—a fact they all no doubt knew, but couldn’t prove, especially since he’d gone to the trouble to make it look as if he’d just given himself the injection.

“I’m gonna need a refill of that,” he told Rick, who was carefully disposing of the sharp, “plus several more doses of the local.”

“Oh, that’s f*cking perfect,” Magic said crossly. “Make it so you’re not only blacklisted, but you walk with a f*cking cane for the f*cking rest of your f*cking life. What is wrong with you?”

Shane ignored his friend as Rick looked to the senior chief who, absolutely, would have been instantly in charge had the team’s commanding officer really taken that drug. According to the revised military code of 2024, the act of taking a powerful painkiller automatically meant Shane had willingly relinquished his command, due to his being medically unfit to serve. No words to that effect were necessary. It was simply so.

And now, for all intents and purposes, Shane was just another guy that his former team would help, as he—as a civilian—assisted Tomasin Montague and her family.

“Give Lieutenant Laughlin what he needs,” the senior ordered Rick gruffly, then shot Magic a “Keep your opinion to yourself, Kozinski.”

Shane glanced at his dive watch. He was right on schedule. “I know I’m no longer in command, but we should move into position to intercept, Senior Chief,” he said as Rick handed a new packet of wrapped syringes to him and he stashed them in his vest.

They’d all studied the terrain in advance of the op. There were two possible exit routes out of the village and farther up into the mountains. Tomasin Montague and her son would have to take one of them.

The senior chief frowned. Rick and Owen, too, were perplexed.

Magic was the only one who’d caught Shane checking his watch, and because he knew Shane as well as he did, he also knew what was coming.

Boom!

There it was. The first hit of the air strike Shane had called in. He’d radioed the coordinates of that abandoned farmhouse that they’d passed on their way up the mountain.

Boom-bah-dah-boom! Bah-boom! Bah-dah-boom! It sounded like fireworks going off as the land mines that surrounded the farmhouse began exploding, too.

“I had Dex check to make sure the farmhouse was still abandoned,” Shane told the senior as he gave himself another healthy dose of the local and pulled himself up to his feet. His ankle still ached like a mother, and it felt weird as shit, but it held his weight. He didn’t need Magic’s glower and dire words to know that walking on an injury like this could make the damage permanent. But his choices were limited, and he had to do what he had to do. “I figured I might as well take out as much of the minefield as possible—two birds with one stone.”

The noise of the attack was like a red alert siren down in the village, and sure enough, from their hillside vantage point, Shane could see a small group of people streaming out of the back of the school’s Quonset hut. They moved quickly but carefully, heading toward the steepest of the two paths up the hillside, as if this were something they’d drilled.

“Move into position on both paths,” the senior ordered. “In case this is a decoy. Eyes out for our mislabeled former target, ID her, let her pass, but then follow. We’ll catch up to her when she’s feeling more secure.” He looked at Shane, who nodded back.

That was exactly what Shane had intended and planned for. Montague, and the people protecting her, were no doubt frightened by the sound of the nearby bombing. They’d be likely to shoot first, without asking questions, at least at this stage of the game.

“Rick with Kozinski,” the senior continued. “Owen and the LT with me.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Owen said, looking from Shane to Salantino to Shane and then back, as he corrected himself, “I mean, Senior. But I finally broke into the rogue team’s communications, and the order’s just gone out to launch a mortar attack.”

And there it was. Shane heard it, and he knew his SEALs did, too. The whump of a mortar launching was unmistakable, as was the silence that immediately followed. There was no way to know what the target was, because you couldn’t hear the damn thing coming.

No whistle, no warning. Just sudden instant death.

But then it hit—a direct blast to the school’s Quonset hut—and they all heard that, loud and clear, as the explosion ripped through the night.

The place was still packed with people—mostly children.

Another whump followed, and the SEALs all started to run.

“Do whatever you have to, to end those motherf*ckers, whoever they are,” Shane ordered the senior chief as he scrambled down the hillside, even though he had no right to dispense orders anymore. “Make them stop, then help the wounded! I’ll get the woman and her family to safety!”

“Don’t you dare get your ass killed by friendlies, LT,” the senior shouted back as he headed directly into the kill zone, Rick and Owen on his heels, even as he opened a radio signal to Dex.

“Magic, you’re with me,” Shane shouted, but the taller SEAL was already at his shoulder.

“My Pashto’s shitty, so I’ll start with French,” Magic said. “Because of the whole Canadian-father thing.”

“Just start talking, and don’t stop until you’re sure they’re not going to kill us,” Shane said as the group of villagers that were halfway up the steeper of the two trails stopped, turning to watch in horror as yet another mortar hit, and this time a car went up in flames.

And then, because they’d started to move back down the hillside, no doubt going to help the injured escape the fire that was now burning in the school—a move that would mean certain death for Tomasin Montague—Shane didn’t just walk toward them on his injured foot.

He full-out ran.

CHAPTER FOUR

Tomasin Montague spoke perfect English.

She also had an escape route planned—but she was unwilling to divulge information about it to two Americans, one of whom was still wearing a military uniform.

Her bodyguards kept their weapons carefully, unswervingly trained on Shane and Magic, and Shane didn’t blame them. Were he in her position, he would do the same.

He told her everything.

The assignment he’d been given to take out a wanted terrorist, known for her ruthlessness in killing children.

The realization they’d had that the face-recognition software was intentionally set to deceive them.

Shane’s attempt to placate his superiors and buy time to contact and rescue Tomasin and her family by calling in the bombing on the deserted farmhouse down the hillside.

The still unidentified rogue team that launched the mortar attack on the school—an attack that had been silenced, no doubt permanently, by Senior Chief Salantino and the other SEALs.

“It’s important,” Shane said, as he looked into Tomasin Montague’s weary and wary brown eyes, “that this time, when you disappear, you disappear for good. I can help you do that.”

She didn’t trust him, but she didn’t shut him down, so he kept talking.

“I have a friend,” he continued, but then corrected himself, because Jean was not anyone’s friend. “A contact. In Vienna. He can help you vanish. You and your children.” He looked from Tomasin to the little boy she held close to her side, the one from the images, and then to a teenaged girl who was still wearing her costume from the play. She, too, looked a lot like her mother.

One of the guards, the one with the AK-47, murmured something, and even though Shane was no kind of languages expert like Magic, he knew from the tone and the urgency that the man was saying it was time to go.

“You think you can hide,” Shane persisted, and the woman looked back at him. “But the people who are after you won’t give up. They will find you.”

“And next time Lieutenant Laughlin won’t be there to help you,” Magic chimed in. “You have no idea how lucky you are that this man was in command of this mission. No idea.”

“Jean Reveur,” Shane said as Tomasin looked from Magic to Shane and back again. “You can contact him via his email address. Dreamer19 at qmail dot com. Tell him I sent you. Tell him I’m cashing in the favor he owes me. Tell him after this? We’re even.”

“You would use up this favor,” she said in her gently accented English, “for strangers?”

Magic answered for him. “Yes, ma’am. He would.”

“Go,” Shane said. “Now. Dreamer19. Qmail. We’ll go help the wounded.”

The woman nodded, and with her children at her side, she turned to continue up the path into the mountains. The guard with the AK-47 lingered, backing away from Shane and Magic, his weapon still trained on them until he was swallowed by the night.

“Think she’ll do it?” Shane asked his friend, who’d already looped Shane’s arm up and around his neck, so he’d have to put the least amount of weight on his injured ankle as possible as they scrambled and slid down the steep path to the still-burning Quonset hut.

“Probably not until the news of your court-martial goes public,” Magic said helpfully. “Or maybe it’ll be the ceremony where they strip you of your rank that’ll convince her you’re on her side. Particularly if they keep the cameras rolling and catch the part where Ashley returns your engagement ring.”

“That’s not going to happen. Ashley loves me,” Shane said, although even to his own ears he didn’t sound completely convinced.

“I know I’ve given you endless crap about her,” Magic grunted as he kept them both from falling as his boots skidded on some loose gravel that bounced down the trail ahead of them. “All my conspiracy theories and predictions of doom? That’s just because I’m a jealous piece of shit. She’s amazing. And she definitely loves you, man. But Daddy’s not going to let her marry you. Not after the CEO-in-Chief chews you up and spits you out. Ashley’s got a lot of really great qualities, Shane, but a backbone made of steel isn’t one of ’em. You know this as well as I do.”

Shane couldn’t argue with that.

“She’ll cry,” Magic continued as they left the hillside behind. “And she’ll be heartbroken and devastated. But when it’s all said and done, she’ll do as she’s told.”

“I still think I have a chance,” Shane started to say.

But Magic wasn’t done. “You know, it’s not too late for me to—”

“Jesus Christ, just shut it, Kozinski.”

But Magic didn’t. “Seriously, Shane. With you gone from the Teams, what’s the point of my staying? Have you seen the new officers in the SpecWarGroup HQ? They haven’t gone through BUD/S, but now they’re leading SEAL teams? They’re not qualified to wipe my ass.”

Shane could feel the heat from the fire on his face, hear the screams of the wounded and grieving. “Then I guess you’re finally going to have to get your shit together and go through OTS. Make the jump from enlisted to officer.”

“F*ck. Me,” Magic said. “Can you see me in Officers’ Training? I won’t make it through one week, let alone twenty-six.”

“Play your cards right,” Shane said, “and maybe you’ll marry Ashley.”

“That’s not funny.” Magic’s voice was tight.

“I know,” Shane said. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

But then they rounded the corner and found Rick’s makeshift triage—which included an area reserved for the unsavable and the already dead.

Magic stopped short. “F*ck. Those bastards killed Buttercup. Shit,” he said. “Shit.”

Nothing like a dozen dead children as a visual aid to drive Shane’s point home. Or two dozen wounded, with more still trapped inside. “You’ve gotta stay in,” Shane said quietly. “Or we’ll never find out who’s responsible for this.”

Magic didn’t answer. He also didn’t pretend that Shane would stay out here and assist Rick. He just helped him into the burning building and then let him go. Apparently it was okay with him if Shane had to use a cane for the rest of his life, if it meant he’d saved children’s lives.

Shane moved past the civilians—mostly women—who were helping with the evacuation. He went right toward the heat of the flames, where he scooped up a little girl who’d been stunned from the blast, who was coughing and vomiting from the thick, toxic smoke. His ankle was starting to scream—the local was wearing off. But he carried her out and gently put her down near Rick, then went back inside for the next, and the next, and the next.

CHAPTER FIVE

The body count included the full six-man rogue team of former CSO agents, or whoever the hell they were.

Senior Chief Salantino hadn’t kept anyone alive to ask questions. He’d just dropped them like the terrorist scum they’d proven themselves to be. And he’d made sure the bodies would not be recovered.

He stood now, his clothes covered with blood from nearly twenty-four hours of assisting Rick with emergency medical aid. The SEALs had only left their improvised hospital when word came down that a Corporate Nation Medical Team was on its way, due to arrive within the hour. That meant there’d be CN mediators tagging along, which meant there’d be a full company of contractor-run security forces as well.

And neither Salantino nor Shane wanted to be anywhere in the vicinity when they made the scene.

Magic, Owen, Rick, and the senior had to hump it back over the border, on foot, for their story to line up.

Only Shane could wait here for the helo extraction.

But Magic in particular was loathe to leave him there alone.

“Time,” the senior said.

“Last chance,” Magic told Shane.

Shane held out his hand, well aware that this was the last opportunity he’d have to talk to his friend without others listening in and monitoring every word. At best, for a good long time. At worst, for the rest of his soon-to-be worthless life. “Good luck in OTS, Dean.”

Magic clasped Shane’s hand. It was more than a handshake. It was a promise. A vow. A pledge.

“You know I’d follow you anywhere, sir.” It was the most respectful sir Shane had ever heard fall from Magic’s irreverent lips. “If you ever need anything. Anything …”

“That means a lot to me,” Shane said quietly as he released his friend’s hand. “Thank you.”

Of course Magic couldn’t leave it like that. “I f*cking hate you, douchebag,” he said. “And—fair warning—I just might take you up on that whole marrying-Ashley thing.”

Shane laughed as Magic walked away. “Good luck with that, too. And by the way …? She loves me. None of this is over until it’s over.”

Magic nodded, but when he glanced back at Shane, it was clear in his eyes, and written all over his face. The fat lady had sung, and the curtain was coming down.

And a half hour later, as Shane heard the extraction helo thrumming overhead, as he injected himself—this time for real—with that dose of the heavy-duty painkiller that Rick had given him, he knew it wouldn’t be long now before the hammer came down, too.

As the drug dulled his senses and surrounded him with a cushion of warmth and odd indifference, he was pulled aboard the gunship, where the medics immediately went to work on his ankle. And Shane knew they were going above and beyond to keep it from becoming a career-ending injury.

But Magic was right. His superiors up the chain of command were going to crucify him.

It was over.

He was over.

And in the last few moments before Shane succumbed to unconsciousness, he wondered what would become of him, where he would go, what he would do.

As hard as it was going to be to lose Ashley, her impending, inevitable defection would sadden but not crush him.

But losing his command? Being dishonorably discharged?

Being a SEAL was everything to him. It had defined him since he was barely even ten years old. He’d worked, his entire life, to be the best of the best.

Still Shane knew with a certainty that warmed him even more deeply than the drug, that he’d made the right choice, he’d done the right thing. Tomasin was safe. His team was safe.

He might be over.

But he was far from done.





For Jules and Robin.

For Sam and Alyssa.

For Tom and Kelly and Max and Gina and Izzy and Jenk and Tony and Gillman and all the others who have so completely come to life that readers frequently email to ask me how you’re doing.

And for the readers who believe.





BY SUZANNE BROCKMANN

FIGHTING DESTINY SERIES

Born to Darkness

TROUBLESHOOTERS SERIES

The Unsung Hero

The Defiant Hero

Over the Edge

Out of Control

Into the Night

Gone Too Far

Flashpoint

Hot Target

Breaking Point

Into the Storm

Force of Nature

All Through the Night

Into the Fire

Dark of the Night

Hot Pursuit

Breaking the Rules

Headed for Trouble

SUNRISE KEY SERIES

Kiss and Tell

The Kissing Game

Otherwise Engaged

OTHER BOOKS

Heartthrob

Forbidden

Freedom’s Price

Body Language

Stand-in Groom

Time Enough for Love

infamous

Ladies’ Man

Bodyguard

Future Perfect





Did Shane sweep you off your feet?

Then you won’t want to miss

BORN TO DARKNESS

Read on for an excerpt of this thrilling novel.…





Shane was winning when she walked in.

His plan was a simple one: spend a few hours here in this lowlife bar, and win enough money playing pool to take the T down to Copley Square, where there were a cluster of expensive hotels. Hit one of the hotel bars, where the women not only had all of their teeth, but they also had corporate expense accounts and key cards to the comfortable rooms upstairs.

But drinks there were pricey. Shane had spent his remaining fifty-eight seconds at the Kenmore comm-station checking menus, and he knew he’d need at least twenty dollars merely to sit at the bar and nurse a beer. Fifty to buy a lady a drink. And expense account or not, you had to be ready to start the game by buying the lady a drink.

But then she walked in—or rather, limped in. She was smaller than the average woman, and slight of build. She’d also injured her foot, probably her ankle, but other than that, she carried herself like an operator. She’d certainly scanned the room like one as she’d come in.

Which was when Shane had gotten a hit from her eyes. They were pale, and he couldn’t tell from this distance whether they were blue or green or even a light shade of brown. But the color didn’t matter; it was the glimpse he got of the woman within that had made him snap to attention—internally, that is.

She looked right at him, gave him some direct eye contact, then assessed him. She took a very brief second to appreciate his handsome face and trim form, catalogued him, and finally dismissed him.

Of course, he was playing the role of the hick just off the turnip truck—he would have dismissed himself, too, had he just walked in.

Shane watched from the corner of his eye as she sat at the bar, shrugged out of her jacket to reveal a black tank top, then pulled off her hat and scarf. She was completely tattoo-free—at least in all of the traditional places that he could currently see.

Her light-colored hair was cut short and was charmingly messed. But it was the back of her neck that killed him. Long and slender and pale, it was so utterly feminine—almost in proud defiance of her masculine clothing choices, her nicely toned shoulders and arms, and her complete and total lack of makeup.

And Shane was instantly intrigued. He found himself restrategizing and forming a very solid Plan B almost before he was aware he was doing it.

Plan A had him missing the next shot—the seven in the side pocket and the four in the corner—which would lead to his opponent, a likable enough local man named Pete, winning the game. After which Shane would proclaim it was Pete’s lucky night, and challenge the man to a rematch, double or nothing, all the while seeming to get more and more loaded.

Because Pete was a far better player than he was pretending to be. Pete was hustling him, and all of the regulars in this bar knew it, and at that point the bets would start to fly. Shane would drunkenly cover them all, but then would play the next game in earnest, identifying himself as a hustler in kind as he kicked Pete’s decent but amateurish ass. He’d then take his fairly won earnings and boogie out of Dodge.

Because if there was one thing Shane had learned from the best pool payer in his SEAL team—an E-6 named Magic Kozinski—it was that you didn’t hustle a game and stick around for a victory beer. That could be hazardous to one’s health. Resentment would grow. And resentment plus alcohol was never a good mix.

Plan B, however, allowed Shane to stick around. It gave him options.

So he called and then sank both the seven and the four, then called and missed the two, which put the balls on the table into a not-impossible but definitely tricky setup. Which Pete intentionally missed, because making the shot would’ve ID’d him as the hustler that he was.

They finished the game that way—with Pete setting up a bunch of nice, easy shots, and letting Shane win. Which put five dollars into Shane’s nearly empty pocket.

Which was enough to buy a lady a drink in a shithole like this.

“You’re on fire tonight,” Pete said, when Shane didn’t do an appropriate a*shole-ish victory dance. “How ’bout a rematch, bro?”

And Shane wanted to sit Pete down and give him a crash course in hustling, because this was a beginner’s mistake. You never, ever suggested the rematch yourself, not if you’d just intentionally lost the game. The mark had to do it, otherwise the hustle was too much of a con. The mark had to think he was going to screw you out of your hard-earned pay.

Pete’s suggestion made him significantly less likable and more of the kind of sleazebag who deserved his ass handed to him on a platter.

“I don’t know, man,” Shane said, massaging the muscles at the base of his skull as if he’d had a hard day at the construction site. “You’re pretty good. Let me think about it …?”

Pete thankfully didn’t push. “I’ll be here all night. But, hey, lemme buy you another beer. On account of your winning and all.”

Better and better. As long as Pete didn’t follow him over to the bar. “Thanks,” Shane said. “I’m going to, um, hit the men’s and …”

But instead of going into the bathroom in the back, he went to the bar and slid up onto one of the stools next to the woman with the pretty eyes. She was drinking whiskey, straight up, and she’d already ordered and paid for her next two glasses—they were lined up in front of her in a very clear message that said, No, butt-head, you may not buy me a drink. She’d also purposely left an empty-stool buffer between herself and the other patrons. And the glance she gave Shane as he sat let him know that she would have preferred keeping her personal DMZ intact.

Her eyes were light brown, but she’d flattened them into a very frosty don’t f*ck with me, dead-woman-walking glare. It was a hell of a talent. The first chief Shane had ever worked with in the SEAL teams—Andy Markos, rest his soul—could deliver the same soulless affect. It was scary as shit to be hit with that look. Even to those who knew him well and outranked him.

But here and now, Shane let this woman know that he wasn’t scared and didn’t give a shit that she didn’t want him sitting there, by giving her an answering smile; letting his eyes twinkle a little, as if they were sharing a private joke.

She broke the eye contact as she shook her head, muttering something that sounded like, “Why do I do this to myself?”

Any conversational opener was a win, so Shane took it for the invitation that it wasn’t. “Do what to yourself?”

Another head shake, this one with an eye roll. “Look, I’m not interested.”

“Actually, I came over because I saw that you were limping,” Shane lied. “You know, when you came in? I trashed my ankle about a year ago. They giving you steroids for the swelling?”

“Really,” she said. “You’re wasting your time.”

She wasn’t as pretty as he’d thought she was, from a distance. But she wasn’t exactly not-pretty either. Still, her face was a little too square, her nose a little too small and round, her lips a little too narrow. Her short hair wasn’t blond as he’d first thought, but rather a bland shade of uninspiring light brown. She was also athletic to the point of near breastlessness. The thug he’d tangled with earlier that evening had had bigger pecs than this woman did beneath her tank top.

But those eyes …

They weren’t just brown, they were golden brown, with bits of hazel and specks of green and darker brown thrown in for good measure.

They were incredible.

“Be careful if they do,” Shane told her. “You know, give you steroids. I had a series of shots that made me feel great. They really helped, but ten months after the last injection, I was still testing positive for performance enhancing drugs. Which was problematic when I tried to earn some easy money cage fighting.”

She turned to look at him. “Is that it? You done with your public service announcement?”

He smiled back at her. “Not quite. I did a little research online and found out that that particular drug can stay in your system for as long as eighteen months. I’ve still got six months to kill.”

“Before you can become a cage fighter,” she said, with plenty of yeah, right scorn in her voice. “Does that usually impress the girls?”

“I’ve actually never told anyone before,” Shane admitted. “You know, that I stooped that low? But it is amazing what you’ll do when you’re broke, isn’t it?” He finished his beer and held the empty up toward the bartender, asking for another. “Pete’s paying,” he told the man then turned back to the woman, who’d gone back to staring at her whiskey. “I’m Shane Laughlin. From San Diego.”

She sighed and finished her drink, pushing the empty glass toward the far edge of the bar and pulling her second closer to her and taking a sip.

“So what are you doing in Boston, Shane?” he asked for her, as if she actually cared. “Wow, that’s a good question. I’m former Navy. I haven’t been out all that long, and I’ve been having some trouble finding a job. I got a lead on something short term—here in Boston. I actually start tomorrow. How about you? Are you local?”

When she turned and looked at him, her eyes were finally filled with life. It was a life that leaned a little heavy on the anger and disgust, but that was better than that flat nothing she’d given him earlier. “You seriously think I don’t know that you’re slumming?”

Shane laughed his surprise. “What?”

“You heard what I said and you know what I meant.”

“Wow. If anyone’s slumming here … Did you miss the part of the conversation where I admitted to being the loser who can’t find a job?”

“You and how many millions of Americans?” she asked. “Except it’s a shocker for you, isn’t it, Navy? You’ve never not been in demand—you probably went into the military right out of high school and … Plus, you were an officer, right? I can smell it on you.” She narrowed her eyes as if his being an officer was a terrible thing.

“Yeah, I was officer.” He dropped his biggest bomb. “In the SEAL teams.”

She looked him dead in the eye as it bounced. “Big f*cking deal, Dixie-Cup. You’re out now. Welcome to the real world, where things don’t always go your way.”

He laughed—because what she’d just said was pretty funny. “You obviously have no idea what a SEAL does.”

“I don’t,” she admitted. “No one does. Not since the military entered the government’s cone of silence.”

“I specialized in things not going my way,” Shane told her.

“So why’d you leave, then?” she asked, and when he didn’t answer right away, she toasted him with her drink and drained it. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“I’m proud of what I did—what I was,” he said quietly. “Even now. Especially now. But you’re right—partly right. About the shock. I had no idea how bad bad could be, before I was … kicked out and blacklisted.” Her head came up at that. “So, see, you’re the one who’s slumming. You could get into trouble just for talking to me.”

She was looking at him now—really looking. “What exactly did you do?”

Shane looked back at her, directly into those eyes as he thought about his team, about Rick and Owen, about Slinger and Johnny, and yes, Magic, too.… “I disobeyed a direct order—which is something I did all the time out in the world, as a SEAL team CO. But this time? It was apparently unforgivable. And that, combined with my need to speak truth, even to power, and my inability to grovel and appropriately kiss ass … It got ugly. In the end, someone had to go, so …” He shrugged, still convinced after all these hard months that he’d done the right thing. “I was stripped of my rank and command—and dishonorably discharged.”

She sat there, gazing at him. His answer had been rather vague and even cryptic, but it was still more than he’d told anyone since it had happened. So he just waited, looking back at her, until she finally asked, “So what do you want from me?”

There were so many possible answers to that question, but Shane went with honesty. “I saw you come in and I thought … Maybe you’re looking for the same thing I am. And since I find you unbelievably attractive …”

She smiled at that, and even though it was a rueful smile, it transformed her. “Yeah, actually, you don’t. I mean, you think you find me … But …” She shook her head.

Shane leaned forward. “I’m pretty sure you don’t know what I’m thinking.” He tried to let her see it in his eyes, though—the fact that he was thinking about how it would feel for both of them with his tongue in her mouth, with her hands in his hair, her legs locked around him as he pushed himself home.

He reached out to touch her—nothing too aggressive or invasive—just the back of one finger against the narrow gracefulness of her wrist.

But just like that, the vaguely fuzzy picture in his head slammed into sharp focus, and she was moving against him, naked in his arms, and, Christ, he was seconds from release as he gazed into her incredible eyes.…

Shane sat back so fast that he knocked over his bottle of beer. He fumbled after it, grabbing it and, because it had been nearly full, the foam volcanoed out of the top. He covered it with his mouth, taking a long swig, grateful for the cold liquid, aware as hell that he’d gone from semi-aroused to fully locked and loaded in the beat of a heart.

What the hell?

Yeah, it had been a long time since he’d gotten some, but damn.

His nameless new friend had pushed her stool slightly back from the bar—away from him—and she was now frowning down at her injured foot, rotating her ankle.

She then looked up at him, and the world seemed to tilt. Because there was heat in her eyes, too. Heat and surprise and speculation and … Absolute possibility.

“I’m Mac,” she told him as she tossed back the remains of her final drink. “And I don’t usually do this, but … I’ve got a place, just around the corner.”

She was already pulling on her jacket, putting on her scarf and hat.

As if his going with her was a given. As if there were no way in hell that he’d turn her down.

Shane was already off the stool and grabbing his own jacket, as she—Mac—went out the door. Her limp was less pronounced—apparently the whiskey had done her some good. In fact, she was moving pretty quickly. He had to hustle to keep up.

“Hey,” he said, as they hit the street, and the bar door closed behind him. “Um, Mac? Maybe we should find, you know, a dealer? I’m not carrying any um … So unless you have, you know …” He cleared his throat.

She stopped walking and looked up at him. Standing there on the sidewalk, he was aware of how much bigger and taller he was. She was tiny—and significantly younger than he’d thought. More like twenty-two, instead of pushing thirty, the way he’d figured her to be, back in the bar.

Or maybe it was just the glow from the dim streetlight, making her look like youthful beauty and desire personified.

“Why do men have a problem saying the pill?” she asked.

Shane laughed. “It’s not the words,” he told her. “It’s the concept. See, what if I’d misunderstood and—”

“You didn’t. And FYI, this is Massachusetts. It’s still legal here. No need to back-alley it.”

“Well, good. But … we still need … some.”

She smiled, and Jesus, she was beautiful. “Don’t worry, I got it handled.” Her gaze became a once over that was nearly palpable, lingering for a moment on the unmistakable bulge beneath the button-fly of his jeans. She looked back into his eyes. “Or I will, soon enough.”

No doubt about it, his luck had changed.

“Please promise that you’re not luring me back to your apartment with the intention of locking me in chains and keeping me as your love slave,” he said. “Or—wait. Maybe what I really want is for you to promise that you are.”

She laughed at that. “You’re not my type for long-term imprisonment,” she told him. But then she stood on her toes, tugging at the front of his jacket so that he leaned down. She was going to kiss him and they both knew it, but she took her time and he let her, just waiting as she looked into his eyes, as she brought her mouth up and softly brushed her lips against his.

Shane closed his eyes—God, it was sweet—as he let himself be kissed again, and then again. And this time, she tasted him, her tongue against his lips. He opened his mouth, and then, Christ, it wasn’t sweet, it was pure hunger, white-hot and overwhelming, and he pulled her hard into his arms, even as she clung to him, trying to get even closer.

The world could’ve exploded around him and he wouldn’t have cared. He wouldn’t have looked up—wouldn’t have stopped kissing her.

And through all the layers of clothing, their jackets, their pants, his shorts, and whatever she had on beneath her cargo BDUs—God, he couldn’t wait to find out what she wore for underwear—Shane felt her stomach, warm and taut against his erection, and just that distant contact was enough to bring him teetering dangerously close to the edge.

And by the time he made sense of that information and formed a vaguely coherent thought—holy shit, just kissing this woman was enough to make him crazy—it was almost too late.

Almost. But only because she pulled away from him. She was laughing, her incredible eyes dancing as she looked up at him, as if she knew exactly what he was feeling.

She held out her gloved hand for him, so he took it, and then—bad ankle be damned—she pulled him forward.

And together, they started to run.