Cover Me

chapter 19



In the back of the MH-60 Pave Hawk, Wade yanked on his antiexposure suit. Watertight rubber, it resembled the type skin divers used, but cinched in around the neck and feet. He pulled his focus in as tight as the seals on his suit, trying his damnedest to lose himself in training and routine.

Because if he let himself think about Sunny out there with terrorist bombers, with murderers, he would lose his mind.

To his right, Franco tugged on his gear. Out the open side hatch, his other four team members stood on the concrete landing pad by the power plant. It was agreed they would stay behind in case they were needed for triage in the event of an explosion. The bomb had been defused but the bomb squad still hadn’t finished inspecting the entire building. Lasky and the FBI wanted the kidnappers alive for information.

Wade just wanted Sunny.

Thank God for the MH-60 in the lot and years of training at their fingertips. They were in the chopper and ready to lift off in under five minutes. The door closed, sealing him into a dimly lit cocoon of wires and gear, mustiness of old equipment drenched in the fumes from hydraulic fluid. He welcomed the familiar in a day turned upside down.

He shot a quick glance at Franco, suited up now as were the two pilots. Those suits were crucial gear when flying over the life-sapping cold waters of the Bering Sea. Without the suits, someone in the water would be dead within just a couple of minutes.

Sunny would be dead.

Never had the speed of his mission been more important.

“Ready in front. How’re we doing in back?” crackled over Wade’s helmet.

Franco nodded, eyes a little crazier today than normal, but Wade welcomed that edginess now more than ever.

He shot a thumbs-up to the pilots and replied, “Ready in back.”

The pilots turned their attention to starting engines, running a checklist in a professional call-and-response manner that always seemed to bring Wade into the zone. The singsong of the pilots focused him in on the mission ahead. Finally the rotors began to turn, the grinding whine growing louder, faster.

The copilot called for clearance to take off and track down the fleeing fishing boat. The chopper rotors whomp, whomp, whomped overhead in a deafening drumbeat as they flew out over the icy bay. Wind roared beyond the open side hatch, snow flurries picking up speed, a storm brewing.

The chopper banked hard and fast, flying balls-out toward the open bay. With the boat hauling ass, they could be out in the Bering Sea all too soon. The Coast Guard had been alerted, but would be at least five minutes behind them in responding. Minutes were everything in this climate.

He and Franco were Sunny’s best chance of coming out alive.

The copilot began tweaking the radar to spot boats. “I would say that we look for a boat going mach-snot and perform a close flyby to see if we can identify it. But extra eyes are welcome.”

Wade didn’t need to be told that one twice. He sensed Franco sliding into place as well. They’d worked as a team for so long, he didn’t even need to check.

“Moving over twenty-five knots.” The copilot’s voice piped low and calm over the air waves. His New England accent growing thicker betrayed the only sign of any nerves. “Let’s give him a look-see first. Come thirty degrees right, target is about three minutes out.”

Less time than a damn commercial break, but in waters like these, that was more than enough time to freeze to death.

Wade craned his neck to search out the starboard-door window. He kept his eyes trained on a speck speeding away in the distance, weaving a reckless hell-bent path around floating segments of ice, some bigger than the boat itself. Hand locked around a handle bolted by the door, he got the okay to open the hatch and swung out farther into the whipping wind for a better look. God, why had he been such a jackass to waste time with her, fighting? It wasn’t as if he’d accomplished a damn thing. He wasn’t going to change her. In fact, he’d only succeeded in pushing her away from him when, if anything, they should have been sticking closer together.

But then the last thing she’d wanted was his protection. Well, after this, he couldn’t imagine letting her out of his sight. Which would be damn tricky once he was in Afghanistan.

Shit.

Clear the brain of distracting thoughts. Focus on the mission.

His headset hummed to life. “Target in the camera,” the copilot barked. “Target in the camera. I have our boat in sight. And—what the hell? It’s not moving.”

The implications of “not moving” were like a sledgehammer on Wade’s back.

Swinging back into the chopper, Wade launched himself through the hold and behind the pilots. Eyes narrowing, he scoured the radar display, scrambling for every detail he could find, anything that would help him haul Sunny out of this alive.

He braced his hands hard against the pilots’ seats to keep from shaking. He watched the radar, desperate for any sign of life on that boat. The airwaves went silent, the helicopter flying closer, the image growing clearer, larger, as they neared.

Movement. “There!”

Wade pointed, refusing to believe he could be mistaken. Again, he caught the hint of motion as a person rolled to their knees on the deck, slowly uncurling and standing. Alive.

He looked up through the windscreen as they neared, his view of her clearer. Long dark hair streaked behind the woman. Sunny. It had to be her. Relief nearly took out his knees until he straightened with the infusion of a new sense of purpose because he would save her.

Hang tough. He willed her to hear his thoughts as he charged back into the belly of the chopper, to the open hatch. He would winch down into the boat in another two minutes, tops. If she could just hold on, he and Franco would be there.

As he looked down, she staggered toward the rail of the boat and his gut lurched. No, no, no. If she went in the water she would be dead before the helicopter could get close enough for him to go in after her.

The boat listed left. Sharply. She stumbled again, her feet splashing in pooling water inside the craft.

“Holy shit,” he shouted into his headset. “It’s sinking. We need to get there now.”

Planting his feet on deck, he gripped the handle, leaning farther from the chopper, snow stinging his face. He willed the aircraft to fly faster.

The fishing vessel was taking on water fast, sunlight glinting off the ripples gushing into the craft. Sunny grappled along the rail, her arms flailing toward something he couldn’t make out.

She jumped up and he held his breath, certain she would go tumbling overboard. Her hand connected and she yanked.

A burst of yellow shot away from the boat, a life raft inflating and settling onto the choppy sea. Good God, she was saving herself. She was getting away from the boat and whoever else was on board.

Sunny leaped from the edge, airborne for what felt like an eternity as he watched the life raft tossed about on the churning waves. She landed in the raft, tumbling against the side and almost pitching over. She held fast.

Relief raced through him again along with a ridiculous hint of pride in her fast thinking. God, she was an amazing, strong woman. She wasn’t in the sea. And most importantly, she wasn’t in the sinking boat.

Now, rather than winching down into the sinking boat, he would drop into the water with survival gear, keep her safe from exposure or tipping until they could haul her up.

Wade sank down onto the cabin floor and started to put on his swim fins. “Get the basket on the line. I’ll go out and get her. Franco can lower into the boat with the winch to check for any other survivors.”

“Roger that,” the pilot answered.

Franco keyed up the radio. “Got your back, Brick. Will clear the boat.”

The helicopter began a slow turnaround, nearing the drop site. Sunny waved, clutching with her other hand as the raft kicked up on waves, each swell threatening to pitch her out. Rotor wash pushed the sea into higher swirls as the MH-60 hovered as close as it dared.

Wade pulled his goggles and snorkel on, and stepped back into the open hatch. He sat with his legs dangling out the door, put one hand over his mask, and slipped out of the helicopter. He floated through air for what always felt like the longest glide of his life until abruptly…

Freezing water swallowed him. Actually, freezing didn’t even come close to describing the walls of ice encasing his body. Through his mask, he kept his eyes fixed on the raft above him, the tiny inflatable holding his entire world. That woman had come to mean more to him in a few days than anyone in his life. So much so, he couldn’t imagine his life without her.

Pumping his feet, he surged upward, bubbles streaming past in the murky underwater until… He burst free from the icy clamp of the underworld. He bobbed to the surface and gave a thumbs-up to the helicopter overhead.

Slicing through the sea with stroke after stroke, his body rode waves as he swam. Needing to see her. Hear her. Hold her vibrant, alive body so he could stop the shaking inside him that had started the second he’d learned she was taken.

His palm slapped the edge of the rubber lifeboat and he grabbed hold with his other hand as well. He peered up and found Sunny looking down at him, shivering and drenched, with her lips turning blue, but alive.

“Wade, I can’t believe it’s you.” She grabbed his arms and tugged. “You’re here.”

The raft lurched, nearly pitching her out, rolling water splashing her in the face. Her grip loosened, her legs sliding around on the rubber raft until she nearly tumbled into the churning ice below.

“Let go,” he ordered, “and back to the other side of the raft so I can bring myself in.”

If she got dumped into the water without an antiexposure suit it would be bad, beyond bad. Carefully, as if his life depended on it—and it did, since Sunny’s life was in the balance—he hefted himself into the raft. Her teeth chattering, she wrapped her arms tight around him.

“You’re okay, you’re okay,” he said, more to reassure himself than her, wanting to hang on, rooted in the knowledge that she was alive and whole.

But with regret, he pried her off him. He needed to get her covered.

He unstrapped the survival gear from his back and whipped free the Thinsulate blanket. He held it open just as she fell into his arms. He wrapped her and he gathered her to his chest, against his pounding heart.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a cable from the chopper lowering Franco into the boat. Franco would search while they raised Sunny back up into the helicopter in a metal basket. He would have to let Sunny go, and that was going to damn near rip his heart out when he’d only just got her back, but Franco might need his help.

“Sunny?” He squeezed her gently. “How many people are still in the boat?”

“One man alive, stabbed and t-t-tied up,” she chattered. “T-two dead, he shot them. He shot Astrid and Ryker.” Her hazel eyes turned murky and haunted. “Their bodies are both in the water.”

He ticked through his memories of the people in her community. Ryker was Flynn’s brother. Astrid was her brother’s wife. Innocent victims, or had they been caught up in the bomber’s plan? They must have been, given how unlikely it was for anyone in that community to be here. Now.

What the hell had she been though? “Are you hurt? Do you need medical attention?”

He picked up her hand where he saw blood on it. No wound. Just a long streak up her arm. Under her nails. Dear God, she’d been the one to do the stabbing. He placed his fingers on her wrist to measure her heart rate.

“N-not hurt,” she murmured through her chattering teeth. “J-just possibly going into shock.”

She blinked up at him, eyes wide. And wasn’t that just like her to assess her situation with a cool head even as her pulse slowed, her skin frighteningly pale? But she would be okay. He kissed the top of her head, where icicles formed in her hair.

Sunny burrowed closer, tighter, and he braced his back for a swell to keep the water off her while he waited for the helicopter to return with the basket. Until then, Sunny would be safe with him.

“J-just don’t let go.” She shivered against him. “Please God, don’t ever let me go.”

That was a request he intended to honor with every fiber of his being.

***



With Flynn standing tall beside her, Misty stared up at the landing helicopter, almost afraid to hope what Lasky had told her could be true. That Sunny was safe, inside that descending military chopper.

Wind from the rotors stirred up a swirling snowstorm as the MH-60 landed in the parking lot. With her sister inside. The pilot had called in the successful rescue to Agent Lasky, but Misty wouldn’t be able to breathe freely until she saw Sunny with her own eyes.

What a difference an hour could make. Her sister had been saved. The bomb had been defused. And the power plant had been declared clear.

Now the authorities would be turning their attention to questioning Brett Livingston, once he got his gut stitched up from the stab wound Sunny inflicted. And they would work to locate and retrieve Astrid and Ryker’s bodies. She slid her hand into Flynn’s. His face was stoic. But she knew him well enough to sense he was shell-shocked and hurting underneath. Her heart ached for him.

The helicopter finally touched down and ground crews rushed forward just as the hatch opened. Wade Rocha leaped to the ground, sure-footed, then held out a hand. Sunny stepped into view in the open portal. Alive. Her sister was really alive and appeared unharmed, as best she could tell from the blanket that swaddled her.

With Wade’s help, Sunny stepped out onto the pavement, her steps slow and shaky as she searched the crowd. The second her eyes landed on Misty, she smiled, trying to move faster, but her ordeal had obviously taken a toll. Misty sprinted to her, wrapping her sister in a hug so tight it was almost painful, but she couldn’t bring herself to let go. She’d been so terrified, so scared she wouldn’t find help in time, second-guessing herself the whole way.

Sunny eased back, tears streaking into her smile. Her hands raised. “Thank you. Thank you.”

“I’m sure someone else could have done something more.”

“You were the completely perfect person I needed at the right time.”

And Misty realized it was true. Her signing, her heightened sense of nuances in facial expressions had served her—had served Sunny—well. For the first time in four years, she felt strong.

Wade slid an arm around Sunny’s shoulders. “We really need to get you checked out by the doctor.”

Misty nodded too. “Go, really. We’ll have plenty of time later. A lifetime.”

“Okay,” Sunny agreed. “Just one more thing.” She hugged Flynn, squeezing hard.

Sunny’s mouth was moving but Misty couldn’t catch what she was saying. Likely it had to do with Ryker’s last moments. And then Wade was hooking his arm around Sunny, pointing to one of the EMT trucks. Even her indomitable sister needed to be reminded she was mortal. It appeared Sunny had found a person strong enough to stand with her—and up to her—in Wade Rocha.

Misty turned to her own man, one she’d loved for years and had finally found a path back to. “I’m so sorry about your brother.”

He stared out over the bay, snowflakes catching on his blond hair he stood still so long. “I’m sorry I didn’t see what he was into. I’m sorry he wasted his life. And I’m sorry about how this is going to break our father’s heart.”

“Your dad will get comfort from having you near.” She dusted the snow away and wished it could be as easy to ease the burdens on his heart.

Flynn looked down at her, the full power of his pain showing through. “Or will looking at me remind him of my brother? God knows, I’m not sure I’m ready to look in the mirror yet. Even Sunny thought he was me out there.”

“But I know who you are.” She stroked the side of his face. “I knew then.”

Turning into her hand, he kissed her palm, lingering long enough for her to know he took comfort from her touch. Anything more overt out here in public wasn’t possible, but there was an unmistakable connection in the moment. An unmistakable connection between them.

A sigh shuddered through him and he tore his eyes away from the harbor. He looped an arm around her shoulders and steered her back toward the heated RVs set up for questioning and waiting. Not fancy, but definitely warmer. And there was just something scary about going into the power plant, even if it had just been given the all clear.

Sighing, she tucked against Flynn’s side, his arm solid and familiar. “What should we do now?”

With ease, he positioned his face so she would see his mouth even as they stayed side by side. “I need to tell my parents about Ryker, and I would like for you to come with me.” He guided her past a fire truck that had blessedly been unneeded after all. “But after that, I want us to go to Anchorage so you can have the surgery. I want to be there with you.”

His plan seemed so perfect it broke her heart that they couldn’t have figured it all out sooner. “That’s not possible now. So much of the logistics depended on staying with Ted and Madison.” So many deaths, so much grief to be spread out in such a tiny community. “How can I complain about a missed appointment with the specialist when they lost their lives?”

He gripped both her shoulders and turned her to him just outside the nearest RV, their last chance for privacy for what could be many hours of intense questioning. “And they would want you to go after life and grab it with both hands, whatever it is that you want.”

For the first time today, she let herself voice the fears that had been hammering around inside her brain. “What if the doctor who agreed to take my case pro bono won’t do that anymore once all the scandal of our village hits the paper? What if he wasn’t even real, just another lie pumped through our compromised Internet?”

“Then we’ll find a real doctor, one willing to do the procedure.” The determination and honesty on his face all but vibrated the air between them. “I can drive a snowplow anywhere with snow, and while I won’t ever be a rich man, I will do work until my last breath to give you what you need. I will stand by you every step of the way until we figure out how to make that surgery happen.”

“You would do that for me? Leave the only home you’ve ever known?” She’d seen the claustrophobia close in on him when they’d been stuck in the room with Agent Lasky. She could see the homesickness in his eyes when he’d stared out over the bay. And yet she saw none of that now.

“I’ve thought every day for four years that I would do anything in my power to be with you again. Being with you is home for me. In case you haven’t noticed, Misty, I love you.”

“I do know. And I hope you know I love you too.”

The reality, the honesty of that emotion between them was so strong, she could hear it singing through her veins.

***



Twenty-four hours later, Sunny stretched out on the bear rug in front of Wade’s fireplace in Anchorage. The fur tickled the backs of her legs peeking out of the oversized T-shirt she’d borrowed from him. “I’m really going to have to invest in some clothing of my own.”

“But you look so smoking-hot in mine.”

“And you look so damn adorable hugging my dog.”

Wade stoked the fire with one hand, his other arm hooked around Chewie. Bare chested and wearing only low-slung sweatpants, he sent her pulse racing again even though they’d already made love twice since reaching his apartment.

The past twenty-four hours had passed at a frenetic pace. Brett Livingston was in police custody at the hospital. He’d survived surgery and faced a lifetime in prison for the murders and the bombing attempt.

If not more.

She’d told the police about Brett’s “insurance” plan in his briefcase, and they were sending electronic divers down in an attempt to retrieve it from the boat. She couldn’t even begin to fathom what it might contain, what could possibly be worse than had already happened. But at least she could know the authorities weren’t in the dark any longer.

Still no word from Phoenix, and she was beginning to wonder if maybe he had run after all. The thought that he would actually abandon his wife and child was more than she could wrap her brain around, but she still had to hope he was alive out there somewhere. Thankfully, her nephew was safe with Astrid’s parents.

At least she knew her sister was happy, already making plans with Flynn. The two of them had accepted the helicopter ride back up the mountain to be with Flynn’s parents right now. And Misty wanted to stay near their nephew until the police officially cleared everyone in the village—or made any necessary arrests. What kind of legacy was that to leave a child? A criminal for a mother and a father who ran? Her chest grew tight with regrets.

Wade replaced the poker and stroked back her hair, still damp from the shower they’d shared. “I can arrange for a flight home for you, if you’ve changed your mind.”

She shook her head, certain in her decision to stay right where she was. Working things out with Wade. “I want to be here with you, for as long as we can be together before you have to leave. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought that’s what you wanted too.”

Especially after the way he’d held her so fiercely in the life raft and how tenderly he’d made love to her.

“Can you tell me you aren’t having regrets about not going back home with your sister?”

“I have regrets about what happened, about not picking up on the signs. It’s become clear to me in a hundred different ways how cutting ourselves off has left us open and vulnerable. The place I knew as home isn’t going to exist anymore after this.”

“I’m so damn sorry for that.” He tugged her to his chest and she leaned into him, the steady thump of his heart under her such a welcome sound she’d feared never hearing again.

Chewie nosed her knee insistently, shuffling into the circle with determined garbled noises until she couldn’t help but laugh. God, it felt good after the horror of the past days. “I haven’t forgotten about you, Chewie. Not for a second.”

Her dog was recovering well from his pulled tendon, thank goodness, and should be back up to speed in another couple of weeks. Burying her fingers into his thick fur, she collided with Wade’s hands right there alongside hers.

Wade grinned. “What can I say? I’m getting attached to your dog.”

“Oh really?” she teased back, inwardly breathing a sigh of relief because she and Chewie were pretty much a package deal. “I haven’t had time to think through all the details about where I want to live yet, but I do need to be with my sister to help see her through her surgery. I should have known that at the start.”

“So you are willing to move.” His fingers linked with hers in the husky mutt’s thick pelt. “For Misty.”

“For Misty, yes, but for me too.” And for Wade, if this relationship was going where she thought, where she hoped it was going. “My skills as a guide and workout trainer can be used just about wherever I go, so while I may not own the place, at least I would have a marketable job history. A small town would probably suit me best, some kind of rural community.”

One with mom-and-pop diners, rustic B and Bs, and wood-burning fireplaces crackling a hand’s reach away. Most of all, one with wildernesses to explore.

“Alaska has plenty of those,” he agreed. “And what if once I return, I wanted you to come where I’ll be? What if I could find a nice rural town nearby?”

“That sounds… huge. But workable. You understand though that it would take an independent, strong person to make such a radical change. A damsel in distress just isn’t going to cut it, especially for a guy who’s got a scary dangerous career that takes him all around the world for extended periods of time.”

He raised his hands in surrender, angles of his beard-stubbled face starker with the morning light streaking through the windows. “Okay, I get the message and completely agree. You are not the clinging-vine sort, and believe me, I respect that. You can take care of yourself, and quite well, I might add—”

“Thank you.” She stopped him with a nip to his bottom lip. “I needed to hear you say that and know that you mean it. I think we make a formidable team, you, me, and Chewie.”

“I concur.” He nipped her right back, then again, until his hands were in her hair and his body covering hers on the rug.

Gliding her hands over his shoulders, along his back, she stared up into his beautiful cocoa-brown eyes and realized she could lose herself in those no matter where she lived. “Where will you be transferring to once you return from your four months in the Middle East?”

“Ever heard of Patrick Air Force Base?”

“No. Is there snow?”

He winced, rolling onto his side, worry furrowing his forehead. “Actually, it’s in Florida, near Cape Canaveral.”

“No snow then.”

“Afraid not. As a matter of fact, you’ll need lots of sunscreen.”

Florida? Somewhere like Washington State or North Dakota might have been a little easier to grasp, but then she’d never been one to embrace ease. “I’ve always dreamed of visiting the beach again. And in the meantime, it’s not like you’re going to the moon. We’ll be able to talk, right?”

“Periodically, yes. Some of the guys set up Skype accounts.”

“I definitely prefer face-to-face Internet now.” She shivered to think how easily her seemingly innocent Internet café had been a portal for such evil. Brett Livingston had set up shop in her backyard, closing down their communication to the outside world so that everything was filtered through him.

Funny that she’d grown up in a community that shunned most technology, while she’d embraced it, setting up a business that helped residents connect to the world. Yet she’d probably walk away from this nightmare more wary of technology than most people.

“You’ll always know who you’re talking to,” Wade promised as he knuckled her chin upward and kissed her frown away. “And I’ll be able to tell you to your face how very much you mean to me.”

Her heart did a little flip over the touch of his mouth, the promise in his words. “How much would that be?”

“More than you can imagine. More than I could have imagined feeling for someone.” His chocolate-brown eyes deepened to molten sincerity. “I’m falling in love with you, Sunny Foster. And I say falling, because what I’m feeling increases every time I see you. And my gut is telling me I’ll keep right on falling in love with you more and more every day.”

He kissed her before she could answer back, and she so very much wanted to share the words bubbling up inside her. Love for him had rolled over her fast and fierce, but then she wasn’t a woman to shy away from a challenge. And one thing was certain: Wade Rocha was a brick-headed, sexy, loyal-to-the-end kind of man who’d taken her whole heart.

Cupping his beard-stubbled face in her palms, she vowed, “I love you too, so much I can’t even come close to telling you in just one night. I’m going to need lots of nights and days, months, years, to express it all.”

His forehead fell to rest against hers. “I’m sorry we don’t have longer before I leave.”

She grazed her heel up the back of his leg, already planning a homecoming to remember. “Then we’d better start making every minute count.”