“You never talk about it.”

Connor made a noise between an exhale and a groan as he took the seat next to her. “What?”

“The years before you met me.”

He balanced his elbows on his knees and let his hands hang down between his legs. A thumb rubbed along the calloused palm of his other hand.

“They don’t matter.”

The temptation to reach out and skim her fingers down his back kicked strong. The months apart had taken a toll on Jana. She missed holding him, making love with him. The simple things like cooking breakfast together and laughing over a movie.

Sitting close, smelling his familiar scent, brought it all rushing back in a punch of longing so powerful she almost doubled over from the force of it. But she forced her mind to hold on to the conversation and his voice to remain steady. “Because?”

“I didn’t have you.”

Traceless
Helenkay Dimon

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Award-winning author HELENKAY DIMON spent twelve years in the most unromantic career ever—divorce lawyer. After dedicating all that effort to helping people terminate relationships, she is thrilled to deal in happy endings and write romance novels for a living. Now her days are filled with gardening, writing, reading and spending time with her family in and around San Diego. HelenKay loves hearing from readers, so stop by her website, www.helenkaydimon.com, and say hello.

To Michelle Gorman—this one’s for you!

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Extract

Chapter One

Jana Bowen looked at the numbers again. The black ink blurred and she rubbed her eyes to bring the columns back into focus. When that failed she leaned back in her metal desk chair and ignored the groan of the rusted back legs.

The charity didn’t have a lot of money and prided itself on using a low percentage of the donations for administrative costs. Still, if her butt inched any closer to the floor her backache would become permanent. She vowed to head out tomorrow and find a new chair somewhere in the desert of Southern Utah.

With the scaling red rocks and miles of untouched land, this area of land on the edge of Zion National Park near the border of Arizona possessed a raw beauty. She’d ventured here, far from the calm of her historic Annapolis home, in search of peace.

Hooking back up with her former employer, Boundless Global, she spent her days running education programs and arranging for the shipment of vaccines to countries in desperate need of them. Getting lost in the mess in the office files the first day, she now spent her extra hours cleaning up paperwork. The work provided a needed distraction from her train wreck of a marriage and the man she missed more than she ever thought possible.

But right now she had a bigger puzzle on her hands than Connor Bowen. She turned to the charity’s executive director and her friend of many years, Marcel Lampari. “The paperwork isn’t matching up.”

“Still too many boxes?” He stood on the other side of the open main room lined with tables and covered on every surface with boxes and paperwork.

The building they used for their headquarters had been designed as a chapel decades before. Abandoned and far from anything other than brush and the rock canyons nearby, the four-room structure was donated to Boundless and quickly restructured to fit desks with computers and the command center for U.S. operations. The vast majority of the staff worked in countries receiving aid. Only Marcel and a few full-time employees worked from here, overseeing donations, a large group of volunteers and distribution chains. With her stepping in, that made four of them in the church office on a regular basis.

She took on the tasks of matching up shipping manifests and double-checking invoices after her initial review and filing led to inconsistencies. Marcel didn’t have the time, and the staff member assigned to the job had relocated to another state, leaving the position in limbo until someone permanent could be hired.

It was mind-numbing monotony that filled the void. Or that was the theory. Since leaving Connor she’d found nothing eased the pain of missing him.

She concentrated on numbers and information contained in boxes on a form in front of her but the math just didn’t work. “I’m up to three mistakes in the Nigeria shipments.”

This couldn’t be a simple math error. After getting an anonymous email from someone in the distribution chain, she’d begun poring through the files. Every third shipment was off. Exactly the third shipment and by exactly four crates. The paperwork at the receiving end didn’t match the shipping information and the mysterious boxes disappeared as strangely as they had appeared.

“Maybe the trucking company is piggybacking someone else’s shipment on ours then offloading it.” Marcel tucked the pen behind his ear as he always did and flipped through the documents on his clipboard.

She doubted Marcel’s explanation but she went along because it was easier than thinking about a worst-case scenario—one where someone was playing with the shipments. “I’d like to think people wouldn’t cheat a charity.”

“Let’s not panic.” He walked over and stood on the opposite side of her small desk. “It could just be that someone can’t add.”

“It’s possible, but over and over?”

He made a face and pretended to count on his fingers. “Numbers are hard.”

She had to laugh at that. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Marcel didn’t ruffle. It was one of the things she admired about him. In his late forties, his hair had long ago gone salt and pepper. He was long and lean and the perfect mentor, having spent most of his life in war-torn areas. She admired his dedication and ached for him over the recent loss of his wife of more than twenty years in a horrible car accident.

In his grief, he dove into his work. When Jana’s life fell apart seven months ago from Connor’s mix of smothering protection and workaholic tendencies, she showed up unannounced on Marcel’s doorstep. He let her stay, because who could turn down free labor? She guessed he also recognized a fellow damaged person when he saw one.

“Why don’t you get some rest? We can figure this out tomorrow.” He dropped his clipboard on top of the stack of files in front of her. “We’ll call around and get some answers.”

Not the most subtle it’s-time-to-head-out signal, so she got the message. “You’re right.”

“Let’s go.” He snapped his fingers. Probably being one of the few men who could do it and get away with it. Had something to do with his slight French accent from his childhood and the soft delivery.

“I have to lock everything up.” She turned to the side and tapped the top of the safe. “I’ll head out in a second.”

He frowned at her. “A windstorm is kicking up, so don’t wait too long.”

She glanced at her watch. “Ten more minutes.”

By the time she looked up again, night had fallen and the sky outside the window across from her was dark. The wind rattled the old building and whistled through the beams. She winced as she calculated whether she’d missed her opportunity to get back to the garage-turned-bunkhouse for the workers.

The banging started a second later. A fist pounding and the faint sound of a male voice.

She got up. “Marcel?”

The door slammed open before she made it to the other side of her desk. The song she’d been humming screeched to a halt in her head and a wave of panic washed over her as two men dressed all in black burst inside. The last of her reality jumbled as her gaze slipped from the masks that hid all but their eyes to the guns in their hands.

Glass shattered somewhere behind her. Between the crashing and unexpected sight in front of her, her legs refused to move. Everything passed in slow motion and she kept blinking, convinced she’d slipped into a weird nightmare.

When one of the men rushed toward her, she forced the air back in her lungs and her brain jumpstarted. She spun around, thinking to get to the emergency door at the back of the building and run screaming for help. Her hip hit the edge of the desk and something crunched under her foot, but she stayed upright. Adrenaline fueled her run as she raced through the maze of desks, ducking and zigzagging despite the small space. Anything to make it harder for the men to shoot at her.

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw them behind her, walking slow and steady now but gaining ground with each long step. Their calm refused to register in her head. Their actions made no sense. Neither did the papers flying around the room and the sudden brush of air over her skin.

As she blew past each table, she grabbed for the boxes and phones and threw anything she could touch on the floor behind her to block the attackers’ path. The thump of packages hitting the floor echoed around her as she folded an arm over her head and plowed forward. The thud of boots on the hardwood grew closer as her breath caught in her throat.

Almost there. She skidded around the long desk near the back of the room and slammed into a file cabinet. Her body was a mass of bumps and bruises but she pushed through, barely feeling anything except the driving need to get to the back door.

She slipped into the small hallway at the far end of the main room and plunged into darkness. The light should be on but the usual hum was gone as she felt her way along the wall. Finally, her hands hit the bar running across the middle of the back door and she shoved with all her might.

The whir of the alarm spun around her as the warm air hit her face. Without houses and street lights, the night was lit only by a blanket of stars. In two steps, she walked into the path of the motion sensor and the floodlights clicked on.

Her sneakers slid on the dirt and pebbles beneath her feet. Her chest rose and fell in hard breaths as she looked at the semicircle of men standing outside the back door. Four of them, all dressed like their friends who were now moving up behind her and pushing her forward without touching her.

Now locked outside and surrounded, she stared at the line of quiet men, including the two pointing guns right at her. One broke away from the group and closed the distance. As he did, the men following her drew even with her and took off their masks. She knew what letting her see their faces meant—she didn’t stand a chance. They couldn’t leave behind a witness.

Terror surged around her and thickened the air. Choking and gasping, she backed up but a hand landed between her shoulder blades and shoved her forward again.

The man glanced to his right. “Kill the alarm.”

“What do you want?” When he faced her again her voice shook as she fought to keep the fear trembling through her from knocking her to the hard ground.

“You.” A single word said in a slight accent.

Even in her haze it sounded wrong, almost forced. Before she could say anything else, the man reached out and grabbed the side of her neck. His fingers tightened in a squeeze that dug into her flesh and brought tears to her eyes. She bent over and tried to push him away. But he didn’t stop until she was on her knees in front of him.

Panting and rubbing the throbbing pain running into her shoulder, she looked up, trying to make out the man under the mask. “There isn’t any money here.”

He crouched down until his face hovered in front of her and his dark eyes bored into her. “I don’t want money.”

She balled her hands into fists and tried to call up every self-defense strategy Connor ever taught her. Running meant potentially running into a man with a gun, or at best, heading into unknown darkness.

But she could stall. “We don’t have medicine or vaccines.”

“I don’t care.”

The horrors of what that could mean played in her mind. She pushed out the violent images in the hope of staying sane.

The alarm cut off. Only the sound of her labored breathing filled her ears. She filled the silence with babble, hoping a plan would pop into her mind. “You’re in the wrong place.”

“No, Jana Bowen, I’m not.”

Like that, her muscles went slack and her mind went blank again. “You know me?”

She’d been in near hiding since she got there, not venturing out and only calling Connor at prearranged check-in times. The idea of someone tracking her down sent a new shock of fear spiraling through her.

“I want your husband.”

“This is about Connor?” It was his greatest worry come to life. The reason he gave for keeping her in a near lockdown for the five months before she left home. He stressed her safety until it smothered everything else and strained their marriage.

“Your husband and I have some unfinished business.”

“But we’re separated.” Through it all, it hurt to say the words. She never spoke them out loud, but if these men wanted Connor, she wanted Connor to stay away. And she would do anything, say anything, to make that happen.

The man grabbed her chin and forced her head up higher. “Connor will come for you.”

She tried to shake loose of her attacker’s hold but he only tightened his grip. “You don’t understand. We’re not together.”

“As soon as he gets my message, he’ll call.” The man shoved her away, sending her falling on her backside in the dirt. “Then the fun can begin.”

* * *

Connor froze when he heard the doorbell. Sometimes he forgot he even had one of those.

He glanced around the open room with its conference room table and rows of computer monitors, and desks, and walls lined with secure filing cabinets. Keeping in his seat at the main terminal, he reached over and tapped the code into the small gun safe under the desk. There were others in the house, but this one was closest.

Except for the kitchen and a small living room, most of the bottom floor of the three-story brick house served as Maryland headquarters for the Corcoran Team, the private security company he owned. They specialized in risk assessments and high-priority but under-the-radar kidnap and rescue missions. Working off the grid meant deep cover, which also meant he didn’t exactly hand out his address.

He certainly never got unexpected guests around midnight.

He got up as the doorbell rang a second time. One tap of the keyboard and the large screen mounted on the wall flickered on. The alarm system feed showed images from every camera outside the house. Someone with a baseball cap pulled low stood on the front porch holding what looked like an envelope and shifting his weight from foot to foot.

The unwanted visitor was enough to get Connor moving. He slipped around the conference table and headed for the foyer. Cameron Roth, a member of Corcoran’s traveling team, met him at the bottom of the stairs. He was spending a few nights in the crash pad on the third floor, but right now he waited, fully dressed, with a gun in his hand.

“What’s going on?” Cam asked.

“No idea.”

“I’ll handle backup.” Cam took the last few steps and set up position flat against the wall on one side of the door. “You get to be the target.”

Connor tucked his gun at the back of his waistband. He had another by his ankle and Cam as insurance, so Connor felt safe unlocking and opening the door.

He caught the guy halfway down the front steps on the way back to the beat-up sedan idling by the sidewalk. “What do you want?”

The guy jumped then spun around. Make that a kid. The tall, all limbs and no coordination type. He was fidgety and had the eye-darting thing down.

“I have a package,” the kid sputtered.

“At midnight?”

“I got extra to bring it now. Are you Connor Bowen?” When Connor stayed silent, the kid practically threw the padded envelope at him. “I had to wait three extra hours to deliver it as ordered. The guy said it was pretty important and said you’d be the one to answer.”

The timing and delivery didn’t make much sense, but Connor—and Corcoran—had a lot of enemies. It was entirely possible that one of them planned on crawling right up his lawn, or at least wanted to send a message that he could.

Connor was not in the mood to play. “Who? I want a name.”

The kid visibly swallowed and started backing down the stairs. “I don’t have one.”

“Then who do you work for?” Cam stepped into the doorway, not bothering to hide the gun in the hand hanging by his side.

The kid’s eyes almost popped out of his head. He took another step and almost went down when his heel overturned. “Whoa, what are you—”

“Stop.” Connor didn’t yell but the kid stilled anyway. “Now answer the question.”

“I had instructions.” Words rushed out of the kid as he held up his hands. “All the information about my boss is on the packing slip. You can ask him. I just needed the money for, you know, stuff this summer.”

Connor swore. “Unbelievable.”

“You should leave.” Cam waved the kid away. “And stop going to strangers’ houses at midnight.”

Connor heard the slap of sneakers against the pavement followed a minute later by the rev of a car engine. None of which grabbed his attention. Curiosity nailed him. He didn’t even wait for the door to close to check the package. Taking it back into the office, he had a pair of gloves on and went to work.

A few seconds later Cam appeared on the other side of the conference table. He watched the preliminaries with a frown. “Paranoid much?”

“It’s protocol.” The package could contain a host of dangers and Connor was already breaking rules to rip it open fast. “And do you blame me in light of some of the people we handle?”

“Good point.”

Wearing the blue gloves, Connor ran his hand over it, carefully squeezing. “Feels empty.”

“Want to x-ray it?”

The question highlighted the step Connor decided to skip. One of them. “No time.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’m not sure.” But the churning in his stomach and twitching at the back of his neck gave him the clues. His instincts shouted at him to hurry.

Sliding a letter opener under the flap, Connor broke the seal. He upended it onto the paper Cam spread out on the conference room table. A ring bounced around on the table, pinging and spinning. Gold and slim.

With each rotation the anxiety built in Connor. He slammed a palm against it to stop the noise then picked it up. He didn’t know anything about jewelry but he recognized this. To be sure, he tilted it to get a better look at the inscription and read the piece of the Aristotle quote.

“A single soul inhabiting two bodies...”

Cam leaned in and studied the ring. When he straightened again, the frown morphed into a look of confusion. “I don’t get it.”

Connor did. The kick to his gut had him rubbing a hand over his stomach from the sharp whack of pain there. “It’s Jana’s.”

The phone he always carried with him buzzed in his pocket. It couldn’t be a coincidence his wife’s wedding ring arrived right as the private line only she knew about lit up. He braced his body for the killing blow.

If this was the way she planned to tell him their temporary separation had become permanent in her mind, she could forget it. He was not losing her. He’d get on a plane and fly to her. No more waiting or giving her space.

She asked and he obliged, even though every day without her sucked a piece of his soul away. But the end? No way. Wasn’t happening.

Feeling the heat of Cam’s stare and tension coiling inside, Connor slid his thumb across the screen and lifted the phone to his ear. “Jana?”

“No, but she says hello.”

The metallic twinge had Connor’s head snapping back. He recognized a voice modifier. More out of habit and training than actual thought, he pressed the speaker button.

Jana’s voice filled the room. “Connor, stay away!” The tremble gave way to a scream then all sound cut off.

“Jana!” Connor almost dropped the phone as adrenaline and anxiety thundered together in his brain.

The other voice filled the line again. “She’s done talking.”

The word done echoed in Connor’s head. “Where is she? Put her back on.”

“That’s enough.” The modifier only highlighted the menace in the person’s voice. “This isn’t a negotiation. You have your proof of life.”

“Who is this?” Connor could barely get the question out.

This time the voice laughed. “The man holding your wife. And if you want her back, you’d better get smart fast and figure out where she is.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You have seven hours and a long way to travel.”

The line cut out but Connor kept yelling over the buzzing sound in his ear. “Wait, where are you?”

“Okay.” The color drained from Cam’s face as he blew out a breath. “Any idea who that was?”

With a shaking hand, Connor hit the end button and fought off the mix of panic and fury whipping through him. “The man who kidnapped my wife.”

Chapter Two

The noises in Jana’s head roared, growing louder with each second until she woke with a start. She tried to move her arms and something pinched her stomach. She tugged again and bindings dug into her skin.

She bit back a scream as she opened her eyes. Blinking, she adjusted to the pale light and tried not to draw any attention or move her head as she glanced at the area right in front of her and just off to the sides. She couldn’t turn around and see behind her, but she picked up enough clues to know she’d been moved.

A small room with a few windows. No furniture except the rickety, hard chair under her. A wood floor thick with dust. And two bruisers dressed in black, standing on either side of a window next to what she assumed was the front door to this cabin. Without facing her, they looked like the same ones who burst through the door back at the office.

The pieces didn’t add up to anything good.

She searched her memory for a building that fit what she saw and remembered an abandoned shack about two miles from the charity. She’d found it while out walking one day, trying to clear her head and work through the pain of not being near Connor.

Connor... Because of her he would walk into a trap. She closed her eyes on the wave of pain that crashed over her.

“The princess is awake.”

At the sound of the male voice her eyes popped open again. Her captor, the one who had hovered over her earlier while he threatened Connor over the phone, stood right over her again. There still was nothing hiding his identity, which confirmed they did not plan for her to survive whatever they were plotting.

He or one of these guys must have knocked her out. Some way she’d ended up here with only these three. She had no idea how many hours had passed but could see from the area outside the window that it was dark outside. The sky took on an eerie gray and tall trees blocked her view of anything more than a few feet away from the building.

Hoping to stall, do anything to get her bearings again, she said the first thing that came into her head. “How is Connor supposed to find me here?”

The man she thought of as the leader shrugged. “He’s resourceful.”

“He’s not superhuman.” But he was close. He’d saved her from an impossible situation once before and she had to believe he would somehow do it again. But at what cost?

When he received the call he’d sat hours away in Maryland. There was no way he could catch a commercial flight at that hour. But he was ingenious. He knew people. He never spoke about his time before starting the Corcoran Team or whatever he did years ago in black ops, but it conditioned him for situations like this. She knew that much.

The leader crouched down and met her at eye level. “I am well familiar with your husband.”

“How?” Because if he knew Connor from the old days, this guy might have the same skills and then... She couldn’t think about the “then” part.

“You don’t need to worry about that now.”

“He won’t get here in time.” Even if he did land in Utah by the deadline, she had no idea how he would know where to look for her.

Shifting her shoulders, she tried to move her hands but they stayed locked behind her. There was a little give in the ropes binding her ankles, but too much shifting and the chair would tip over. She didn’t see how that would help her.

She concentrated, trying to figure out if she still had her phone, but the ties lay flat and tight against her body and she didn’t see any signs of bulging from the cell. That was really bad news since her phone had a chip in it and could provide Connor with a beacon to find her.

The idea had been for Connor to know her location at all times. He insisted it was a matter of safety, not trust. Before she left home she viewed it as further evidence of his overzealous need to wrap her up and store her away.

All that had changed now. The chip, the constant analysis, his insistence she run recovery drills with the team struck her as sound planning. The ability to commandeer a flight in record time might turn out to be the perfect trait in a husband.

“For your sake, let’s hope you’re wrong about your husband’s tardiness.” The leader stood up but stayed bent over her. His mouth loomed close to her ear. “And stop fidgeting.”

“You think I’m going to sit here for hours and wait to die?”

He balanced his hands on his thighs and continued to lean in close. “Would you rather be unconscious? Because I could arrange that. Again.”

Footsteps clomped against the hardwood right before a second man appeared at the leader’s side. This was one of the guys who chased her through the charity building. “Or I can keep you occupied.”

Her stomach flipped as bile rushed up her throat. This one, taller and bulkier, wore a feral grin. His gaze never stopped roaming and the heat in his eyes promised pain.

The leader chuckled as he stood up and slapped the other man on the back. “Looks like my associate here is eager to step in and keep you company as you wait.”

“Yeah, I am. She ran last time. She won’t this time.” The guy reached out and the tips of his fingers touched her hair.

She flinched and threw her body in the opposite direction. “Don’t touch me.”

The chair rocked and teetered. She would have crashed to the floor, unable to brace for the impact, if the leader hadn’t clamped a hand down on her shoulder and steadied her.

He smiled at his friend. “It would appear she’s not interested.”

Fear pumped through her. Every bone shook and she fought to keep the tremor out of her voice. Panic and revulsion mixed until her head pounded. “No.”

“Are you sure?” This time the oversized attacker grabbed her hair. Balled it in his fist and pulled. “You must be lonely if you and your husband are really separated.”

The leader’s eyebrow lifted. “Well, Jana? Is he right? Are you looking for someone to keep you busy and your mind off your husband?”

Tears came to her eyes as the man ripped strands of hair from her head. She stopped moving—anything to keep him from getting a tighter grip. From pulling her closer to him or his hot breath blowing cross her cheek.

She inhaled through her nose, desperate to calm the nerves jumping around inside her. Tried to remember all of Connor’s instructions and the directions he called out during his impromptu safety drills. The most basic was to keep the attackers talking. Make them deal with her as a human being and not a product to be traded. “Tell me why you want Connor.”

The leader shrugged. “Tell me why you don’t.”

“He will kill you both when he gets here.”

The men looked at each other and laughed. The one with the death grip on her hair spoke up. “I doubt that.”

“Let me go.”

“That’s enough.” The leader pushed his friend back and crowded her.

She could smell the sweat on his skin and the heat pouring off him through his clothes. She fought to keep the dizziness from knocking her over as terror ran wild through her. “What are you—”

“Quiet or I will put one in your mouth, too.” A black slip of material dropped out of the leader’s hand and he waved it in front of her face. He came at her with his hands out. His thigh touched against hers as he practically stood on top of her.

“No.” She shook her head, swiveled and turned.

He grabbed her chin in a bruising hold. “Stop.”

When he slipped the material over her eyes, the room went black. She couldn’t make out shadows. Nothing. Terror gripped her in the darkness. Fear like she’d never known crashed over her as she gasped for breath.

Her panic only made the leader angrier. His motions turned jerky and more forceful. He tied the knot behind her head and pulled tight, causing pain to spread through the back of her head.

“Easy.” An unfamiliar male voice, barely a whisper, sounded directly behind her.

A hand cuffed the side of her head. “She’s a—”

“Right. Let’s get ready,” the leader said.

His voice she recognized. It was burned on her brain. He talked with Connor. He acted as if he knew all about her husband. And now he talked with someone who hid in the shadows behind her. Another man so quiet she hadn’t even sensed his presence.

“You have to give Connor more time.” She had no idea if that was true but she needed noise. Needed them to talk to her before all of the sensations bombarding her dragged her under.

Then a presence stood right behind her. Not touching but close enough for something in her skin to tingle.

“Don’t underestimate him.”

It was the voice. The one she didn’t recognize. And the fury in those three words had her shivering so hard she couldn’t stop.

* * *

Connor lowered the binoculars. Snipers used them for a reason. This set had increased magnification and brightness so that being more than two hundred yards away from his target didn’t matter at all. These worked for up to a thousand yards, so he could easily see two armed men walking around inside the cabin and the top of another person’s head. Even in the poor light he could tell the hair color matched Jana’s.

That was enough for him. He checked his bulletproof vest and started to leave the protective outcropping of rocks where he hid with Cam. Connor was careful not to make too much noise but rubble and rocks crunched beneath his feet.

Cam grabbed his arm. “Hold up.”

That wasn’t happening. Already Connor’s mind spun with a list of horrible things his wife could have endured. He needed her out of there right now. “Jana doesn’t have more time.”

“According to the GPS in her phone she’s not even in there.”

Throughout the entire tense flight across the country, they’d talked strategy. Connor’s second-in-command, Davis Weeks, stayed back at Annapolis headquarters and provided intel via the comm they all wore during operations. Even now the entire team listened in and stayed connected via earpieces and watches.

All Davis’s tracking and calculations put Jana at the charity headquarters a few miles away. Connor knew that was wrong and Davis agreed. “The GPS is too easy. It’s a setup,” Connor said.

Cam nodded. “Probably.”

“They would have found her cell and planted it somewhere else as a red herring. That’s what the guy on the phone was talking about when he dared me to find her.”

“Still, we need to be smart.”

“Listen to the man.” Holt Kingston made the comment in the comm then appeared in front of Connor two seconds later.

Connor blinked, trying to figure out why the entire three-man Corcoran traveling team surrounded him all of a sudden. He’d grabbed Cam and brought him along more because he was in the house when the call came than anything else.

Without Cam, Connor would have called in favors and caught a private flight on his own, only clueing the team in once he was gone. This was about Jana. It was his fight.

Cam clearly hadn’t agreed and had, instead, immediately sounded the alarm. Now Holt, the de facto leader of this squad who answered only to Connor, and Shane Baker showed up. They were supposed to be taking some time off after a tense kidnap rescue in Mexico. So much for vacation.

“When did you two get here?” Connor asked.

Shane shrugged. “We booked it over here after Davis and Cam called us in.”

“Which you should have done.” Holt emphasized his point by checking his gun. When he looked up again he was every inch the former special ops soldier—formidable, serious and lethal.

That described the entire team and was doubly true for the traveling members. They spent their lives on the road and seemed to prefer it that way. Corcoran operated as a private security firm. When the training they offered wasn’t followed and things went wrong, Corcoran cleaned up the mess.

Holt was the ultimate expert in planning victim extractions. With Cam, a guy who once worked in black ops so secret even Connor couldn’t find intel on the work, and Shane, Holt’s best friend and former partner in special ops, this was not a group a smart person took on.

Still, this was not just any assignment to Connor. “This is personal.”

Cam exhaled, his frustration clear in the lines on his forehead and tick in his jaw. “Jana is important to all of us.”

Holt talked right on as if he had the go-ahead. “Shane’s done some recon, and you’re right about the charity offices. Looks like a trap. There were four men stationed outside—hiding, but we found them—and no heat signatures inside.”

Shane hissed. “That doesn’t necessarily mean—”

“Don’t.” Connor took a threatening step forward. He knew what Shane was suggesting, that maybe Jana wasn’t alive, but Connor couldn’t hear it. Wouldn’t let it be true.

“How did you find us?” Cam asked, diffusing the tension pulsing around them.

“Your GPS works fine.” Holt looked around. “So why do you think she’s here over any cave in the area?”

Connor handed over the binoculars and pointed to the falling-down shack in the distance. “Davis said that was the nearest usable building.”

“Didn’t you hear Joel’s report?” Cam asked.

Holt shook his head. “The comm blinked out on us for a few minutes. Not sure why.”

“Joel repositioned a satellite to provide extra surveillance for us here.” Cam clicked a button on his watch and showed the small screen to Holt and Shane. “Joel also somehow broke into the charity office’s alarm feed and rewound to see Jana being dragged away there hours ago. A black truck drove in this direction. It looks like the abandoned one we nearly tripped over on our way here.”

Connor appreciated Cam filling in the blanks. Even saying the words, thinking about some man grabbing and hurting Jana, made fury thunder in his veins. Since Joel Kidd operated as their tech whiz and managed to get the confirmation, that was good enough for Connor.

Shane grunted. “Gotta love Joel’s tech voodoo.”

They had to move, but Connor needed to make a few things clear. He had priorities and they were all going to be bound by them. He was the boss and this was nonnegotiable. “Before we start—”

Holt held up a hand. “Connor.”

“Don’t say it, man.” Shane shook his head. “Just don’t.”

Connor hoped the operation went down smooth and fast, but he knew from experience things could go wrong. Innocents could get caught in the crossfire. “You save her. I don’t care what happens to me. You get her out alive and uninjured.”

“We all go in and we all come out.” Holt’s voice rose as he talked.

“Right.” Connor didn’t test his men further. They got it. Didn’t like it, but he knew they understood. He pointed at Shane and Holt. “You two cause a diversion at the front and draw the gunfire away from Jana and the inside of the cabin. Cam and I go in hard through the windows at the back.”

Cam nodded. “Done.”

“Let’s move.” Holt said the words then took off with Shane. They ran at a crouch, quiet and fast, blending into the horizon.

Connor and Cam took off in the opposite direction. Scanning the area, Connor watched for reinforcements and more attackers. Only two men with Jana struck him as light. It could mean the guy who wanted him to come to Utah depended on his subterfuge at the charity office working. Or it could mean something else. Either way, Connor was on edge as he kept his mind focused on the task ahead.

Per protocol, the comm stayed quiet as they circled wide to the back of the building. Connor ran to the far side. His back hit the wall and he slid down until he balanced on the balls of his feet. One hand snaked up as he tested the window and found it locked. He knew Cam had the same experience when the word locked came over the comm in an almost soundless whisper.

Connor wanted to spring up and look inside, but he waited, doing a mental countdown as he reached for patience and held for the signal. The line clicked once. That meant they were ready to go.

Four against two, and with Corcoran in the mix, Connor knew this should be an easy takedown. Clean and quick. But that depended on it being surprise-free and he’d been around long enough to know things rarely turned out that way.

A second click came right before a loud crash. Men’s voices filled the quiet air. They were yelling, then the bangs started. Gunfire and shuffling. More shouting.

Connor didn’t wait another minute. He jumped up and stepped out just far enough to get leverage. Ducking with his shoulder forward and head tucked, he ran. His body slammed into the window and the hit jolted through him. Glass shattered around him, the crackling and crunching filled his ears.

Gunfire continued to pop as momentum had him flying through the air and sliding across the hard floor on his hip. He rolled, keeping as much bare skin away from the sharp and broken edges as possible. When he stopped spinning, he looked up and saw Jana tied to a chair a few feet away. Shards of glass were scattered around her feet and a few caught the light where they stuck in her hair and across her lap.

He took in her wide eyes and the tear rolling down her cheek and scooted over to her, ignoring the crunching underneath him. When the shots grew closer and footsteps pounded on the front porch and near the open door, he gripped his knife and sawed through the bindings on her legs. After a few cuts, her ankle kicked free and she moved on the chair. It wasn’t until that moment that Connor noticed the second spray of glass in front of him and Cam crouched down, loosening the ties on her arms.

Just as they released her, the door slammed open. Connor didn’t hesitate. He yanked on Jana’s arm and tugged her to the floor on top of him. Firing with one hand, he used the other to shield her under him while they flipped over. Glass crushed under his arm and cut into the back of his hand where he cradled her head, keeping it off the dangerous floor.

One man peeked into the doorway then his head shot back out of sight again. The second time the guy’s gun came around first. Right when Connor spied one eye, the guy’s gun dropped and his body followed face forward to the floor. It took another beat or two for Connor to realize the thunder of gunfire had stopped and silence filled the room.

Blood oozed from the downed man’s head and puddled around his hair. Holt and Shane stepped over the lifeless body as they stormed inside.

Seeing his men snapped the stillness that had frozen Connor in place. “Everyone okay?”

“Two down and all is quiet.” Holt didn’t stop watching Jana as he talked.

Careful not to crush her underneath him, Connor looked down and stared into the big brown eyes he loved so much. Jana’s pale face couldn’t hide the high cheekbones and sexy mouth that drove him wild. After months apart there was so much he wanted to say. But not in front of an audience.

He went with the obvious. “Are you hurt?”

Without saying a word, she reached up and slipped a hand around the back of his neck. When she tugged his head down, he didn’t fight her. Inches separated them until his mouth covered hers and men standing around didn’t matter. Everything faded into the background except her and those lips and the kiss that sucked him under just as it always did.

His mouth wandered and his breath caught. He wanted to deepen the kiss. To ask her to come home right there, to forget all that had just happened and not take no for an answer. He settled for what she let him have now and tried to make that enough.

After nuzzling his nose in her hair, he forced his head to lift. “Jana?”

“You came.” She shifted and looked around. “And brought the big guns with you.”

How could she doubt he would get there? He would have stolen a plane if that’s what it took. “Of course.”

She still didn’t move. Just laid in his arms and let Connor keep the majority of her body off the glass on the floor.

Her gaze went back to him. “Did you get them all?”

“Yes.”

It was what she needed to hear and it wasn’t a complete lie. They got the ones they saw and the ones shooting back. As soon as he got her off the floor, he’d worry about the other men lurking out there and try to figure out why someone wanted him enough to take Jana. If the person knew him at all, he had to know touching her was a death sentence.

A smile kicked up at the corner of her mouth as she started to sit up with his help. “Funny, but I thought you were going to tell me it was too easy.”

He winced. His wife wasn’t stupid, so he didn’t treat her that way. “Well...”

The corners of her mouth fell. “Connor?”

“It was.”

Chapter Three

At Connor’s words, Jana shook her head and forced her mind to clear. She looked at the impressive devastation around her. The walls of the small cabin were all torn up from gunfire and glass covered the floor.

The front door hung from its hinges and a wall of muscled, fierce men surrounded her. She knew each of them would protect her. All would step in front of her and take a bullet. That’s who they were—quiet men who saved others for a living and refused the title of hero...no matter how much they deserved it.

Seeing Connor hit her like it always did. Made her breathless as her stomach performed a little dance. From the beginning, the combination of broad shoulders, black hair and dark eyes had battered her control.

He carried his emotional baggage with him and it showed in the serious expression on his face. He wasn’t pretty. He was tough and sexy and still had the power to make her heart stutter.

But the hesitation followed by the admission felled her. Putting aside the fear buzzing in her head and making her dizzy, she grabbed on to Connor’s arm and let him lift her to her feet. Pieces of glass hung from the ends of her hair and stabbed into her legs through her jeans, but she ignored all that.

She wanted to hide in a corner, but she forced her body to remain steady, even as she kept a hand locked around Connor’s arm. “How many men did you take out?”

“Two.”

That number was way off from what it should have been. She closed her eyes for a second and tried to remember the voices and faces of her attackers and kidnappers. Panic crashed over her but the feel of Connor’s hand over hers helped her push through it.

She swallowed hard to regain her voice and composure. “Let me see the bodies.”

With a hand skimming her hair, he frowned at her. “You sure?”

The soothing gesture almost did her in. The urge to curl up in his arms and let him make it all better nearly swamped her. She wasn’t weak and after a lifetime of being dragged around to camps and medical centers across the most poverty-stricken parts of the world by her doctor father she didn’t shake easily. But the knee-buckling kiss she gave Connor the minute the shooting ended was only part of what she wanted from him.

Drawing in a deep breath, she pushed her needs aside. There would be time later. They had so much to talk about and work through. She’d never intended to stay away from home this long but a simple solution to their complex issues still hadn’t hit her.

Now all she wanted was these men home and safe and her in bed with Connor over her. Once she survived this, maybe that could happen.

“I should check.” She eased up on the clench on Connor’s arm. If she let them see the terror still racing through her, they’d go deeper into male protection mode and she needed them to focus on what was happening around them, not on her.

“What?” Holt asked.

She glanced over at one of Connor’s team leaders. She’d liked Holt from the beginning. Raised in Hawaii by his Japanese mother, Holt protected his sister and fought for his country. He was rock solid, like all the team members were, but there was something about the way he usually maintained silence that made her smile. He backed up Connor and she knew her husband’s life was safe in Holt’s hands. Still, Holt wasn’t a “yes man” and Connor described that as Holt’s best quality.

“To see if these two were there when I got trapped at the charity.” Because if they weren’t then there were even more men out there ready to hunt Connor down.

He put a hand on each forearm and turned her to face him again. His intense stare bored into her. “What does that mean?”

“Back at the office two came in the front, waving guns around. I ran to the back and there were four more out there. Waiting.”

Holt shook his head. “Damn.”

He motioned to Shane and each man took an arm of the dead man and dragged him to the porch. They moved fast and kept low. The guy got a quick patdown then she saw a flash. Before any of it registered in her brain they were back inside.

Shane leaned the broken door against the frame and each took a position on the side of the opening and looked into the dark night. He stopped only long enough to hand something off to Cam.

“You’re lucky to be alive.” The chain continued as Cam pivoted and stepped between Jana and Connor, holding something in his palm.

“They clearly wanted me alive to get to Connor here.” She glanced down and noticed Cam held a cell. With a swipe of his thumb, a man’s face appeared on the screen. Eyes closed and face bruised. She leaned in closer to get a better look. “What’s this?”

“I got a photo of the guy Holt took down outside and sent it to Davis for facial identification.” Cam moved the cell around. “This is it.”

A shiver ran through her when she recognized the guy as the one who touched her hair. “That’s one of them. One that chased me, I mean.”

Connor broke his hold on her and tapped a finger against his ear. “Hey, Davis, any luck on the ID check?”

Shane frowned as he touched his ear. “Davis?”

Holt followed suit and did a comm check. When he shook his head, she knew they’d somehow lost contact with the Maryland office. The way Cam and Connor crowded around her only highlighted the potential new danger.

“What happened?” she asked, amazed at how small and quiet her voice sounded.

Connor motioned for Cam to pocket the phone. “Everyone stay on guard. Could be nothing.”

The shaking in her bones suggested otherwise. If she shook any more her teeth would rattle. “Or it could be something, like a blocked signal.”

She knew just enough to be frozen in fear. There were devices, ways to keep people from communicating on an internal system. Ways to cut people off and make them more vulnerable.

“We’re going to assume the signal was momentarily lost.” Holt swore when a stray piece of wood from the broken door crunched under his foot. “Okay, let’s run through this. There was nothing on the guy outside or the one on the porch. No ID or obvious markings.”

She knew he meant tattoos and markings. More than once the team had tangled with some nasty international gang types during kidnap recovery, so the team clearly thought that was a possibility here.

There was no good answer, but trained mob assassins struck her as one of the worst possibilities. She rushed to give the team as full a picture as possible so they could assess. “There were four men here earlier.”

Connor froze in the act of typing something into his black watch. “What?”

The news she was about to deliver would get them all moving. It wouldn’t go over well but evading was never the answer with this group. “Actually, there were seven men altogether. Six back at the charity office, including the leader, when they took me. Then when I woke up—”

“They knocked you out?”

She nodded because the red wash of anger on Connor’s face and mumbled profanity she heard from the others said enough. She didn’t need to add to whatever was happening inside of him—or any of them—with more words about that.

“When I got here, I heard another voice,” she said. “A guy behind me, so I couldn’t see him. He seemed to be calling the shots and the one the leader from the attack on the charity office answered to.”

“We still have four hanging around at the charity. Or we did. They could be mobilizing and on the way here by now,” Shane said.

Holt nodded but his attention never wavered from whatever he watched outside. “We should assume that.”

“There are men over there now?” Panic surged through her all over again. She had protection. She had them.

“Were, but probably still are.”

Shane’s confirmation was enough for her. She turned back to Connor, made him focus on her over the emotions spinning through him. Touching him was like touching stone. Anger vibrated off of him as he held his body stiff.

She worked to keep the worry out of her voice. “We need to warn Marcel and the others to stay away from the office. I don’t want anyone else dragged into this, whatever it is.”

“Marcel is...?” Cam asked.

“Marcel Lampari. He runs the charity she’s working for.” Connor didn’t break eye contact with her. “He’ll be fine. Go back to the part about the other men who attacked you.”

This subject, Marcel, was a sensitive one. She knew Connor blamed Marcel for so much. When she worked overseas years ago and masked gunmen intercepted a vaccine shipment with her on board, Connor and his group got her out. That’s how they met. In a mix of adrenaline, heat and terror, which she should have seen as a sign of how their marriage would run.

But they’d put the kidnapping incident behind them long ago and fallen in love. Only one topic remained and bubbled up every so often to wallop them. Back then Connor unloaded on Marcel for his poor security and vulnerable distribution channels. The charity had fixed all those issues since then but Connor’s distrust of Marcel never faded.

Connor believed Marcel viewed her as more than a fellow worker. That he would leave his wife if Jana showed any interest. She never picked up on whatever Connor saw in Marcel and the man never made a move, but the attraction was very real in Connor’s mind and he didn’t try to hide it.

When she’d had to get away she’d wrestled with the idea of coming to Utah, fearing it would hurt Connor even more to have her leave and go to Marcel. But she had nowhere else to turn. She’d lost her father when she was twenty and her mother a decade before that. Her life with Connor had been so insular and her need to get away so desperate that without really thinking it through she ran right to the one man sure to infuriate Connor.

She never meant to betray him. She loved Connor and would never cheat on him, but in her haze she messed up. Only two weeks before, Connor confronted her about Marcel during one of their weekly telephone calls and Connor’s anger bubbled over. He told her his patience had expired and started a countdown to come get her. She’d hung up on him and now that decision haunted her.

If they had any chance of making their way back to each other they had to work out the Marcel issue, but now was not the time. “Connor, please.”

A charged silence lit up the cabin. Even Holt gave a quick look over his shoulder to see what was happening in the center of the room.

Connor finally broke the quiet but did nothing to hide the fury shading his voice. “Cam will warn everyone.”

Him not blowing up qualified as a small victory because this topic changed his otherwise steady personality white hot. She took that as a positive sign.

With one last glance at the photos on the cell, the pieces came together in her head. “Not that long before you guys crashed in, there were four people here with me. These two plus the one you talked with on the phone and another.”

“How did two get away without any of us seeing them?” Cam asked.

Connor continued to stare at her as he took Cam’s cell out of her hands. “Good question, but we’re talking about people with skills. These aren’t petty thieves. These guys look like professionals and the guy on the phone specifically asked for me.”

Shane blew out a long breath. “The news just keeps getting better.”

Her heart hammered and the thumping of the beat in her ears had her inhaling in an effort to calm down. She didn’t know what would happen next or how they would get out of the cabin, so she said one of the things she absolutely needed to share. “Thank you all for coming.”

“There wasn’t a chance we wouldn’t.” Cam reached over and squeezed her hand. “And not just us. We had to keep the Maryland team from heading out here, too.”

“You’re one of us.” Shane treated her to a wink before looking away again.

Connor moved into her line of sight. “Yes, you are.”

Some of the anxiety pinging around inside of her faded. “Connor, I need you to know—”

He put a finger over her lips. “We have a lot to talk about, and we will because I am done living like this, but all of that has to wait until you’re safe.”

She wanted to spill it all. Tell him how much she still loved him and spell out all of their problems and make him talk through each one with her.

Forget about the presence of his men and the danger. If this was it, if this was how it ended, she wanted him to know she had never stopped loving him and never would. He was hers forever.

But the closed look on his face and slight shake of his head told her this was not the time. Certainly not the place. “Okay.”

He touched her cheek. “Did you recognize the voice or face of the man who talked to me on the phone?”

“No.” And she had tried. She’d turned over every memory and all the bits Connor shared of his life before her.

“Folks.” Holt cleared his throat. “We’re going to have sunrise soon and we have some people to warn.”

“Right” Connor rubbed his hands together. “We need to get word out to your coworkers.”

She knew that cost him something and rested her forehead against his chin to let him know how much it meant. “Thank you.”

A strange red light flashed through the room. She spied a dot and watched it streak along the wall. Connor followed her gaze before his grip tightened.

“Get down!” he yelled as he knocked the chair over and dragged her to the floor with it.

She blinked and he had her on her stomach, wedged under his body with her head against the upturned chair’s wooden seat. The first boom had her lifting up in shock. Before she could say anything or even think, Connor put a hand on her head and pushed her down again.

She could see from their black shoes that Holt and Shane moved around. She heard shuffling off to the side and assumed Cam kept shifting and firing.

“Do not move.” Connor spoke right into her ear. He could have been yelling, but with all the noise crashing and thumping it barely registered as a whisper.

Then the weight against her back lifted. Turning, she watched him sprint toward the broken window he came through earlier. As he got there a bullet clipped the frame and wood splintered right by his face. He ducked but not before a piece clipped his cheek.

She bit back a scream as wood kicked up around her. She sat up and her shoes slipped against the floor as she skidded on her butt, looking for any square foot of the floor not covered by debris.

“Incoming.” Red lights raced over Cam and he ducked. “Jana, tuck in a ball.”

She shook her head as she watched Cam’s mouth move and heard his voice, but the words wouldn’t register. She was about to warn him about the lights when Connor’s body slammed into her. He skidded across the floor almost hitting the far wall. Glass crunched all around her as they slid.

One second he stood a few feet away. The next, he covered her, pressing her down as his body jerked and he grunted in her ear.

As fast as it started, the gunfire broke off again. She peeked over Connor’s shoulder and saw the front door had fallen over and both Holt and Shane were gone. Pieces of wood and shards from the wall and chair littered the floor.

Cam crouched next to her head. “Are you okay?”

She looked up, thinking to reassure him. But his entire focus stayed on Connor.

“What’s going on?” She tried to shift but the weight on her grew heavier and she only made it to her side. The pieces fell together as panic roared through her. “Connor?”

Cam put a hand on her shoulder. “Hold still a second.”

She grabbed at Cam’s hand, clawing in panic from the narrow-eyed concern on his face. “Is he hurt?”

Footsteps thumped on the hard floor as Holt stepped back inside. “We have four down... What’s going on?”

“Help me.” Worry edged Cam’s voice as he caught her hand in his.

Holt dropped to his knees on her other side. “What are you doing?”

“It’s Connor.” Cam cleared his throat. “We need this vest off so I can take a look.”

They wore matching flatlined expressions that had her heartbeat nosediving. She flipped over and moved, trying to get a better look at what was happening behind her.

She shoved at Connor’s shoulder. “Answer me.”

He swore as he rolled onto his side on the floor next to her. “I’m fine.”

He shifted up to his elbow, but Holt pushed him down on his stomach and held him there with a strong hand. The sound of Velcro ripped through the otherwise quiet room as Cam stepped over her and dug his hands underneath Connor’s body.

“You were shot in the back?” The words stuck in her throat as she struggled to breathe.

Cam carefully peeled the vest off and exhaled as he fell back on his butt. “We’re good.”

“Are you sure?” She struggled to sit up and look over the two broad backs in her way. She scanned Connor’s sweat-soaked T-shirt and the good news sunk in. “There’s no blood.”

Cam nodded. “The bullet went into the vest.”

“It held. Always nice when the equipment works.” Holt cuffed Connor on the shoulder then stood up.

Her legs refused to move. Relief hit her hard enough to send her slumping against the floor. “I can’t believe you were shot.”

One of Cam’s eyebrows lifted. “It was either him or you.”

The scene replayed in her mind. Her on the floor. Cam calling out a warning. The bright flash of red light she only now remembered. It cut through the air and then Connor smacked into her. That meant one thing.... He’d risked his life to save her.

If anything had been off, even by a fraction, he’d be dead. The air whooshed right back out of her lungs. “You could have miscalculated and been hit.”

Connor sat up, wincing as he moved. “I didn’t.” The room started spinning and a wave of dizziness set in.

“Are you hurt?”

“I bet he’s sore as hell.” Holt snorted. “When the bullet slams into you it hurts like a—”

A sharp look from Connor stopped whatever else Holt might have said. Stretching and rubbing his back, Connor stood up. “What do we have outside?”

That one made Holt smile. “A bunch of dead shooters.”

Connor reached down and helped her to her feet. She hung on just in case her knees gave out on her, which, with the crushing despair at the thought of Connor being shot still zipping through her head, was a distinct possibility. “You got them all?”

Holt shrugged. “The ones that didn’t run away.”

Of course they got the bad guys. That’s how the Corcoran Team operated. They protected and they won. She’d come to depend on that so much that she couldn’t conceive of any of them getting injured. It’s probably what kept her from living every hour in fear.

Davis and Holt followed Connor’s example and led without even trying. Pax, Davis’s brother, and Joel provided some of the team’s lighter moments back in Maryland but were deadly lethal when necessary.

She knew all of them except Ben. From her conversations with Connor about the battles Ben had taken on during his former job with NCIS, she had no doubt he fit in fine with the rest of them.

“I took photos of...” Shane stopped just inside the doorway. His gaze bounced around the cabin-turned-shooting-gallery. “What did I miss?”

“Nothing.” Connor tugged her closer and put a hand just below her belt.

No way was she forgetting what just happened. “Let me see your back.”

His hold didn’t lessen. “It’s fine.”

“Okay, well, I have more photos.” Shane glanced at Holt and a look passed between them before Shane handed the camera to Connor.

Jana couldn’t read the guys’ expressions but knew they engaged in some sort of silent conversation. She guessed she was the subject. Her or Connor, or both.

Connor started to hand the cell over then stopped. “I hate to ask—”

“I’ll look.” She took it before he could analyze and start frowning. “Huh. Well, I have bad news.”

“More?” Cam asked, the amusement evident in his voice.

Connor’s stern expression didn’t slip. “What?”

“I only recognize this one.” She pointed at the second photo. She scrolled the images back and forth. “These three were not part of the crowd when I got kidnapped.”

“So there are even more of them. Great.” Shane swore under his breath. “And for the record, I hate that you’re now an assignment.”

“She’s not.” Connor leaned into her and his breath caressed her cheek. “Which one was the leader?”

She loved the closeness but knew her answer would put him straight back into work-concentration mode. “None. The leader, the one who called you, isn’t here. He got away.”

“Which means?” Cam asked.

Connor’s shoulders stiffened as he stood up straight again. “We still have a problem.”

In her mind, that qualified as a huge understatement.

Chapter Four

Luc Pearson gathered his group under a towering rock pile near the charity offices. The storm had passed over, taking the kicking winds with it. Now the sky brightened as they edged closer to daybreak. That meant time was running out.

Even though the area had emptied out during the night, Luc wanted this part of the game wrapped up before people woke and started buzzing around. The last thing he needed was more witnesses. There had been enough death.

Which brought his mind back to the group. He looked around the semicircle of his remaining men. The Corcoran team had knocked out six trained shooters without breaking a sweat. He’d been warned about the team’s skills but this amount of loss wasn’t part of the deal.

Rich Stapleton shifted his weight from foot to foot. “You said there would be one, maybe two of them. We’re looking at a full team with a lot of firepower and impressive training.”

“We still have the advantage.” Bruce Harding’s flat tone rang out in the still night. “This isn’t their turf.”

Rich scoffed. “You think we’re winning this thing? I have a bunch of dead bodies that suggest otherwise. Bodies of good men who were told this would be a quick stint.”

Luc decided not to point out the obvious, about how those so-called experts died without putting up much of a fight. Truth was, the lopsided battle surprised him. He’d studied the files of all the hires for this job. All but Bruce. He was the boss’s pick and he acted as if he was untouchable. Probably because he was.

But Rich and his crew operated on another level. They didn’t have the boss’s protection or his trust. If he wanted them gone, they’d be terminated and that meant quieted so they couldn’t talk. Bruce had made it clear that was one of his duties. If the word came down, he’d handle it.

Luc had found Rich through contacts. Locating the right guy, one who walked away from the army edgy and frustrated, blaming the government for his failings, proved easy enough. With all the options out there, Luc had insisted on former military and disillusioned.

Turned out Rich knew plenty of the well-trained-but-done-with-rules and the so-called bright-lines-between-right-and-wrong types. Men whose loyalties could be bought. Rich had served with some of them and knew others by reputation.

Luc culled through potential additions to the group with Rich, framing just the right collection of men who had few ties to each other and a deep need for cash. Rich picked the squad but Luc had final approval. And now many of them were gone.

“Apparently Connor Bowen travels with reinforcements.” Bruce tapped the blade of his knife against his open palm but never lifted his head.

“Would have been nice to know that instead of being told he’d rush out here and make himself an easy target.”

One of the men offered the insight. Luc didn’t remember the guy’s name and didn’t intend to learn it. He preferred think about the men in terms of where they lived. That made this one Reno.

“How did they get the woman without any bloodshed on their side?” Rich asked.

That one was easy. Luc had explained the failure to his boss earlier and repeated it now. “Your buddies failed.”

Reno took a threatening step forward. “Watch it.”

Rich signaled Reno and another man to stay back. “Tread carefully.”

Luc watched a pickup truck ride the dirt road a few hundred yards away. When it turned and headed toward the town, or what qualified as one out here, he let out the breath he was holding. “Why? It’s not as if these guys can hit a target.”

“Why don’t I show you how skilled I am?” Reno asked.

“You think this is funny, Luc? That standing there relaying the boss’s orders means you’re safe from us?” Rich managed to squint and telegraph menace at the same time.

Luc’s hand slid to the gun slipped into his belt. He’d paid for their time but these guys weren’t exactly known for deep and abiding loyalty. “I think I paid for competence and I’m not getting it.”

“But we don’t work for you, now do we?” Rich’s men grunted in agreement with Rich’s comment. “Funny how you forgot to mention you were only the middleman—powerless—when you hired us.”

They didn’t have time for insubordination and Luc’s tolerance had hit its end. “You get paid from me, so I am your boss.”

“Nah, I don’t think so.” Rich shook his head. “Who else is working this?”

Luc’s hand inched closer to the gun.

Bruce beat him to it. “That’s enough.”

He morphed from bored and disinterested to battle mode in two seconds. He didn’t lift a weapon or even move a step. The grave delivery and sharp whack of his voice did it.

Luc had served with men like Bruce. They demanded attention and when they didn’t get it, they unleashed a wrath that destroyed everything. Luc suspected Bruce hovered about an inch away from snapping now.

No matter how clear the message, Rich appeared to ignore it. He hitched his chin in Bruce’s general direction. “Why should I listen to you?”

Reno nodded. “Good question.”

And there it was. Luc stepped out of the way just in time. The words had barely left Rich’s mouth when Bruce stepped right into Rich’s face with a hand wrapped around the back of his neck. With his other hand he pressed a knife against Rich’s throat. “Want to ask again?”

Rich thrashed until the knife pricked skin, then he went still. “What are you—”

“Do not move unless you want a deeper cut.” Bruce grabbed Rich’s bulletproof vest in his fist and dragged it right up to his throat, nearly chocking him. “Tell your friends to step back before I slice you.”

Rich didn’t hesitate. Didn’t move, either. “Listen to him.”

“Good.” Bruce leaned in even closer to his prey. “Now I have one word for you.”

“What?”

Luc had to give Rich credit. His voice stayed steady and he didn’t beg. He used his free hand to wave his men back and Luc guessed that one gesture saved a bloodbath.

“Deniability.” Bruce emphasized all six syllables. “We don’t want details. Details put you in danger. Makes you usable to guys like Connor and a liability to us. The kind of liability a sharpshooter might eliminate with a shot to the forehead.”

When Bruce shoved him away, Rich stumbled back. He came to a halt and tugged on the bottom of his vest. “You made your point.”

“Good.”

For one more beat, Rich held Bruce’s stare then turned to Luc. “So what now? We have them trapped in a shack. I say we blow it up.”

Tempting, but not the plan. If he had his choice, Luc would take that tactic and cut his losses. But his boss was a very angry man with a definite plan. A powerful man bent on revenge. “We need them to escape. To believe they got away and turn sloppy.”

Rich snorted. “Why?”

“The plan hasn’t changed.” Bruce jumped in before Luc could answer. “We want Connor and his wife on the run. The others are expendable and it’s time for them to go.”

The other men mumbled but Rich put the feelings into words. “You think this Connor is a guy you can mess with? Track down like an animal? No way.”

But Luc understood this part. He had a wife once. Lost her in an instant at the hands of a drunk driver. He knew what he would do to bring her back. What lengths he would have employed to protect her if he could only go back in time, including taking the killing blow for her. Worse, he was intimately familiar with how a man pushed to the edge was capable of anything.

“When he’s out on his own, without backup and trying to keep his wife alive, he’ll fold. If we have her we can make him do anything. Racing across the country was just the start.” Luc spoke with absolute certainty.

He didn’t have to guess or wonder. He didn’t even need to hear it from his boss. The fear in Connor Bowen’s voice over the phone said it all—his wife came first.

Rich didn’t look convinced. Even in the limited light, the frown lines and twist of his mouth were clear. “He didn’t strike me as the collapsing type. It’s more likely he’ll double down and become a killing machine.”

The grating sound of Bruce’s knife sliding into a metal sheath stopped conversation and drew all of their attention. “Let’s get back to the team and discuss what we do to get rid of them this time around. I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of losing men.”

“And we can’t afford to be down many more.” Last thing Luc could do was call in reinforcements. This job had a ticking clock and the countdown had started. “So we separate and destroy.”

If possible, Rich’s frown deepened even further. “Meaning?”

“I think explosion does have a nice ring to it.” Luc had the supplies piled in the back of his nondescript truck, just waiting to light up the sky before morning dawned. Nothing would trace back to him, not even the truck he bought for cash under a fake name.

Bruce’s dark chuckle echoed around them. “I like the finality of your suggestion.”

They could think whatever they wanted so long as they got the job done...this time. Luc scanned the dwindling group. “You have one assignment.”

Something in his tone had even Bruce looking around. “Which is?”

“Connor stays, but don’t let the other team members get out alive.” It was the one sure way to knock the man off his game. Take out his friends and leave him reeling.

And to save his own hide, that is exactly what Luc promised his boss only a few minutes ago he would do...and he’d deliver.

* * *

Holt lowered his fist and gave the all-clear signal. The group started walking again under the blanket of stars. Whatever he heard out among the red rocks and tree stubs must have turned out to be innocent. Possibly an animal and clearly nothing with a weapon. With his tracking skills, he’d know. Which was why Connor put Holt in the lead.

After a brief argument where Connor insisted Jana wear his bulletproof vest, they’d slipped out of the shack one at a time, with Shane and Holt in front drawing attention away from Jana. Connor doubted she even understood the tactic. Reality was, with the lineup then and gathering of his men around her now they’d have ample warning if someone went after her. They’d all sacrifice their lives for her.

Their willingness to die for her, for them, mattered to Connor. He didn’t take that sort of devotion for granted. He appreciated all of his men and grew more grateful every day for their agreement to throw in with him. People depended upon their skills and he’d come to expect them to stay honed and ready.

They ran drills because he insisted, but he knew they’d keep in shape and sharp without any prodding from him. That’s who they were—solid and stable. The very best at their jobs.

Connor checked the comm again. “Davis?”

“I just tried.” Shane shook his head. “Got nothing.”

Pebbles crunched and their feet fell in a steady cadence. When they broke through a mass of trees and over the rise of loose rock, Holt motioned for them to crouch down.

Up until then Jana had stayed quiet and marched along beside Connor. She had his belt in a loose hold between two fingers. If he walked too fast, she’d tug and he’d slow down. They’d rehearsed the system and used it the last time someone grabbed her.

Back then they didn’t know each other and he’d had to run through the silent signal and convince her not to talk during their escape. This time she knew making noise could get them all killed, and didn’t question.

Squatting on the balls of her feet, she leaned into his shoulder and whispered against his cheek. “What’s happening?”

Every muscle pulled tight from the adrenaline rushing through him. He wanted to sprint to the car and lock her in a seatbelt and send her away. Beating that instinct back took most of his energy, but he still wanted to touch her.

With a hand on her lower back, Connor pointed to the clearing ahead and the dark jeeps that blended into the skyline. “That’s our ride.”

Holt took a final look around then nodded. “We’re clear.”

“Wait.” Jana caught Connor’s arm as he started to rise. “Those men could be anywhere.”

Connor understood the fear and doubt. She’d been manhandled—something he still couldn’t think about without being swamped by homicidal rage—and threatened. She’d survived a hail of bullets and him tackling her. He couldn’t exactly fault her for expecting danger to lurk under every rock.

But they couldn’t sit still. Waiting made them easy to locate and even easier to hit. “We’ve got two cars. Shane and Holt are going to head out and warn Lampari and the other office workers you gave the contact information for, as promised.”

Connor breezed over the other man’s name. Dead wife or not, Connor didn’t buy Marcel’s story. More than once over the years Connor had caught the man staring at Jana. They’d get together for events or during those times when Jana picked up some of the charity’s work to ease Marcel’s load. His gaze would linger when it landed on Jana and his smile would brighten.

No way did that guy view Jana as a daughter or whatever ridiculous thing she thought. Connor knew how a man looked at a woman he wanted to take to bed, and he saw that need in Marcel. Saw and wanted to pound it right out of the guy.

Jealousy didn’t sit well with Connor. Up until a few months ago Jana didn’t try to inflame it. She brushed off his concerns about her dear old boss while insisting she felt nothing but admiration for him. But when she wanted space and needed time away, Marcel threw his arms wide open and she ran into them. That act ate away at Connor. Burned right through him.

He forced his mind to put it aside. To compartmentalize. He’d sweep her to safety and then they’d talk. Later when the danger cleared and he knew she couldn’t be dragged into whatever mess from his life sucked her under this time, he’d unload and demand she do the same.

Time had passed and his anger switched from intense and fiery to a slow burn. He had a front-row seat to Davis putting aside his fears and starting a life with the woman he’d always loved. They had a baby on the way. Talk about walking into danger.

Davis worried and planned and ruthlessly separated his home life from his work life. His brother Pax talked about proposing to his girlfriend, and Joel and Ben were both on the road to forever with their significant others.

They’d all figured out a way to marry the danger of the job with the life they wanted. Connor once thought he had, too, but it had slipped away from him and he wanted it back. He’d grab it no matter how much of his dignity he had to sacrifice to do it.

But he had to get her out of this situation alive first. That meant delivering the news sure to raise her defenses. “You’re going with Cam.”

“Where?” One word loaded with frustration and accompanied by a rush of red to her cheeks bright enough for him to see in the semidarkness.

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