REUNITED BY DANGER

Zack Keats broke Rebecca Miles’s heart when they were teens, but now he’s her only hope to stay alive. Trapped in the Canadian wilderness, Rebecca is a target from all angles: a dangerous gang, her treasonous stepbrother and the government who thinks she’s also a traitor. The last person she expected to race to her rescue was the one who abandoned her years ago. Zack’s changed from the shy boy she knew into a strong Special Forces soldier who would do anything to keep her safe. But with threats coming from every direction, can she trust him to stay by her side until the end?

She felt useless. Like he thought she was nothing but some frightened waste of space.

A liability.

“I never should’ve put you in this position,” Zack said. “You’re hardly trained for any of this. Just swim back to shore, and I’ll figure out what we’re going to do from here.”

Rebecca took a deep breath and felt the comfort of air filling her lungs. Then she dived down again.

She could hear the distorted sound of Zack shouting echo above the water. She didn’t stop. She didn’t need to hear what he was saying. The look on his face had been clear. Zack thought she was some awkward klutz who’d flailed around foolishly, made the truck sink and cost him their only chance at recovering the stolen material.

Zack and Seth might be fighting on different sides of a battle, but their opinion of her seemed to be the same. She was going to prove them both wrong.

MAGGIE K. BLACK is an award-winning journalist and romantic suspense author with an insatiable love of traveling the world. She has lived in the American South, Europe and the Middle East. She now makes her home in Canada with her history teacher husband, their two beautiful girls and a small but mighty dog. Maggie enjoys connecting with her readers at maggiekblack.com.

Tactical Rescue
Maggie K. Black

www.millsandboon.co.uk

If we are thrown into the blazing furnace,

the God we serve is able to deliver us from it,

and He will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand.

—Daniel 3:17

To Michael. Thanks for having my back.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Bible Verse

Dedication

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

EPILOGUE

Dear Reader

Extract

Copyright

ONE

Rebecca Miles dug her toes into the narrow crags of the Northern Ontario rock face, braced her legs against the granite and raised the lens of her video camera up to where jagged rock brushed against sky. Wind tugged her dark, shoulder-length hair free from its ponytail and sent it flying around her face. Something rustled in the trees far below her, but the quiver on the back of her neck told her not to look down. It was probably just the wind. Maybe an animal. But she couldn’t imagine there’d be another person around for miles. She grabbed hold of a stubborn pine growing out of the rock to her right and focused on searching for the falcon’s nest.

The climb up the embankment had turned out to be a whole lot steeper than she’d expected when she’d been standing safely on the ground, watching a pair of peregrines soar above. The narrow road got so little traffic, she could come and go for days without seeing another vehicle. It cut straight through a hill not far from the tiny patch of land she’d inherited from her mother. She’d left her camper and truck there, and hiked over. Now about fifty feet of steeply slanted rock and trees lay between her and the road below.

Something rumbled in the distance. It sounded like approaching thunder, but judging by the endless blue above, it was more likely a vehicle of some sort. Hopefully it wouldn’t frighten off the birds. Falcons mated for life and at this time of year a circling pair often meant a nest. Good clear footage of fluffy white babies would cover both gas for her truck and basic groceries for a month or more. If she actually managed to catch a falcon family portrait, she’d have a solid chunk to put toward her next overseas trip.

Lord, You know I have a list a mile long of charity projects I’m hoping to film. But until then, help me just be thankful for everything I’ve got.

Freedom. Independence.

The ability to go where she wanted, film what interested her and have adventures on her own terms.

As a teenager, her happiest moments had been when she’d managed to slip away from her claustrophobic home life, to wander aimlessly around the now decommissioned military base at Remi Lake, a few hours north from where she now stood. Her mother had spent the first several years of Rebecca’s life anxiously waiting for word from Rebecca’s father—an absent man whom Rebecca had never met and wasn’t supposed to ask about. Then, at thirteen, her mother had suddenly married General Arthur Miles—a decorated and larger-than-life hero in Canada’s small, tight-knit military community, who’d encouraged Rebecca to call him “the General” and never “Dad.” They’d moved onto the base, where she’d found herself with a twelve-year-old stepbrother named Seth, who’d never missed an opportunity to tell his gangly, awkward stepsister just how little he thought of her. She’d moved out at eighteen and hadn’t seen the General since her mother’s funeral, two years later, from a prescription meds overdose. But distancing herself from Seth had been more challenging.

She hadn’t seen him in person for years, but that hadn’t stopped him from bugging her online. The final straw had been when she’d set up a social media account and Seth had filled it with sarcastic comments. She’d blocked him instantly, only to have the computer engineer hack his way right back in. So she’d deleted the whole thing. Now, she could easily go days without checking her email, catching up on the news or even seeing another person.

Life was just simpler off the grid.

Her feet shifted. Pebbles cascaded down the hill beneath her. She tightened her grip and focused on searching for the nest. She’d started thinking about a falcon family and here her brain had rambled right on down the rabbit hole to thoughts of her own family life. Then she saw it. Three speckled eggs were nestled on a thin stone ledge. Rebecca smiled. She could use the winch on the back of her truck to raise a camera up here and monitor the feed through the video equipment in her camper. Her camera lens rose to the sky as she followed the adult falcons’ flight. In falcon pairings both the male and female hunted. Both the male and female soared.

Instead of leaving one of them huddled at home in the nest.

She let out a long breath. This was the problem with camping and filming up here: it was all too easy to get stuck in the past, as memories of life on the Remi Lake military base nipped at the edges of her mind.

Why couldn’t she let go of those years? Five years on base was enough to convince her that no matter how much she was drawn to the strength and courage of a man in uniform, she’d never put herself through the pain her mother had lived by falling for one. But there’d only ever been one young man on base to really tug on Rebecca’s heartstrings. Zack Biggs. Orphaned when both of his parents had died in combat, he’d been living at Remi Lake with his aunt and uncle, who’d also served. Zack had been sweet, sensitive and every bit as introverted as she was. The exact opposite of big personalities like the General and Seth. She’d been the only teenage girl in the base’s mixed martial arts class and clumsy to boot. Zack’d been husky and very overweight, but determined to get into shape, and with secret dreams of one day joining the special forces. They’d stuck together, as sparring partners and outsiders in a class full of confident jocks, like Seth. Zack was the closest she’d ever come to both a best friend and a high school crush. Closest she’d ever come to a date, too. When she’d been the surprise winner of a trophy for top student in the class, Zack had asked her to the formal sports banquet. She’d said yes. But he’d stood her up, only to then show up outside the hall, hours later in the pouring rain, to tell her that he’d just enlisted.

And she’d realized just how close she’d come to being in love with a military man.

The sound of the engine grew louder. The camera’s volume meter was jumping. Her microphone was picking up the sound. She stopped recording and spun the camera’s gaze toward the road, using the zoom function like a pair of binoculars. It was a motorcycle. Very nice machine, too. Harley-Davidson, maybe? If her memory of the General’s collection was accurate. The bigger question was what it was even doing up here on this road to nowhere. She was hardly expecting company. He leaned into a skid and she caught a glimpse of an emblem with a red circle and a gold crown on the side of the bike. Canadian military. Infantry to be specific. Someone in the area on leave? Someone who’d gotten lost looking for the remains of the Remi Lake base?

The microphone picked up more rustling beneath her and this time her gaze followed the noise. A man in blue jeans and a toque had stepped out of the tree line, carrying what looked like a black softball. He was tall, but scrawny. Like a coyote who hadn’t eaten in days. He tucked the black ball in a crag in the rocks beneath her, then went back for another two balls. Then he pulled out what looked like the remains of a cell phone. Her heart stopped as things she’d learned filming in war zones suddenly caught up to what her eyes were seeing now.

IEDs. Improvised explosive devices.

A terrorist’s explosive weapon of choice.

And somebody was now planting them in the Ontario rock beneath her.

Questions shot rapid-fire through her mind, but she didn’t give them time to form into words.

Thanks to the tree cover, the scrawny man might not even know she was standing on the rock above him. The man on the motorcycle probably had no idea the road was about to explode. All that mattered now was warning them both.

Adrenaline ran cold through her veins. The motorcycle rushed closer, the driver blind to the danger ahead. She prayed. I’m the only hope he has, Lord. Please, show me what to do! Her mind spun through the contents of her utility belt. She had a canister of bug spray, a small pocket knife, an air horn...

The motorcycle reached the final curve.

She grabbed the air horn and pressed. A deafening blare echoed through the rocks.

The motorcycle swerved sideways and for a moment she thought he’d managed to stop.

But it was too late.

An explosion filled the air, shaking the rock beneath her feet.

The bike flipped, crashing end over end.

She hugged the tree and braced her legs against the cliff.

The earth gave way beneath her feet.

* * *

Sergeant Zack Keats, recon specialist for the Canadian Forces’ elite and highly classified counterterrorism force, hurtled through the air as the force of the explosion ripped the motorbike out from under him.

Hot smoke billowed around him, with the deafening roar of falling rocks. Just moments earlier he’d been cruising, feeling the wind beat against his body, wondering if he’d even find Rebecca Miles at her campsite. And if he did, how was he going to tell a woman he hadn’t seen since the day she’d shattered his heart as a teenager that her stepbrother, Seth, was now a wanted criminal and traitor? Then he’d rounded a corner, a siren had sounded and the world had exploded around him.

A prayer for help moved through the soldier’s mind as instinctively as his body adopted the position for impact.

Protect his neck. Curl his shoulders. Relax his body.

Save me, Lord. I need You now. But if this is it, have mercy—

The road hit him like a slab of concrete. Pain shot through his body. He bounced. His visor cracked. His bike was nothing but a tangled mass of metal to his right. Beyond it lay a pile of rubble from where rock and trees had slid down off the front of the cliff face, barricading the road ahead. At least most of the cliff was still standing.

Not the worst hit he’d ever taken. First as a soldier with Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, and then a part of the Canadian Forces joint task force for special ops, he’d spent most of his life in the world’s roughest hot spots. Long before then, as a painfully sensitive and overweight young man, he’d taken his share of bullies’ beatings, too, before he’d shed the last name he’d hated for a new one, converted his fat into muscle and refocused his emotional core into the kind of steady, unflappable determination needed to throw himself between the world’s biggest bullies and those in need of rescue. But this ambush had definitely come without warning.

The world was still spinning. His ears were ringing. He ignored both, pressed a leather-gloved hand against the pavement and tensed himself to spring.

“Don’t move.” A lanky figure stepped out of the smoke. A ski mask covered his face and there was a handgun in his hand. A Glock. Almost certainly illegal.

Instinctively, Zack’s hand reached for his own weapon, before remembering his firearm was unloaded and locked in his bag on the back of his bike, as was expected of him when on leave in Canada. Zack had always played by the rules. If it came to it, he’d die by them, too. But until that moment came, he was prepared to fight. His hand slid toward the knife in his ankle holster.

“I said, don’t move.” The masked man raised the gun. He sounded flustered and more than a little angry. “I don’t want to shoot you, but I will if I have to.”

Didn’t want to shoot him? He’d just blown up the road. If the explosives had gone off just a few seconds later Zack would be dead now. So either this man was so desperate or foolish he didn’t know what he was doing, or else he was lying through his teeth. But was he also Seth Miles, the traitor and criminal, that Zack was up here to talk to Rebecca about?

Zack fixed his gaze on the man’s blue eyes, trying to mentally combine pictures from the news with his twenty-year-old memories of the bully who’d tormented him. Then he reminded himself that he still had no idea where the siren had come from.

“Look, I don’t know who you are or what you want.” Zack kept his hands steady and his voice calm. “But I don’t want to fight you. Please, just let me search the area and make sure nobody else is in trouble.”

The man hesitated. His eyes darted from what remained of the cliff side down to the rock pile now blocking the road. “There’s nobody else here,” he said. But his voice sounded far from confident.

“You sure about that? I heard an air horn. If you weren’t the one who sounded it, then someone else did.”

But this time, he ignored Zack’s question. Instead, he stepped closer.

“You and I both know there’s only one reason for anyone to be on this road.” He pressed the barrel of his gun against the cracks in Zack’s visor. “Get out of here. Don’t come back. And stop looking for Seth Miles. He doesn’t want to be found.”

Zack would’ve snorted if the situation hadn’t been deadly serious. Was he joking? This morning, Zack had been minding his own business, camping, quietly enjoying his last three days of home leave, when he’d hopped on his bike to go get gas and charge his cell phone. The coffee shop television had been blaring the news that authorities across North America had launched an all-out manhunt for Seth. Armed and presumed dangerous, according to the TV, Seth was wanted for treason, theft and attempted murder, after the computer engineer had abused his civilian military clearance, hacked into a government database, stolen something highly classified and then shot an unidentified woman in an Ottawa park.

But while news commentators and coffee-shop gossips had been hung up on how Seth was the only son of decorated hero General Arthur Miles, Zack’s laser-sharp mind had suddenly filled with the adventurous eyes and wild dark hair of the only other person on earth who’d witnessed Seth’s selfishness and bullying arrogance as Zack had. Rebecca. And the pledge Zack had made long ago, to always have her back. So he’d hopped on his bike and headed north, without even waiting for his phone to finish charging.

Seth wasn’t his target. Apprehending Seth wasn’t his mission. Still, he wasn’t about to let a comment like that slide.

“Seth Miles is a coward and a traitor.” Zack’s voice rose. “He stole government secrets—”

Blue eyes flashed in fury. “He was protecting the country!”

“He shot an unarmed woman! Tried to murder her!”

“No! I didn’t! I didn’t shoot her!” Seth yelled. With a simple slip of the tongue he made his attempted disguise worthless.

Zack nearly chuckled through gritted teeth. “Oh, you didn’t, did you, Seth? But you did steal sensitive information from your own country for a quick and easy payday?”

“You have no clue what I did or why I did it!” Seth flicked his handgun’s safety switch off. “You stay away from me. You stay away from my sister. Or I’ll kill you.”

A muffled cry filled the air to Zack’s right. Female. Frightened.

There was somebody trapped under those rocks and screaming for help. Seth’s neck turned toward the sound. Zack kicked Seth’s knees out and sent him sprawling. The Glock fired into the air. But Zack wrestled the weapon from Seth’s grasp before he could fire again and leveled a swift blow to his jaw. Seth hit the pavement. His head snapped back. There was a chain around Seth’s neck. A small blue computer memory stick hung from it. The stolen government computer files? Zack grabbed it and yanked it hard, breaking the chain from around Seth’s neck. Then Zack ran for the rock pile. The voice had gone silent.

“Hello!” Zack scanned the rock pile. “Hey! Is somebody there?”

He tried to shove his visor up. It wouldn’t budge. Then he heard it. A gasp. A cry. A voice, faint but strong, and coming from under the rocks. He saw fingers sliding out of a gap. A slender hand, clad in a climbing glove.

“I’m here. It’s okay. I’ve got you.” He climbed across the rocks, crouched down and touched her hand lightly, just enough to reassure her. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Seth scrambling to his feet.

Zack’s brain went into triage mode. He had to stop Seth. He had to save the woman beneath the rocks. He couldn’t let a traitor escape. He couldn’t let a civilian die.

“Please, Lord,” she gasped. “I don’t want to die down here.”

The woman’s prayer yanked Zack’s attention back to the rocks. Seth disappeared over the other side of the rubble. Zack grabbed a boulder, hoisted it up and threw it off the pile. Then he looked down. Dark, determined eyes looked up at him. Black hair lay dusty and wild around a sun-kissed face. Her delicate lips parted but no sound came out. Zack’s heart beat painfully in his chest, with the same unexpected sting he’d felt as a teenager, as he looked across the gym martial arts mats and suddenly laid eyes on the most beautiful person he’d ever seen.

It was Rebecca.

TWO

Rebecca nearly cried out in frustration as a black shape suddenly blocked out the tiny patch of blue sky that had appeared over her head. It took her two deep breaths to realize she was staring straight into the helmet visor of the man from the motorcycle. He must’ve realized it, too, because he said, “Hey, sorry,” and reached to yank the helmet off.

Another gunshot split the air. He muttered something about a second gun and disappeared from view.

She closed her eyes and tried not to panic. Thank You, God, that I’m still alive and nothing seems to be broken. When she’d seen smoke from the explosion rushing up toward her, and felt the rock slide out from under her feet, she’d held tight with everything she had, until there was no ground left beneath her and nothing to do but fall. Then she’d protected her head with her arms and focused on controlling her slide the best she could as the world around her was swallowed up in smoke, heat and falling rock.

More shouting from above her now. A gun blast rattled the rocks. She closed her eyes and focused on breathing through her fear, even as she could feel it threatening to take over her mind. A vehicle engine rumbled in the distance. There was the sound of someone scrambling over the rocks above her again.

“Hey.” The voice was male, deep and with just a hint of grit. “I’m back. You okay?”

Rebecca opened her eyes.

Her heart stopped. His helmet was now off. And she found herself staring straight into the gray eyes of the only man who’d ever managed to make that heart flutter a beat.

Zack. She opened her mouth but couldn’t find her voice. Zack Biggs.

Is that really you?

“Hang on, I’m going to get you out of here.” He disappeared again and she heard rocks shift above her.

No, he couldn’t be Zack. She must’ve bumped her head so hard she was seeing things. Her mind filled with a mental image of what Zack had looked like the last time she’d seen him. She’d been seventeen years old and dressed in the only sparkling formal dress she’d ever owned. The sports banquet had been over. She’d still been clutching her martial arts trophy: Rebecca Miles, Technically Flawless. Zack had stood outside in the courtyard, pounding rain beating on his head and running down his face. Looking sad and angry and as though he’d just lost something.

The weight that was pressing against her limbs lightened. She wriggled her other arm out of the rock.

“All right, I’m going to reach in and lift you out of there.” He peeled off his leather jacket and leaned in toward her. “Just grab hold of my arms, and I’ll hoist you up.”

The arms she grabbed ahold of were solid muscle and as smooth as marble encased in silk. The T-shirt-clad chest that pulled her in was as perfectly sculpted as a statue. The face she looked into had cheekbones cut like an action hero’s, and his black hair was grizzled gray at the temples. Could this man really be Zack? If so, didn’t he recognize her? Her tongue felt tied. His strong arms were practically carrying her down to the road, and here her brain couldn’t even figure out how to make sense of what was happening. A good chunk of the cliff side now blocked the road leading to her campsite. The man who’d set the detonators was nowhere to be seen. The motorbike lay in a twisted wreck on the south side of the rocks. The Zack she’d known had had a passion for motorcycles and had admired the General’s vintage collection. But he also could never have maneuvered a bike like that. He set her down gently. One hand hovered over her shoulder. “Are you hurt?”

“Scratched and bruised, but okay,” she said. “But what about you? That looked like a pretty major crash.”

“I’m fine.” He stepped back. His shoulders straightened. His arms crossed. Everything about his stance screamed military.

“Where did that other man go?” she asked. “Do you know who he was, or where he went, or why he sabotaged the road like that?” She was talking too fast, which tended to happen when she was uncomfortable. And right now her nerves were in overdrive. “I don’t have a cell phone on me, but there’s one in my camper, which is a short walk from here. My truck’s there, too. We need to report this to police. This road’s a write-off, at least for going south. And your bike’s wrecked. But if we take my truck and drive north, there’s a back way we can take to Timmins. It’ll only take a couple hours.”

He just looked at her. Then he ran one hand slowly over his face and looked down the road.

See, this is why you can’t possibly be my Zack, no matter how much you remind me of him. Because my Zack would be hugging me right now and reassuring me, instead of just standing there.

“Sorry, we haven’t done introductions.” She stepped forward and stretched out her hand. “My name is Rebecca Miles.”

His eyes met her gaze. She knew those eyes. Dark gray. Like flint, the moment just before it sparked a fire. His mouth opened. A phone started ringing behind her, so loudly she almost jumped. He ran past her, back up the rock pile to his jacket, and grabbed a cell phone out of the pocket. “Keats here.”

Keats? His name was Keats? Even though she’d just told herself he couldn’t possibly be her high school crush, somehow hearing a different name come out of the man’s mouth landed heavy in her stomach.

She watched as he stood on the rock, his back to her and his phone to his ear. If he’d had a phone, why hadn’t he called the police already? The conversation was quick. He hung up, picked up his jacket and walked back down the rock slide toward her. Deep frown lines cut along his brow.

“Keats, is it?” she asked.

He paused, as though he’d just been asked a very difficult question.

“I’m sorry,” she added. “I couldn’t help but hear when you answered the phone. But that’s all I heard.”

“Yes.” He pulled off his right glove and reached for her hand. A strong, firm grasp enveloped hers. “Sergeant Keats. Reconnaissance specialist. That was my CO—my commanding officer—on the phone. I apprised him of the situation. My phone battery is pretty much dead right now, and he’s going to call all this in to the police. And yes, I’d like to take you up on your offer of a ride to Timmins.” There was a searching look on his face, as if she was supposed to be reading something else between his words. “What were you doing up on that hill?”

“Searching for a falcon’s nest,” she said. “I’m a filmmaker and videographer. So, Sergeant Keats, is it safe to presume that the man who nearly blew us up is some target you’re up here chasing?”

“No.” His frown grew deeper. “I’m not on assignment. I’m on leave actually, until Thursday. I’m due back at base in two days. Just let me grab my bag off the bike and I’ll be good to go.”

“But what about the man who blew up the road? I heard arguing and gunshots—”

“He’s gone.”

Her hands slid onto her hips. “And?”

“And, he blew up the road.” Now his arms crossed over his chest. “We struggled. I disarmed him. He ran off to where he’d hidden his vehicle. I thought he’d gone. But then he returned with a new weapon. It discharged. I disarmed him again. He left. I now have two illegal Glocks in my possession, and I’d like to go put them in my bag, as I don’t much feel like leaving them here.”

It was all useful information, but hardly warm and reassuring. And didn’t tell her what she wanted to know.

“But who was he and why did he blow up the road?”

“I’m really sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything more than I have.” He turned around and climbed back over the rocks toward his motorcycle.

“But are we still in danger from him?”

He paused, his feet balancing on the crushing rocks that she’d feared just moments ago would bury her alive. His eyes glanced at the sky, his head shook and his lips moved as though he was praying. Then he looked at her head-on, with a look so raw and unflinching she blinked. “I don’t honestly know if we’re in danger or not. But trust me, Rebecca, I’ll do everything in my power to keep you safe. And I wish I could tell you more about what’s going on. I really do.”

He grabbed a green shoulder bag and moved his bike off the road. They walked to her camper. Neither of them spoke. He’d already made it clear he wasn’t about to answer any of her questions, and random small talk had never been something she’d been good at. Eventually they reached the small break in the trees that was the unpaved, overgrown entrance to her property. It was a nice chunk of forest actually. But it was hard to reach and very overgrown. Terrible for building on. But not bad for a hideaway.

“Welcome to my home.” She waved a hand toward the vintage aluminum camper now hitched to the back of a large black pickup truck. It was the same camper she’d lived in before her mom married the General, one of the few things she’d inherited. “Not much to look at, but it has all my video equipment inside. I travel a lot, so all I really need is a place to park my life when I’m not on the road. Feel free to dump your stuff in the front seat.”

“Thank you. Can I charge my phone in your truck? My battery’s almost dead, and I promised my CO I’d call him back.”

“No problem.” She tossed him her keys. He caught them smoothly. “My minilaptop computer is plugged in there, but you can just stick it in the glove compartment. I’ve also got a portable generator running in the camper, if you’d rather.”

“Thanks. I think I’ll go with the truck. It’ll get us on the road faster.” He slid one hand into the front pocket of his jeans as if checking to make sure something was there. “Hey, this might sound like an odd request, but would it be okay if I checked something on your laptop?”

She shrugged. “Be my guest. But it’s really small and it won’t connect to the internet.”

Rebecca walked to her camper. For a moment she debated simply unhitching her truck and leaving the camper in the woods. But depending on how long things took at the police station, she might just as well spend the night at a campsite in Timmins. Small and portable, with four wheels, it might not be everyone’s idea of home. But for her, it was perfect. A narrow single bunk lay at the front end of the camper. A tiny kitchenette with a fold-down table filled the center of the space. At the back end, the second bunk had been converted into a long, makeshift desk and video-editing space.

Her eyes rose to the computer monitors at the end of the camper. She’d left them running on the generator. One was broadcasting a feed from the tiny camera mounted inside of her truck. Clipped just inside of the sun visor, she used the tiny, temperamental spy camera to film either herself or the road ahead when her project called for her to narrate something while driving. Right now, it showed the mysterious Sergeant Keats. He plugged a memory stick into her laptop computer. Then he opened his bag on the seat beside him. She crossed the camper to turn off the feed. His phone rang again. He answered.

“Hello?” he said. “Yeah. Sorry we got cut off. Yeah, I’m with her. No, I haven’t told her anything. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have a clue.”

A shiver ran down her spine. She shouldn’t be eavesdropping. But he was talking about her and keeping something from her. Why should she trust him?

“Yeah, I’ve got it. I’m using her laptop to check the contents now. But it seems to be automatically downloading onto her machine.” He stuck the phone between his ear and his shoulder, picked up her laptop. “I don’t know. Something weird’s going on. I’ll call back when I’ve got something to report. But yeah, I’ve got Rebecca.” He set the laptop back down. “Don’t worry. I know what I need to do here! I’m not about to let anything get in the way of doing it. Fair enough? I’ll find out what she knows, if she knows anything, and I’ll bring her in.”

She froze.

He was talking like she was his target. No, it was worse than that. She was a Canadian citizen standing on home soil. He wasn’t the police. He didn’t have a warrant or any legal right to question her or take her anywhere. But he was talking as if she was his prisoner.

“No, Rebecca doesn’t know anything!” Zack seemed to be searching his bag for something. His voice sounded almost exasperated. “She’s completely clueless. She’s completely in the dark. She doesn’t even know who I am.”

He reached for the sun visor and tilted the rearview mirror to look behind him, bumping the tiny camera. The camera’s view shifted to the side of the passenger seat. The audio feed cut out entirely. She could barely see a thing inside the cab now and couldn’t hear another word he said.

He waved his hand through the camera’s gaze and suddenly she could see what he’d been searching for.

Her hand rose to her lips.

It was a pair of handcuffs.

* * *

Zack tucked the handcuffs into his belt and his SIG semiautomatic into his holster. Next time he ran into Seth, he’d be ready for him. The two Glocks he’d taken off Seth now lay disassembled in the bottom of his bag. He did not want to know what kind of friends Seth had been making that he managed to get ahold of not only two illegal handguns, but also an IED. Hopefully, he was just a really good thief.

Either way, frustration coursed through Zack’s shoulders. Stonewalling Rebecca like that had been almost physically painful. But she hadn’t seemed to recognize him. He’d been trying to figure out what to say when Seth had opened fire again. He’d sorted that, and then his phone had rung with a call from his own CO, Major Jeff Lyons, field commander of Zack’s special ops unit. And Jeff had opened with the line, Please tell me you’re nowhere near Rebecca Miles right now.

Zack blew out a hard breath. Yes, it was no secret that he had an old Remi base newspaper clipping inside his footlocker with a picture of Rebecca at seventeen and a story about how she’d won the martial arts trophy. Or that he sometimes got a bit of good-natured ribbing from the other guys about having a crush on General Arthur Miles’s stepdaughter whenever the General’s face was on TV. Even though he’d never personally met the man, even back when he and Rebecca were teenagers.

But he’d never imagined that as news of Seth Miles’s treason and crimes spread like wildfire through both official and unofficial channels, someone in his unit would suddenly hope that Zack hadn’t gone to try to talk to Seth’s sister. Or that his own CO would then give him a friendly call just to suggest that as Rebecca was now wanted for police questioning, it might be a good idea that Zack stay away from her.

Too late for that.

“Again, I can’t assess what was on the memory stick.” Zack looked at the laptop. “Whatever it was, it appears to have now leaped from the memory stick to the laptop, and scrubbed the memory stick clean of any trace on the way out. Now the laptop’s completely locked down and appears to be asking for a password in Cyrillic script. So one of the Slavic languages. Don’t think it’s Russian. Could be either another Eastern European or a North Asian language.”

He could think of at least four different organized crime groups his task force had tangled with in various parts of the world that used Cyrillic script in their communications. He’d personally gone into Eastern Europe a few months ago to safely extract a brilliant young woman from the clutches of one such group. And I really hope whatever this is, it’s not connected to that. Because the idea that Seth Miles could’ve just hacked around the government database, looking for something to steal, and found something significant to an active special forces operation was unthinkable.

“Bring it in. Bring Rebecca Miles in. Walk away,” Jeff said. “I’ll report up the chain of command how fortunate we are that one of our top recon guys just happened to stumble upon Seth Miles’s current location and might’ve retrieved what he stole. I’ll try to play it as such great news that hopefully it won’t come back and bite you.”

“I’m on leave,” Zack said. “It was a personal errand. I simply saw her face on the news, and decided to pop by and see how she was. I was hardly expecting to run into Seth.”

“Oh, I know. You don’t need to convince me of anything,” the major said. “This isn’t an order and we’re not officially having this conversation. But as your friend, Zack, my advice is to get as far away from this mess as possible. And fast. The last thing we want is for our whole unit to be grounded from deployment because one of our top guys is being questioned in connection to an open treason investigation. The RCMP are heading the investigation, in conjunction with the Canadian Department of National Defence, and we haven’t been called in. But I can tell you that once word got out a member of our unit had a personal relationship with Seth Miles’s sister, it raised some serious flags as to where the break in security could’ve come from. We’re already worried that we can’t seem to stem the leak of Canadian equipment ending up in the hands of Slavic organized crime. If someone from the RCMP sits down to interview Miss Miles and she so much as mentions your name it won’t look good. Not for you. Not for us. As a friend, I would hate to see this unit function without you. But you know we can’t afford to be pulled from deployment because there’s a shadow hanging over one guy.”

Okay, okay. He got all that. Even though he didn’t like it. Maybe coming to check in on Rebecca had been the wrong call. It had been twenty years since Zack’d let his heart have any say in his decision making, and it had probably been a mistake to start now. But still...

“The Rebecca I knew was a reasonable person with a good heart,” he said. “I know you’ve advised me to keep her in the dark, and I understand why. But I’m not convinced it’ll jeopardize the investigation by telling her who I am and why I’m here. Honestly, she’ll go squirrelly if I’m not straight with her.”

Rebecca’s tenacity could be pretty unrelenting. Considering how hard she’d hammered him for information on the road, he could just imagine how the truck ride to Timmins would go.

“When in doubt,” Jeff said, “imagine explaining every single call you make in the next hour, in a long, drawn-out, extremely uncomfortable tribunal on this whole Seth Miles mess, and answering the question why a solider who’s withstood intense questioning by foreign militants couldn’t withstand the badgering of a cute girl with pretty eyes.”

Zack snorted. “She’s more than cute. But point taken. We’ll be in Timmins in a little over an hour.”

Then, sometime after his next deployment, he’d write her a nice long letter, apologizing for not being straight with her, not to mention infecting her laptop with some kind of Slavic virus. Hopefully, she’d forgive him.

“And you’re convinced she’s not complicit in her brother’s crimes?” Jeff asked.

“One hundred percent.”

“Okay. I hope for your sake you’re right. Just don’t let Rebecca or that laptop out of your sight. If you see Seth, don’t engage unless you have no other option. Again, I can’t authorize you for a mission, because it’s not our investigation, and I can’t dictate what you do with your personal leave. As your friend, feel free to call me anytime. But if this escalates, I’m going to have to get involved as your commanding officer. Got it?”

“Got it.” Zack ran one hand over the back of his neck. “I’m sorry for giving you an extra headache and I won’t do anything that brings the unit into disrepute.”

“You’re the only man I know who could go on leave, to the middle of nowhere in Northern Ontario, and land in the middle of a major international crisis.”

“Ha, ha,” Zack said. “Thanks for calling. I mean it.”

“Anytime. See you back at base.”

The call ended. He put the laptop back into its hard case, zipped it up and then slid it into the truck’s glove compartment, happy to see she’d had the smarts to install a combination lock on it. He shoved his bag deep under the passenger seat and then got out of the truck. The door to Rebecca’s camper was closed. He strode toward it.

He had to admit, he kind of hated how all this was unfolding. If only Rebecca had recognized him. But a woman like her had probably been approached by so many male suitors in the past twenty years that one shy guy from when she was a teenager would have been long forgotten.

Lord, help me handle this situation honorably, honestly and with a whole lot of wisdom.

He wouldn’t disclose what he couldn’t disclose. But he also wouldn’t lie. And if that led to being barraged by questions for the whole truck ride to Timmins, so be it. He knocked on the door.

“Hey, Rebecca, you about ready to go?”

No answer. He silently counted to three and then opened the door. The camper was empty. He stepped inside. A window behind the sink was open. He nearly groaned. You’ve got to be kidding me! Oh, he’d had more than a few targets try to escape his grasp during his career. A few had even managed to land a blow or two before getting restrained. But none had ever made it as far as the threshold, let alone stepping one foot out the door.

And here Rebecca had actually evaded him by climbing out a window?

Something cold and metal brushed the back of his neck.

“Don’t move,” Rebecca said. “And get your hands up.”

And now he would’ve been tempted to laugh if the situation wasn’t so serious. His hands rose, just enough to show that he’d heard her. Surely she’d know how easily someone with his training could disarm her. The only reason for him to even hesitate was to minimize the risk of her getting hurt. Not to mention that if they got into a physical altercation he’d probably have to report it, and that would hardly help her case when it came to proving her innocence in Seth’s crimes. “Rebecca, look, I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but I’m not about to hurt you.”

What was she even holding? Definitely metal, but not sharp enough of an edge to be a knife. Cylindrical, but it didn’t feel like the barrel of a gun, either.

“I want to believe you.” Her body brushed up against his back. Her breath tickled his ear. The scent of her hair filled his lungs. “But you haven’t exactly been honest with me, Sergeant.”

“Okay, you’re right, I didn’t answer all of your questions earlier. I’m sorry, there are just some things I can’t tell you.” He spun around, grabbed both her wrists in one swift motion and held her hands above their heads. “Now, drop your weapon.”

Rebecca was pinned against his chest, so close that if he’d just leaned forward a couple of inches he could’ve kissed her nose. She’d donned a simple gray windbreaker since he’d seen her last. The hood was pulled up over her head and closed tight, leaving a few black wisps of hair framing her face. Rebecca buried her face deep inside his chest. Something clicked above him. He glanced up. There was a small, metal canister of high-potency bug spray in her hands. She fired, using his chest to shield her own face. Bug spray filled the air above them, burning his eyes and choking his throat. Her wrists slipped from his grasp. Then she bolted out of the camper, through the trees.

Wow. Somebody had apparently kept her skills since they’d last sparred. Not to mention adding a new skill or two. He’d never been sprayed like a bug before. He chased after her. His eyes watered. His vision blurred. “Rebecca, wait! I’m—” A fit of coughing stole the words from this throat.

Lord, help me figure out how to stop Rebecca and calm her down before someone gets hurt.

He ran after her. She didn’t even try to double back to her truck. Instead, she cut straight through the trees, as though she was trying to reach the main road. She was faster than he remembered. She’d always been lithe. But the years had added strength to her limbs.

“Rebecca! Stop!” Surely she had to know there was no point running. He was going to catch up with her. She burst out of the trees and started down the road. Then he heard a vehicle.

Oh no. No, no, no... Why is there another vehicle on this road?

“Help!” Her voice echoed through the trees. “Help! Stop!”

Tires screeched. Zack pushed his legs faster. But it was too late. A red moving van had reached the rock barrier and seemed to be turning around. Smiling stick-figure animals on the side advertised Woodland Home Movers.

“Rebecca! Wait!”

She reached the van. The back door opened. He couldn’t let her leap into a random van, no matter the cost.

He stopped chasing her, stood on the road and gasped a breath.

“Becs!” he shouted. “It’s me! Zack! Zack Biggs!”

She turned back. The hood slipped from her head. Hair fell loose around her face. “Zack? It’s actually you.”

“Yeah.” He risked taking a step toward her, as though she was a nervous animal he didn’t want to spook. Just please don’t get in that van. “My name is Zack Keats now. New name. New look. But yeah, it’s still me.”

“I thought... I mean, I kind of knew...” Her dark eyes opened wide like a camera lens struggling to bring a picture into focus. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“Well, if you knew, why didn’t you just ask?” He reached his hand out toward her. “I’m sorry, forgive me. I had my reasons. Please don’t go with them.”

“Look, Zack, I—”

A scream stole the words from her lips as a burly, tattooed man reached out from the back door and yanked her backward into the van.

“Rebecca!” Zack pelted toward the van. For a second he could still see her legs kicking and prayed she’d break free. Then the van door slammed, trapping Rebecca inside.

A second heavily tattooed man leaned out of the driver’s window and fired a semiautomatic. Bullets flew past Zack’s head. Rebecca’s screams filled the air.

But neither shook Zack anywhere near as much as the two-headed black-and-red bird-of-prey tattoo on the driver’s bulging arm.

These men were members of Black Talon, a highly dangerous Eastern European organized crime syndicate.

And they’d just kidnapped Rebecca.

THREE

The hollow sound of the door slamming echoed in Rebecca’s ears. The van was picking up speed. The burly bearded thug who’d manhandled her into the vehicle pressed a gun to her temple. But it was the huge hand holding tight to her throat that filled her with such blinding pain that for a moment she couldn’t begin to find a way to fight back. He shoved her down into the cold empty back of the moving van and pinned her to the floor.

Help me, Lord. I need to escape this van before it gets to wherever they’re taking me.

She looked around. Inside the vehicle she could see two guns, two kidnappers, but nothing within her reach that she could grab as a weapon. Outside the vehicle was the muscular bulk and courage of the one guy she would’ve trusted with her life. Would he rescue her now?

She looked up at the man now holding her down. There was a crude, vaguely Eastern European tattoo on his neck, of two red-and-black eagles that almost seemed to be crawling out from under his shirt, and the word Ivan.

He yelled something to the driver, but it wasn’t in English. Then the van lurched forward. “Ivan” let go of her body but kept his weapon aimed at her face.

“You down! No move!” The order came from the driver. The same bird-of-prey tattoo was on his arm, this one with Dmitry.

Were those their first names? A family name? Or some other distinction?

Dmitry was trying to drive forward with one hand and shoot backward out the window at Zack with the other. He shouted something at Ivan in a language Rebecca couldn’t understand.

Ivan shouted back in heavily accented English. “She’s down! She’s not going to move!”

Oh, how little those men knew her.

The sound of a bullet cracked the air outside the van. Zack was returning fire. Then the back window shattered in a spray of class. She sprung to her hands and feet in a racing stance, prayer crossing her mind even as glass rained down around them. Ivan swore. The van swerved. Rebecca glanced back through the open gap in the shattered glass and saw Zack running after her, gun in hand.

His body strong. His face fierce.

I still don’t know what’s going on. But, old sparring partner, I’m glad you’ve got my back.

Zack was getting smaller and smaller in the distance, though, as the van kept driving. Ivan fired through the broken window, the explosion filling the metal vehicle like an echo chamber. Dmitry turned back and screamed at Ivan. But it was all the distraction she needed.

Rebecca leaped to her feet and charged. She grabbed the driver from behind and pressed her fingers into his eyes. Dmitry swore. The van spun wildly. Forcing the van to crash would be dangerous. But the van still hadn’t picked up that much speed, and something told her she was far safer in a collision with Zack running to her rescue than she would be going wherever these men were taking her. Ivan grabbed her hair. Dmitry stomped on the breaks. The van slammed to a stop, throwing Rebecca against the seat and tossing Ivan across the floor. Rebecca recovered first. She ran for the van’s back door, her feet crunching on broken glass. She could hear her abductors shouting behind her. She grabbed the door handle. The door flew open, wrenching the handle from her hand.

It was Zack. She nearly fell out of the van into his arms. Zack’s free hand grabbed her waist, just long enough to help her onto the ground. But then, before letting go, he whispered in her ear, “I need you to trust me and do whatever I say, without question.”

“What?”

But Zack stepped back. His head tilted in her direction. “You! Get down! Now!”

Zack was shouting at her. Not at the men who’d just abducted her. She hesitated. Her feet weren’t two steps away from the kidnappers’ van. Thick, endless forest spread out around her on every side. And Zack just expected her to drop to the ground instead of running?

Dmitry climbed out the driver’s-side door. Ivan stumbled across the back of the van toward them. Zack’s eyes cut sideways at Rebecca.

“Do it!” Zack said. “Trust me! Just get down.”

Her head shook. “But—”

Ivan’s bulk filled the van’s back door. With one large, steady hand he aimed his gun at Zack’s face and barked something in a foreign language. Zack didn’t move a muscle. Dmitry walked around the side of the van, slowly.

“She’s coming with us.” Dmitry trained his gun on Zack’s face.

Zack paused a long moment, without moving or speaking, as if he didn’t even see the guns or the men behind them. Then Zack shrugged and shook his head.

“She? You mean, this one?” Zack pointed one finger at Rebecca, shook his head and tapped his chest in a slow, exaggerated motion. “No, no. She’s coming with me.”

Ivan laughed. It was an ugly sound bordering on a snarl. His finger hovered on the trigger. “No, I kill you. She comes with me.”

Rebecca stood, with broken glass under her boots and legs tensed to spring. Zack was so calm and so in control, it was as if he was haggling over the price of meat instead of fighting for her life. Something within her tugged at the corner of her heart, reminding her of the sweet, sensitive man who she’d once trusted enough to spar with. She’d trusted Zack with her life back then. He was the first man she’d ever really trusted.

But how could she trust him now?

He’d kept secrets from her. He hadn’t told her who he was. Her life was in danger and he was being so casual about it, he was almost cold. Zack hadn’t just transformed his body to look like the jocks who’d once made them both feel worthless. Now he sounded just like them, too.

Zack shrugged again, rolling his shoulders up and down in a slow rise and fall that seemed to accentuate every curve of his muscular chest.

“This one, she’s a bit difficult. Clumsy, you know, and a chatterbox.” He made a mouth with his fingers and flapped it up and down in the same dismissive “talking” gesture Seth had once used to hurt and belittle her. “But I promised my boss I’d take her somewhere. You understand how this works. You have a job to do. I have a job to do. Maybe we can figure something out. How much is your boss paying you for her?”

The question hung in the air. Ivan and Dmitry glanced at each other. Neither answered. And now, Rebecca was too angry to even let the fear she was feeling even take hold. Zack didn’t look at her. One of Zack’s hands still held the gun firmly in its grip. The other was just inches away from it. She used to feel so safe in his arms. She didn’t doubt either the speed or aim he’d be able to pull the trigger with. But now, standing next to him, she felt anything but safe. She felt like that awkward, clumsy female in the martial arts class nobody wanted to get stuck with.

No, worse than that. She felt like a worthless scrap of meat in a dogfight.

“Ivan, is it?” Zack nodded to the man’s tattoo on the man’s neck. His voice rose. “You don’t want to take this woman. She’s a bad assignment. Cut your losses and move on. It’s not worth the trouble.”

Ivan snapped something at Dmitry. Dmitry shouted back. In an instant, both men were arguing so loudly they were almost bellowing.

Zack tilted his head and leaned toward Rebecca. “Trust me, okay? Do whatever I say to do. Without question.”

“No bribe!” Ivan shouted in English. “No money. No deal. No bribe. We’re taking her now.” He pointed one finger at Rebecca. “You. Girlie. Hands up. Come here, now.”

She nearly laughed. Did these men not see the gun Zack had trained at their heads? True, it was two guns against one, but it was not as if Zack was about to let them drive off with her.

“Okay, okay.” Zack lowered his gun and forced an artificial chuckle from this throat.

What? she nearly screamed inside her own head.

Ivan’s snarl turned into a smirk. “You’re just going to give us the girl?”

Zack shrugged. “What can I say? Like I said, she is clumsy. She will take two steps, trip over her own feet and fall down.”

Ivan snapped something to Dmitry.

“No, no, don’t shoot me, Dmitry!” Zack raised his hands. “You shoot me. I shoot you. Ivan here gets the girl and the money.”

There was a long pause. Wind brushed the trees. Ivan shifted his feet. Zack stood firm on the pavement.

Zack turned to Rebecca. “Go around to the passenger’s-side door. I’ll stay here with this man and we’ll work things out.”

Her head shook. Tears were forming in her eyes. “If I get into their van, they’ll kill me.”

Firm gray eyes cut at Rebecca. “Passenger side. Go.”

* * *

Zack could feel his heart beating in his chest, slow and steady.

He could sense Rebecca beside him without even looking her way. He knew how she was standing and how her limbs were moving. He knew exactly how much space was between their two bodies. He could feel the fear rolling off her shoulders like waves. He could hear the ragged, desperate sound of her breathing and wished there was a way he could still it.

Trust me, Becs. Please. I know what I’m doing. I know who these men are, how they think and how to keep you safe. Just walk around to the passenger side of the van, take two steps and hit the ground.

What were two members of Black Talon, a violent Eastern European crime syndicate, even doing in Canada? There’d been rumors recently of an internal power struggle within Black Talon. Members killing other members for control of the syndicate. What was more worrying was that both Canadian intelligence and weapons kept turning up in the hands of one faction. His special ops unit had recently been tasked with trying to determine, without any real leads, where the leak was coming from. It was possible these two men were former members who’d gotten ahold of forged immigration documents from the same source, come to North America and turned mercenaries for hire. But the hackles on the back of his neck, and the way they’d responded to his questions about their boss, made him suspect they were the real deal.

Did they suspect he was Canadian military? He’d tried to throw them off by calling them “Dmitry” and “Ivan” as if he thought the tattoos were the men’s real names, as opposed to the names of their first confirmed kills.

All Zack was waiting for now was for Rebecca to get herself out of harm’s way. Then he could rush Ivan and safely disarm him. After that he’d take out Dmitry.

But Rebecca wasn’t moving. Had she not understood his signal? Did his directions confuse her? True, they hadn’t seen each other in years. But they used to be so tight it was as though they could read each other’s thoughts. The soldier in Zack told him that when the hostage one was rescuing became a liability, it was important to focus on the key mission objective above all else.

Yet something in his heart was stopping him from thinking of Rebecca as a mere “hostage” or “objective.” Rebecca was different. Somehow. Keeping her safe mattered to him. But he didn’t have time to stand around asking himself how or why. If she didn’t move soon, he’d have no choice but to treat her like any other uncooperative hostage he was trying to rescue, which was something he really didn’t want to have to do.

Aw, come on, Rebecca! Until you move I won’t be able to get us out of this!

Zack tilted his head toward Rebecca but kept his eyes trained on the gunmen.

“Hurry up,” he hissed.

Ivan raised an eyebrow.

Lord, he prayed, help her understand. I can’t keep stalling these men forever.

“Look, please, don’t make this any harder than it needs to be,” Zack said, sharply. “You think I don’t remember how clumsy you were? Like I said, you’d take two steps onto the martial arts mats, trip and you would wipe out on your face. Just go around to the side of the van and get out of my way. Now! You don’t want them to tie you up or drag you off kicking and screaming, now do ya?”

Rebecca spun on her heels—

Thank You, God!

She sprinted hard into the woods.

No!

Ivan swore and fired after her. Dmitry charged into the trees.

No. No. No. No. No.

This is exactly the kind of situation Zack had wanted to avoid! Rebecca was now running off wildly with no direction or focus with an experienced killer on her heels, putting her own life in even worse danger. Why hadn’t she just listened?

Ivan’s weapon swung toward Zack. But Zack wasn’t about to let him get off another shot. Zack charged, head down, his full strength barreling into the thug like a freight train. Ivan’s body smacked against the pavement. The gun flew from his hand.

Zack stood over him and grabbed him by the shirt collar. “Why is the Black Talon in Canada? How did you get into the country? Who’s been supplying you with Canadian weapons? What do you want with Rebecca Miles?”

“No English.” The criminal spat in his face.

A gun blast sounded from the trees to his left.

Rebecca.

Dmitry was still hunting her.

Zack’s jaw clenched. If he let Ivan get away he might never get an answer. But if he didn’t, Rebecca might die. He leveled one decisive blow at the side Ivan’s head, hard enough to keep him from following. Then Zack grabbed the man’s gun and charged into the woods. His feet pelted quickly through the trees. His ears strained for noise to guide him.

Zack had always been a tracker. Before he’d been a soldier he’d hunted game, both large and small, in the Canadian woods. As a bodyguard one summer, he’d found and returned the runaway rich kid he’d been hired to protect. But while his body moved almost silently, his heart pounded so loudly in his ears, it threatened to block out the world around him. Rebecca hadn’t taken him seriously. She hadn’t respected him. She hadn’t seen the man he’d become. A man finally worthy of being respected and cared for by a woman like her. She must still think of him as the emotionally and physically weak boy he used to be. And now her life was in danger because of it.

Another gun blast.

Then Dmitry’s voice, loud and angry. “Come out now!”

Zack crept toward the sound. He could see Dmitry between the trees. The criminal was standing in a clearing. But where was Rebecca? Dmitry swung his weapon around in a circle and fired wildly into the underbrush. Bullets tore through the trees.

“You! Out! Now!” Dmitry’s gun spun wildly from one direction to another. “Or I’ll hurt you!”

Zack held in his breath as bullets flew past him, exploding in the underbrush. Dmitry reached to reload.

Rebecca leaped from the trees.

FOUR

Zack watched in amazement as Rebecca launched herself at Dmitry, landing hard on the criminal’s back. The gun flew from Dmitry’s hand and disappeared into the undergrowth. Rebecca clung to his back, swinging at his head and scratching like a wildcat. So, she’d been hiding up a tree waiting for a member of Black Talon to run out of bullets? Rebecca might not be the easiest target he’d ever extracted from danger, but the woman had serious guts.

Zack burst through the tree line and started running. Dmitry tossed Rebecca to the ground. She leaped up and charged right back at the burly man, even as his fist flew at her. She fell back. But only for a moment. She charged again.

“Rebecca, wait!” Zack threw the strength of his bulk in between Rebecca and the professional killer. Dmitry swung toward Zack. Zack blocked the blow and leveled a decisive punch at the man’s jaw. Rebecca took off running through the woods again.

You’ve got to be kidding me!

The Black Talon killer scrambled to his feet and took off running back toward the road. Rebecca and Dmitry had disappeared through the trees in opposite directions.

Okay, now what? Zack glanced up to the sky, but even before a prayer could leave his lips, he knew exactly which way to run.

Zack took off after Rebecca. He gave up on stealth and went for speed. She was smaller, lither and better able to weave through the dense underbrush. He felt like a rhinoceros crashing after her. But she would never be able to beat the sheer strength of the adrenaline that surged in his veins. He caught up to her, slowly and surely. Then for a moment they were pacing each other, his feet just a few steps behind hers.

Zack’s hand reached out and brushed her shoulder, even as he dreaded the moment he was going to have to grab her and force her to stop. “Rebecca.” He panted. “Please.”

She stopped running. So did he. They stood there together, face-to-face in the forest, catching their breath. Her hands grabbed both of her knees, as her head swung down between her legs for a moment, panting. Then she swung her head back up, and he watched as dark hair cascaded around her shoulders, dancing like grass in the wind. His mouth went dry.

Rebecca’s hands rose up in front of her face in two small fists. He watched as her legs moved into the perfect lines of a fighter’s stance. Something inside his stomach lurched. He watched her take the pose he’d seen her take so many times before, back on the mats when they were so much younger and knew each other so much better. His heart remembered how there’d always been a slight smile on her lips and a twinkle in her eyes as she challenged him to a fight. Now, the look in her eyes was deadly serious and the curl of her lip almost trembled.

His heart sank down to the bottom of his chest. He leaned back against a tree, suddenly feeling all the fight leave his body.

“Aw, come on, Becs. Don’t look at me like that. I know this situation is crazy, and I can’t begin to imagine what’s going through your head right now, seeing me again like this after all these years. But I promise you, I’m on your side here. And no matter what, I’d never hurt you. Ever.” He ran one hand through his hair, suddenly conscious of all the white that had crept into it over the years. Then he glanced down at his chest and arms, feeling almost self-conscious about the physique he’d worked so hard to build. “I’m still the same guy you used to spar and joke around with back when we were younger. Only a whole lot older and in slightly different packaging.”

As he watched, something softened in the lines of her face. Her shoulders relaxed slightly. But still her hands didn’t drop.

“I’m not going anywhere with those men,” she said.

“Of course you’re not!” He chuckled without even meaning to at how ludicrous a thought that even was. Then he winced, as fire flashed in the depths of her eyes. She’d always hated being laughed at.

“You told me to go with them.” She leveled the words at him like blows.

“No, I didn’t! I told you to go around to the side of the van and fall flat on your face.”

“You never told me to fall down. You just kept making stupid, Seth-like comments about how clumsy I was and that I was likely to fall down—”

“Because I was signaling to you that I needed you out of the line of fire. I needed you to get around the van, drop to the ground, so I could take them out without risking you getting shot. But I could hardly telegraph my plans in front of them. So I was trusting that you’d get what I was saying.” His voice turned hoarse in his throat. “How could you not get that? What? Did you think I was just randomly insulting you, while your life was in danger, like some arrogant jerk?”

She raised her hands to her face. Her fingers pressed into the corners of her eyes, like she was fighting back tears. Oh, wow. She had. She’d been terrified, and in danger, and for some reason thought he was actually taking potshots at her. His head shook.

What happened, Rebecca? What happened to you? What happened to us?

In all the years she’d lived as a smiling face in his footlocker and as a memory at the corner of his mind, he’d focused on the good times. The mornings they’d gone jogging around the base together before anyone else was awake. The infectious laugh that would slip through her lips when he managed to surprise her. The way her fingers would brush against his arm.

But now, that final time he’d seen her, that painful moment he’d tried to forget, filled his mind in blaring sound and color. How she’d stood, just inside the shelter of the school archway, while the rain poured down around him. Smudgy lines of makeup making her eyes look even bigger. Her hair twisted around her head like something off a movie screen. And wearing some sparkling, extraordinary getup that had blown his mind and made him forget how words worked.

What are you doing here? Her eyes had narrowed. You missed me getting the trophy.

She’d been angry. Hurt. He hadn’t known why.

He’d looked down at his feet. I just enlisted.

An engine rumbled in the distance. The van was leaving. Rebecca’s fingers were still hiding her face.

His soldier’s mind reminded him that she was the stepsister of a man who’d stolen government secrets. The fact that Black Talon mercenaries had come after her and Seth had blown up the road to her property meant she was somehow involved, whether she knew it or not. And his own CO had suggested he simply take her to Timmins and let the police handle it. Yet, for one brief moment, all his heart could see was his former best friend—frightened, overwhelmed and desperately needing someone to wrap their arms around her, pull her into their chest and hold her tightly.

Even if right now that person couldn’t be him.

He stepped forward and reached for her hands. “I’m sorry. A long time ago, we had such an amazing connection. It was like we could read each other’s minds. It was wrong of me to just assume you’d get what I was saying back there or what I was asking you to do.”

She let him peel her hands away from her face. Her eyes were dark and brimming with questions.

“You didn’t even tell me it was you,” she said.

I was hoping you’d recognized me. I was hoping you’d know.

Maybe he’d even been hoping on some level that she’d never forgotten him just like he’d never forgotten her.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. Her fingers fluttered in his. But she didn’t pull away. “My real name is Zack Keats. I dropped the ‘Biggs’ when I enlisted. Keats was my mother’s maiden name, my middle name and the last name of the uncle and aunt who raised me. I was the last of their family tree. I am a sergeant with the Canadian Armed Forces. Trust me, this is hardly the way I wanted this reunion to go and there’s so much I want to tell you that I can’t. But ask me any question you want, and I promise that even if I can’t give you an answer, I will not lie to you.”

She stepped back and pulled her hands away. Then she crossed her arms, leveled a steady, unflinching gaze at him and asked him the one question she’d know he’d never be able to answer. The one question he’d spent his whole adult life hoping no civilian would ever ask him:

“Are you with special ops?”

* * *

Zack didn’t answer her. He didn’t need to. The split-second flash of alarm in his eyes was all the confirmation she needed. In a nanosecond, his facade was calm again, expressionless, like that of a man who’d worked very hard at learning how to hide everything he really thought and felt so very deep down inside, so that it never came close to hitting the surface.

“The Canadian Forces special operations are highly classified,” Zack said, almost mechanically.

“I know.” Just how I know that if you are special forces, you won’t be able to tell me. “But would it be okay if I told you a story?”

His eyebrows rose. “Go ahead.”

“When I was a teenager my best friend, Zack, was a total genius. When it came to puzzles and figuring things out, his brain just seemed to work twice as fast as everyone else’s.” She watched as Zack swallowed hard. “My friend Zack told me once that his life’s goal was to join the Canadian special forces. Showed me all this research he’d managed to do about them. He had a binder of it. A literal three-ring binder. He took it that seriously. I never forgot that about him. So, over the years, I kept my ears open for news of the Canadian Forces special ops task force, especially when I was working on projects overseas. I always wondered if he’d made it and if my friend Zack was now one of those brave, unknown people secretly keeping the world safe.”

His eyes were locked on hers, filled with words she knew he wouldn’t be able to say. For a brief moment, the sheer pride she felt swelling inside her blocked out every other question in her mind. No matter how upset and frustrated I am right now, I hope you know just how insanely impressed I am with you, too.

Then she looked away and started walking back toward the direction of the road. He matched her pace.

“Then again,” she added, “he was only eighteen at the time. He’d be in his late thirties now and getting close to forty. And how many people actually grow up to become exactly the man they’d always said they’d be?”

Certainly nobody else I’ve ever known. The forest floor crunched under their feet. Zack pulled his phone from his pocket, frowned, then slid it back.

“How about your stepbrother?” Zack asked. “What did he turn out to be?”

“Seth?” She blinked. Why did Zack want to know about him? He couldn’t still be sore over how bad Seth had treated him. “What about him? He works in computers. We never talk.”

There were handcuffs on Zack’s belt, tucked under his sweatshirt, but still they jangled just a little as he walked.

“I overheard the phone conversation you had in my truck,” she added. “I didn’t set out to eavesdrop, but I’m a videographer and my truck is wired for video and sound. Who were you talking to and why did you tell them you were bringing me in?”

“That was my commanding officer, Major Jeff Lyons. I’d told you I was going to call him. I was just telling him that I was going to escort you to the police station in Timmins.”

“Why does that require handcuffs and a gun?” She shot him a sideways glance. “You made it sound like you were going to drag me there against my will.”

“Those aren’t for you. They’re for in case we run into trouble on our way there. The police want to talk to you about something, and he wanted to make sure I was going to remain professional and not accidentally compromise an active investigation because of our past friendship. I might’ve gotten a little emphatic about it.”

“What kind of open investigation?” she pressed. “Why does the police want to talk to me?”

“Telling you that could compromise the police’s ability to question you.”

“Okay, but is it safe to assume it’s linked to the fact that someone blew up the road?”

“I can’t tell you about that.”

“How about Ivan and Dmitry?”

He ran his hand over the back of his neck in a gesture so familiar it rattled something at the edges of her heart.

“I think it’s safe to assume you’re going to remember the tattoo those men had and look it up online,” he said, carefully. She nodded. “When you do, you’ll find references to a major Eastern European crime syndicate, which translates roughly as ‘Black Talon.’ Basically they steal things, smuggle things, sell things illegally and kill people, and to make matters worse there are warring factions within Black Talon violently fighting for supremacy over the group. You’ll also discover they tattoo themselves with the name of their first confirmed kill. So technically, those two men would be The-Man-Who-Killed-Ivan and The-Man-Who-Killed-Dmitry, but I’ve been mentally calling them Ivan and Dmitry for short, too. But what I don’t know is why two members of Black Talon would be in Canada or why they just tried to kidnap you. I wouldn’t even want to guess. As you probably noticed I tried fishing for information a bit, trying to see if they knew who I was and if they’d been hired for money.”

“Could you understand what they were saying?” she asked.

“Yup.” He chuckled slightly. “Basically, it all came down to ‘Shoot him!’ and ‘Take her!’ and ‘Stop acting like an idiot or I’ll kill you.’”

They reached the road. It was empty. The kidnappers and their van were gone. They walked back toward her camper. Every inch of her skin seemed to tingle with electricity from being this close to him. The old, familiar smell of him filled her senses. I’m frightened. I’m angry. I’m beyond frustrated that Zack won’t give me answers. And my heart won’t stop fluttering whenever he glances my way.

She could now see the camper between the trees. She stopped walking and turned toward him. They stood there a moment, chest to chest, face-to-face, just inches apart in the dirt.

“Can you tell me one thing?” she asked. “Is your target the man who blew up the road? Or Black Talon? Or me?”

“None of you are my target.” His hands swung wide above his head, as if he was trying to swat the horizon. “Like I told you before, I’m not on assignment right now. I’m on vacation. On leave. This is my holiday. I actually need to report back to base in less than two days for overseas deployment.” His arms dropped back down to his side. “This morning I was camping at the side of a lake about an hour south of here, then I heard something on the news—which I’m guessing you haven’t heard or you wouldn’t be asking so many questions—and I figured you might need an old friend to talk to.”

His hands parted slightly like he wanted to hug her but wasn’t sure if he should.

“When you climbed out of the rocks, I didn’t think you recognized me,” he went on, “and I was trying to figure out how to tell you who I was when my commanding officer called and suggested I shouldn’t.”

“How did he know you were with me?” she asked.

“He guessed.” He looked past her into the trees. “I have a very old news clipping about you winning that martial arts trophy taped inside my footlocker. Now, please stop asking me questions I can’t answer. Just stop. Please. I’m already in trouble enough with my CO for potentially barging onto a gigantic mess for personal reasons.”

A “mess” that involved foreign criminals, explosives and weapons.

“Just let me ask one more question, please, then I’ll stop.”

He ran both hands over his head. “Go ahead.”

“Why is there a newspaper article about me in your locker?”

An article about the night you broke my heart?

His eyes glanced to the sky and his lips moved for a moment like he was praying.

“Because you changed my life, Rebecca.” His eyes dropped to her face. “You believed in me and stuck by me when nobody else did. I’d never forgotten what it was like to walk into that gym, overweight, out of shape, feeling laughed at, and yet wanting to be better than I was. And you...sorry to be so blunt, but you were the cutest thing I’d ever seen and yet you walked right over and asked me to partner with you. You befriended me. You encouraged me. So yeah—” and here his voice rose, as if he was arguing with an opponent she couldn’t see “—today when I realized you could be in trouble, and knew I’d followed your career just enough, and remembered your stories well enough, to know you might not be too far away, I came to find you. Because you had my back when nobody else did and I wanted to make sure I had yours now.”

Her heart flipped in her chest, as if they’d been standing on the mats and he’d just grabbed her by the heels and tossed her end over end.

“But it was a mistake,” he said. “Because there’s something big going on and guys like me don’t have the luxury of making personal decisions. Not where stuff like this is involved.”

He stepped back, reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “Now that I’ve got a signal, I’m going to call my commanding officer again and tell him we just had some unwanted company. Do you need any help packing up your camper?”

She shook her head. “No, thanks, I’ll be fine.”

He walked her to her camper door, waited until she stepped inside and then dialed a number. She could hear his voice fading in the distance as he strode off through the trees. She sat down on her bunk and dropped her head into her hands, feeling as if she should pray but not even knowing how to start sorting out the scattered feelings of her heart.

Her gold martial arts trophy sat on the small shelf beside her bunk, on top of the glossy hardcover copy of General Arthur Miles’s autobiography that someone on his staff had mailed her, she guessed out of courtesy, even though she and her mother weren’t in it. Rebecca had never been close to her stepfather, which had probably disappointed Zack a bit when they were younger, considering how much he’d admired the man and how often Zack had hinted that he hoped she’d introduce them. It’d been odd being in the same family as someone whose name everyone seemed to know and yet she’d never personally felt close to, even though her mother had insisted she and Rebecca both change their last names to “Miles.”

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