Читать книгу Special Forces: The Recruit - Cindy Dees - Страница 11

Tessa jolted awake as the plane bumped onto a runway. It was dark outside the small window at her elbow. She was disoriented. Groggy. Airplane. Kicked out of the Special Forces pipeline. Orders from Torsten. A god sent along to deliver her to Phoenix.

She peered out the windows and saw the tall, black silhouettes of trees crowding an unlit runway. Trees? In Phoenix?

She’d been to Arizona before. It had been a thousand degrees outside, and all that grew in the sandy desert were rocks and cacti. She peered out her window again. Not only were those trees, they also looked like a mix of moisture-loving deciduous species and conifers. Totally not trees that would survive the hellish heat of summer in Arizona. And the air in the plane was muggy. Humidity in Phoenix often ran in the single digits. It was warm wherever they had landed, though. And the air smelled strongly of...plant decay.

She glanced over at Lambert. “Do you know where we are?”

“Yup.”

The man had the conversational skills of a caveman.

She waited for him to share, but nada. He just stared out his own window, jaw set and a grim expression on his face. “Well?” she demanded. “Where are we? This is obviously not Phoenix.”

“Are you always this impatient?” he asked laconically.

“Guess I am. I have this funny thing about liking to know, oh, what state I’m in.” One thing she knew for sure. This was not Arizona.

His lips twitched, but he didn’t deign to enlighten her. Apparently, he was as stubborn as his boss. Jackasses, both of ’em. Yeah, well, she could play that game, too. She’d be darned if she asked him any more questions.

The jet came to a full stop. Deep silence fell as the engines shut down. The copilot came back to open the clamshell hatch and lower the steps. She smiled flirtatiously at the young Air Force officer and asked him, “Could you please tell me where we are?”

He glanced up at her in surprise. “Louisiana.”

What on earth was there for her?

At least she’d caught what felt like a couple hours–long nap. If only she felt better after it. Not that anyone in the history of aviation had ever napped comfortably in an airplane seat. She hoisted herself out of the chair, every bit as stiff and agonized as she expected. Bent over in the low-ceilinged cabin, she hobbled to the exit.

She eyed the stairs warily. There were only four steps, yet that was enough to be problematic in her current state of pain. But no way was she going to ask Lambert, waiting impatiently at the bottom of the steps, for help. She made it down the first couple of steps, but her entire right leg cramped on the third step and collapsed out from under her. She pitched forward, straight into the arms of her SEAL babysitter. Again.

Dad gum it.

He growled in her ear, low and sexy, “Do you always throw yourself at men like this?”

His low voice sent a thrill rippling down her spine and vibrating deliciously through her lower abdomen before she remembered he was a jerk and she hated his guts.

His chest was hard, slabbed in resilient bulges of muscle, warm under the soft cotton of his black T-shirt. And he still smelled good. Which ticked her off to no end. She smelled like a landfill on a hot day, but there wasn’t a thing she could do about it until she crossed paths with water and a bar of soap.

It never failed. She always ran into the sexy guys when she was a total mess or being a complete dork. She was not one of those girls who managed to be pulled together, poised and make positive first impressions on men. Ever.

“Are you done trying to face-plant?” he asked.

Crud. She was still plastered against him. She yanked free of his strong, supporting arms and forced her legs to bear her weight no matter how much they protested. The copilot passed her rucksack down to Lambert, and she didn’t have the strength or give-a-crap factor to take it from him. She was already kicked out of training. She didn’t have to try to impress anyone with how tough and self-sufficient she was anymore.

Which scared the bejeebers out of her. Her entire life had been devoted to convincing herself and everyone around her that she was the real deal. That she could hang with the big boys. That she was tough. Invulnerable. Safe from harm or abuse.

What was she supposed to do now? Trade in her combat boots for flowered dresses and aprons? Who was she supposed to be? She had no idea how to be a regular woman. Knowing Major Torsten, he’d seen to it she would be stuck in some secretarial job fit only for a June Cleaver wannabe, in his misogynistic estimation.

If she had to make coffee for anyone, she swore she was going to poison the stuff.

Waterworks threatened again, and she breathed deeply, repeating over and over to herself, I will not cry. I will not cry. But hopelessness washed over her, anyway. What had all the years of work and sacrifice been for in the end? God, the time she’d wasted on a hopeless dream.

Lambert took off, striding toward an open-topped Jeep parked at the edge of the tarmac. He limped the tiniest bit on his right leg. Had he not been moving directly away from her like that, she probably wouldn’t have spotted the subtle anomaly in his motion. Not that the knee brace showing under his camo fatigue pants made him any less lethal.

She looked around the airfield, and the place was deserted. It was just a strip of asphalt in a clearing among the towering trees, not even a real airport. There were no buildings, no other vehicles, no people. If this guy was an ax murderer, he was totally going to get away with his crime.

“You comin’? Or are you just gonna stand there countin’ mosquitoes?” he tossed over his shoulder. If she was not mistaken, his voice had taken on a distinctly more Southern drawl.

She hurried after him, sucking in a sharp breath as a thousand hot knives stabbed her body from every direction. One thing the past few months of training with the big boys had taught her. There was sore, and then there was sore.

Lambert tossed her pack in the back of the Jeep and swung easily into the driver’s seat, waiting impatiently for her to catch up and climb in. She couldn’t help groaning a little as she levered her body into the vehicle, using the roll bar to help lift herself. She felt like death warmed over, for real.

“You always this creaky?” he asked.

“Not usually. Training was a little rougher than usual the past few days. No downtime to rest and recover. Nothing’s wrong with me that a hot shower and a decent night’s sleep won’t fix.”

A single chin lift was all the acknowledgment she got. At least he didn’t feel obliged to comment that if she thought initial Spec Ops training was bad, she should try the real deal. Whether he was showing sensitivity to her having just been thrown out of the program or he figured it went without saying that real operations were worse, she was glad for his forbearance. Her patience was way too thin right now to deal with man-snark.

He turned on the headlights and she squinted into the illuminated swath, making out only a thicket of vines, brambles and more trees. “Where in Louisiana are we?”

“Southern Louisiana. Not close to anyplace you’ve ever heard of.”

“What’s here?”

“The next step in your career.”

“What career?” she asked sourly.

He glanced over at her, his expression inscrutable. They bumped across a sandy field and turned onto an asphalt road crowded by towering trees. Cypress, mostly. The night was noisy. Crickets and frogs and God knew what else were audible over the Jeep’s engine.

“Why’d Torsten tell me I was going to Phoenix if your orders were to bring me to Louisiana?”

“Not the city of Phoenix. Operation Phoenix,” was her escort’s only, and cryptic, answer.

Huh? She leaned back to wait and see where he took her.

Lambert drove confidently, his hands moving on the steering wheel and gearshift with the ease and precision of a race-car driver. Bulging biceps flexed under the sleeve of his T-shirt, a sight she never got tired of. It had been one of the best perks of the training she’d just left. The man-candy factor had been through the roof.

Special operators weren’t generally men who packed on weightlifter’s muscle. They focused on stamina and high-repetition calisthenics that moved their own body weight. Their muscle was lean and hard as steel. And hawt as heck.

She’d put on some hard, lean muscle of her own over the past few months of training. But not enough, apparently. Lost in silently delivering the rant inside her head to the icy major who’d thrown her out for no good reason, she wasn’t inclined to engage her taciturn babysitter in conversation.

After about a half hour, lights appeared ahead, and a sad-looking strip of ramshackle buildings that might once have been a reasonably prosperous little road stop came into sight. Lambert turned into the potholed parking lot of a one-story motel that had seen much better days.

He parked at the end farthest from the office and swung out of the Jeep, and she spied him using his hand to give his right leg a little boost. He snagged her pack before she could reach for it, and she was forced to follow him and her gear to a door whose paint was peeling back to expose rusting metal. The night air smelled of brine and rotting grass as Lambert fished a key attached to a plastic paddle out of his pocket. He opened the door and stepped back to allow her to enter first.

How in the hell did he already have a key to a room in this dive? Her hackles leaped to suspicious attention along the back of her neck. “What is this?” she asked, not moving forward.

“A motel room.”

“You’re hilarious.” She rolled her eyes.

“You wanted a hot shower, right?”

Man, that was tempting. But in some guy’s cheap motel room? Even if he was possibly the hottest guy she’d laid eyes on in, well, forever? She said wryly, “I don’t have any idea who you are. Why on earth would I go into a motel room with you in a strange town whose name I don’t even know? You can go ahead and cue up the ax-murderer theme music right now.”

He shrugged. “It’s no skin off my nose if you stink. We can head out to your assignment now, if you want.”

Crud. A shower really was tempting. In the flickering red light of the busted neon sign spelling out M-O-E, he was one fine-looking man. His tanned skin was smooth and taut over razor-sharp cheekbones. His nose had been broken before and wasn’t perfectly straight, but the slight imperfection made the perfection of the rest of his face even more pronounced. Even the hint of razor stubble on his jaw was hot.

She was usually immune to men like him. After all, she worked in the Army, which was chock-full of fit, well-groomed men of discipline and energy.

But this guy. He was a stud among studs. There was an aura about the guys operating in the real world—a hardness, a confidence, self-awareness that called to her in some nameless, primitive way.

Not that she was looking to hook up with any man, thank you very much.

Lambert stepped inside, flipped on a light and paused to adjust the thermostat. Downward, hopefully. It was a sweltering night and sticky as sin. He glanced up without warning, catching her staring at his gorgeous profile. “You coming in?”

“Who are you really?” The question was out of her mouth before she could stop it. Dang, this guy messed her up. She never blurted stuff out like that.

“Just a guy doing a job. You can call me Beau.”

“Lambo’s your field handle, right? Let me guess. It’s short for Lamborghini and not Lambert.”

“Correct.” His eyes briefly lit with approval.

Hah. She’d nailed it. “You got a rank, soldier?”

“Yes.”

And, on cue, he went all caveman on her and didn’t share said rank. It irritated her enough that she refused to ask him what his rank actually was. Major Jackass. That was his rank.

“With all due respect, Beau, why in the hell are we here? Wherever here is.”

“Torsten didn’t tell you?” he replied sharply.

“Obviously not, or I wouldn’t be asking.”

“Come in and close the door. You’re letting in mosquitoes. And if I have to be in an enclosed space with you, please take a shower. You really do stink.”

“Screw you,” she said mildly.

His gaze snapped to hers, hot and willing. Her breath caught. Realizing belatedly what she’d just said, she rolled her eyes and stepped inside.

He held out her rucksack and she snagged it without comment as she passed by him, heading for the bathroom. She locked the door, stripped and turned the water on as hot as it would go. It was strange and disturbing knowing Lambert was right outside while she was in here, naked, like this.

Hyperawareness of her escort skittered across her skin, and it made her jumpy. It wasn’t that she was a prude. Far from it. But she could still feel all those acres of yummy muscle against hers. Smell his deodorant.

No amount of vigorous scrubbing erased the feel of him off her body. And, truth be told, she wasn’t sure she wanted to forget the sensations that had torn through her. They had been...amazing.

Irritated at whatever head game he was playing with her, she blasted the water, letting it pound her muscles until the water ran cold—which actually felt pretty good, too. Only then did she reluctantly pour the freebie bottle of shampoo over her head and scrub her hair blessedly clean. She soaped down her body, rinsed off and stepped out of the shower feeling like a new woman.

She toweled off and then stared down at the filthy mess that was her clothes. There were no clean ones in her rucksack, which held only combat and survival gear. She sighed and used the bar of soap in the bathtub to give her tank top, cargo pants and underwear a scrub and a rinse. God. How did women in the past wash all their clothes by hand like this?

She wrung out the garments as best she could, then pulled and plucked the soggy clothing onto her body. Oh, Lord. Beau was gonna love the wet T-shirt look. It didn’t help that her nipples were puckering with cold underneath her damp sports bra and thin tank top. Bracing herself for his disdain, or at least a rude stare, she stepped out into the room...and was startled to find it empty. Where had he gone? Out for food, hopefully.

She guzzled down a bunch of sulfur-tasting water using the plastic cup by the sink and combed out her hair. She was startled to see in the mirror that it had grown out to nearly her shoulder blades in the past few months. More startling was the deep tan she also was sporting. It made her gray-green eyes look even lighter and brighter than usual.

She towel-dried her hair and pulled it up into a high ponytail. It was going to go full poodle puff on her, but there was no help for it. Without a round brush or straightening iron, no way was she corralling its natural curl.

Using the motel’s blow-dryer, she worked at drying her clothes right on her body. They were still damp, but no longer clammy, when the door opened abruptly behind her and she spun, brandishing the blow-dryer like a six-shooter.

“Gonna take me down with that thing?” Beau asked drily.

Rats. No grocery bags or other sign of human sustenance. She would take calories right now in pretty much any form she could get them.

“I’m de-stinked,” she announced. “Any chance there’s somewhere nearby where I can grab a bite of real food?”

His cell phone rang just then and he fished it out of his jeans, answering tersely with, “Go.” He listened for a moment. Then, “The package is almost delivered. Understood.” He hung up.

She stowed the hair dryer in its wall mount and turned back to him. “Are you a drug dealer, or am I the package?”

“You would, in fact, be the package.”

“Can we please feed the package?”

He jerked his head for her to follow him and headed outside. She noticed this time as she passed him that she was about six inches shorter than he was. She was not quite five foot eight, which made him a little over six feet tall. He probably had sixty pounds on her in weight, even though at a glance he looked lean. She’d developed a discerning eye for the muscle density of special operators in the course of her recent training.

He moved past her with deceptive speed for a guy with a bum leg and reached for her car door just as her hand moved toward the handle. He opened it with a flourish and she looked up at him, startled.

“Don’t get used to it. I won’t coddle you or get any doors for you after tonight. But let the record show my mama didn’t raise a heathen.”

“Duly noted,” she replied, bemused as she slid into her seat and he closed the door. He went around to the driver’s side and in seconds was backing out of the lot. He threw the Jeep in gear and took off down the road. A gas station next to the motel appeared operational, along with a titty bar that looked like a total dive. Oddly, a bait shop was open, too. Apparently, night fishing was a local thing.

Beau turned off the narrow asphalt road onto an even narrower dirt road, and she was pretty sure she would start hearing banjos any second.

They banged along the terrible road for maybe ten uncomfortable minutes before a building on high stilts came into sight ahead with a half dozen muddy trucks parked in front of it. Another half dozen shallow-bottom boats were tied up at a dock behind it.

“We’re here,” he announced.

“Where’s here?”

“At the best steak joint in the Bayou Toucheaux.”

She salivated at the mere mention of steak. He led her up a staircase to a rickety wraparound porch. The weathered building looked as if a stiff breeze would blow it over.

She followed Beau into the dim, smoky interior. Any fire marshal worth his salt would have a stroke at the plentiful cigars and flaming grill filling the wooden structure with smoke. Four rednecks in sleeveless shirts and baseball caps bellied up to the bar, and several couples sat at tables in the middle of the room.

“’Eyy, chère,” one of the rednecks at the bar slurred as he spotted her. The guy strolled over to her, flashing a smile that had about one tooth for every three available slots. “You new come to dee parish, oui?”

Beau took a step forward, injecting himself between her and the drunk. “She new come to the parish with me.”

“Bah. Femme like dat wan’ de real man. Not girlie boy wit’ de pretty face...” The drunk trailed off, peering at Beau closely. “Lambert? Beau Lambert? Dat y’all?”

“Farty Lambert?” one of the other drunks behind the first one hooted? “Y’all done growed up. Got yo’self some muscles ’n’ all. Shee-it.”

Clearly Beau had some sort of history with these yahoos. Based on the taunts, she gathered he’d lived here as a child. Rough place to have come from if the poverty she’d seen so far was typical.

The other three drunks closed ranks behind the first one. “Li’l Farty Lam-bear? I’ll be damned. Never thought to see yo’ face round he-uhh no mo’,” one of them slurred.

Tessa’s entire body tensed. She knew that tone of voice from her own childhood. It belonged to a bully. One pumping himself up to inflict pain on someone weaker than he was. A bully enjoying his victim’s fear. Oh, this was not going to go well.

Anger at a bunch of big, strong jerks picking on someone else rolled through her, hot and sharp. God, she hated bullies. She sized up the four men quickly. She and Beau could totally take them. Teach them a lesson—

Check that. Not only was it strictly forbidden for special operators to lose their cool in public and particularly against civilians, but failure to control anger was also a big, fat disqualifier for joining them. Anger clouded the mind. Impaired judgment. Still. It was hard to rein in the urge to remove the rest of these jerks’ teeth.

As for Beau, he’d gone still and silent beside her. As in totally hunting-predator still and deeply, unnaturally silent. Menace poured off him like sublimated carbon off a block of dry ice. Surely, the four drunks weren’t so far gone that they failed to sense the threat emanating from him.

The first drunk gave Beau a hard shove. Nope. Too far gone to realize Beau was not a man to bait and threaten anymore. Little Farty Lam-bear had grown up into a stone-cold killer.

Beau stepped back up beside her after the shove. He spoke quietly, calmly. “Walk away from me, Jimbo. And don’t ever lay another hand on me. This is your only warning.”

The four drunks hooted with laughter. She thought Beau had gone a little pale, the only indication that these assholes actually bothered him.

“Easy, Beau,” she murmured low. “They’re not worth it.”

“Stay out of this, Tessa,” he muttered back. “This has been a long time coming. If they pick a fight with me, I’m within my rights to defend myself.”

She winced. It wasn’t a good idea for anyone to pick a fight with a trained Special Forces operative like him.

On cue, Jimbo took a clumsy swing at Beau. For his part, Beau dodged the meaty fist in negligent disdain, reaching up casually, gently even, to grasp Jimbo’s fist. The big drunk dropped to his knees, yelping.

Beau leaned down and spoke in a low, almost caressing tone, “You think you can mess with me like back in the good old days, Jimbo? Take my girl? Humiliate me in public? Think again, my friend.”

“Screw you,” Jimbo growled.

Beau just laughed quietly and tightened his grip until the guy on the floor howled with pain.

“Need me to help kill him?” she asked under her breath.

Beau glanced up at her. His stare was flat. Emotionless. He looked like Death incarnate.

Which, of course, he was.

“Maybe you should cut him loose,” she murmured. “I’m starving, and I don’t want to get kicked out of here.”

Beau released Jimbo’s hand, or more precisely, he released the unfortunate thumb bent back nearly to the guy’s wrist. The Cajun surged to his feet, right fist cocking back as he rose.

Mistake.

Beau moved so fast Tessa barely saw him slide past his foe. But all of a sudden Jimbo was facing her, and Beau was behind the guy, forearm around Jimbo’s neck, and the drunk was rapidly turning an ugly shade of purple.

She spoke calmly and slowly. “Beau.” She waited until he made eye contact with her to continue. “Toothless, here, has learned the error of his ways in trying to sucker punch you. Haven’t you?” she asked Jimbo.

The drunk tried to nod within Beau’s grasp but only managed to bug his eyes out a little more.

She glanced back at Beau. “How about you turn him loose so we can eat our dinner?”

He hesitated, but then nodded tersely and turned Jimbo loose.

The Cajun bent over at the waist, gasping and coughing. Tessa leaned down beside him and spoke coldly. “You’re welcome. And for the record, he could’ve snapped your neck like a twig if he actually wanted to kill you. Walk away from Beau and don’t ever mess with him again, or next time, I will let him break your neck.”

Jimbo glared at her, spitting out something under his fetid breath about crazy bitches and their homicidal pretty boys. Whatever. She was more concerned about Beau.

She straightened and turned, coming face-to-face with him. “You okay?” she asked under her breath.

“Yeah. Fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

She stared at him, startled. He sounded utterly normal. Casual. The incident was a stark reminder of just how lethal these guys could be when crossed. They killed with cool, calculated precision. No anger, no emotion, just efficient violence in the blink of an eye.

“How long have you been waiting to do that to that guy?” she asked low.

“Awhile,” Beau replied shortly.

She knew a thing or two about having old scores to settle.

Jimbo stumbled back toward his equally dentally challenged buddies, grumbling about jealous bastards who refused to share the hot chicks. At least somebody thought she was attractive. Of course, she still had all her teeth. By that measure alone, she was probably smoking hot to those losers.

Beau still stood rooted in place. Maybe he wasn’t so unaffected, after all. She reached out to touch his elbow lightly. “Ready to eat?”

He shook himself a little. “Yes. You?”

She smiled. “Show me the meat, big guy.”

His eyes glinted at her double entendre, but he didn’t rise to the bait.

He glanced across the room toward a grill that was actually an oil drum split in half with metal mesh over the two halves. Beds of charcoal filled the drums. “’Ey, Marie,” he called out.

A large woman wearing a New Orleans Saints jersey and standing by the grill turned around, wielding a long pair of tongs. She bellowed back, “Grab a table and yell out what y’all want. Damn waitress didn’ show up t’night.”

Tessa sank into a chair opposite Beau at a table for two, studying him closely. He had reacted the same way she would react if one of her mom’s boyfriends tried to rough her up nowadays. She would go postal on his ass.

Beau scowled back at her as he caught her intent regard on him. Didn’t like being psychoanalyzed, huh?

“Where do you know those guys from?” she asked.

“Everyone in these parts knows the Kimball brothers. I’m surprised all four of them are out of jail at the same time.”

“Are they petty criminals or into bigger stuff?”

Beau shrugged. “They deal drugs. Run guns. Extort protection money from local businesses. Rumor has it they’ve killed a few folks who got in their way or refused to pay.” He added sardonically, “They’re just smart enough to stay one step ahead of the law. The sheriff puts them away for small stuff anytime he can catch them. But so far, they’ve avoided arrest for the more serious felonies everyone knows they’ve committed.”

She eyed the big men across the room, memorizing their faces for future reference.

“How do you like your steak?” he asked, his voice a bit too tight. Predatory intensity rolled off him, and frankly, it turned her on like mad. Not that she would ever admit to him that she was secretly a bit of a Spec Ops groupie.

“Earth to Tessa, come in. Your steak?”

“Rare,” she answered, mentally shaking herself. Get a grip, girlfriend.

“Pink rare or bleeding rare?”

“Marie can just walk my steak past the flame and call it good.”

Beau called out, “Two steaks. Biggest ones you’ve got and rare as a virgin in a whorehouse.”

Guffaws filled the room. The Kimball boys glowered, however. Their heads came together angrily as they muttered amongst themselves. She made a mental note to keep an eye on that bunch as the night progressed and the level of whiskey in the bottle in front of them went down.

Marie came over to their table carrying an armload of plates and bowls.

“It’s been a while, Beau. Been, what? Fi’teen years since a Lambert come ’round these parts?”

“Something like that,” he answered noncommittally.

Fifteen years? Wow. That was a long time to hold a grudge against Jimbo and company.

“Well, ain’t y’all gone and got purty? Picture o’ yo’ daddy, you is. Good to have ya home, boy.”

“Good to be he’uh.” With every word he spoke, Tessa swore his Louisiana drawl got stronger. Why on earth would Torsten have sent the two of them to one of his men’s hometown in the middle of Cajun country? The longer she was here, the more the questions were stacking up.

Marie plunked down a platter of toasted garlic bread, a mess of green beans and ham hocks, and a big bowl of red beans and rice with sausage so spicy it made Tessa’s eyes water. When it came, a huge steak covered her entire plate and was tender enough to cut with a fork. She dug in with gusto.

It took a while for her to lay her napkin down and push her plate back. Another perk of her recent training: she could eat as much of anything she wanted and not gain an ounce. If anything, she’d lost a little weight even with putting on more muscle mass.

Someone fed the decrepit jukebox in the corner a handful of quarters, and twangy zydeco music abruptly filled the place. The talk got louder, the beer flowed more freely and women drifted into the bar and then out with men.

Under the din, Beau leaned forward. “Did Torsten tell you anything at all?”

“About what?”

Beau frowned.

She shrugged. “All he said to me was—and I quote—‘You’re out. You’ve got orders. Lambo, you have your orders. Get her off my base.’ End quote.”

He swore under his breath. “I’m gonna need a drink for this, then, and so are you.” He called for some moonshine and two glasses.

“I don’t like alcohol,” she announced as Marie thunked a mayonnaise jar of the local rotgut on the table along with two shot glasses.

“Tough. Drink up.” He poured two shots of the stuff.

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” she demanded.

He shrugged. “Hey, if you can’t roll like one of the boys, we don’t have to have this conversation at all.”

Scowling, she picked up the glass and tossed back the liquor, which burned like fire on the way down, shuddering at the powerful aftertaste. The alcohol went straight to her head, but at least it dulled the pain in her muscles while it was also dulling her brain function.

“Walk with me,” Beau murmured.

He sounded tense as heck. What on earth was going on with him? He’d actually been reasonably pleasant during the meal. Admittedly, neither of them had talked much as they devoured their steaks.

Perplexed, she followed him out to the porch. He strolled around back to face a narrow canal that stretched away into the blackness. They were alone out here. Citronella tiki torches provided the only light, their flames flickering weakly against the dark. A cacophony of sound wrapped around the pungent odor of the swamp rising from below. Beau propped his elbows on the waist-high rail and stared into the bayou beyond.

Just being alone with him out here in the dark like this was a turn-on. She’d never, ever been alone with a guy so hot, nor so deadly...which made him even hotter.

“You’re right about one thing,” he said low enough that she had to lean down in a similar, elbow-propped pose to hear him. “The military is never going to publicly stand for women in the Special Forces.”

She huffed in exasperation. “That horse is dead. You don’t have to kick it for fun.”

“But you’re right about something else, too. There is a place for women in special warfare. More to the point, Torsten agrees with you that we need women in the field.”

“No freaking way. He hates women.”

Beau snorted. “He hates everyone. But he loves the Special Forces. Wants us to be the best we can be. Male or female, he doesn’t care.”

“Why are you telling me this? He already booted me out.”

Beau didn’t answer her directly. Rather, he changed subject abruptly, asking, “Did you notice how publicly women are being tossed out of the various Special Forces courses?”

She snorted. “It’s hard to miss. Every time a woman fails it practically makes national news.”

“That publicity is intentional. We need the general public, hell, the world, to believe there are no American women operators and there will never be American women operators.”

“Well, yeah. That’s because there are none.”

“That wasn’t true once. There used to be an all-female Spec Ops team called the Medusas. Highly classified bunch. Operated for years and were wicked effective.”

“What happened to them?”

“The original team worked together for about ten years and gradually retired from active duty. The second generation team was lost.”

“As in they died?”

His voice no more than a sigh, he answered heavily, “Yeah.”

“How?” she asked quietly.

“Not my story to tell, and too classified to discuss here.”

Yikes. “And now? What’s next?”

“Next, we’ll try to build a new team.” He glanced at her and then back out at the bayou. “Starting with you.”

She stared at him. “Come again?”

“Torsten thinks you’ve got what it takes. He wants to train you to be a full-blown special operator. Not just a support type. A completely qualified combat specialist. That’s the purpose of Operation Phoenix. To raise the Medusa Project from the dead.”

She laughed in disbelief. “Right.” She added sarcastically, “And that’s why he threw me out of training and sent me across the country to a swamp.”

“I’m serious. Do you want to be a Medusa or not?”