Code Name: Ghost (A Warrior's Challenge 1) (41 page)

“That’s how long it’s going to take for him
to hit the end of his chain and come after you, but he’ll be
lurking long before that, and that’s when we’ll have him.”

She rocked her head and surrendered,
reaching out and taking his hand. Pulling her under his arm, he led
her into the house. Too many women had wanted to take up post at
his address. Only one woman belonged, and she was finally home.

He had let her return to her condo under a
four-man guard to pick up some things. During that time, he
returned to the base and sat a resistant Gord down in his
office.

His patience was nonexistent, wanting to get
back to Kayla. He dredged up as much as he could, and explained to
Gord the threat on her life.

Gord finally opened up and explained that
they’d known her husband had been abusing her for years. Red, sat
down beside him, his expression worried.

“I sat with her every day in the hospital,”
Gord revealed, expelling a sigh. “Kayla remained in a coma for
weeks, maybe months, I don’t remember now. There was so much trauma
to her head the doctors only gave her a thirty percent chance of
survival. I don’t think I’ll ever get those images out of my mind,
Commander. He’d crushed her ribs, smashed her jaw, and her entire
neck was black from him choking her. She was unrecognizable.” Gord
quickly brushed an escaped tear away. “Kayla was never the same
after that.” Gord took a stuttering breath. “The only man she
trusted was Lieutenant Commander Lapierre…until she met you,
Commander. When we came here, I started to see the old Kayla
again.” Gord stared at the wall, gathering his thoughts.

“Nothing is going to happen to her, Gord.
We’re going to catch the Shark,” he assured him.

“They haven’t so far. No one has survived.”
Gord squared a look on him, concern folding his forehead into deep
lines. “That final attack, her husband did something he’d never
done before.”

Don’t say it
, but he knew what was
coming. He’d suspected it since Christmas when he’d unzipped her
dress. The light had been dim in her closet, but he’d seen the
discolored scars punctuating her back. “He used a knife on her,
didn’t he?”

Gord bowed his head, nodding.

A groan left his throat. The final ugly
piece of the puzzle clanked into place. The Shark used one as well.
That’s what had brought the trauma back into play. “We know it was
her husband, but who was he?”

Gord rubbed the back of his neck slowly.
“She met him soon after enlisting. Kayla was a pretty stunning
woman back then.”

Was? Obviously Gord saw her like a
sister.

“His name is Daniel. He worked for the Joint
Task Force. Counterterrorism specialist, but I guess you know what
that is. He was away a lot on deployments, that’s when Kayla
recovered between…well, you know.”

So, that’s how Lapierre must have known him.
“Is that all?”

“You met Greg Lapierre?”

He nodded. “Yeah, we met.”

“Greg’s his brother.”

The two open ends of a circle locked
together. It was a tale of two brothers who loved one woman, and
the reason Lapierre hadn’t killed Daniel when he should have.

* * * *

Kayla stood in front of him in workout pants
and a tight green T-shirt that palmed her body, showing every
bloody curve.

“I’m not doing this. When I was younger, I
went to Fort Lewis for repelling and self-defense training. Some
big bastard of a Ranger fell on me. It knocked the air right out of
me.”

A grin broke out. He couldn’t help it. “You
trained at Fort Lewis?”

“Yarp.”

His forehead wrinkled. “Yarp, what the hell
is Yarp?”

She gave him a sly smile. “A brain
worm.”

A gust of laughter left him. “A what?”

“A brain worm. You stick a word in someone’s
head, and then you try to make them say it. Human nature the way it
is, they try to resist, and then when they do slip up…Well—” She
opened her palms and gave him a wicked look. “Psychological
warfare, Commander.”

“You Canadians really operate on a different
frequency, don’t you?” he said, grinning at her antics.

“Yarp.”

“Stop that.” A totally, but overtly innocent
expression covered her features. “So why were you in Fort
Lewis?”

“I was in the Reserves. After that I
squandered my life on the DND and let them knock the shit out of
me.”

He burst out laughing. “Kayla, you’re
something else, you know that?” He squared his shoulders and spread
his feet apart. “Now work with me on this. If the Shark gets close,
it might take a few seconds before we can get to you. You’re going
to have to hold him off, and I’m going to show you how to do
that.”

Kayla stood with her hip kicked out to the
side, giving him a disapproving look.

“All right, now come at me.”

Standing in the middle of his backyard on a
freshly cut lawn, she eyed him, then her gaze strayed over his
shoulder. “Wouldn’t it better if I just lazed around your pool?”
she asked, giving it a lustful look, one that yanked at his
insides.

The thought of seeing her in a bathing suit
tore his mind away from just about everything. He groaned inwardly.
Okay, so he’d thought about seeing her in less than a bathing suit
ever since Christmas morning, when she’d turned his brain into a
one-celled wonder. They’d slept together, held each other, touched,
kissed, cuddled, but they didn’t know each other in the biblical
sense. After what she had endured in her life, would they ever?

He raised his brows at her, feigning
impatience, but really, he could stand out here all bloody day,
just looking at her like he’d done for months. “Later, now we
work.”

“You really take this Commander thing too
seriously.”

“Kayla, if you don’t get your ass over here,
I’m coming over there, then all bets are off.”

She huffed and took a couple steps toward
him, but suddenly she put it into high gear running around him,
making for the pool. His team might not be able to catch her, but
she was up against him. He clutched her in his arms from behind,
just as her right foot hit the pool deck, and lifted her into the
air.

His anger still lingered from seeing the
file earlier and talking with Gord. It all hit head-on with his
love for her, in a tangled web. “Now what? What do you do if he
comes at you from behind? He wants your blood on his hands. You
have to fight,” he growled in her ear. Fear clenched him at his own
words, and he held her too tightly, too aggressively.

Her entire body tensed. A cry left her
throat as if he was killing her. She bit down on his arm hard and
fast. She didn’t draw blood, but almost. Immediately he let go, and
she ripped herself from him. Her body shook, and a blaze of panic
tore through her expression. “Kayla, I’m sorry,” he said, raising
his hand to calm her.

She looked horrified and her fingers
trembled as she covered her mouth. “No, I’m sorry.” She shook her
head. “I—I just…” She clenched her arm to her side and stared down
at the grass, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.

Her hands were still shaking,
uncontrollably.
Oh, God.
“Kayla?” His heart hammered in his
chest, cracking in half with worry she’d be afraid of him now. “I
would never—ever hurt you. Please, tell me you know that.”

She nodded sharply, but wouldn’t look at
him. “I know that, sir.”

He gave her the time she needed to regain
her composure and she did it quickly.

“The best I’ll ever do is an open shot to
his groin, Commander, but I’m not trained in hand-to-hand combat,
and you can’t be jumping all over me,” she said tersely.

“I like the way she tells him off,” Clay
said in the small, almost invisible com set in his ear.

“At least somebody gets to,” Tony replied.
“We can live vicariously through her.”

He shook his head and turned to look at the
tree line behind his property. “You two better be keeping your eyes
on the scenery.”

“Got you covered, Commander,” Cobbs said
from his camouflaged position in a tall evergreen in line with the
house.

“What was that?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“What are you looking at? Is there something
out there?” her voice tightened as she scanned the trees.

Four paces brought him close enough to rest
his palms on her shoulders. “No one’s out there,” he said.

“No one but us peeping Toms,” Mace growled.
“I got a bad feeling about this.”

“What do ya mean?” Tony shot back.

“Oh, you’ll see, or at least you’re going to
wish you didn’t have to.”

He resisted rolling his eyes. Mace was going
to be doing that swim after all. He settled his gaze on Kayla. From
the moment this little mermaid stepped into their world, she’d
brought out more emotion from him than he’d known his entire life.
Whether it was laughter from her wicked sense of humor or respect
for her quick wit, she had made him think of things he’d never
considered—like becoming a Commander from the deck of a destroyer
or a desk. Now it seemed more important than ever. His mermaid had
been caught in a net, and there were scars—deep ones. He understood
there were two Kaylas. The one she showed the world, and the one
still trying to heal. How could she ever trust a man? Although in a
weakened state, she’d admitted she’d fallen in love with him. Thane
knew she resisted it to protect herself.

Kayla’s eyes widened as she leaned around
him to look at something.

“Hiya handsome,” he heard, and turned
slowly, recognizing the voice.

“Hey ya, sweetheart,” Carly purred.

Sarah and her twin sister Carly stood on his
patio. Their skintight dresses showed off their lean figures and
their breasts puckered from the sheer silk outfits they wore. The
spirals of their copper and blonde hair lifted in the wind. Kayla
immediately pulled away from him.

“I’ll be back in a minute.”

“You gotta be kidding me, fucking twins,”
Tony scoffed. “I can’t tell ya how much I respect that man.”

All the other guys chuckled except for Mace.
“Not good, Commander, definitely not good. One step forward with
the flowers, thirty backward with the twins. Maybe I got a shot,
after all.”

“Mace, shut it,” Cobbs warned, before he
could say anything else. “Kayla’s not going to retreat because of
that.”

“Ya wanna bet? Look at her face.”

Thane swallowed hard, reaching the twins who
stood waiting with a hopeful expression of an all-night escapade
obviously on their minds. Mace was right. This wasn’t good, and he
had to fix it fast.

* * * *

Kayla watched him as he met the centerfold
beauties on his deck. Within striking distance, they both strung
their arms around his neck and plastered themselves against him.
Her chest clenched and she turned away, wandering to the back of
his property. “Don’t be surprised, Kayla,” she muttered to herself.
He’d lied to her when he said he hadn’t been with anyone for
months. Men always lied. She reached the back of the property and
sat down against a tree. When a hand came down on her shoulder, she
nearly jumped out of her skin.

“Easy, Kayla, it’s just me,” Cobbs soothed.
“Don’t speak. If he’s watching we don’t want to give our position
away.” She cleared her throat and reached for a palm frond sitting
on the ground close to her. “They’ll be gone shortly, I guarantee
it,” he said.

Twisting the sharp end of the palm was
better than watching the scene on the patio.

“I know the Commander is only interested in
one little lady,” he said quietly. “The Ghost isn’t the kind of man
to buy flowers for any woman, until you, that is.”

She tensed with his words. “What?” she
whispered through her lips trying not to move them. Her heart was
getting an extreme workout these days, with severed fingers showing
up in boxes, men jumping out of trees and the thought that the
Commander had given her the flowers. For a fleeting moment she had
considered it, but disregarded it just as quickly.

“Kayla, that wryly bastard has been at war
with the world since he enlisted, but he finds peace when he thinks
of you. On our last mission, he almost bit it twice. I thought for
sure we were dead, and then he reached in his pocket and pulled out
a piece of paper. Suddenly he looked like a man with an answer no
other man on earth had. After that, single handedly, he took down
every one of the bad guys. It was like he was superhuman,” He
paused. “You wouldn’t happen to know what was on that paper, would
you?”

She swallowed the lump in her throat,
remembering the note she had given him months ago. She was sure
he’d thrown it out. Darting a glance across the lawn, she saw him
coming toward her in all his daunting glory and the women were
gone. “I can’t compete with them,” she admitted, “I should go.”

“Race is already over.” A small rustle of
branches told her the Lieutenant had pulled back into the brush
line.

She stared at the ground, not having the
nerve to look at him as Thane knelt down in front of her. His
fingers slowly wove between hers. She waited for him to say
something, but instead he reached for her other hand, and pulled
her up and against his chest.

A flock of birds took off in her heart as
his palm gently roamed down her back. He leaned in and breathed in
her ear, his words separating her blood and making it boil. “You’re
not going to get lazy on me now, are you? We have work to do.”

She didn’t know where she found the courage,
but she looked up into his eyes, very aware her breasts were pinned
to his chest, and her breath came in short little gasps. No man’s
eyes had ever stopped her heart, but his did, all the time.

“You’re so beautiful to me,” he murmured as
if he didn’t even realize he was saying it out loud.