Fiance by Friday (41 page)

Sergeant Piper scowled and stared at the phone in Gwen’s hand.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Gwen smiled and lifted the phone to her ear. “If I don’t call back in thirty minutes, you know what to do.”

“I’ve got your back, Gwen.”

It wasn’t like he had a choice when the military police ordered him into the back of a van and drove him to an interrogation room.

“There was no such thing as Operation Raven.” Colonel Montgomery flew in from the Pentagon as soon as the call went out about Major Blayney’s suicide. The man moved to intimidate. His bulk alone rivaled Neil’s, and that said something for top brass. Most left the bodybuilding to the grunts. This man obviously didn’t want to be outrun by his men. On any other day, Neil would have admired that.

Not one salt or pepper hair was out of place as he stared Neil down.

Neil sat forward against the table and prepared to reveal all the details he’d kept to himself until that point. “You might want to make sure the person recording this is secure, Colonel. I’d hate for a leak this late in the game.”

Montgomery left the room. He heard shouted orders and when Montgomery returned he arrived with another man and a recording device. Once the assistant was ready, Neil began.

“It had been over a year since the war began…after the towers went down. Blayney rounded me up and had me handpick my team. Each of us had worked together on one mission or another. He was readying us for the mission of our career. Sent us on three trials together. Operation Wrecking Ball, Operation Tidal Wave, and Operation Storm. Like all special ops, we went in, did our jobs, and got out.” Neil hoped to hell now that the other operations were legit. There’s no way to know how long Blayney had played them. “When it came to Operation Raven we were ready. We understood it was big. Something Washington would order at any time. We had one objective, remove Raven.” Neil gave Colonel Montgomery the name of their target and went on. “Cause as little collateral damage as possible and get out.”

Montgomery listened.

“Only things didn’t go smoothly. The choppers dropped us on target, and we moved in position. Raven was on his compound but so was his family. When we penetrated, Raven did the unthinkable. He demanded his children run toward us. We didn’t know the kids were wearing bombs. Boomer and Robb died on scene. Linden made it onto the chopper and died shortly after. Their deaths were labeled as ‘training accidents.’ Within six months, we were all removed or left our positions. Signed off by Major Blayney. Except for Mickey…or so we were told. Mickey stayed in.” Neil went on
to explain about Billy, about Rick, about how Mickey was played by Blayney to kill them all off to hide the truth about the mission.

Neil talked for hours. Ending with the last night of his life.

Montgomery listened, his face unreadable.

Once he was finished Montgomery asked questions. “Who were the pilots?”

“I’d never seen them before. We flew overseas in a cargo belly, jumped immediately into a chopper, and rappelled to our target. The pilots who picked us up never removed their headgear. I don’t know who they were.”

Montgomery swiveled away from him and dismissed his assistant. Neil witnessed the man pace the room. As much as Neil hated the position he was in at that moment, he pitied the colonel.

“You do realize the position this puts me in, Lieutenant?”

“Retired, sir.”

Montgomery tilted his head. “Not from where I’m standing. Until we have the details you’re officially reinstated.”

Neil sat taller. “And if I refuse?”

Montgomery stared him down. “That wouldn’t be wise.”

Noise from outside the room brought Neil to his feet.

“You were told to take her to a hotel. Not here!”

Neil heard the voice of an angel. “I didn’t give her a choice, soldier. Not why don’t you be a dear and tell me where my husband is.”

Before Neil could prepare the colonel for what walked through the door, Gwen was there. He couldn’t help but smile as she stormed the room. “There you are.” She threw herself into his arms and life fell into balance. “They tried to make me leave without you.”

“Gwen Harrison, I presume?” the colonel asked.

Gwen turned around and offered her hand. “Gwendolyn MacBain,” she corrected. Damn if Neil didn’t love the sound of his name attached to hers.

“Mrs. MacBain, you have five minutes before you need to call your brother back.” A nervous looking sergeant who’d walked into the room with her was waving a cell phone in her hand. She noticed the colonel and immediately saluted her superior.

Gwen shooed the woman off. “I’ll not call anyone until I know I’m leaving with my husband.”

Neil pushed Gwen away so he could see her eyes. He ignored the bruise on her cheek that brought a wave of rage over him. She was tougher than she looked. “He’s calling a press conference in what…four minutes, Piper?”

The other woman nodded, still standing with her right hand to her forehead. “I tried to stop her. I was told she could leave.”

“Press conference?” Montgomery asked, returning the sergeant’s salute and putting her at ease.

“That’s right,” Gwen began. “You know…the one where I tell the world that a major in the US military took me hostage after using a military man to search me out to kill my husband. And how now the same military was holding my husband prisoner.”

Neil lifted a hand to Gwen’s mouth and kept her from saying more. “Is Blake awaiting your call?”

Gwen gave an innocent smile. “Four minutes…give or take a couple. Right Piper?”

“Colonel, sir. What she said is true. I don’t know her family, but if half of what she says is true, sir…we might want to…It doesn’t look good, sir.”

Montgomery twisted around to glare at Neil and Gwen. “Lieutenant?”

Neil couldn’t help the self-satisfied smile that fell on his lips. “Lady Gwen and I know quite an influential list of people. Do you know of a Governor Carter Billings? His uncle Senator Maxwell Hammond?”

Gwen sat her tiny ass on his lap and linked her arm around his shoulders.

“Colonel? That’s a high rank…right?” Gwen asked all innocent. Neil knew she wasn’t that dense.

“It is.” He kissed her cheek.

“You’ll forgive me for being less than impressed, Colonel. But your Major Blayney had held me against my will for the better part of two days. He handcuffed me, gagged me, and didn’t provide me with food or water, not to mention his threat to kill me.” She touched her cheek. “I simply want the right person prosecuted here and not the one who rescued me.”

Montgomery stared at both of them. “How can I be assured you won’t go to the media?”

Gwen glanced to her lap. “I rather liked Charles’s wife, Ruth. She doesn’t need to know how awful her husband really was. I want my husband and me to go home.”

Neil met Montgomery’s eyes. “We won’t go to the media. Gwen’s family, on the other hand, will think nothing of it.”

“I don’t like being blackmailed,” Montgomery said.

Neil felt the muscles in his neck tighten. “I don’t like being held hostage.”

Everyone was silent for a moment.

Sergeant Piper spoke up. “One minute.”

Gwen kicked her leg in Neil’s lap as if she were a schoolgirl on a bench awaiting a city bus. Reminded him of her wearing cheap high heels and skintight shorts outside of a No-Tell Motel.

Good Times.

Neil knew they had the colonel over the fence. He also knew the US military didn’t take kindly to threats.

“Call your brother. You can both go.”

Gwen smiled and took the phone from Piper’s outreached hand. She dialed a number and waited. “It’s busy.”

Everyone tensed.

“Just kidding.”

Neil wanted to laugh. The pain in his stomach from holding it back felt dire.

“Hi, Blake. No, we’ll be there in fifteen. Both of us. Yes…please and a hot bath. I’d kill for a warm tub and food. Love you.”

Gwen jumped off Neil’s lap and handed Piper’s phone back. “A pleasure to meet you, Colonel,” she said as she walked by him. “Oh, and by the way. Buried in the Blayney library you’ll find pictures of Charles’s daughter and the man I believe Neil told you was Mickey. There was another picture of Neil’s team…and another man. I’m not sure how it will help with your investigation but I thought you should know.”

Neil walked by the colonel and extended his hand.

“She’s quite a handful,” Montgomery said.

Neil glanced at his wife. “Yes…yes, she is.”

“We’ll be in touch, Lieutenant.”

“Sir.”

Neil took Gwen’s hand and walked out of the room.

A driver took them to Blake’s hotel. Outside the world started to wake. The rain from the day before was gone, the blue skies were littered with fluffy white clouds.

Gwen clasped Neil’s hand and refused to let go.

“Do you realize who you just told off?”

She giggled. “No.”

“You have balls, woman.”

“Oh, I assure you I don’t. I’m simply tired and hungry and I don’t feel particularly safe without you by my side. I’m sure in ten or twenty years that will fade.” She waited for his response to her statement. He could always come back to her and suggest they dissolve
their marriage now that the threat was gone. That wasn’t what she wanted.

Not by any measure.

“Or it might last thirty or forty.”

She bit her bottom lip and scooted closer. “So we’re going to do this? This married thing?”

He lifted her hand that carried the ring he’d placed on it. “On one condition.”

She scooted closer…her heart filled with love. “What’s that, Lieutenant?”

“We get married the right way. In Aruba with that dress you’re dreaming of. With witnesses we want to remember.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. She was desperately tired and so very happy. “I love you, Neil MacBain.”

He dropped his lips to hers in a crushing kiss. Her head swam as all her emotion rose up into one meeting of lips. She couldn’t imagine how awful she appeared, how she tasted. But Neil kissed her as if she were the finest nectar and she didn’t have the heart to pull away.

“I love you,” he said as he moved away.

Everything inside her shifted into position and clicked into harmony.

Epilogue

Neil left her an hour after dropping her off at Blake’s hotel to search out his friend Rick. She hated to say good-bye after such a short time, but understood Neil’s need to find his colleague. To assure himself that he was OK.

He’d called from the hospital the next morning saying Rick was undergoing surgery. When Gwen suggested she come there to be by his side, he encouraged her to return with Blake to California. He wasn’t going to leave his last remaining team member until he knew he was well and that wouldn’t be for several days.

“This is something he needs to do on his own,” Blake had told her. “He lost everyone else.”

“He has me.”

Blake patted her on the back. “He’s a lucky man. Give him this, Gwen. Let him do it alone and be there when he comes home.”

They spoke daily for a week and a half. All the while, she planned a wedding on a beach in Aruba. Apparently Samantha was in the throes of morning sickness and wanted nothing to do with saying “I do again” with the threat of her breakfast coming up. Karen, Eliza, and Sam were more than happy to help Gwen plan a proper ceremony for her and Neil. That was if he ever left the hospital.

The day before their planned ceremony, she woke in a hotel room alone. She’d not seen her husband since that morning in Colorado Springs. The warm breeze of the tropical climate caressed her skin as she opened her blinds to take in the day. Blake had assured her that Neil would be there when she walked down the aisle, but a tiny part of her worried that everything she felt was only a dream. A dream destined to end.

Karen was the first to greet her. “Oh, my God. You’re still in a bathrobe. Holy cow, woman. You only have three hours to get ready.”

Gwen laughed. “Is Neil here?”

“He’ll be here.”

Which meant he wasn’t. “Are you sure?”

“C’mon, Gwen. Have faith. And get in the shower. The stylist will be here in an hour.”

The next three hours flew by. Her hair was swept up around her face and her golden locks were left to drape on her shoulders. Carefree. Just the way she pictured her wedding attire. When Eliza zipped up the back of her dress Gwen felt like a proper bride. Samantha stepped behind her and pressed the colorful bouquet into her hands. “You’re stunning.”