Forged in Smoke (A Red-Hot SEALs Novel Book 3) (14 page)

An uncomfortable twinge of
. . .
something
. . .
pierced Faith’s stomach as Zane cupped Beth’s swollen belly and leaned down for a kiss. The rumbling in her stomach had nothing to do with envy—no sir, no way—it was just hunger pains. Even though her appetite had been nonexistent over the past week.

The twinge struck again, stronger, as Cosky dragged Kait into his arms and swooped down until their mouths met.

Okay, maybe she was a little envious. Like microscopically. But it wasn’t because of the kissing, although she liked kissing as much as the next woman. It was the instant, unconditional support so evident between the couples. It would be so comforting to have someone to depend on like that: a solid, unflappable fixture bolstering her through life’s turbulence. Someone like Zane. Or Cosky.

Or Rawls . . .

She instantly shook the stray thought away. Where had that come from anyway? From the man’s actions over the course of the day, he hardly fell into the category of unflappable, or even supportive. He had, after all, abandoned her twice now, and when she could have used his reassurance too. Hardly the kind of steadfast companion she was looking for.

Her gaze narrowed on the two couples headed toward the lodge, each with their arms around their partner’s waist. A soft-bodied older woman with flyaway silver hair took Kait’s arm, tilted her head up, and leaned into the tall blonde as they walked. Behind the threesome was Amy, a dark-haired child on either side, followed by Beth and—

Suddenly it occurred to her that the horde was descending and she hadn’t put the biscuits in the oven yet, or started mashing the potatoes. Turning, she fled back to the kitchen. She’d just set the timer for the biscuits as the door slammed open and loud footsteps and even louder voices claimed the lodge. As the room filled with people, Faith identified at least four distinct conversations. From the relaxed voices and laughter, the rendezvous and reunion with Amy’s children must have gone as planned.

“Faith,” Kait said, lifting the soft white hand of the older woman standing next to her. “This is Marion, Marcus’s mom.”

“Nice to meet you,” Faith offered politely, only to stiffen as the older woman bustled around the kitchen counter and approached her with wide-open arms.

“Oh my poor, poor lamb!”

Faith took a giant step back but found herself enveloped in a soft, fragrant embrace anyway.

“What an awful, awful thing to survive. But don’t you worry—” Marion said, punctuating her sentences with pats on the back and slow, circular massages. “My boys will keep you safe.”

Boys?

Faith’s gaze skidded from one hard masculine face to another. Nothing about the three men dominating the interior of the lodge resembled a boy, and the reference to the stern-eyed warriors as boys added to the sense of unreality shrouding her.

Just as she prepared to extricate herself from the other woman’s floral embrace, Marion let go and nudged her aside. It took Faith a few seconds to realize Cosky’s mother was lifting pot lids and taking inventory.

“Mashed potatoes?” Marion asked as she picked up the carving fork and speared one of the potatoes. “Looks like they’re soft enough.” She stopped talking long enough to take an appreciative sniff. “And whatever you have in that roaster smells divine.”

“Pork roast,” Faith managed faintly, watching helplessly as she lost control of the kitchen.

“It smells delicious, darling. And oh my, look at all those goodies on the counter. I can already feel my pants getting tighter. Now you go catch up with everyone and take a load off your feet while the girls and I finish up. You deserve a break after putting this together for us.”

“But
. . .
but . . . but . . .” Her protest came too late and too low, and Faith found herself expelled from the kitchen.

She hovered in the mouth of the kitchen, listening to the laughter, chatter, and flurry of final dinner preparation between Beth, Kait, and Marion. The three women moved in sync, a well-choreographed machine, as though they’d been cooking together for years.

Feeling oddly abandoned, she sidled forward, preparing to slip back into her haven and reclaim at least one of the last-minute tasks.

“I rode on a hellcopper,” a voice shrill with childhood said from behind and below her as a surprisingly strong tug dragged the hem of her ivory blouse down.

Faith turned. The smallest and youngest of the children Amy had returned with stood staring up at her with excited, shining eyes.

“You did,” Faith said, forcing a smile, which she just knew was unwelcoming and stiff. “I hope you had a good flight.”

I hope you had a good flight?

Really? Really? That’s all you could come up with? You’re not a damn flight attendant.

And you’re going to share a house with these children for the night?

Luckily the boy didn’t take offense. He didn’t appear to even notice her discomfort.

“It was grrrrrreat.” He rolled the description out like Tony the Tiger. “It went like a gabillion miles fast.” Unable to contain his enthusiasm, he bounced repeatedly on his heels.

“A gabillion?” Faith said with a straight face and level voice. “I’m unfamiliar with that unit of measurement.” When the delight didn’t dim on his face, she relaxed slightly. This wasn’t nearly as difficult as she’d feared. Maybe it wouldn’t be so unsettling sharing the cabin with Amy’s children after all. “Is that faster than a million miles per hour?”

“Like a gabillion times faster,” he assured her, his small face blazing with zest.

Before Faith had a chance to respond, Amy appeared with the second dark-haired, dark-eyed boy in tow.

“I see you’ve met Benji, my youngest.” Amy’s face had shed twenty years, along with most of the deep crevices brought on by stress. She rested a hand on the shoulder of the older child. “This is Brendan, my oldest. Brendan, this is Faith Ansell.”

“Hello,” Faith said, accepting and shaking the hand the older boy solemnly held out while her earlier discomfort reared up to strangle her. “Very nice to meet you.” Which was a little better than
I hope you had a good flight
but not by much.

“Have you been on a hellcopper?” the little tyke asked, tugging on Faith’s blouse amid another round of heel bopping.

“Helicopter,” Amy corrected him.

A confused expression crossed his face. “That’s what I said.”

While Amy and her son had a pronunciation moment, Faith studied the children. She would never have guessed they were Amy’s kids. Both boys sported dark hair and dark eyes, rather than their red-haired, hazel-eyed mother’s coloring. Since the darker coloring was predominant in the boys, she could deduce the coloring of their father. Genetics at work. Fascinating.

“Boys, help me set the table,” Amy said, which sounded like a fine idea to Faith as well.

As she gathered silverware and napkins, she kept an eye on the door. There’d been no sign of Rawls since he’d fled the lodge that morning, which meant he’d gone all day again without eating. But it would be useless to call him to dinner—he’d simply ignore the summons as he’d done every night since they’d arrived.

She glanced around the table, soaking up the laughter and cacophony of voices, as everyone took their seats and began passing around platters of food. It was odd how, even amid the clatter of dishes and the rise and fall of voices, she still felt so isolated and alone.

The window across from her was getting darker by the second as night fell. Where was Rawls? Did his mind keep circling back to that kiss, like hers did?

Had it meant anything to him at all?

Chapter Nine

R
AWLS ROLLED ONTO
his side in the sleeping bag and scanned the silent compound. Overhead the ashen tint of dawn grayed the sky and tinted the tree trunks, pine needles, and shrubby brush surrounding him a brackish maroon. He’d set up camp between two downed pine trees, flanked by a four-foot scraggly bush. The spot was several yards past the tree line to the east of the complex, but close enough to the helipad to allow for a quick interception when Wolf returned.

He had a good visual of the entire compound thanks to the angle of the two tree trunks he’d sheltered within. After dragging the end of the first tree closer to the second until they formed a V, he’d hollowed out the soft earth between them until the space would accommodate his six-foot-four-inch frame.

After piling pine boughs along either side of the trunks, he’d crawled inside his sleeping bag. By dragging the stockpiled branches across the trunks and over his head, he’d formed a rudimentary shelter of sorts. One that shielded him from both the elements and unwelcome eyes.

Not that his makeshift accommodations would fool his teammates if they got close enough for a good look, but from a distance—particularly
at night—he’d blend into his surroundings. But the structure might fool
Faith’s more inexperienced eyes if she came looking for him. Although why would she seek him out after the ass he’d made of himself following that kiss?

As though thinking about her had conjured her, toward the far end of the compound, a woman wrapped in a dark coat came into view. Judging by her black hair and thin frame, the early riser was Faith. From her course, which was on a direct intercept with the lodge, she was probably getting a start on breakfast.

His hunch proved correct when she climbed the steps to the command center and went inside. Seconds later a slew of lights blinked on. He imagined her starting the coffee with her hair tangled, her face sleep-flushed, and her body warm and soft. When his stomach tightened, he wasn’t sure which image had sparked the response—the thought of piping-hot black coffee
. . .
or her tangled hair and soft, unpainted lips.

It took far more effort than it should have to wrench his attention away from the lodge, or—if he was honest—the woman inside it, which sent a frisson of alarm through him. All told, he’d barely spent an hour in the woman’s company. Not nearly long enough to have forged this intense connection with her, even if that connection was—strictly speaking—physical. The decision to back off may have been for the wrong reason, but it would put things back in perspective.

Grimacing, he settled into the hollow he’d dug between the tree trunks. The sleeping bag was surrounded by earth on three sides. That, along with the pine boughs overhead, had shielded him from the crisp air as the night wore on and the temperature dropped. Even without a fire to warm him, his camp had proven surprisingly cozy. Hell, it would have been downright comfortable if it hadn’t been haunted by a vengeful troll of a ghost.

Long before Pachico had reappeared, Rawls had grabbed the sleeping bag from his bed in the cabin, stuffed several water bottles and his jacket into a rucksack, and climbed out his bedroom window. The window escape had been a precaution. If Faith, or anyone for that matter, came looking for him, they’d come to the door.

His bedroom was on the opposite side of the compound, and right next to the tree line, which made it easy to slip in and out via the window while using the forest for cover. It was a tactic he’d been using since his arrival to avoid his teammates.

Pachico hadn’t been impressed with his ingenuity. Instead, the ghost had been furious to find himself banished from camp. Unfortunately, Pachico’s attempts to enforce his agenda had graduated from annoying to excruciating. Each time the slimy bastard drove his transparent hand into Rawls’s shoulder or chest, a tightlipped white-out of agony followed. Luckily the torture didn’t last long, seconds at most, and then Pachico would blink out and disappear. After the third incident of teeth-clenching, stomach-rolling pain, followed by a blessed twenty minutes of relief, Rawls had reached a critical realization. Each time Pachico plunged his arm into Rawls’s body, he depleted his energy stores a little more. Or at least he disappeared for longer periods of time.

The knowledge had made it easier to grit his teeth and withstand the seconds of volcanic agony. Hell, maybe the bastard would eventually wear himself down to nothing and disappear for good.

At some point during the night, his ghostly stalker must have realized he was depleting himself for nothing, because he’d switched back to the singing. Regrettably, the noise factor didn’t seem to require excess energy, which meant the bastard didn’t vanish. Still, Rawls had been able to block him out enough to get some actual shut-eye now and again. Not enough, but it was a start.

“Look,” Pachico said from somewhere outside Rawls’s shelter. “I promise to leave your gal alone. I swear on my mother’s life. I don’t know what else will convince you.”

Since nothing would convince him, Rawls ignored the question. From his behavior, Pachico had obviously realized that he had no leverage if Rawls kept them out of camp.

“So you’re just going to ignore me, you asshole?” When Rawls remained silent, Pachico’s voice took on an ugly undertone. “You can’t stay away from people forever, you stupid fuck. Sooner or later someone is gonna stumble into range, or you’re gonna have to return to camp.”

Rawls grimaced. He’d already come to the same conclusion. Unless Wolf had some mystical Arapaho remedy to turn the situation around, he—along with whomever happened to be within range of his vengeful hitchhiker—was well and truly screwed for the foreseeable future.

Apparently his continued silence infuriated Pachico past reason, because volcanic, burning agony plunged into Rawls’s back and penetrated into his chest. Locking a groan behind clenched teeth, Rawls closed his eyes and waited the attack out. It lasted five seconds. Five endless, agonizing seconds, and then the pain vanished as suddenly as it had struck.

Shaking, his stomach rolling, and nausea climbing his throat, Rawls slowly relaxed in his sleeping bag. He wasn’t certain why the attacks on him were so much shorter than the one on Faith. Or why Pachico hadn’t attempted to walk inside his body, like he’d done to her. Maybe it was a simple matter of energy reserves. If Pachico was depleting his energy at a faster rate than he was replenishing it, he wouldn’t have the power necessary to penetrate a body fully, or even partially, for an extended period of time.

Which meant it was in Rawls’s best interest to egg him into these constant small-scale attacks in order to prevent him from storing enough energy to launch a full-body penetration.

Sighing as his muscles unclenched, Rawls released a long, slow breath. If this post-attack lull followed the pattern of the previous ones, he had at least fifteen minutes of peace before the bastard showed up again. Rolling onto his side again, he scanned the quiet compound.

Judging by the silvering of the landscape, and the fact that Faith had already escaped to the kitchen, it had to be close to six thirty. Which meant it wouldn’t be long before the compound stirred. He’d watched from the safety of the tree line the afternoon before as the chopper settled, and his teammates, along with Marion, Amy, and her two boys, had disembarked. The whole lot of them had ambled toward the lodge, where the mouthwatering scent of cooking originated.

Zane had held back in order to radio him. Their conversation had been short. After giving his sitrep, which included Faith’s condition, and a recap of his emergency call into Wolf requesting a refill on her meds, Rawls informed his LC he’d be going dark for the foreseeable future. Zane responded with a succinct four-letter curse and demanded an explanation.

An explanation that Rawls couldn’t give. He suspected he wasn’t going to have a choice much longer. Judging by his LC’s icy reaction to his hedging, there was a good possibility that Zane intended to track him down and force the confession out into the open.

His teammates were losing patience.

Grimacing, he rolled his head, and a flicker of movement caught the corner of his eye. Instinctively he froze. The morning was still, which meant no wind to rustle a branch or wave a twig. So the movement was either animal or human. Animals were always a possibility in the woods. But then, so was Zane. After that terse conversation the night before, he had no trouble imagining his LC hitting the woods at dawn in the hopes of catching him bedded down and slow on the uptake.

With painstaking care, he rolled his head in the direction of the flicker. His eyes landed on a pair of thick brown boots. Slowly, his gaze crawled up two legs clothed in the green and gray of camouflage.

Not Zane. Or Cosky. Or Mac.

The figure was standing maybe eight feet in front of him, at an angle, just behind one of the larger trees surrounding the compound. A sniper’s rifle hung from a strap across camouflaged shoulders, a pistol was holstered on the left hip, and a knife staged just below the pistol on his thigh.

He’d moved into place silently, so silently Rawls hadn’t heard him, which pegged him as an operator. The position of the pistol and knife indicated he was left-handed. Maybe Jude? He assessed the figure again, but remained perfectly still. Nah—the height was off. And the stance was unfamiliar.

A chill prickled the back of his neck.

His eyes slid up. An NVD attached to a helmet covered the top half of the guy’s face, leaving only a tight mouth and hard chin visible.

The guy had obviously come in from behind them, through the forest, not via the Jayhawk as Wolf and his men had arrived. Plus—he was in camo and full battle regalia, which Wolf’s team wouldn’t need, and then there was the fixed focus on the compound. Yeah
. . .
this wasn’t one of Wolf’s boys.

. . . they’d been found . . .

The faint sputter of a radio reached his straining ears. Not his. He’d dialed the volume way back on his until he could barely hear it so his team couldn’t track him through the crackle, but his hadn’t squawked all night. Inch by inch he slid his hand down until it touched the plastic casing of his own radio and carefully nudged the dial to off. One inopportune crackle and he’d be dead.

He’d been damn lucky so far. The asshole in front of him was obviously more interested in the compound and the people occupying it than he was in the terrain at his feet. But if he looked back and down
. . .

Too bad he’d left his Sig stashed in the cabin. But damn it, he hadn’t wanted to give Pachico access to the weapon. Sure, his ghost couldn’t manipulate the weapon for more than a second at a time, but that second was enough to blast a hole through him. Or someone else.

He needed to take this guy out, but silently. Which was going to be difficult thanks to his current situation. For Christ’s sake, he was trussed up in his sleeping bag like a caterpillar in its cocoon and just about as easy to squash.

Yet he could hardly remain lying there either. Sooner or later the bastard was bound to notice him. He’d prefer that moment coincided with the Tango’s demise.

“Goddamn it,” Pachico said from above him. “I’m getting—”

Rawls locked down his reaction as Pachico’s voice boomed overhead. At least he didn’t have to worry about his ghost alerting the bad guys to his presence. The Tango in front of him hadn’t even flinched.

A low laugh sounded above him, followed by an amused, “Now this is an interesting development.”

Sweet Jesus
. Rawls’s eyes shot to the rifle hanging from the Tango’s shoulders. Pachico had proved repeatedly through the past twenty-four hours that he could manipulate physical objects. If he went for that weapon and managed to knock the safety off and compress the trigger—the resulting ammunition spray would bring all hell down on them.

Son of a bitch.

As though his ghost had read his thoughts, the translucent bald-headed figure advanced on their new camp mate and took a swipe at the dangling rifle. The weapon slammed against the Tango’s hip, and Pachico’s form dimmed. Galvanized into action, Rawls started to shove his way out of the sleeping bag as his unwelcome visitor jolted and turned.

Hell, he wasn’t going to get mobile in time to subdue the bastard before the Tango got that rifle up and the bullets started flying. Except Pachico unwittingly came to his aid. The ghost’s second swipe at the gun went right through it and into the Tango’s side. The man seized up like he’d been pierced with a red-hot poker. Luckily the guy had some top-notch training behind him—rather than squealing and giving his position away, he locked the agony behind tight lips and rode it out.

From experience Rawls knew he had five seconds tops to get out, up, and take the Tango down while he was still occupied.

Rawls was out of the sleeping bag before Pachico removed his hand and blinked back out again. On his way to his feet, he snatched up one of the drier branches beside him and snapped it at an angle so the break was jagged and sharp.

The guy simply teetered there on his feet, his breath coming fast and uneven, before shaking his head and turning toward the sharp crack of the branch breaking. Rawls was on him before he finished the motion. One hand jerked the helmet off and clamped around the compressed mouth, while the other hand drove the jagged end of the stick into the Tango’s neck, right above the carotid artery, and then jerked the stick back out again.

As the poor bastard struggled urgently against his grip, Rawls bore down harder on the hand across the guy’s mouth, ignoring the teeth that dug into his palm, and the blood raining down on the ground. Raw, animalistic sounds, muffled by his hand, grew fainter and fainter. He counted the seconds off in his head. The Tango would bleed out in under two minutes, but he’d fall into unconsciousness in half that time.

Once the guy stopped moving, Rawls lowered him to the ground and knelt to take a quick pulse. Slow and thready. The poor bastard wouldn’t be getting back up again. Locking down regret—God knows the bastard wouldn’t have hesitated to take his life—he stripped the rifle and the pistol along with its holster off the limp figure. Then he quickly unbuckled the knife holster, with its fixed-blade knife, from the guy’s thigh.