Hearths of Fire (12 page)

“I figured if you had any information on Sydney you would have told me.” There wasn’t a restless bone in Kane’s appearance and Catori envied that. She knew she had a bad habit of chewing the inside of her cheek when she was lost in thought, so she relaxed her jaw. It was something that Red used to tease her about incessantly. She head for the coffee pot to fire them up some java. “Besides, intelligence on my sister’s unit is not the reason I came to work for you.”

“What?” Catori asked, hitting the brew button. She walked back his way and into her office taking a seat at her desk. “You think I’m charming?”

“There’s a lot of adjectives I could think of to describe you, but charming isn’t one of them.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Catori laughed at his honesty as she pulled up her email. Sure enough, though she had to enter her clearance code to access it, Schulzy had come through for her. Before pressing the envelope icon, she sat back in her chair. “I have the information you wanted. I contemplated looking at it first, but I can relate with you and what you’re going through. Which is why we’ll look at it together. I want your word that you’ll give it six months before you even think of taking action, if any is even warranted. We may find out that it was a random attack on her unit and there was nothing to be done.”

“We might,” Kane conceded, but the brown in his hazel eyes practically glowed in disagreement. He nodded toward her computer as he walked around her desk and placed himself behind her. “I give you my word I’ll wait six months.”

“And you’ll include me in on any decision you make?” Catori was looking intently at her screen and her index finger hovered over the mouse, but she waited to hear his answer. “You’re my responsibility, whether this is a personal mission or not. I’ll use my judgment should you need the use of the team.”

“You just said this was personal.” Kane leaned over her and placed his palm on her desk in his impatience. “I wouldn’t jeopardize the crew.”

“Within six months these men will be like your brothers.” Catori turned her head and met his gaze. She wasn’t willing to let this go. “Where you go, they’ll go. I
will
be included on any decision you make.”

“Fine, I’ve waited nine months. Six more won’t make a difference,” Kane replied curtly, nodding toward the monitor. “Click on the fucker, will you?”

She pressed the left side of the mouse. Within seconds a document opened and revealed the truth behind Sydney Taylor’s death. Catori felt her stomach sink as she read line after line of what had truly transpired. Her mind whirled with the various options Kane could choose now that the actuality of his sister’s mission had been laid out in front of him. This was a clusterfuck of monumental proportions and completely explained why Schultzy was sharing this information with her. He wanted her team to rescue those young natives still held captive and clean up the mess that one colonel had made with a casual directive.

“Six months?” The fury that forced those words out of Kane’s mouth was vast. His restraint was remarkable. “You making me stick to that?”

“Hell, yes.” Catori sat back in her chair as she digested all of the facts. This wasn’t how she’d pictured Red Starr HRT starting, although the mission they were about to embark on was right up their alley. “We’ll need that long to train the team in order to navigate the terrain in Nigeria. As for the colonel, it’s only a matter of time before they court-martial him. Your sister’s death will not be in vain. Let the justice system do its job.”

“Justice has nothing to do with this,” Kane explained in a voice that was devoid of emotion. “I want vengeance.”

The End

Red Starr, Book One

Kennedy Layne

‡

Jeffrey—My heart has found its home with you. I love you.

Mary Wright Miller—Your strength will never cease to amaze me. Thank you for being such an inspiration.

‡

N
eal “Doc” Bauer
took two steps at a time as he made his way up the outside stairwell to his relatively new condo. His keys jingled as he inserted one into the lock of a white-painted door that matched the outside railing, which overlooked the parking lot of the small condominium. It was a postage stamp compared to the house and land that his parents had left him in Hearth, Missouri after they’d retired to Florida…but it would do for now. He’d only been in San Diego for two months and the location from here to the San Diego Port where the team’s massive operations center was located couldn’t have been more perfect.

“Doc.”

Neal looked down to see Daegan Murphy, one of his teammates at Red Starr HRT, shading his eyes with a hand. His fellow team members had become like family to him over the last eight weeks, and considering they’d been in each other’s presence fourteen hours a day, they were also lucky they hadn’t killed one another. Seeing as the two men were the youngest of the group at twenty-seven and twenty-nine consecutively, they’d naturally formed a closer bond. Daegan also rented out the condo next door and had made a habit of inviting a different woman over almost every weekend.

“Don’t tell me that you can’t get rid of another lady friend, Einstein.” Neal leaned his forearms on the railing, giving his body a much-needed break after having run a five-mile stretch. His daily run had evolved into a loop around the east side of the port. He took Harbor Drive down to the naval base and back up to south of the airport. He circled around the Spanish Landing, past Red Starr HRT Operations Command situated along the east side of the bay about three quarters of a mile north of the base before returning home. It would seem his teammate’s morning workout routine had been considerably more stimulating. Daegan’s mishap had only happened once before, but one of the women he’d brought back to his place for a one-night stand hadn’t been too keen to leave the following morning. “For someone so smart you sure lack a lot of common sense.”

“You’re a douchebag,” Daegan replied with a laugh, shaking his head. He ran a hand over his closely shaved black hair and down his face, wiping the sweat that had accumulated from whatever activity he might have been doing. “I’ve got an appointment scheduled at the Sweetwater Harley Davidson dealership this morning. Mind dropping me off on the way into headquarters so I can pick up my new ride?”

“I’ll be ready in twenty minutes, but if your ass is late for block training at ten hundred Starr will have you strung up from the yardarm.”

“Don’t you know? I’m Starr’s favorite.”

Neal pushed off of the railing and shook his head, not even bothering to reply. The way Starr rode their asses he wasn’t sure there
was
a favorite. He walked into his apartment, manipulated the key out of the lock, and then used his foot to shut the door. He grimaced at the heat that was settling inside and tossed his keys onto a side table where he kept his mail. He walked through the small living room that was partially furnished with a matching leather couch and chair along with a large screen television. He hadn’t really had time to finish decorating with all the hours they were putting into their training at Red Starr.

Stopping at the wall that separated the even smaller kitchen from the living area, he adjusted the AC. This time of year the evenings were cool where the daytime rarely varied from the low seventies, although today was an exception as the normal inland Santa Ana winds had taken the day off. Without the breeze it always seemed a bit hotter. At least the team wasn’t sticking to their usual schedule and they would be inside for block training most of the day, going through hostage crisis maneuvers and situational guidelines in the classroom. A glance at his watch told him that he now had eighteen minutes and counting before he needed to walk out the door.

Neal had made it to his bedroom when his cell rang. It had been secured in an armband that he used when running and his first intention had been to ignore the call, thinking it was his mother checking in. When he ripped the fabric apart and saw the number on the display he froze in his tracks. What the hell would Charlotte be calling him for? She’d made it quite clear that she’d moved on with her life and she wanted nothing else to do with him—which could only mean something happened in his hometown that he needed to be aware of. Had someone close to his family been hurt—or worse, died? Now that his parents had moved to Florida they weren’t in the small town circle of chinwag…at least not the daily circle. He slipped the phone from the small pouch and answered the call.

“Char?”

“I know I’m probably the last person you expected to hear from and I know you have every right to hang up on me…but I really, really need your help.”

Charlotte Whitefall wasn’t a woman to ask for anything she could do herself. She was independent, opinionated, obstinate, and the downright bane of his existence. He’d closed his eyes the moment her voice had carried over the line and he tried his best not to let the sound of her beautiful voice recall their past memories as if it were yesterday. It was like holding back the tide. Visions of the curvaceous blonde with blue eyes shimmered in his head and caused his heart to pick up the tempo just a bit.

“I’m not going to hang up on you.” Neal resigned himself a long time ago to the fact that he would never turn her away. With that said he would also never place himself in a situation where she could stick a stiletto in his heart like she had the day she’d left him at the altar. “What do you need, Char?”

“It’s about Mandy. She’s okay, but—” Charlotte stopped there as if she needed to catch her breath. Neal opened his eyes and listened intently to anything that might be going on in the background. He’d never heard such desperation in her voice…not even when he’d confronted her after he’d sent the guests home from the church that fateful morning. She’d certainly been confident in her decision not to include him in her life back then. What could possibly have happened to her little sister? “You need to talk to her. You are the only one she has ever listened to, Neal.”

“Talk to her about what?” Neal sat on the edge of the bed and leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees. He was having a hard time believing that Charlotte would ever call him over something Mandy had done. “You need to start at the beginning.”

“Ashes to Dirt,” Charlotte stated, as if that summed up everything. In a way it did. When Neal had gotten out of the service last March he’d returned to his hometown with every intention of settling down. He hadn’t realized how hard it would be to return home and blend in with the small community. His first problem had been seeing Charlotte around town and feigning that everything was fine. The second issue had been Ashes to Dirt. The citizens of Hearth had thought they could force the cult that Charlotte was referring to out of the area by shunning them. Apparently that was exactly how they liked things. Neal had spoken to the leaders once but it had been enough to garner him some enemies. “Mandy is dating the son of the spiritual leader, Neal. I’m losing her.”

“You’re not losing her,” Neal stated, reassuring Charlotte the best that he could. “Mandy is as stubborn as you are and no amount of indoctrinating by these lunatics would ever get her to join them in whatever concocted turn of the century religion they’re feeding their followers. In all honesty, I’m not so sure Mandy would listen to me anyway. You’re talking about a pseudo-family relationship we had a long time ago, Char.”