Lost in Her (4 page)

“We’ll need a medic on this one,” said Logan Kincaid, the owner of K2 Special Services, and Ryan’s former SEAL commander.

Ryan was ready to get back in the action. He’d come to work at K2 two months earlier, and was happy to be reunited with his old SEAL team. They were all at the conference table except for two. Evan Prescott had been killed on an operation in Afghanistan, and the other missing team member, Cody Roberts, a.k.a. Dog, would be coming onboard in a few months.

The other two at the table were Jake Buchanan—Kincaid’s brother-in-law—and Jamie Turner. There was no one Ryan trusted more than the men in that room. He settled in for what would likely be a long session.

The thing he liked most about working at K2 was that they planned the operations, not some behind-the-lines officer who may or may not have ever stepped onto a battlefield. He studied the map, focusing on the city of St. Petersburg. Then his gaze traveled over to Helsinki, Finland, a distance of about 185 miles as the crow flew. Wouldn’t be easy getting into Russia, but by staging the operation in Helsinki, they wouldn’t have to worry about getting shot at before they crossed the border. Once inside Russia, different story, but he’d take that any day over returning to Afghanistan.

“What’s the latest on the daughter?” he asked.

Kincaid thumped a finger on his tablet and scanned the screen. “From what the medical specialist said, she won’t last more than six months without a transplant. A congenital heart defect means she was born with the problem, right?”

Ryan nodded. “Yep. I’ll need to meet with the doctor and find out what to expect and what particular medicines I need to have with me.” He took a sip of coffee as his mind assembled a list of questions.

“The wife’s seven months pregnant.”

It took a second for Kincaid’s words to sink in. Ryan jerked his gaze to the boss. “What?”

Jamie Turner drew something on a piece of paper and turned it toward Ryan. “Pregnant. Means she’s going to have a baby.”

“You could use some art lessons,” Ryan said at seeing the stick figure with a baby bump. Not taking offense, as everyone on the team got off on going at each other, he rolled his eyes. “I know what pregnant means. How come this is the first I’m hearing this?”

“Because we just found out today,” Jake, the lead on the operation, said. He crumbled up the stick drawing and hit Jamie with it, right between his eyes. “Sugar’s turned your brain to mush.”

Jamie—Saint to his teammates because he was about as pure as they came—grinned. “We’re pregnant.”

“Jesus, Saint, maybe you should move up the wedding,” Kincaid said.

“Nah, she and Maria have everything planned. I just keep my mouth shut and show up wherever they tell me. Yesterday, I tasted six cakes ’cause they said my input was required; then they picked the one they both agreed on, a fancy raspberry something or other. Never mind I wanted chocolate.” He sat back, his grin growing wider. “We’re having a baby. Who cares what kind of cake we have at our wedding?”

Jake, Maria’s husband, snorted. “Damn me, Saint. You’re my new hero. My wife decided we’d wait one more year.”

Ryan tried not to envy his friends. Jake, once known to the team as Romeo, was married to the one woman who had been able to tame him. Kincaid was married to Evan Prescott’s widow and happier than Ryan had ever seen the man in all the years he’d known him. Now Jamie was not only about to get married to one of the hottest women Ryan had ever known, but they were having a baby.

He envied them all. They had what he’d once thought was his. As it had turned out, none of it was. Not even the baby. Before he did something stupid like upending the table, he stood. “Pit stop. Back in a minute.”

He walked out and headed down the hall to the bathroom. After dowsing his face in cold water, he lifted his head and stared into the mirror. All he saw was a man who barely made it through each day without returning to Boston and tearing the town apart until he found his wife’s lover.

Why had she turned to someone else? Why hadn’t she tried to talk to him if she was having doubts? Had she ever loved him? Unanswered questions. They were killing him.

Not once had he cheated on her. Had never been tempted to. Kathleen had been his one and only from the day he’d first met her. It had never occurred to him he wasn’t hers. Not until he’d read the autopsy report and learned she was two months pregnant. Big problem that. He’d been deployed for eight months. Unless she had been the latest miracle of Immaculate Conception, she’d definitely cheated. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t forgive her.

Maybe she’d been lonely. Maybe she’d met someone and fallen in love. Maybe—to hell with the maybes, there was no excuse. Nothing that could make him forgive her. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to. Taking deep breaths, he formed an image of a lockbox in his mind and willed all thoughts of Kathleen into it, then closed the door and turned the key.

It wasn’t foolproof. Sometimes she managed to escape, but usually in the deepest hours of the night, bringing back the anger and questions. It was all the talk of pregnant women that had him hanging over the sink gulping air in the middle of the day.

As his breathing slowed, he splashed more cold water onto his face, then wiped it dry with paper towels. With his rage back under control, he returned to the conference room. As he took his seat, he grabbed the dossier on the targets and began reading.

“You okay, Doc?”

Ryan glanced up and met Kincaid’s eyes. “Yeah, sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”

The boss had a sixth sense, a unique one. He could see things others couldn’t. Not in the literal sense, but more like he always knew when something was off. Ryan had learned how to bury his emotions in the past year since Kathleen’s death, however, and he spread his arms, palms up, as if he had nothing to hide.

“Just thinking about how to get a sick girl and a pregnant woman out of Russia.”

Kincaid gave him a long stare before returning his attention to his tablet. “Here’s a brief summary of the intel we have so far. Up until a little over a year ago, Demetri Akulov was a highly placed Russian official. Then he did something to displease Putin. What that was, the CIA isn’t saying, and we don’t really care. He was banished back to his home in St. Petersburg where he’s been under guard ever since.”

“Do we know how many he’s got watching over him?” Ryan asked, glad the attention was off him.

“Two, around the clock,” Jake answered. “Same two during the day, same ones at night. They trade off at eight in the morning and eight at night.”

Ryan shook his head. “Stupid not to vary things.”

“Yeah, but we’re not complaining.” Kincaid scrolled to another page on his tablet. “Four months ago, his daughter’s heart condition worsened, and she needs a transplant, which is being refused as apparent punishment for his sins. At some point, he managed to get word to our government that if they would promise Sasha a heart transplant he would defect, bringing all his secrets with him. Of course, that was immediately agreed to. He’ll only come, though, if his whole family is safely brought to the States. Wife, Tatyana, who we know is pregnant, Sasha, Demetri himself, and their poodle, Valentin.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” Ryan said.

“About what?”

Kincaid’s expression was total innocence, but a slight twitch of his lips gave him away. The man had probably loved dropping the poodle bit on him.
Note to self: get animal tranquilizers from a vet.

Ryan fell back into his seat. “Oh, I don’t know. A pregnant wife close to giving birth, a dying daughter, a damn dog. Take your pick.”

“How does a poodle say hello in Russian?” Jamie asked.

Refusing to bite, Ryan kept his mouth shut.

“I give up, how?” Jake asked.

“Beats me, but you two better find out.” At that, Jamie burst into laughter. “Rescuing a poodle,” he gasped. “You’re never going to live it down.”

That was probably true. “Swear to God, Saint, you really need to learn some dirty jokes if you ever want to amuse anyone but yourself.” For some reason, that made Jamie laugh harder, and Ryan pressed his lips together to keep from smiling.

Kincaid stood. “I’m meeting Dani and the kids for lunch. Jake has all the intel you need to plan the operation.” Halfway to the door, he turned. “There were dogs involved when I rescued Dani, but they were manly Dobermans. A poodle, though? That actually is funny.” He left then, chuckling his way out of the room.

“Not another word or joke about poodles,” Ryan warned when Jamie opened his mouth.

“Woof, woof,” Jamie answered. “Oh, wait, they’re yappers aren’t they?”

Jake snorted, giving Jamie an eye roll. “Fun’s over, girls. Let’s get to work.”

They were deep into the planning when the door opened, and the smell of hamburgers and french fries preceded Maria into the room. Ryan’s stomach immediately growled in anticipation, and he glanced at his watch. They’d been so focused on all the details that he hadn’t realized it was after one.

“You guys need to take a break.” She dumped the bags on the table between them, and then took a seat next to her husband. After giving Jake a kiss on the mouth, she grabbed the sacks and divided up the food, hamburgers and fries for everyone but Jake. He got a broiled chicken sandwich on a multigrain bun and an orange.

The lettuce on his burger reminded Ryan of his guest, and he checked his phone for messages. Not a one from anyone claiming ownership of a rabbit. What was he supposed to do with the thing?

“What do you feed a rabbit?” Three pairs of eyes focused on him as if waiting for the punch line. “Well?” he asked when no one answered.

“What is this, the day for animal jokes?” Jake said. “I don’t know. What do you feed a rabbit?”

“No, it’s not a joke. I have a rabbit.”

An orange slice held halfway to his mouth, Jake lifted one eyebrow as if questioning Ryan’s sanity. “The question begs to be asked. Why?”

“It’s not like I went out looking for a damn bunny. One found me, came right inside my apartment when I opened the door. It’s obviously someone’s pet, so I posted fliers around my neighborhood. No one’s claiming it.” He flicked open his cell and showed them the picture.

“Oh, he’s so cute,” Maria said. “You need to go to the pet store and buy rabbit food. I’ve heard you can even train them to go potty in kitty litter.”

“What’s his name?” Jamie asked.

“How the hell should I know?” He took back his phone and stuffed it into his pocket. “I just call him Mr. Bunny.”

“You might want to be careful. Mr. Poodle might get jealous,” Jamie quipped.

His three friends dissolved into laughter. “I don’t even know why I’m laughing,” Maria said. “Who’s Mr. Poodle?”

That set Jake and Jamie off again. Ryan tried hard not to crack a smile, but the effort was an epic fail when, unable to help it, he joined in the hilarity. It felt good to be with the team again. Voluntarily isolating himself from family and friends, he had spent the past year devoid of laughter as he’d worked to deal with the hurt of his wife’s betrayal.

He felt like he was finally coming home.

CHAPTER FOUR

A
fter stopping at a pet store, Ryan arrived home with several sacks of rabbit supplies, along with a litter box and some kind of clay pellets to go in it. There were also toys in the bag. Who knew a rabbit needed toys? But the clerk had obviously pegged him as an easy mark and had loaded him up with
must-have
stuff for his new pet.

Not if he had anything to say about it. The fat-cheeked furball wasn’t his. He hoped the real owners would see one of his posters soon and come claim the thing. They’d better appreciate all the accessories that would accompany their rabbit back home.

After spreading pellets along the bottom of the litter box, he carried it to the bathroom. Mr. Bunny was missing. Ryan finally found him under a pile of clothes intended for the laundry. “Dumb rabbit,” he muttered. “I thought you’d escaped and gone home.”

The rabbit gave a wide yawn, then hopped to the box Ryan had placed on the floor, jumped in, and did his business. “Someone’s trained you. Did you escape when they weren’t looking?” Mr. Bunny stared up at Ryan, his ears twitching as if listening.

Then he eyed the open door, crept over to it, peeked around the corner, and hopped away. Ryan followed him down the hall and into the kitchen, where the creature sat and stared expectantly back at him.

“I guess you’re hungry.” Although he’d never tell a soul he was talking to a rabbit, it was kind of nice having someone . . . rather, something . . . to talk to. Kathleen had filled their home with conversation and laughter, and the quiet had been one of the hardest things to get used to.

While the rabbit ate his dinner, Ryan took a grass ball and an orange rope carrot out of the bag, both of which he’d been assured Mr. Bunny would play with. In another bag was a woven grass tube the clerk said the rabbit would love to hide in. Grabbing a beer from the fridge, Ryan took it, along with the toys, to the living room. The rabbit hopped after him.

When he put the ball and carrot on the floor, the animal’s nose twitched in seeming excitement, and he pounced on the rope carrot. Ryan sat on the sofa and tugged off his shoes, then propped his sock-clad feet on the coffee table. He drank his beer, chuckling as he watched the furball play. Still no phone call from a frantic owner, and he wasn’t as unhappy about that as he thought he’d be.

At six, he picked up the remote and tuned to the local news channel. His stomach growled, and he debated whether he wanted leftover pizza or the remains of last night’s Chinese takeout. Kathleen had been the cook in the family. Her steak and Guinness pie had been almost as good as his mother’s.

Except when something reminded him that she had been pregnant—like hearing that Saint and Sugar were going to have a baby—he was finally beginning to think about his wife without rage consuming him or sadness so intense it brought tears to his eyes. He’d fought the urge to return to Boston and track down her lover, too afraid he’d kill the man. To keep his mind occupied with things other than her betrayal, he’d moved to San Diego—about as far away as he could get from the temptation of hunting down a faceless bastard—and taken a job as an EMT at a fire station. During his free time, he’d taken courses at the California Medical College.

It had been a surprise when Logan Kincaid, his former SEAL commander, had shown up one day and offered him a job at K2. Already restless, along with feeling isolated from family and friends—even though it was what he’d thought he wanted at the time—he jumped on Kincaid’s offer. It wasn’t Boston, but it was the East Coast and close enough to home.

Ryan downed the remainder of his beer, then set the bottle on a coaster. Questions still plagued him, and although he’d thought he never wanted to know more than he already did, he’d recently reached the conclusion that he needed answers. If he could find out why he hadn’t been enough for Kathleen, perhaps he could put her to rest. Now that he was finally able to deal with her loss without the urge to do bodily harm, he was considering asking for a few days off to go home. Her lover was there, and Ryan didn’t doubt he could find the man. After he came back from his upcoming mission, he’d talk to Kincaid about some time off.

“Forced to make an emergency landing, Charlene Morgan is lucky to be alive.”

What the hell?

Ryan grabbed the remote and turned up the sound. He leaned forward, staring hard at
his
Charlie as she stood next to the reporter, a microphone held in front of her face.

“Did you think you were going to die?” the reporter asked.

The glare she turned on the man caused Ryan to grin. “Yeah, Charlie, that was a stupid question.” He bumped a fist in the air, saluting her. “So you’re a pilot? I’ll be damned.”

“Never once did I think I was going to die.” She glanced at the plane behind her. “My baby always brings me home.”

A stunt plane? His Charlie was a stunt plane pilot! Ryan sat back, his attention glued to the screen. In a million years, he never would have guessed it.

The reporter looked into the camera. “Charlene Morgan lost her engine while over the gulf, yet managed to bring the plane home, making a perfect landing. If you missed our lead-in, let’s show it again.”

“Wow,” Ryan murmured when her plane landed on the edge of the runway. She’d caught the right side of the asphalt by a mere two feet. Suddenly, another man appeared on the screen and put his arm around Charlie. Ryan felt like growling.

“Wasn’t that amazing?” the man said. “Not only is Ms. Morgan a star on the air show circuit, but she’s one of our top flight school instructors at Pensacola Aviation Center.”

Ryan tuned out the man and focused on Charlie. She seemed embarrassed by the praise and was inching her way into the background, letting the reporter and the man who introduced himself as the private airport’s manager take center stage.

Was there anything between her and the other man? The airport manager had wrapped his arm around her as if he was used to doing so, but Charlie hadn’t given any indication of a personal relationship between them. The segment ended, and the news anchor came back on the air. Ryan clicked off the TV.

“Charlene Morgan, you’re just full of surprises.” Forgetting about dinner, he stared unseeingly at the rabbit as he considered what he wanted to do now that he knew who she was. After a few minutes, he clicked on his phone and did a search for Pensacola Aviation Center. When their web page popped up, he memorized the phone number.

Two days had passed since he’d called and scheduled his first flying lesson. As he walked into the aviation center, Ryan wondered how Charlie would react to seeing him. He also wondered why he was here. Granted, he had thought of her often since that night at Buck’s, but he wasn’t looking for any kind of relationship with her or anyone else. It was the last thing he was ready for, and it would be a long time—if ever—before he could trust his heart to another woman. Yet, here he was.

And there she was. The woman he hadn’t been able to get out of his mind stood at the counter, too intent on writing something in a black notebook to notice him. He paused and studied her. She was a tiny thing, maybe an inch or two over five feet. Her pale blonde hair formed a curly cap around her head, again bringing cherubs to mind. The olive-green T-shirt and tan cargo pants did nothing to hide a curvy body.

“Hello, cherub.”

Her back straightened, and she lifted her face, her blue-gray eyes widening at the sight of him. She was even prettier than he remembered. At her confused expression, he shrugged. “I’m your new student.”

She grabbed the notebook and stared at it for a few seconds. “You’re Ryan O’Connor?”

“In the flesh. It’s nice to meet you, Charlene Morgan.”

“Ah . . .” Wariness flashed in her eyes. “How did you find me, and more importantly, why?”

Why had he thought she’d be pleased to see him? It had been a mistake to come. “Listen, this was a bad idea.” He reached for his wallet. “Let me pay up, then I’ll take myself off.”

The last person Charlie had expected to see again stood in front of her, holding out a credit card. When she’d seen his name as her first student of the morning, she hadn’t connected Ryan O’Connor with
her
Ryan. All she’d thought was that he was her third new student of the past two days, and that David would probably be busy planning another emergency landing for her for the free promotion. Heat spread over her cheeks when she realized she was staring at Ryan like an idiot while he continued to hold out his card.

“Ahem, it’s nice to meet you, too.” She reached out to shake his hand and ended up with his credit card. That was beyond awkward, she thought as she lifted her gaze to meet his. Dang, he had beautiful eyes. They reminded her of the emerald green of the gulf when the sun shone on it, except they had tiny streaks of orange in the green. Never having seen eyes colored like his, she couldn’t help staring.

“It’s called heterochromia.”

“Huh?”

An amused grin appeared on his face. “It means my eyes have more than one color.”

“Oh.” What was wrong with her? She’d never been this flustered by a man before. “Well, they’re very pretty.” Sheesh, now she was telling him he was pretty. What next? Would she blurt out that she’d had an erotic dream about him a few nights ago and then admit to waking up hot and bothered?

“Charlie?”

There was another thing—his voice. It was low and rumbly, and if that wasn’t bad enough, his Boston accent about slayed her. She could listen to him talk all day.

“Charlie!”

“What?”

“Are you going to run that?”

She glanced at the card she’d forgotten she was holding. The smart thing to do would have been to give it back to him and send him on his way. The man was just too potent for her peace of mind. But the thought of him walking out that door, never to see him again, made her stomach feel funny, and not in a good way. If she could perform precision spins and snap rolls, she could surely handle a mere man. Except there was nothing mere about him.

“We’ll run it after your lesson,” she said, handing it back to him. Decision made, she headed for the Cessna, not giving him a chance to respond. She was too afraid he already regretted finding her and would decide to leave.

His footsteps sounded behind her, and she let out the breath she’d been holding. Normally, she spent the first part of a new student’s lesson in the classroom before taking them for a brief introductory flight. There was no way she could sit next to him, alone in a room, and speak coherently, so . . . change of plans. Put her in a plane and nothing else mattered. She could ignore hot men who invaded her dreams. She hoped.

As she went through a meticulous checklist—more thorough than usual considering her recent mishaps—Ryan followed closely, asking intelligent questions. It seemed he had prior experience with planes, and curious, she turned to him.

“You’ve done this before?”

He eyed the plane as if he didn’t trust it. “Mostly, I’ve just jumped out of them. It’ll be nice for a change to land in the same one I left in.”

Oh, now he’d piqued her interest. “Are you a parachuter?”

“No.”

Okay, subject closed. Didn’t mean it was closed for her. The man intrigued her, and her imagination went to work as she returned to her inspection of the Cessna. When she’d first met him, she had pegged him as military. If he jumped out of planes, maybe he was a PJ, or had been one. Pararescue Jumpers were heroes, parachuting into war zones to save wounded soldiers. She was dying to ask if her hunch was right, but sensed it wasn’t the time.

“Do you want to sit in the pilot’s seat?” Although the left seat was the one she normally took for the student’s first lesson, it didn’t really matter. She could control the plane just as easily from the right if necessary. What she wanted was to give him a choice, if he was a man who needed to feel he was in control, especially if he had the kind of experience she suspected.

“Not even.” He glanced at the plane again, and it seemed to her that he gave it the stink eye. “You want to know the truth?”

Yes, she did. Charlie waited for him to look back at her, and she thought she saw a bit of fear in his eyes. It had to be her imagination. “And the truth is?”