SEALs of Honor: Hawk (18 page)

After they were done helping Eva, her father dropped her off at her trailer.

“I wish you’d move back home again,” he said.

“Not going to happen Dad.” She laughed and waved good-bye to him.

He shook his head and drove off, calling out, “Come for dinner tomorrow night.”

“Okay, will do,” she yelled back, waving good-bye.

With a smile, she headed back into her trailer. She could have walked the short distance from the barn but her dad was more concerned about making sure she got home safe and sound. Not that anything more was going to happen to her.

This was her house. With a big smile at the wide world around her. The birds sang, the tree branches swayed in the wind as the fresh air blew down the valley. It was a beautiful day.

Inside she put the teakettle on. While it was heating, she took off her jacket and boots. The phone rang. She answered to find Paul checking up on her.

“I hear you’re home safe and sound.”

“Yep, I’m back.”

“Good, ready to go caving again?”

“I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet.” But she should be. It was part of her promise to herself to get back to living. She could do a caving trip. After all she’d been through, it was going to be easy. “I’m not sure I’m physically strong enough.”

“We could just do a gentle trip. Go into the first couple of caves. Try a different system.”

“It would have to be a short one,” she warned. “I’m not back to full strength.”

“Right. That’s no problem.” He laughed. “We can always carry you out if need be.”

“Not going to happen.” But she chuckled at the thought.

“Good, so tomorrow then? Say eight am?”

“Damn, make it a little later. I’m not up so bright and early these days.”

“Okay, nine it is, but no later. We don’t want to be returning too late in the day.”

“Just a short excursion though, right?”

“Absolutely.”

At that she rang off with a smile on her face. She had good friends. With his call, she felt like she’d really come home.

*

“
N
OW WHAT?”

The men looked at each other.

“Rest and recuperation time,” Swede said. “We got the bombs, got the men and missed the boss.”

“Not for long. We’ll get him,” Shadow said in that slow drawl of his. “But we need new intel.”

And that was the problem. They’d lost track of the boss and any of his henchmen, if there were any left. The head of the terrorist cell had gone underground but had left a mess of dead bodies in his wake. Cleaning up.

Frustration ate into Hawk’s gut. He wanted the boss captured – or better yet – dead. There’d been no leads in the last four days. He’d likely left the country. They needed to know where. So far everything had come up empty. Until then there was no time off. And Hawk couldn’t determine if that was good or bad.

“The orders just came through,” Mason said. “We’re to take a few days off. Get back in time to move on the intel they’re gathering in the meantime.”

Hawk stared at Mason. “Really?”

Mason nodded. “I’m going to spend my days by Tesla’s side.” He paused. “Are you?”

“I hadn’t asked Tesla if she was ready for company,” Hawk said, deliberately misunderstanding.

“And Mia, is she?”

“No idea.” He stood up. “Not my problem.”

Mason nodded. “In that case, I can ask Swede.”

Hawk froze. He slowly raised his head to look at Mason, catching the smirk on his face. “Why would you ask Swede?”

“Because as I understand it, the guys plan on visiting both Mia and Eva. At least Swede and Dane are.”

“And the women know they are on the way?”

He shrugged. “I doubt it.”

He loved the guys, but he didn’t trust them around women. They’d never poach but they’d certainly rile things up.

He turned back to the door. “So are you coming to visit Tesla and me or are you…” Mason stopped and raised an eyebrow at Hawk.

“Damn.” Hawk shot him a disgusted look. “You know exactly what I’m going to do.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys.

“Say hi to Mia. I’ll bring Tesla up to visit one of these days,” Mason said laughingly.

Hawk’s jacket was on the back of the chair. He snagged it up, threw it over his shoulder and walked to the doorway.

Chapter 25

T
HE CAVE ENTRANCE
was lit in sunshine. She was happy to see it. She’d woken in a great mood and was looking forward to being out and about today. She needed to know that her body was working the way it was supposed to.

She knew she wouldn’t be able to pass a physical right now. Running was out of the question. And that was definitely something she needed to get back doing again. Except she was still so exhausted.

But she was here and that was good.

A little bit every day. She’d have her strength back in no time. And she didn’t want to be so weak any more. She’d been through too much to want to be back into that helpless mode again. So self-defense training was next. “It’s a beautiful day.”

“It is, that means it’s a lovely day to go caving,” Paul said, coming to stand beside her.

“How did you think that? It’s beautiful to be topside so that means we should go into the dark?” She laughed at his logic.

“Think about the joy of seeing the world underground in all that shadowy beauty then coming to the surface to see the glorious sun.” Peter and Paul grinned in unison at her. “It’s a special world down there.”

“You two are special nuts,” she said with a laugh. “Lead on.”

“I’m in front, then you,” Paul said. “My brother will bring up the rear.”

“All right. You just want to make sure I don’t screw up.”

“No, we want to make sure you’re up for this. If you collapse we can get to you faster this way.”

“And I appreciate it.” She did too. These two men had been keeping an eye on her since she’d started her search and rescue work. She trusted them. When going into caves it was important to trust the people you were with.

The two men were retired and spent the bulk of their time exploring the natural caves around them. And shared their love of their hobby with anyone who’d listen.

She strapped on her hard hat, adjusted it in place, checked her riggings then fell into place between the two.

“Let’s do this.”

The walk at the beginning was light and breezy. It felt good to move her body the way it was supposed to move. To feel her muscles groan when they stretched. It would take an hour to really loosen, but this activity felt good. Her ribs ached slightly and her face was still tender if poked too hard. But the doctors here had been pleased with her progress.

Now she just needed to deal with the rest of the shit in her life. Maybe more rescue volunteering. After all, who knew better than her about being in need of saving? Still, that was only part of the answer.

“Brought your camera again, did you?” Peter asked. “Gonna turn us into cover models.”

She grinned and after adjusting the lighting quickly snapped a photo of him. “There, now I can submit you to those romance stock photo sights.” And she laughed.

“Ha, girlie, I could show them a thing or two.”

She grinned. “Gray and grizzled is a popular look. There’s at least a third of the population looking just the same.”

The two men snorted in mocking disgust, but it set the tone for the next few hours as they took a different pathway through the caves.

“Did you guys map all this section yet?”

“We’re just about done. There’s at least one more to check out. After that we should be able to map it down and call this system quits.”

“Anything glorious here?” she asked. “An underground river? A fantastic waterfall?”

“No. Lots of ways in and out. Another entrance someone else appeared to have found as there are truck tracks driving right into it. Had no idea one of the entrances was big enough.”

“It likely wasn’t,” Paul said. “Probably they widened it to get that truck in.”

Mia stilled at the sound of a truck in one of the cave entrances. That brought back images and memories she wasn’t ready to revisit.

“Is that close by?” she asked in a neutral tone. She had no idea if Hawk’s team had managed to put a stop to the bombing or not. There’d been no coverage in the news about it so she presumed so, but that wasn’t the same as knowing for sure. It was as if the whole thing never happened. She might be okay with that, but a little closure would help.

“It’s not far. Why, do you want to swing by and take a look? That entrance would be a huge boon in case of an accident. Big enough to bring an ambulance in. Not sure it’s big enough for a search and rescue truck, but it might be.”

“It would be good to know either way,” she said. “How many people have been out here this morning al-ready?”

“A half dozen at least. It’s getting more popular every day. We’re really hoping to find something major to bring in more people,” Paul said.

“That would create a lot of business to the small town,” she admitted.

“What about you? What are you going to do now that you’re back? Is your father opening the store again?”

She frowned, still uncomfortable with the concept of being back and having a future. “I think he’s going to reopen but on a smaller scale.”

“No guns.” The two brothers nodded sagely. “I imagine he’s done selling those,” Peter said.

Paul added, “Not done owning them though.”

“No, Dad isn’t ever going to get rid of his personal collection.”

“I did see him at the shop cleaning up. Maybe in an end result this has been good for him. He can heal now and get back on his own two feet.”

“Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe he’s going to sell up and move to downtown LA.”

At the men’s horrified looks she chuckled.

“In that kind of mood, are you? Well, let’s add a side trip here so you can see the new entrance. Maybe an extra hour of work will take some of that punch out of you.”

He led the way to the left. She followed, her early joviality wearing thin by the time they arrived. Her energy was flagging quickly. Damn. As a check to doing rescue work again, she’d seriously failed. There was no point in going out to help people if she was going to need rescuing herself. She’d known that but had hoped to find herself in better condition than this.

“It’s not much further,” Peter in front of her called out.

“Good. I’m getting tired,” she admitted.

“We’ll rest here,” Peter said behind her. “And if it’s that bad, I’ll go back, grab my truck and pick you up. That’s another big advantage of this new entrance. We were quite excited when we saw it,” he added in a con-versational tone. “We don’t want the caves to be too easy, but there’s no doubt that easy is a help at times.”

They approached a small short tunnel that was more of a cave in that it left a bit of room to navigate through. Still she could tell it was an old cave by the undisturbed dusting on the ground. It was trickier going but short. It suddenly opened up into a big opening that she swore was bigger then the entrance they’d come in through originally. Interesting.

It always amazed her how there could be such big pockets of nothing in these mountains. It always seemed safe inside but she had to wonder.

A yawn caught her by surprise.

Paul motioned to the far side where there appeared to be just ore wall. She walked closer and realized the cave curved slightly and the entrance was full of greenery blocking the sunlight from entering.

She peered out then carefully picked her way through to stand under the bright light. “You said a truck came through here?”

“Yeah, these branches,” he pointed to the stripped side of the some larger branches, “were damaged in the process.”

“Amazing.” She picked her way through the dense underbrush following the tracks and came to a small clearing. “It’s hardly a road.”

“And that’s good. Roads mean traffic. We really don’t want people to have too much access.”

“Right.”

The three of them wandered in the sunlight looking for where the access to the main roads were, following the truck tracks a little way.

“There it is.” Paul pointed down at the hill below them. “It’s just off Hairpin Bend.”

She studied the nasty corner and realized he was right. And that wasn’t a bad location. The main road was a few hundred meters off which meant she could have help to this corner of the caving system at least a half hour faster than the other entrance. Realizing people could be stuck anywhere in between meant this new entrance could save lives.

“This is a fantastic find,” she said.

“Yeah, figured.”

She pulled off her hat and turned her face to the sunlight.

“You’re looking a little piqued,” Paul said, worry in his voice.

“I’m okay. A little tired but seeing this,” she waved at the easily accessible entrance, “has given me more energy.”

“Still, we’re going to go back, grab both vehicles and come here. See how hard it is to find the entrance from the other side. That’s the trick. It’s one thing to be on the inside wondering where everyone is but another if you’re driving the truck, which I often am, trying to find the new entrance.”

She sat down on a fallen log and realized he was right. She was too tired. One brother could go or both. It would be faster if both left to pick up their truck and car. Save a return trip to pick up the other set of wheels. “Okay, so you’re heading back inside and I’m napping here.” She smiled up at the two men. “Sounds good to me.” It really did. She unbuckled her rope harness and stretched out on the log. “See you in what, thirty minutes?”

“We’re that long just getting back to the main entrance if not half that again so make it an hour.”

Peter hesitated. “You okay to be here all alone?”

“I’m fine.” She waved them off. “Go.”

“Okay back soon. And keep your phone on you. We’ll text you as we get to the vehicles.”

She nodded but was already closing her eyes, her body sore and weak. Damn. Who knew a couple of hours of cave exploration could wipe her out so quickly. She’d be weeks getting her strength back at this rate.

So not helpful.