Page 8 of Skull

For a moment, Boomer wondered if Lila possessed that SEAL babe gene like the other wives. Then guilt crashed over him. Lila had become yet another casualty of war—just like Mike.

He took a deep breath and forced himself to push the past aside. His divorce had hit him so hard that he’d devolved into a drinking maniac. When he drank, he wasn’t the man his brothers knew. Yet these same men had taken his battered soul in and shown him that the brotherhood was forever. He recalled how GQ, Remmy, had knocked some sense into him with a few harsh words about his attitude toward Celeste, the NSA computer geek who had rooted out No Safe Haven in England. She was brilliant and now married to GQ. His brothers had helped him get his life back together before he tanked his military career.

It was too late for a marriage that had crashed and burned. It was too late to fix what was broken, but he was coping. If he lost his trident, he would lose everything.

GQ fist-bumped him as he passed by, and Celeste flashed him a smile. Her gaze drifted back to her husband with that same adoring look that Boomer longed for. Celeste was a brilliant hacker who had come into her own, and Boomer and the team had grown to love her quirkiness. He had worked hard to earn their respect, and he hoped that somewhere deep inside they still held a measure of it for this scarred warrior.

His gut clenched as he realized how tired he was of being alone. He was sick of tearing up what remained of his conscience and kicking at the fragments of his soul. He used humor and his good-old-boy charm to get through the day, masking the darkness within. For the most part, that strategy worked.

Finally, he reached Kodiak, who was sharing a kiss with his wife, Kaiya. Kaiya was an Aussie who had worked with them in Sydney on the No Safe Haven terrorists plan to wreak more havoc on Americans with Aussies in the crossfire. She had been crucial in tracking down and eliminating the threat.

Boomer felt Hazard and Leigh’s absence like a kick in the gut. Hazard was one half of the Goldilocks twins, with GQ being the other. They had been nicknamed that because both were golden pretty boys with model features. Boomer enjoyed teasing them, and their camaraderie brought him comfort. But he swallowed hard when he remembered Leigh’s teary, determined voice and the fear in her words when she said Hazard was in bad shape. Anger surged in him as he thought about how far away his brothers were, and how little they knew about their teammates’ condition.

Then his world came to a sudden halt—his body, his thoughts, his breath, and his damn sanity. A hit-and-run, and not some small compact vehicle but a massive, girl-tank hit. Standing at the ramp to the belly of the beast was a striking and unmistakable beauty. She was like a Hellfire Missile, drawing every eye while sparking a whirlwind of thoughts in Boomer’s mind. She looked like an Amazon, standing six feet tall with slender, lethally toned muscles that spoke of an operator’s life. Her fiery auburn hair reminded him of a scarlet sun setting over the Grand Canyon…in…ah…much slimmer Princess Leia topknots. But he remembered both her bangs and pixie-style cut were blunt and linear, giving her an edge that was both fierce and elegant. Beneath her heavy eyebrows, her darkly lined and mascaraed eyes were a soft gray blue with flecks of gold in the irises, her cheeks brushed with an orangey hue, accentuating her razor-edged cheekbones, her lips painted with a searing hot coral, and attached to the right nostril of her nose was a small gold ring. He had to wonder what else was pierced.

Detective Taylor Hoffman. She worked for the German Federal Criminal Police, or BKA, which also served as the central bureau for Europol and Interpol. Once a liaison officer for the German Embassy in Portugal, she had cut her teeth in Division SOC—Serious and Organized Crime—and even served with the elite GSG9. That unit was so secret even the notion of women in it was almost a myth. No wonder she carried herself like a true operator. Taylor now served as the liaison to the Maritime Analysis and Operations Center for Narcotics in Lisbon. MAOC (N) was a cooperative of eight EU Member States plus the United Kingdom, focused on tackling illicit drug trafficking by sea and air. She was deeply involved in the search for Angel Alzate as part of the effort to dismantle the cartel. Fentanyl was a big problem for her group, just as it was for the US.

Boomer had worked with her briefly in Bogotá, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that she was out of his league. Perhaps it was because she was around twenty-five while he was thirty-two, or maybe it was her intimidating beauty. He blinked several times as if he had stepped into a time portal. Taylor was dressed in a black-and-white sailor-inspired dress with a rounded collar accented by a gathered swath of fabric clipped neatly with a small black button. The dress tapered into a fitted waist and flared out to a split knee-length hem that evoked the 1960s, complete with black accent gloves and a shiny belt with a tiny bow at her dainty waist. The outfit fit her lithe body. Every step she took caused the dress to ripple gracefully. His eyes kept wandering to her shoes. Damn, she was about to board a C-130 in that retro outfit, and those black patent leather T-straps with three-inch heels meant she was ready to freeze her butt off.

His mind raced with questions. Why was she here? How did she get on this flight? Was she coming back to Bogotá with them? Back to the drug and arms dealers who were locked at the hip with members of the government, making the entire rescue of his teammate and his lady dicey?

Then she lunged forward. “Oh my God, Boomer,” she said with relief shining on her face. “You’re my hero. Come now.”

Her words hit him like a bullet, punching through his carefully guarded heart. She remembered his name. And he felt like a damn fool for ever thinking that she might be interested in him in any way. A thrice-cursed fool.

She hoisted him up the ramp without a single missed step in those heels. Her balance was impeccable, while he staggered a bit as he watched her dress cling to every curve of her shapely form. Her grip on his wrist was firm and unyielding. Once they reached the top of the ramp, she moved over to a simple black bag sitting below one of the webbed seats. It wasn’t far to drag him, but she made no effort to be gentle.

She intercepted one of the Air Force flight crew with a narrowed look. “Blanket,” she ordered in a tone that brooked no argument. The man glanced between her and Boomer for guidance, as if a Tier 1 operator could explain this vision of loveliness with a husky German accent. Boomer looked just as confused. The man grumbled, shook his head, and then set off to fetch one.

She stopped moving, turned to him, and shoved his backpack off his shoulder, then with her other hand coming into play, said a soft, “Scheiße,” and in her charming accent, it sounded likeshy-suh, which he happened to know meant “shit” in German. He knew most swear words in just about every language. It was his claim to fame, and he was damn proud of it. “You have strong shoulders. That is heavy.” Her slim biceps thickened, her toned arm showing the delineation of muscle. His mouth went dry from both her comment and the way her eyes roamed over his upper body.Don’t play with my emotions, woman, he thought, and all kinds of ways they could play came to mind. The naked kind.

For a moment, his normally effusive personality tumbled into a rabbit hole of confusion. He felt as if he had been dragged into a world where witty, confident, and wily foxes ruled.

The Air Force guy who had been regulated to a blanket flunky came through with a green, military-issued specimen that had seen better days. It had a few holes in it. “This is all you have?” she snapped with a frown.

“Sorry, ma’am, but this ain’t the Ritz,” he said and left.

“The Ritz,” she muttered under her breath with a self-deprecating laugh, then added a stream of German that made Boomer smile. She mumbled something about where she would love to shove his blanket. “Beggars can’t be pickers,” she said with a shrug.

He preferred his women a little less intimidating, ones who thought of him as more than a…well a…blanket flunky. The younger-woman thing aside, he’d like to think that he had more to offer than just his strong arms, but again, the truth was, she was out of his league.Way out. There was something about her, a hawklike awareness of people and her surroundings that came with some kind of emotional baggage, and she also knew how to make things happen when she needed them to. Crossing the line was out in left field where he often played, or down a rabbit hole with mystical creatures and a no rhyme/no reason world. He often lived outside the wire and that was as real as it got. Yup, it was too bad, but he did.

“Choosers,” he said.

“What?” She cocked her head.

“The saying is beggars can’t be choosers,” he said, and she smiled, the warmth of it going all the way to those expressive eyes.

“Ah, Americanisms are so complicated, no?” She reached down to the bag and lifted it onto the metal and webbed seating. “Whoops.”

Fuck if she wasn’t the cutest damn thing.

She turned back to him and said, “Hold this with your strong arms.” Her voice took on a sweeter edge, and he wondered if she was flirting with him. His lonely, red-blooded American thoughts surged as he remembered the emptiness he felt without any true connection.

Wait a goddamn minute! It just dawned on him as he took the blanket, grabbed the ends and extended his arms wide. She was going to do a quick change on a C-130 with almost nothing but big, tough military types coming and going. He glanced over his shoulder as his team began boarding, and the stares, smirks, and whispered speculations set his pulse racing. GQ looked as agitated as ever, and it was clear that no one was handling the news about Hazard and Leigh’s abduction very well. Guilt curled in his gut as he realized that even in this light-hearted moment, his mind kept returning to the suffering of their teammates.

Yet, these men were going to be constantly jabbing at him, and he wasn’t going to live this down. So, in the end, she had just needed his broad shoulders because of his wingspan. He was actually the perfect blanket flunky.

“Oh, scheiße,” she murmured again, then turned to him. “Could you unzip me? It’s much easier to get up than to get down.”

---