Page 3 of Being Bold
Bo poured another shot of whiskey when the phone he’d left charging on the kitchen counter buzzed. Setting his drink down, he picked up the company-issued cell phone. He wouldn’t have one if he didn’t need it for work. He’d disconnected from anything in his old life three years ago.
Nugg and his SEAL team had been his family. Until he’d let them down and couldn’t face them.
Without anyone left to talk to, he’d hardly needed a phone. As it was, he’d had to install satellite comms out here to keep in touch with TOP. When he’d found Tactical Operations & Protection, he’d appreciated the opportunity to be part of something that didn’t care about his past. Even if they didn’t see each other outside of work, he trusted his team members to have his back when needed, just as he’d do for them.
Another grunt rumbled his broad chest. It was one a.m., and a string of text messages littered his screen. A quick scroll showed what he already knew. The team was giving him shit for missing Crane and Rogue’s marriage celebration. The couple eloped months ago, but the unconventional wedding in a hospital meant the rest of their group had missed out on the event. The two newlyweds had agreed to throw a party to make up for it once Crane had fully recovered from the gunshot wound a traitor on their team had given him.
Bo set down his phone without responding and went back for the whiskey in his glass. He was happy his TOP teammates had found love, but he couldn’t handle a party. Not when guilt wouldeat at him the whole time because Nugg deserved to find that kind of happiness, but couldn’t.
Idefinitely don’t fucking deserve it.
His mouth went sour, and his hand tightened around the glass. He’d replayed that day so many times. If he could go back and do things differently . . .
The cabin door crashed into the wall, interrupting Bo’s inner turmoil. He jerked at the sound, and his half-empty tumbler flew from his grasp to shatter on the kitchen floor. The cold blew in with a fierce howl, leaving the door hanging wide open.
What the hell?
A woman dressed in black stood on the threshold. Wet snow glistened on the crown of her head. Strands of dark hair gusted around her face with the howling wind, looking like a . . . like a black hijab.
His nightmare had come to life.
He couldn’t speak. Unsure if the vision before him was another hallucination or reality.
“Help me.” Foreign and melodic, her voice flowed to him across the whistling wind like a siren’s song, the words trapping him in a flashback of the Afghan woman.
While he stood frozen to the floorboards, the vision stepped inside, lifted a hand to her head, then collapsed in a dead faint.
Chapter 2
Ten Hours Earlier
Selene
The wind fought to steer Selene’s trusty RAV4 off-course as she turned—or, more accurately,slid—into the parking lot of Saber Tech. She was twenty minutes early for her three o’clock shift because she’d given herself an extra hour of travel time in this weather. Driving in snow was not her forte. Up until four months ago, she’d been a SoCal girl. The only snow she’d been used to was the kind at a ski resort, where she didn’t have to drive in it. But at some point, she’d lost her damned mind and moved to the mountains of Montana.
Okay, so she hadn’t made the move heedlessly. Selene liked to make lists, specifically pros and cons. She’d done her research, made her list, and the move had made sense on paper—the pros outweighing the cons. Of course, it was one thing to write “driving in snow” on a con list and a completely different thing to experience it firsthand.
“Eeeeeek!” she squeaked when her tires lost traction in the packed precipitation, pulling her car to the left. She gripped the wheel at two and ten as if her life depended on it. “Please don’tlet me hit anything,” she prayed as she finally found the grooves in the snow made by other cars.
She inched forward at five miles per hour until she located an empty spot in the parking lot where she could pull in without the risk of hitting another vehicle. When she put the car in park, she let out a sigh of relief. At least she didn’t have to do that again for another eight to nine hours.
She would’ve rolled her eyes, but seeing a salt truck with a plow improved her mood considerably. “Please let that last until I get off work.” She hoped the road back to her apartment in Big Sky would be plowed, too, or she’d have to put on her big-girl panties and figure out how to put chains on her tires.
Sighing, she adjusted the radio station. The words “heavy” and “snow” piqued Selene’s ears. Her stomach cramped as she turned the volume up.
“. . . snow coming down. We can expect eight to sixteen inches of snowfall, with more accumulating in the higher elevations. Watch for periods of blowing and drifting snow starting around six o’clock this evening and continuing into the overnight hours with lows dropping below zero. I’m Cindy Weiks from the Eagle Weather Command, Montana’s weather leader.”
Selene let out a groan. “Great, Cindy. Just what we need—moresnow.”
Not thrilled with the meteorologist’s prediction, she turned the radio volume back down. If this job didn’t pay what it did, she’d be on the first plane back to Southern California. She’d taken the position of translator for the technology company because she wanted a change. Her job in Santa Barbara had grown stale. She loved being near her parents, but the routine of an office job had started to wear on her. It was a new concept for her.
The first part of her twenties, she’d lived in different parts of the world, moving every six months to a year. Her life had beenone grand adventure after the next, using her language skills to soak up different cultures in countries across the globe. But then she’d turned twenty-five, and her dad got cancer. She’d spent the last two years in the city where she’d grown up, taking care of her family. Now that her dad was in remission and doing better, he’d urged her to follow her dreams.
Only, she wasn’t sure what those were, except to travel. Something this job had promised but not yet delivered. Thinking about it, she drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. At least her dad understood her wanderlust. He’d joined the Navy and spent his twenties traveling as much as possible. It was how he’d met her mom.
A smile softened Selene’s face as she thought of her parents. Still in love after nearly thirty years. Her dad had been stationed in Souda Bay when he met her mother. Selene was born two years later in Crete. Her first language was Greek, then English, German, and French. She had a natural knack for languages and had mastered all those by age seven. Even though they’d moved to Southern California after that, she’d continued studying and adding new ones to her repertoire.
An alarm beeped on her phone, reminding her she had fifteen minutes until her shift started. She shoved her fingers inside her GORE-TEX gloves and stared at the office building through her front windshield.
