Page 4 of Fatal Thrill
“Fucking piece of shit,” he murmured, finally getting the thing to silence. “Rory has got to fixthis.”
Nyx wagged her tail, sniffing at the phone. How could a dog recognize a blip of a song and know who it was relatedto?
Jaya knew nothing about the dog or Jon’s search and rescue background—another secret he’d kept from her. But Nyx recognized the ringtone since, during the holidays when Jon was working on Nyx’s training, Jaya would text him. Nyx had picked up on the happiness Jon felt every time he heard Jaya’s voice. It pulled him out of the numbing depression he battled everyday.
“What was that?” Trace Hunter’s voice came through Jon’s earbud. The man was stationed down the hill surveilling the rear of the hut. “Did I just hearmusic?”
“My new phone is malfunctioning,” Jon murmured to the super soldier. Hunter had undergone “enhancements” while in Project 24, a secret, unsanctioned experiment that had improved his hearing as well as pretty much everything else about him. Project 24 was no longer around, but Hunter was every inch Captain America, only he didn’t need the shield. “Holdposition.”
This was Jon’s mission. Beatrice had specifically requested him because of his experience in tracking people. The kidnappers had grown up in these parts and knew the terrain like the back of their hands, but that made them sloppy. Jon and Nyx had picked up their trail less than forty-five minutes earlier and followed it here without problem. Cartel members weren’t known for their smarts orstealth.
Checking the text from Jaya, he clenched his teeth to keep a smile from tickling the corner of hismouth.
How’s the bodyguardgig?
He hated lying to her, but that was his life—a never-ending lie. The missions he did for Shadow Force were top-secret. Even the bodyguard gigs for Rock Star, the cover company for SFI, were confidential and often covert. The security arm specialized in top-notch protection detail for very elite clientele. SFI did the same, but missions involved everything from stopping terrorist attacks to bringing Americans home from situations like thisone.
Watching the show,Jaya’s text continued,but haven’t spotted youyet.
She’d followed that with a smileyemoticon.
That was Jaya—always upbeat and happy, wanting him to betoo.
Hard as shit when he suffered from PTSD and a few other issues that had worn him to the bone. One of the reasons it was entirely impossible to allow himself to get involved with anyone. He was a basket case from the word go when he wasn’t in the field. He needed his work with SFI or the depression would killhim.
And he couldn’t share this work with Jaya or anyone else. Not even hismom.
His fingers had a mind of their own, though, and he thumbed a textback.
I’m a shadow in the wind. You’ll never spotme.
And God help him, he returned the smileyface.
Jaya made him that way—a little buoyant, a touch lighthearted. Two things he’d never experienced in his entire life except with her. She was the one thing in his world, besides his job, that kept the depression and bleakness from swampinghim.
The depression had reared its ugly head big time after he’d been shot in Good Hope last fall, but Jaya had kept him from falling into the blue funk completely, refusing to leave him alone for nearly a month. She’d literally been the angel on his shoulder that made him wake up every morning with a smile on his face rather than wanting to blow his headoff.
“Please tell me that’s not The Wicked Witch of Good Hope,” Bells sneered from under his floppy hat. The sniper held a mean looking precision-guided smart rifle with a scope, all of which was skillfully camouflaged. The rifle was like a computer—full color display and a sophisticated monitoring system with constant readouts of wind speed, direction, target distance, gravity, and even the rotation of the earth. All that data, plus video of everything Bells saw through the scope, was currently pinging off a satellite and showing up on Beatrice and Rory’s tablets back in DC, where they could watch and give advice. So far, both had been quiet, a testament to their trust and belief in Jon and hisabilities.
Bells had married Jaya’s best friend, Shelby, not once, but twice. The man claimed to have little use for Jaya and her over-the-top approach to life, but Jon knew underneath all the sniping that the two actually liked eachother.
Jon wanted to wait to see if Jaya replied even though he needed to shut off the phone. He was head of this mission and here he was, acting like a teenager with a crush, holding his breath to see if she responded with another smileyface.
So screwed.“She thinks I’m in New York City at that fundraiser playing bodyguard.” He powered down the phone and shoved it back in his pocket. In his mind, he saw her smiling, beckoning at him from his bed, her long, tan legs spread wide, arms waiting to hold him. “I hate lying to her all thetime.”
“Comes with the job,” Bells said, no stranger to the art of secrecy, and then he frowned. “Wait. You and her… You’re notserious, are you?” He shook with an exaggeratedshudder.
Hell, yes, I’m serious.If he’d been smart, he would have never let her go back to Good Hope before Christmas, and he sure as hell wouldn’t have left her on New Year’s Eve. Thing was, Jaya had a successful spa to run and plans for a big future selling her skincare line across the US. If her amazing skin was any testament to her products, she’d easily take over the world before she hit thirty. “She makes me feellike…”
“Like what?” Coltongrunted.
“You know that feeling when you’re on a HALO and you’re free-falling, right before you’ve got to pull your ’chute? That thrill of flying and falling, and not knowing one hundred percent for sure it will open?” His pulse surged just thinking about it. “That’s the feeling I get every time I seeher.”
Colton’s strained silence said it all—he thought Jon wasnuts.
“Doesn’t matter.” Jon gritted his teeth. “Me and relationships…youknow.”
He didn’t need to elaborate. Bells got it. Colton and Shelby had worked things out, but she was FBI to her bones and understood the code of warriors and soldiers. She couldn’t discuss her cases with Colton, and accepted he couldn’t and wouldn’t talk about his missions withher.
