Delta Force Defender

by Megan Crane

  She resolved to lock up the hope inside her, where it couldn’t poison anything, and proceed as normal. Because she knew that chances to run were split-second opportunities, never to be repeated, and she had to stay ready.

  No matter what life she was leaving behind this time.

  Having a life, she thought now from her seat on the Alaska Force jet, was something a person did when they didn’t have to focus on staying alive.

  She would do things differently next time. She wouldn’t choose the half-in, half-out life she’d accidentally built for herself in Grizzly Harbor. It was too tempting to fall into routines. To become a character in other people’s stories instead of leaving no trace. To make friends when she didn’t intend to, no matter how she tried to pretend otherwise.

  Friends who could get killed when the next bomb went off.

  That was bad enough. But Caradine knew that the worst mistake she’d made by far was thinking that anything with Isaac Gentry could be casual.

  You will be very different in your next life, she assured herself now. You will call yourself something forgettable, and you will become beige in all things. You will be so boring and mousy you will be mistaken for wallpaper and will be able to hide in plain sight until you die of boredom in your old age.

  And she would never see Isaac again. Ever.

  Assuming he lived through whatever happened now.

  “We’ll be landing soon,” said the man himself, as if summoned.

  He dropped into the seat across from her. And that dark, direct look he leveled on her made her feel in no way beige or mousy.

  There was a little table between them in this part of the plane, and she found herself thinking of the wooden burls in the one his grandfather had made. She traced them on the tabletop before her, though they weren’t there.

  What a fool you are, she thought in despair. Looking for connection when you should be looking for an escape route.

  “Good,” she said out loud, hoping she sounded filled with a sober sense of purpose, the way everyone else on the plane seemed to be.

  That had been the strangest part so far. These men she knew, and would even have said she knew fairly well, changed when they were in work mode. Or battle mode, she supposed she could call it. She’d seen glimpses of it before, but it was something else entirely to watch them plot out the details of their mission and then set off to undertake it. It made her realize that they’d been the ones hiding in plain sight all this time. Fooling the unwary—like her.

  “I want to be very clear about what’s going to happen.” And the way Isaac was looking at her then, that gray gaze so steady, made her stomach quiver. “We’re about to set down into an active mission.”

  “Is this the speech where you tell me you’re in charge and blah blah blah mission parameters, mortal danger, do as you say and not as you do?”

  “We don’t know what we’re walking into,” Isaac said with a deep calm she would have thought was real had she not seen his eyes darken. Caradine congratulated herself on her tiny victory. “Everyone else is trained for this.”

  “I’m trained to survive really bad situations no matter the odds, so I like my chances.”

  “I expect you to follow instructions,” he said in a voice that someone who didn’t know him might have considered patient. “No matter how you feel about them. Your opinion has no weight against our experience. And I will not hesitate to personally incapacitate you if that’s what it takes to keep you safe.”

  Steel in his gaze. Steel in his voice. Caradine found her lips curving despite herself. “That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me, Gentry.”

  And suddenly he didn’t look the least bit calm or patient. And once again, she felt in no way beige.

  “I don’t want you here,” he said gruffly. “I don’t want you anywhere near a situation that could harm you. Strategically speaking, it makes sense for you to be involved in this. I accept that. But I don’t like it. Do you understand me?”

  And once upon a time, she might have found a speech like that upsetting. She might have heard only the harshness and failed to notice that underneath it was the simple fact that he cared what happened to her.

  He cared.

  She pressed her fingertips hard against a tabletop that wasn’t wood and had no history, and tried to pretend she wasn’t too warm. That she hadn’t walked into this situation step by step, year by year, with her eyes wide open, and could now blame no one but herself.

  Hope. Caring. Isaac.

  She was screwed.

  “Everyone on this plane is invested in your safety,” Isaac continued in that same low, rough voice that tugged at her despite her best attempts to wall herself off. “That investment puts us all at risk. And I know you take great pleasure in defiance, Caradine. But not today.”

  “I understand,” she whispered.

  Isaac held her gaze for a long, searching moment, then looked down at the tablet before him. He punched something into it, then lifted his gaze to hers again. “Are you prepared for any eventuality?”

  “Probably not,” she said, deadpan. “Does that take military training, too?”

  She saw the ghost of a smile on his hard mouth. And she was used to being able to touch him now, so it felt painful to keep her hands to herself. Because even though no one appeared to be paying attention to them here, she would sooner chop off her own hands than engage in anything that could be confused for a public display of affection.

  Especially if it was.

  Because she needed to start preparing herself for disaster. She trusted that Alaska Force solved problems, but she knew this particular problem a little too well. She had no idea how to imagine that it could really, truly be solved.

  “Families are weird when you see them all the time,” Isaac pointed out, unhelpfully. “It’s been five years.”

  Caradine made herself shrug carelessly. “Lindsay and I never fought. Not like that. We got a little pissy with each other here and there, but that was it. The benefit of growing up with actual monsters roaming around, I guess.”

  “Even when she almost got you both killed? Or worse?”

  “Ouch.” Caradine wanted to fidget. Rub her hands over her face, move her body, something. Anything but sit there taking the full brunt of that gaze of his. But she didn’t move, because he didn’t, and it added to that sense of power he toted around with him like another weapon. “Neither one of us knew how to fight. Not really. Because you didn’t fight with my father. You took it. Maybe you tried to defend yourself a little, like curling into a ball if you were on the floor to protect your face, but you certainly didn’t fight.”

  Isaac’s jaw tightened in a way she knew meant he was furious. For her.

  She still didn’t know what to do with that, so she ignored it.

  His gaze was a storm, but his voice stayed the same when he spoke. “Seems like you’ve put some time and attention into learning the ropes since then.”

  “I imagine Lindsay has, too.” She considered. “I won’t be surprised if she comes out swinging when she sees me. She was always the one with the temper.”

  Isaac actually laughed at that. “Really. She was.”

  “Really.” Caradine smirked. “We both learned how to be meek in public as a survival tactic, obviously. But we shared a room growing up. And my sister took great pleasure in quietly destroying all her dolls. And mine. She was vicious.”

  Caradine could feel the plane begin its descent, as promised. But she felt buoyed by the way Isaac looked at her. She watched a silvery gleam break up some of that gray, and despite herself, she could feel that telltale, dangerous warmth spread throughout her body.

  A feeling that only intensified when he smiled at her. That smile that almost felt like his hands on her.

  That smile that she couldn’t help thinking really was hers.


  But a moment later it was like it had never been. He was up and moving. Talking in that voice of quiet command that made Caradine feel fluttery.

  It made everyone else on board sit up straighter, too, and that was good, because it reminded her that there were any number of terrible things they could discover here. Lindsay could be dead. This could be a trap. Everyone could die, including her. Or everyone could die, except her. There were so many bloody, horrible possibilities, and she had to prepare herself for any and all of them, not moon after a man who might very well be one of the casualties, thanks to her.

  A deeply depressing thought.

  Caradine made herself stare out the window instead of at Isaac. There had been nothing there for hours but blue sky, but as the plane dropped down she saw clouds. Then a very different Pacific Ocean than the one she knew, blue and green instead of gray. And then the steep green slopes of Maui.

  She almost thought she was dreaming, because who didn’t grow up in the brutal Boston winters dreaming of Hawaiian islands? As the plane came in for its landing on a tiny airstrip that was very nearly in the sea itself, she saw water surging over black, volcanic rocks. Buildings with red roofs in a cluster she assumed was a town. Palm trees near the water, red earth, and the thick green jungle.

  And as the wheels touched down, she acknowledged that she might not have been entirely honest with Isaac about her relationship with her sister. Or her feelings about it. Mostly because, if it were up to her, Caradine would dig out her feelings with a sharp implement and be done with them forever.

  The truth was, she had no idea how Lindsay would react to seeing her, assuming she was alive and not the willing bait in a trap.

  They had not parted on the best of terms. How could they have? They had been running for so long, and then everything that happened in Phoenix had been like a kick to the gut. Worse, actually. Caradine had felt restless and hunted and raw when they’d left each other, and she’d felt guilty about that for years now.

  Because she loved her sister, there was no getting around that. But, God help her, she’d been relieved to finally be on her own.

  What kind of person did that make her, that she’d been relieved to get rid of her only living family member?

  She stared down at what remained of the black nail polish she had deliberately not touched up. Because Isaac had called her out on the fact she kept it black and chipped, so she was considering stepping out into a color scheme that he would find less predictable. French tips, maybe. Teal. Mustard yellow. Who knew?

  Stop acting like you have a future with him, she ordered herself. You might not have the rest of the day, for all you know.

  Nail polish seemed like a far safer thing to focus on than that awful thought. Or the way everyone was moving around her and exiting the plane, with that focus and intensity that made her feel a deep sense of regret at the way she’d poked at them all these years.

  That was maybe overstating the case, she thought in the next moment, when Isaac’s gaze found hers. He jerked his chin, ordering her to stand up and follow them out.

  It was nice to see that they weren’t a pack of overgrown frat brothers, sure. That added to the hopeful part of her. But that didn’t mean that she had to treat them any differently the next time they were in her—

  The sucker punch of that hit her hard. They wouldn’t be in her café again. Because her café was gone, she wasn’t going back, and all of this was likely nothing more than a very long, military-infused wake for the life she’d once had.

  She was going to need to remember that.

  “Caradine.” Isaac’s voice was crisp. No hint of that roughness that had warmed her earlier. “What did we talk about?”

  “You didn’t tell me it would be boot camp,” Caradine said mildly, but she got to her feet. “I didn’t realize that exiting a plane had to be accomplished in double time while singing a jaunty marching tune.”

  “The point is, you can either follow orders, or you can’t.”

  “My mistake,” she said breezily. “I expected you to actually give orders, not gesture with your chin like a—”

  “Caradine.”

  By that point she’d reached him at the door and could feel the humid air outside, warm and ripe. And she would normally keep going. She would say something snarky to get a reaction, or touch him, or do something, because this man had always made her want to fidget, and she’d always channeled her restlessness around him into concrete things.

  But this was a wake. She wasn’t going back.

  And she should never have pretended otherwise for those few days in Fool’s Cove.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, and she didn’t smirk. She didn’t scowl. She didn’t pretend she was doing something other than what he’d asked her to do. “I understood you. I’ll follow your orders, Isaac.”

  Another time, she might have enjoyed the way he blinked at that. But not today. Not when what had flared between them all these years belonged to a life she shouldn’t have built and couldn’t keep.

  Not when the most probable outcome here was blood, terror, and Caradine running head-on into another life to hide away in.

  Today she ducked her head because she didn’t have anything sharp to say, or she had too many things to say. She moved around him without touching him and walked down the plane’s folded-out stairs, toward her past.

  Her real life, and her reckoning, whether she liked it or not.

  Seventeen

  They’d decided on a four-man team back in Fool’s Cove. Templeton and Blue were talking about something in low voices when Caradine made it out of the plane onto the ground. And she told herself that what her heart did was her own business. No matter how much it hurt.

  That’s what happens when you let yourself hope for better, she reminded herself harshly. How many times do you have to learn the same lesson?

  She stood by herself and waited. Jonas was off by himself, that flinty gaze of his scanning their surroundings, which consisted of little more than a tiny building with a soda machine out front. And when Isaac followed her down from the plane, he was on his phone again.

  Caradine stood there and refused to hope for anything. Instead, she found herself wishing that she had worn something different in all this humidity.

  It was like another unsolicited hug, long and close. The wet, warm press of the tropical air smelled of flowers and the sea, and an earthy, rich scent of wild growth. A bird called, somewhere in the thick, surrounding jungle, and it sounded like nothing she had ever heard before.

  Goose bumps prickled down her neck and made her shiver, despite the warmth all around.

  People always talked about how Alaska seemed like another planet. But Hawaii was more instantly, inarguably alien than anywhere else Caradine had ever been. Alaska might kill you, it was true. But at least it wouldn’t smother you to death on contact—you’d have to go out and find an avalanche in the mountains for that.

  Having never in her life understood the point of a sarong, Caradine would have killed for one now. Instead, she was dressed in what she knew Isaac would call tactical gear. A pair of tough hiking pants that were an approximation of the kind of battle-ready cargo pants the Alaska Force team members always wore. A pair of hardy hiking boots that could handle any terrain, but felt as if they were choking the life out of her feet and raising her temperature a good twenty degrees or so. And a black T-shirt in a fitted performance fabric that she figured she had to thank for not melting into a puddle where she stood.

  She even had a gun strapped to her hip, which had been the topic of another debate.

  Is she going to take a shot at all of us? Templeton had asked, in a voice that sounded like he was telling a joke when she could tell by his face that he wasn’t.

  I wouldn’t miss if I was aiming at you, Templeton, she’d promised him.

  But the debate had only truly en
ded when she’d pointed out that she didn’t need their permission to carry her own weapon. Or to dictate where she could aim it, either.

  Caradine is always carrying at least three weapons at any time, Isaac had drawled, looking more amused than usual as he’d led the briefing yesterday morning. I don’t really see that changing.

  Are you flirting? Templeton had asked, grinning wide and unrepentant. Especially when Isaac had glared back at him.

  “Okay,” Isaac said now, shoving his phone into his pocket. “Oz thinks he’s found her trail.”

  He cut his gaze to Caradine, so she nodded the way everyone else did. A bit stiffly, wondering if that was how Alaska Force recruits were expected to respond when the great leader spoke.

  A question she had to bite her tongue to keep from asking.

  “Remember what we talked about,” he told her. Sternly. “This is neither the time nor the place for you to assert yourself.”

  Temper made her even warmer, suddenly. She opened her mouth to remind him that he’d already covered this same ground on the plane—barely three minutes ago, in fact—but he knew that.

  Of course he knew that.

  Caradine understood in a flash that this was not for him. This was for the team. All four men stood there, gazing at her intensely, and all she could think about was what Bethan had told her in Alaska.

  You’re not trained. And that means whoever’s in the field with you has to make sure to protect you as well as do their job.

  “I had no idea how much I intimidated you all,” Caradine murmured, because she was still her, after all. And she might know better than to poke at Isaac when this could go so many different ways, but this was a group. Easier to poke without repercussions. “Way to give me all the power, guys.”

  “Is it out of your system now?” Isaac asked, with a certain steady patience that would have been more of a slap if she didn’t know this was a performance for him, too. That didn’t make it not a slap. “You have thirty seconds. If you have something else to say that doesn’t directly relate to this mission, now’s the time.”