Delta Force Defender

by Megan Crane

  Caradine allowed all the anxiety and tension inside her to bubble up. She even smirked for good measure. “This feels like a test. Let me think. Okay, lock and load. Five by five. I got your six, captain. Ten-four, good buddy. Yippee-ki-yay, mother—”

  “Best Christmas movie ever made,” Blue asserted.

  “I think that’s it,” Caradine finished. “I definitely feel like I’m in an action movie now. That’s good, right?”

  “Die Hard is an action movie, not a Christmas movie, jackhole,” Templeton said to Blue.

  Blue snorted. “If you’re dead inside.”

  “Terrific,” Isaac said, and he might have sounded disapproving, but Caradine could see that gleam in his gaze, and she knew better. And hated that she could tell, because that was one more thing she was going to have to leave behind. “We have a little bit of a drive.”

  He started off across the small airfield, leading them around the tiny terminal building and out to a waiting SUV in the largely empty parking area. Caradine didn’t ask who had delivered it. Just like she didn’t complain when the four of them fell into formation around her, seemingly without needing to communicate with one another. They just did it. They fanned out around her, so she was in the center, and matched their strides to hers.

  She almost thought it was automatic, and that settled in her like another flush of heat.

  In the SUV, Templeton sat in front while Isaac drove, leaving Caradine to be sandwiched in the back between the tall, solidly muscled frames of Jonas and Blue.

  She suddenly wanted to ask a thousand questions. Was this how they always traveled? What happened when they needed more people on a team? Did they carpool like this, shoved up against each other like kids in the back of a station wagon?

  When she had to bite back an inappropriate giggle, Caradine understood that she was becoming hysterical.

  She couldn’t let that happen for any number of reasons, but most important because it would prove to Isaac that she couldn’t handle this. And she would rather die than disappoint him or have him think less of her in any way.

  Another time that her favorite phrase was completely true.

  And another thing she needed to let go of now, or carry with her forever, out there in all that beige that waited for her.

  Caradine gulped down the giggle, focused on beige, and sat as rigidly as possible between two large men with wide shoulders they couldn’t do anything about as the SUV charged onto what passed for a main road in this remote part of a famous island.

  Isaac drove the way he did everything. With skill and focus, which helped as they passed through a collection of buildings she thought was a town, then headed into the wilderness on a dirt track Caradine would never have called a road. Especially when the tangled green closed in around them like it was swallowing them whole.

  At certain points she could see through the thick wall of jungle. There were sweeping views every now and again, while impossible flowers bloomed everywhere, offhandedly, down the length of the hill they were climbing. She saw the small town they’d driven through and, below it, a brooding sort of sea with rocky inlets at odds with the vision she’d always carried in her head of what Hawaiian beaches ought to look like.

  “This is the windward side of the island,” Blue said, almost as if he were commenting out the window. Caradine didn’t know how to feel about the evidence that he was paying close attention to her. She kept having to reevaluate all of these people she’d put into careful boxes a long time ago, and it was disconcerting, to say the least. “It gets battered by the wind, sees more rain above sea level than the leeward side, and is less populated. The kind of Hawaiian island beaches and resorts you might expect are on the other side, protected by the mountains and blessed by the trade winds.”

  “Hana-side is real upcountry Hawaii,” Jonas said from her left, gruffly. “It’s the difference between Anchorage and every other part of Alaska.”

  “I apologize, Caradine,” Templeton drawled from the front seat. “You’re stuck between two navy men. They think spending time on a couple of sailboats makes them experts on every island they find along the way.”

  “Better than an army man,” Isaac said dryly. “Expert on nothing.”

  “Whatever, jarhead,” Templeton retorted, sounding outraged, though he remained in his lazy, half-reclining slouch. “I’m the only person in this vehicle who is actually Hawaiian.”

  “Part Hawaiian,” Jonas replied. “I’m sure that will impress the locals.”

  Everyone laughed. And it took Caradine a few more moments, jolting along the deeply rutted dirt track that climbed farther and farther up into the rain forest, to realize that all of this was affection.

  There was absolutely no reason it should leave a lump in her throat.

  Except, you know, that this could all end horribly any minute now, her usual harsh inner voice chimed in.

  It only made the lump in her throat worse.

  Isaac kept driving, seemingly into nowhere. The views disappeared, the lush green and riotous flowers on all sides so intense they blocked out the sky in places.

  And about ten minutes up that road, right when Caradine was beginning to get concerned that she would succumb to the claustrophobia she’d never known she had, he stopped.

  “Perimeter,” he said shortly.

  That meant nothing to Caradine, but Blue and Jonas opened their doors. Then they melted off into the jungle, disappearing with so little trace that she was watching them do it and had to blink. Because one moment they were there and the next it was as if they’d never been.

  Caradine understood this meant they were close to the place Oz thought Lindsay was. She tried to take a deep breath. She tried telling herself to be calm. But her stomach was in knots, she felt vaguely nauseated, and she wasn’t sure if it was because she wanted to see her sister, or didn’t. She didn’t know which was worse—or better.

  That Lindsay would be here? Or that she wouldn’t?

  Or maybe you’re afraid that she really is the reason the Water’s Edge got hit, she told herself. That she blew up your life all over again and will blow this up, too. And hurt people you like.

  That voice resonated deep inside, in that place she didn’t like to admit was there. Because it was ugly.

  Deep inside, she blamed Lindsay for what happened in Phoenix. And the lives on their hands because of it, even if those lives had been removed from them. From her. She wondered things she shouldn’t, like how many seconds it had really been between the time Lindsay texted her outside the house in Boston and when it blew up. Ten years on, Caradine could no longer be sure what had actually happened versus what she’d decided must have happened, based on what came after.

  Deep inside, where hope never dared penetrate, Caradine expected their father’s sins to catch up with her, every day. And she suspected everyone—especially her little sister.

  Deep inside, that she loved her sister was often an afterthought.

  And what would she do if Lindsay could see that on her face?

  The second Caradine saw the hint of a structure through the trees, and sucked in a breath, Isaac stopped again. Or almost stopped. The SUV slowed but never quite came to a halt. Isaac nodded. And Caradine watched Templeton, a huge man who should not have been the least bit graceful, roll out as if he didn’t need to touch the ground to disappear into the jungle.

  “Crawl up into the front seat,” Isaac said to her with a quick glance in the rearview mirror. His voice was the same quiet command he’d used on the others.

  Caradine was moving before she really thought about it, obeying him as if it were a reflex.

  Social Isaac would have commented on it. Team leader Isaac didn’t mention it.

  “Is this her house?” Caradine asked, that lump in her throat making her voice scratchy.

  “I think so.” He threw a glance at her.
“Oz is rarely wrong.”

  He navigated his way into a clearing where the house stood, and Caradine tried to take it in. It looked like all the other houses she’d seen so far in this part of Maui. A little bit ramshackle, with the living part of the house on the second floor. She realized she didn’t know the cues here. She knew how to tell the difference between scary and weathered in an Alaskan context but not in this jungle, which seemed so different from anywhere else she’d been.

  Or maybe what she was having trouble with was imagining her sister in a place like this.

  Isaac pulled up in front of the house, but not directly in front of the doors on the ground floor or the stairs that led up on the sides. And he parked at an angle.

  “There’s movement on the second floor,” he said gruffly. “Don’t look.”

  Caradine blew out a breath, finding that the hardest order to follow so far.

  “We’re going to get out of the car,” he told her in the same commanding tone. “I’m going to stand by the driver’s door, looking unthreatening.”

  She made a noise and his brows rose, so she made herself nod. And reminded herself that a great many people seemed to have no trouble missing the fact that he was the most threatening man around—which in Grizzly Harbor was saying something.

  And Caradine absolutely refused to allow herself to think about what might happen if whoever was in this house correctly identified him as the threat he was, when they could pick him off with a single shot. Her stomach hurt, but she did her best to ignore that, too.

  “You’re going to walk toward the house. Whatever happens, remember that I have eyes on you. And so does everyone else.” He paused, his head angling slightly to one side, and it took her a second to realize he was listening to something on his comm unit. “Everyone’s in position, and there’s no sign of anyone else lurking around out there. Okay?”

  Caradine nodded again, because she couldn’t bring herself to speak. Because what could she say? I hope you don’t die for me because I don’t know if I can bear it?

  And she was more grateful in that moment for the calm, steady way he looked at her than she would ever be able to express, because it took the clamoring, panicked racket inside her down to an almost-bearable roar.

  “Then let’s go,” Isaac said.

  Caradine pushed open her door. Isaac did the same, and she watched as he got out the way a normal man might. He hitched up his cargo pants, when they didn’t need hitching. He stretched, the way a regular person might after driving such a treacherous road. He looked around like a bemused tourist.

  In contrast, she threw herself out like a wild animal who expected to bolt.

  Get it together, she ordered herself. Before he did.

  Isaac had told her to walk toward the house, so she made herself do it. And she might not have looked to see what eyes were on her from the second floor of the house, but she felt them. Her skin prickled, like ants were marching all over her.

  Caradine couldn’t tell if it was a bad feeling, or just a feeling, and this probably wasn’t the time to decide she needed to learn how to tell the difference.

  Ants or no ants.

  She kept walking until the door she was heading toward cracked open.

  And then her legs stopped dead without bothering to consult with the rest of her.

  Her heart was pounding so loud it was threatening to give her a headache. She tried to calculate angles, because she trusted Isaac but she was standing close enough to that door that if the person who came out wasn’t Lindsay, but another thug like the one who’d found her in Maine, she would be dead. Instantly, if that was what he wanted.

  I don’t want to die, she thought, the way she had ten years ago when the world had ended, but she’d lived.

  “You won’t,” Isaac gritted out from behind her.

  And it was a welcome distraction to think about how she’d said that out loud when she hadn’t realized it.

  Then the door opened farther still, and there was no distracting herself from that.

  She realized she had no idea what she expected to see, and that made her stomach cramp up all over again.

  It was shadowy inside the house, so it took a moment for Caradine to decide that her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her. There really was someone there.

  Her trained, capable response was to hold her breath like a kid.

  A woman stepped out of the doorway, into the shade cast by the upper level of the house, and Caradine felt her stomach drop.

  Knots and all.

  Because it was Lindsay . . . and it wasn’t.

  The girl from five years ago was gone. This Lindsay was rounded. Fleshed out. Gone were the sharp edges and angles, the waifish pixie with visible hip bones and razors for cheekbones whom she’d called her little sister.

  This was a woman.

  And not just any woman.

  Caradine couldn’t seem to do anything but stare.

  “I know,” Lindsay said, and her voice was familiar, even if the rest of her had changed. Sharp and wry, like the slap of home. “Can you believe it? Talk about adding insult to injury. I freaking look like Mom.”

  Eighteen

  Lindsay didn’t invite them in.

  Caradine couldn’t tell if that was an abundance of caution on her sister’s part or that same dislocation she felt herself. Or, it occurred to her, it was possible Lindsay blamed her and suspected her in turn. Either way, Lindsay ushered them to the seating area there in the shade cast by the upper level, calling it a lanai, and the three of them sat there.

  In what felt to Caradine like a tortured, fraught silence.

  “Before we start this conversation,” Isaac said, with that affable grin of his and the body language of a lazy good ol’ boy, “are you going to invite your friend inside to come out and join us?”

  It was difficult to find the Lindsay she recognized in the woman before her, but Caradine recognized the expression that moved over her sister’s face then. The flicker of temper, then something darker.

  “I don’t know that I will.” Lindsay nodded at Caradine. “You’re not supposed to be here. And you came with a friend. I think I’ll leave my friend where he is until I feel more comfortable with the situation. You understand.”

  Caradine understood completely.

  “Of course.” Isaac’s grin widened. “But I’m sure you’ll understand that I’m going to take a more strategic position while we wait to see whose friend is more trustworthy.”

  Lindsay smirked, another thing Caradine recognized. “You do you.”

  And Caradine took perhaps more satisfaction than she should have in the way Isaac moved. There one moment, gone the next, melting off into the tropics.

  But then he was gone. And it was just Caradine and her sister, catching up.

  “So,” Lindsay said, after a long moment dragged by. Painfully.

  “So,” Caradine agreed.

  “What are you doing here, Julia?” Lindsay asked softly, though her gaze was hard. “And who is that guy?”

  “I’ve been compromised,” Caradine said, ignoring the jolt it gave her to hear her sister say her name. When it no longer felt like a name that belonged to her anymore, much less uttered in a familiar voice.

  It had been a long time since she’d felt like she had a sister. Or was one.

  “You were compromised and you came here?” Lindsay’s eyes widened. “We made a promise!”

  “I know what we promised. But someone found me.” Caradine searched her sister’s face, but all she saw were too many unhappy Sheeran family memories wrapped up in the way Lindsay held her lips too tight. “I still don’t know how. They firebombed my restaurant.”

  “I feel for you. I do.” Lindsay clearly didn’t, and she scowled to underscore that. “But you thought . . . what, exactly? You should bring that mess to my doorst
ep?”

  “I ran, of course,” Caradine said placidly, as if Lindsay hadn’t spoken. “But my friend happens to be a man of many interesting skill sets. He tracked me down.”

  Lindsay’s eyes widened. “That’s . . . not better.”

  “I called Sharkey’s,” Caradine said.

  Her sister paled a little, beneath the golden tan that likely came with living here. The way potential frostbite came with a move to Alaska. “Why the . . . why would you do that? Do you have a death wish?”

  Sometimes Caradine asked herself the same question. “I wanted to see who would show up.”

  It was what she’d told Isaac. And it was true. But it was different, saying that to Lindsay, when they both knew what that could mean. She watched her sister flinch, then look away.

  “Is that why you came?” Lindsay asked when she looked back again, and her scowl had disappeared. But her voice was harsher. “To tell me who came after you in person?”

  “I wanted—” Caradine began.

  “Was it Francis?”

  And for the first time since she’d come here, Caradine fully recognized her sister. It was the way she asked that question, the terror so obvious in her voice. That sheen of panic in her eyes.

  Caradine knew all of that, intimately. She’d been the one who’d woken up to Lindsay’s screams after they’d left Boston. She’d been the one who’d soothed her sister’s nightmares away with empty promises that Francis must have died that night.

  Another hope that had hurt them both after Phoenix. Because maybe it hadn’t been Lindsay’s nasty, vicious ex-fiancé who had killed those people. But maybe it had.

  “It wasn’t Francis,” Caradine assured her. “I didn’t recognize the guy who showed up. I don’t know who he worked for.”

  Lindsay blew out a ragged sort of breath, and when she crossed her arms over her chest, Caradine realized she was looking at that same defensive gesture she made all the time herself.