Mistletoe (K19 Security Solutions Book 3)
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Mistletoe
Heather Slade
K19 Security Solutions Book Three
Copyright © 2018 by Heather Slade
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN 10: 1-942200-49-8
ISBN 13: 978-1-942200-49-9
Also by Heather Slade
K19 SECURITY SOLUTIONS
Book One: Razor
Book Two: Gunner
Coming Soon!
Book Four: Mantis
New Series Coming Soon!
MILITARY INTELLIGENCE SECTION 6
Book One: Shiver
BUTLER RANCH
Available Now!
Book One: Brodie
Book Two: Maddox
Book Three: Naughton
Book Four: Mercer
Book Five: Kade
COWBOYS OF CRESTED BUTTE
Available Now!
Book One: Fall for Me
Book Two: Dance with Me
Book Three: Kiss Me Cowboy
Book Four: Stay with Me
Book Five: Win Me Over
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by Heather Slade
Want more?
Shiver
Fall for Me
Chapter 1
Mantis, Alegria, and Dutch
Compared to some of the places he’d been forced to sleep during his career, the hospital recliner was damn comfortable.
Gehring “Mantis” Cassman shifted to his left side, hoping it would relieve some of the pressure on the right where a bullet had struck his hip, requiring pelvic reconstruction surgery. The good news was, it hadn’t been life threatening and none of his organs had been compromised. The arthritic pain, however, was unrelenting.
He looked over at the woman lying in the hospital bed, hoping her injuries wouldn’t result in a similar life of pain. No one deserved to live with the kind he had to, but Alegria deserved it less than anyone he’d ever known.
They’d met at the United States Air Force Academy when he was a senior and she was an international student, one year behind him. He remembered the day their Air Officer Commanding, AOC, introduced Manon “Alegria” Mondreau to the squadron. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Still was.
Her ebony-black hair was pulled back into the tight bun required by Air Force regulations, highlighting her mesmerizing, almond-shaped, gray-blue eyes.
How many times had he kissed her pouty, cherry-colored lips and ran his hands over her seductively sculpted nubile body? Hundreds.
“Any change?” asked Dutch, who’d known both him and Manon since those early days when they were all cadets, anxious to begin pilot training and get on with their careers.
Mantis shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Why don’t you take a break? I can sit with her for the next couple of hours.”
“Thanks, but I’ll stick around.”
“Mantis—”
He raised his hand. “I have to be here, Dutch. Don’t fight me on this.”
His friend nodded and sat in one of the other recliners the hospital staff had agreed to bring into the room.
“She’s out of intensive care. That’s a good sign, right?” Dutch asked.
It was, but they still had no idea whether the damage to Manon’s spinal cord would have lasting effects.
“What happened between you two? Last I heard, you were thinking about proposing.”
As Dutch well knew, he’d taken an assignment. One she didn’t want him to.
“You volunteer more than anyone else. Why?”
“It’s my duty, Manon. It’s what I signed up for.”
“It’s no longer a duty. You retired. We agreed—”
“No. Stop right there. We didn’t agree to anything. You demanded I quit, and I refused. That’s the way it went down.”
She shook her head and stormed off. There’d been a time he would’ve gone after her, but no more. She’d spent just as much time stateside as she had in France, yet she still lived by her native country’s work ethic. Or lack of it.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like to work, Manon was just able to compartmentalize better than he was. She could say no to assignments without thinking twice. He couldn’t remember ever turning one down.
A few minutes later, she was back. “If you go, we’re finished.”
“I won’t choose you over my country, Manon.”
What had made matters worse, the assignment required him to go deep undercover, and during that time, no one knew whether he was dead or alive, and if he was still breathing, when he might resurface.
He had come back, finally, but Manon was steadfast in her refusal to forgive him for what she considered a betrayal.
Mantis had tried to get in touch with her when he first returned, but she’d refused to answer his calls. He knew from Doc that she was still on the K19 team, but the boss hadn’t encouraged him to continue pursuing her.
“Hold back for now,” he’d advised. “She knows you’re back. Let her come to you.”
He’d questioned Doc’s advice, but in the end, abided by it. What choice did he have? She refused to respond to his calls, texts, or emails.
“Is she with someone else?” he’d asked.
“Not that I’m aware of. However, Mantis, the personal lives of K19 team members are none of my business.”
Mantis almost laughed at Doc’s proclamation given the man had his nose in everyone else’s business about as much as his best friend, Dutch, did.
He stood and walked over to the bed when Manon groaned. He stroked her forehead, willing her to open her eyes and look at him.
“Mon coeur,” he whispered when she did.
“Où suis-je?”
“L’hôpital.” He was reaching the limit of words he knew in French, besides the obvious ones everyone knew. “You were shot.”
“Petrov?”
Mantis nodded.
“Surgery?”
“Yes.”
She turned her head and looked away from him, noticing for the first time that Dutch was in the room. She reached out her hand for him in the way Mantis would’ve expected her to reach for him.
Mantis met Dutch’s eyes when he stood, and in them, he saw sadness and guilt.
The man who’d been his best friend for twenty years took his time walking the three or four steps it would take him to get to the opposite side of the bed.
Mantis felt his throat close up as his precious Manon clung to Dutch’s hand with her own. He realized then that he was the interloper, not Dutch. Not the man who, only minutes before, had asked what happened between them.
He turned and walked out of the room, cursing himself for being such a fool.
—:—
“That wasn’t fair, Alegria,” Dutch scolded her. “You made him think—”
“That I had moved on.”
“With me.”
She caressed the back of his hand with her thumb. “Haven’t I?”
�
��If I believed it’s what you really want…”
“It is what I want.”
“Listen.” Dutch scrubbed his face with his hand. “I know you still love him. You always will.”
There was no point in lying; she would always love Mantis, but that didn’t mean they could ever be together again. Both of them had said too many things that could never be taken back. She’d given him an ultimatum, and he’d chosen the mission over her.
That’s just who Mantis was. From the day she met him, he’d never wavered in his commitment to the Air Force, and then to the CIA. She’d never been first with him, and she’d made it clear that if he wanted her in his life, he had to change his priorities. When he refused, Alegria knew if she didn’t end the relationship then, she never would. And she’d be miserable.
“I’m with you now. What I had with him is…over.”
“I wish I could believe it was that simple.” Dutch shook his head.
“Why are you angry with me?”
He ran one hand through his hair while he grasped her fingers with the other. “Because I saw what just happened. Worse, I felt it.”
“You let him leave believing we were together. If you don’t want to be with me, why didn’t you tell him so?”
Dutch shook his head. “I didn’t say I don’t want to be with you, Alegria. As to why I didn’t try to stop Mantis from leaving, I can’t answer that. I guess it’s because as much as I care about him, I care about you too, and right now, you need me more.”
“I don’t want your pity.”
Dutch looked away from her. “What do you want?”
Alegria bit her lip. “I…I don’t know how to answer that.”
He turned back and met her gaze. “Ask me.”
“What?”
“Ask me what I want.”
“What do you want, Dutch?” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears.
“I want to believe that someday you’ll love me half as much as you love Mantis. Just half as much.”
Dutch got up and walked out. Alegria knew he’d come back, and when he did, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to say anything that would convince him she could love him the way he wanted her to.
Chapter 2
Zary and Gunner
In just a few days, the people who had saved Zary’s life and welcomed her into their makeshift family would be celebrating Thanksgiving. She’d heard of the American holiday but had certainly never been invited to its traditional dinner.
“Good morning, beautiful,” said Gunner. He bent over and kissed her forehead.
“Good morning,” she murmured.
“Talk to me, Rocket Girl,” he said, sitting on the bed next to her. While she’d left behind the code name, Raketa, given to her by United Russia, she still loved it when Gunner called her by its English translation.
“Did you work out?” It was a stupid question. He was sweaty and in workout clothes.
“You know I did. Tell me what’s on your mind.”
She shook her head.
Gunner pushed her over and lay down next to her. “Are you worried about Thanksgiving?”
She smiled. “A little.”
“Tell me what worries you the most.”
The list was endless. She was meeting Gunner’s mother and sister for the first time. And how would it be to spend time with her twin half-sisters? What about her mother and their mother? Would that be awkward? Not to mention that, like her, her mother had never celebrated Thanksgiving before. At least, Zary doubted she had.
“I have some news on the subject.”
More? Now what? When Zary rubbed her temples, Gunner took her hands in his.
“It’s not a big deal. Razor’s mother and sister are coming. And his two nieces. They’ll stay over at Razor’s place.”
Zary did mental math. There were two houses within the compound that sat right on the beach in the seaside village of Cambria. Gunner called the houses a duplex, but no matter how many times he’d tried to explain what that meant, she didn’t understand. He even showed her where the garages connected, but to her, they were still two houses.
Whether they were separate houses or a duplex didn’t matter as much as the number of bedrooms each one had. Gunner’s had three bedrooms, and so far, two of them were occupied. She and Gunner slept in one, and her mother slept in another. When his mother and sister arrived, would they share the unoccupied room?
Razor’s house had the same number of bedrooms, and they were quickly filling up too. Ava’s twin, Aine, and their mother would soon arrive. If Razor’s mother, sister, and nieces came, how would there be room for everyone? Why was she thinking about this? Was it any of her business?
Zary knew what was really rattling her. She hadn’t spent this much time with so many people since her orphanage days, and those weren’t memories she wanted to dredge to the surface.
Every day when she woke up, Zary double-checked her surroundings. If Gunner was still asleep, she’d sneak down the hallway and ease the bedroom door open where her mother slept, just to make sure she was still there.
Seeing her peacefully sleeping was so much like the dreams she’d had for years—that her parents were still alive, and their reported deaths had been a terrible mistake. Zary’s father was no longer alive, but she didn’t regret his dying. She didn’t consider him her father anyway. To her, he was the devil.
When she looked at Gunner, he was studying her. “If you don’t talk to me, I can’t help solve all those problems rolling around in your head.”
She didn’t feel well. That was her main problem. Yesterday, the queasiness she’d felt in the morning had gone away by mid-afternoon. She’d been relieved that it didn’t last longer, but now it was back.
When she was sick, Zary wanted to be left alone, but neither Gunner nor her mother had cooperated yesterday. They’d both hovered so much that when she started to feel better, she went for a run on the beach—alone.
“Your mother and I are going shopping in San Luis Obispo this morning. Would you like to join us?”
Zary smiled. Two days ago, she’d found them in the kitchen, each speaking into his phone and then looking at the screen. “Translation app,” he’d explained.
Gunner turned to his side and ran his finger down her cheek. It was something he did often, and it always soothed her.
“Sure, I’ll go.”
“Come on, get up,” he said, pulling her hand.
Zary’s stomach rolled like it had the day before. “Wait,” she said, taking her hand from his. “I’m not feeling well again.”
“I made you breakfast.”
The idea of food sent her stomach on another roller- coaster ride. “I can’t eat.”
“I’ll bring it in. Maybe if you try a little…”
Gunner left the room, but was back almost immediately.
“Here we go.” He set a tray in front of her with cereal, a banana, and an apple. It wasn’t the typical breakfast he usually insisted she ate.
He’d made it his mission to put more “meat on her bones” by way of making her things to eat like eggs with bacon or sausage for breakfast, and more steak than she’d eaten in her life for dinner.
She had to admit, now that it was in front of her, the simple breakfast looked good.
Gunner sat by her side and peeled a banana he’d brought in for himself.
“You’re very happy, considering I’m sick,” she said between bites of the cereal she couldn’t eat fast enough.
Gunner’s face was set in a scowl more often than not, but when he was with her, he smiled a lot. So did she.
“Want some more?” he asked, still smiling.
“Sure, but I can get it.”
“Stay where you are. I’ll be right back.” He took her bowl, and when he returned, he had another banana with him.
“Is that for me?”
Gunner nodded, peeling it and handing it to her.
Ten minutes ago the idea of eating two bananas would’ve sen
t her to the lavatory. She took it from his hand.
“Your mother hasn’t heard back, yet, from Topor,” he told her.
Zary nodded. Topor, her mother’s half-brother, would bring a whole other list of worries with him if he decided to join them for the holiday. He hadn’t yet responded one way or another.
He’d been tentative with them since the night Petrov died, as though he was relinquishing control of her mother’s life to Zary. So used to having him a constant presence, her mother missed him desperately. His distance frustrated Gunner just as much.
“She told me eating bananas used to make her feel better.”
“What do you mean?”
Gunner leaned closer and kissed her forehead. “When she was pregnant with you.”
Zary finished her banana and then took another spoonful of cereal.
“No reaction?”
“To what?” she asked.
“Bananas making her feel better when she was pregnant.”
“I don’t understand.” What kind of reaction was he looking for?
Gunner set a small box on the tray next to her bowl.
“What is that?” she asked. When she read what the box said, her eyes opened wide.
“You figured it out,” he said, still smiling from ear-to-ear.
“No, Gunner. I’m not pregnant.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I can’t have children.” It was something she knew they’d have to talk about sooner or later, but with as hectic as things had been for them in the last couple of months, it hadn’t seemed urgent.
“Why do you think you can’t have children?” he asked. His scowl still hadn’t returned, as much as she’d expected it to.