Harlequin Intrigue March 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Nichole Severn

  If the dude thought he could attempt to hurt or kill the woman Mike loved...well then, the dude deserved to die. No one hurt Summer. Never again.

  Mike grabbed his gear and slipped away, hoping to remain unseen and the man in the shadows.

  He rushed back to the borrowed Buick and made to leave the air base. He didn’t want to have to answer questions about the shooting and find himself in some kind of court battle. He wasn’t that kind of man. No, he was the kind who snuck in, did his job, and snuck out. And, for all intents and purposes, that was exactly what he needed to do now, as well.

  Except, he couldn’t bear the thought of knowing Summer was wounded, bleeding, and he was about to start running in the other direction. No. He couldn’t leave her. He had to get down there, make sure she was okay and help stabilize her until the medics arrived. This being a military base, it wouldn’t take long.

  He drove toward the airfield, stopping far enough away from the strip that he wouldn’t get pulled over by the airmen starting to swarm the area. Getting out, he stepped into a snowdrift. A USAF Security Forces airman rushed toward him, his hands raised. “You need to stop right there, sir.”

  That was not going to work on him, not now, with Summer waiting. “The woman out there on the tarmac, she is my...” He paused for a half second as he thought of exactly what he should call her so that the airman would be most willing to let him go to her. “She’s going to be my wife. I need to get to her. To make sure she’s okay. She’s been shot.”

  “I’m more than aware she has been shot, sir.” The airman looked in the direction of Summer, where another airman was kneeling beside her. He had his hands on her stomach, applying what looked like a compress to stop the bleeding.

  “Look, I need to get to her. Please. I’m begging you.”

  “Sir, we have an active shooter situation, I recommend that you get back into your car and leave the area before someone takes a shot at you.”

  Mike tried to cover his smirk. “I can guarantee that the threat here is neutralized. I saw your shooter go down. If you let me go to her, I’ll take you to the man’s body.”

  The Security Force airman—known as an SF—turned away, clicking on his handset to likely call in to his fellow officers. Before the man could turn back, Mike sprinted past him toward Summer. The airman reached out and tried to grab him, but he swiveled around his grasp and charged away.

  Mike slid to a stop on the icy tarmac next to her, the SF close at his heels. “Summer. Summer, I’m here. Are you okay?” he asked, taking her hand.

  She looked up at him, shock in her eyes, but thankfully it looked as though it was only shock at seeing him as a smile crossed over her features. “Mike? What? How?”

  He sent her a wicked smile in return and tipped his head in the direction of the shooter. “You couldn’t believe that for one second I was going to let you get out of my sight. At least not until I knew you were safe and tucked away on the plane.”

  Her smile quaked as the airman holding the bandage moved. “Sir, you need to back up. The medics will be here at any moment, sir.”

  “I will leave as soon as she tells me to and not a second sooner.”

  “Sir, if you don’t move away from this woman, I will be forced to place you under arrest.”

  The SF behind him piped up. “You should be under arrest already.”

  He had broken several laws and would be willing to break several more if it meant taking care of her, but for now he needed to get these guys to just back off. “I’m not trying to cause a scene. Really. I just—”

  “Excuse me, gentlemen. Please leave my friend here alone.” There was the crunch of footsteps on the tarmac as Kevin walked toward them.

  “But, sir—” the SF standing behind Mike said.

  “Lieutenant, it would be in your best interest—should you wish to continue your career in the air force—if you simply busy yourself with finding out where the medics are. If they are not on-scene in the next minute, I will make sure all of you find yourselves in your CO’s office getting the ass-chewing of a lifetime before the day is out. Do you understand me?”

  Mike wasn’t sure what had happened, or who was behind the pulling of the trigger, but it appeared as though the culprit wasn’t Kevin. A certain amount of relief filled him; at least their enemy wasn’t the man standing directly in front of them.

  Before he made up his mind about their safety, Mike glanced at Summer, giving an inquisitive look between she and Kevin.

  Summer dipped her head. “It’s all good. I’ll explain later though.” She was breathing hard as though it hurt to take in too deep a breath. “Is the shooter down?”

  Mike gave her a tight nod. “The threat has been neutralized. No other shooters in the area. But I haven’t been able to make a positive ID on the trigger puller.”

  “I need to know,” she said. She tried to move to standing, but the airman held his hands in place and she winced in pain.

  “We will know who was behind this soon enough. For now, we just need to get you to the hospital and get you stitched up. We don’t want you bleeding all over the place,” he teased, trying to keep her from thinking about anything but taking care of herself.

  “This is not going to make wedding dress fittings any easier, you know.”

  He laughed.

  Behind him, the medics rolled up and, parking on the tarmac, rushed over. He was pushed out of the way as they took Summer’s vitals. Her blood pressure was high, but her oxygen sat levels were normal and the bleeding appeared to be under control. From what he could see as they pulled up her shirt, the bullet had traveled clean through—entering from the back just to the side of where her kidney would be and exiting out of her side. He was no doctor, but based on the looks of the wound, she would be okay. Especially as the bleeding was no longer an issue.

  “Sir, you said you would show us where to find the body of the shooter,” the SF who had chased after him said, pulling him back to the world outside of Summer.

  “Absolutely.” Mike nodded. “Summer, babe, you going to be okay for a minute?” he asked over the sounds of the medics asking her questions and talking to each other.

  Summer looked up at him and smiled. “I’ll be fine. Nothing more than a little flesh wound.”

  He glanced at the medic, who gave him a slight nod, reaffirming her assessment. “She’ll be okay. We just need to get her to the infirmary and get her fixed up.”

  “Don’t take her anywhere without letting me know first. She is not going to the infirmary without me, understand?”

  The medic gave him a glove-handed thumbs-up. “You got it, sir.”

  The SF put his hand on Mike’s shoulder, the action too invasive, and Mike turned out of it. The airman was just doing his job, but he always hated to be touched—except when it came to Summer.

  “The guy was up this way,” Mike said, motioning toward the snowy patch where his victim had been. He started to pick his way through the airmen and medics milling around the area, some talking on handsets and others talking with one another as they all seemed to be trying to make sense of what had happened. He didn’t envy their job.

  “Did you see what happened to him?” the SF asked, following him off the tarmac and into the knee-deep mounds of snow shoveled off in preparation for a day of flights.

  Mike shrugged, noncommittal. “I saw him take the shot that hit Summer. Then I saw a splatter of blood when a projectile hit him.”

  “Did you see who made the shot on the assailant?” the SF asked, his breathing heavy as he stumbled over a chunk of ice and was forced to recover.

  Mike held back a chuckle; he felt bad for the kid, he really did. Here he was, trying to do his job and investigate a shooting and not look like a total idiot, and not only was Mike going to have to keep some key details from him, now the kid was tripping around in front of his main eyewitness
.

  “You all right there, Lieutenant?”

  The soldier straightened his uniform and put his hand down to his sidearm as though afraid that somehow it would slip from its holster. “Yep, just fine.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “You were saying...about the shooter?”

  Mike smiled as he looked away and up toward the man who lay dead in the snow. “I didn’t see who shot him, or where it came from. Sorry.”

  “But you are sure the shooter was neutralized.”

  He nodded. He knew death. “Absolutely.”

  The young SF continued asking questions until Mike spotted the little knoll. “The guy is up there,” he said, pointing just ahead of them. “You can make out his footsteps behind in the snow, just there.”

  The SF pressed by him, hurrying toward the body. He knelt as he reached the man and pulled back his balaclava. Even from where he stood, based on the chunk of missing flesh, Mike could tell the man was deceased. And yet the SF pressed his fingers to the man’s neck. As he did, the man’s head rolled slightly, exposing his face.

  Mike knew that face. He had seen it outside Summer’s apartment complex when the man had been sneering at him. It was Ben.

  Mike had been right all along. Ben must have been stalking them, watching as they went around Great Falls together. If Mike had just trusted his gut from the first moment and kicked the guy’s ass, this shooting would have never had to happen.

  Now he was going to have to tell Summer she had been gunned down by her ex.

  But why? Summer had told him that Ben had threatened them because of their being together, that he was just a crazy ex, but could this have also had something to do with Rockwood? Had they found out that she was, in fact, a double agent?

  On the ground, by the tip of Mike’s boot, lay a cell phone.

  There was the crunch of footsteps in the snow behind them and Mike turned. Kevin was making his way next to him and, as he stopped, he looked down and also spotted the cell phone in the snow.

  “Whoever made this shot was one hell of a marksman.” Kevin winked in his direction.

  What was that wink supposed to mean? Kevin couldn’t have known that Mike had made the kill shot, and yet he definitely seemed to. Son of a...

  “Yeah,” the SF said, looking back at Mike from over his shoulder. “Considering I barely saw this dude until I walked right up on him, the shooter had to have known what he was doing.”

  “I’m sure it was probably one of your guards. You airmen are on the money when it comes to this kind of thing. You should be proud. I know I am,” Kevin added.

  “Well, sir, it will take a bit of investigative work, but I’m sure we will figure out exactly what happened here in just a few days. Either of you recognize this man?” the SF asked.

  Kevin looked over at Mike then looked down at the cell phone, but not before Kevin gave him an understanding smirk. “I think ID’ing him shouldn’t be too challenging. In fact, I would appreciate it if you could pull together as much about this incident as possible in the next day or two. I will talk to your superior officers and let them know that my team will be handling it from there.”

  “Yes, sir.” The SF looked slightly excited at the prospect of working for someone as high up in the Pentagon as Kevin. He turned back to the body, snapping a few pictures with his cell phone as though he was trying to capture the entire scene.

  Kevin had definitely just lit a fire under the lieutenant.

  Mike looked over at Summer’s boss, who was still staring at him as though he was trying to read his mind. After a moment, Kevin knelt and pretended to tie his shoe. Checking to make sure the SF’s back was turned to them, Kevin picked up the cell phone and stuffed it into his back pocket. He stood and gave Mike a tip of the head.

  “Do you know this man?” Kevin asked, his voice barely above a whisper so that only Mike could hear.

  He nodded. “It’s Ben, Summer’s ex.”

  Kevin sighed. “Good. Good. I’m glad he has been taken out of the situation. I have reason to believe he was feeding information to his organization about Summer.”

  “Well, he won’t be anymore,” Mike said with a devilish smile.

  “Good job out here,” Kevin said. “You handled this situation very well. I can only imagine what you’ve gone through, you know, with everything with your son.”

  Mike didn’t know if he should admit his role to this man, but clearly there were to be no secrets between them when it came to this shooting. “Just doing my part.”

  As he looked over at the dead man and stared at Ben’s lifeless eyes, Mike couldn’t help but be the slightest bit pleased. He didn’t like having to pull the trigger and take down a bad man, but he had told Ben that if he wasn’t careful, he would put him in his grave. The man had been warned to not mess with Summer. Ben had made a choice to mess with the dragon, and he had called the flames.

  “If there’s anything I can do, as a token of my gratitude for your service to this country, all you have to do is let me know,” Kevin said, extending his hand in gratitude.

  Mike shook his hand as a sense of ease filled him. “Actually, there is something that Summer and I wanted, maybe when things cool off a bit, you can help...”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  It felt good to rest. A week had passed and she had been answering a flurry of phone calls with requests for interviews from a variety of newspapers and military journals, but as soon as she had mentioned their constant badgering to Kevin, all had come to a stop. In fact, besides hearing from Mike when he’d run to the commissary and a couple of messages from Kevin, she hadn’t gotten any other phone calls. It had been pure bliss and she had finally just been able to enjoy her alone time with Joe and Mike. Things hadn’t been this quiet in her life in a long time. Not saying she wanted to be shot again, but she was thoroughly enjoying the peace.

  Mike was busying himself around the kitchen of their house in Kirtland, making her a sandwich. After she had been seen by the doctors at the infirmary and cleared, they had gotten on the plane and headed to New Mexico where Kevin had instructed them they were to stay until the things with Rockwood were cleared and she had finished up the training she needed for her new job—once she healed of course.

  The house they had been assigned was far nicer, and larger, than her apartment in Great Falls. Everything had been prefurnished and all she and Mike had had to do was hang their clothes in the closets and set up a crib for Joe. Everything was nice, far nicer than she had expected to find on a military base. Thankfully, Kevin had gotten them into the officer’s housing. Aside from seeing her friend Jessica, she had to admit that she held no desire to go back to Montana for a while.

  Mike sauntered out of the kitchen, carrying a tray complete with two Tylenol and her antibiotics. Setting it down beside her on the couch, he made sure the blanket was wrapped neatly around her feet. “You need anything else? I’m gonna go check on Joe. He has got to be getting up from his nap soon.” He motioned in the direction of the second bedroom.

  “Kevin said he is going to stop by soon. I think he is worried about me.” She smiled up at him. “He sounded off, maybe excited or something.”

  “Kevin’s a good guy. You are lucky to have a boss like him,” Mike offered. “If you want, I can give you guys a few minutes to talk without me around.”

  “No, he mentioned that he wanted to talk to you.” She gave him a questioning glance.

  Ever since the shooting, Mike and Kevin had been up to something, she could feel it, and yet both had kept their lips shut. She had to assume it was about his role in the shooting. No one had spoken of his killing Ben. It was almost as if it had been silently agreed upon by all involved that Ben’s death would be one of those things swept under the rug.

  No doubt, Kevin had had to pull a lot of strings for something like that to happen since the death had occurred on a military base. But the l
ast thing DTRA would have wanted was additional scrutiny on their organization and what they had been doing on an airfield in the middle of a freezing Montana day.

  Mike walked to the bedroom and there were the sounds of him talking to Joe as he obviously began a diaper change. After a few minutes, he came out to the living room with Joe cradled in his arm. When her son saw her, a giant grin erupted on his face and he threw out his arms, reaching for her.

  “Oh, someone is happy to see Mama after his big nap,” Mike said, bringing him over to her and placing him in her arms. He reached behind him and pulled out a bottle. “I made him this too. I bet he’s hungry.”

  She took the bottle. Being a dad suited Mike more than she could have ever expected. Though he had struggled, putting the first diaper on and receiving a little shower, things since then had clicked into place between her two boys. They were made for one another. There was nothing better than watching them together, Mike talking to him and Joe laughing at his father.

  Love filled her as Joe gripped the bottle, shoved it into his little mouth and started suckling. It had taken some major hardships and fighting to get here, but she finally had the life she had always wanted. The only thing that could have made it better was if she could have really and truly called Mike her husband.

  It had been awkward when they had been shown the house and asked the status of their relationship. Neither had really known what to say until Mike had finally told the man they were engaged. Of course, the man had instinctively glanced at her naked ring finger, but had been gracious enough not to mention the lack of a ring.

  There was a knock on the door.

  She moved to stand, but Mike stopped her with a wave. “I got it.”

  He walked over to the door and opened it for Kevin. The warm desert air swept into the living room, with it came the scent of earth and dried grass.