His to Cherish

by Christa Wick

  Walking through the trees to where I had left the SUV, I dialed my second in command.

  "Morning, Griffin."

  The false sunshine in his voice put me immediately on guard. I had left him with orders yesterday, tasks to do that were not yet done because the four-man team should have had their boots on the ground in Keeling yesterday evening. I had ordered a background check on Gillie and half a dozen other items.

  "Where's my team?" My heart rate accelerated like I was stepping into a boxing ring with Trent but I kept it out of my voice.

  "Your team?"

  "You better be getting a blow job or having a fucking seizure if you can't remember the team I ordered--"

  "My memory isn't at question, brother."

  I heard him lean back in the overstuffed leather chair he kept in his office. His use of "brother" made my teeth grind. Not that he didn't have a right to call me such. I was closer to him than the siblings I had grown up with. Our blood had mixed on battle fields. We were brothers, but the word told me things were about to get personal in a way I wouldn't like.

  "You remember when you went on the warpath in Dubai, the protocols you set up for your absence?"

  He had stopped moving in the chair just as I had stopped walking along the ground strewn with pine needles. Of course I remembered the protocols. After the injury to Mia and the attempt on my life, I had gone on the hunt for the men who had planned and executed it. For six weeks I had been in constant danger of being taken prisoner by those I pursued or the sheiks whose laws I defied. In custody, the information in my head would have been able to unlock the servers on Stark International and thereby bring down entire governments, if not countries. Accounts worth billions could have been drained -- the whole company could have imploded within hours.

  "You activated them?" My grip on the phone tightened, the plastic casing creaking from the pressure I wanted to apply to Kane's throat.

  "And improvised a few others." He shifted, the prolonged sound of the leather protesting and the angle of the air traveling over his vocal chords making me picture him leaning far forward as if he were virtually getting up in my face as he had done so many times in the past. "There's an open ticket at the Martin County airport for your return. No one here is taking your calls but me and all your accounts are closed except for the LINT fund."

  I snorted. The LINT fund was so named because it had twenty-thousand in it. Pocket lint meant for minor tight spots. Cutting me off from my money meant nothing. Not all of my accounts were legal, at least not in the United States. They didn't hold the billions he had just cut me off from with a few keystrokes, but several days of navigating a network of banks would open up millions. More than money, I needed highly skilled human resources -- both in the field protecting Mia and the programming jocks running intel algorithms to make connections between Morris and anything that would put him in jail. I needed the software and hardware resources of Stark International.

  "It's my company," I growled.

  "Then come home," he answered. "Fire my ass, kick it. Choice is yours. Until then, you have to work your Mia issues out on your own, no more proxies. This needs to end now. I don't care if you fuck her or forget her, your head hasn't been in the game since the bomb in Dubai."

  That wasn't true but I didn't correct him. My head had been in the game after the bomb, all the way up until the doctor told me Mia had miscarried. And I wouldn't fire Trent, there wasn't any other person I trusted more to run my company in my absence. We were cut from the same steel, forged in the same fire and sharpened by the same rough hands of the cadre at Fort Bragg.

  But, as much as I loved him, the same held true for Kane as for Morris -- if his actions caused Mia injury, I would take a month killing him.

  Without another word, I hung up and dialed Kessa's number as I resumed walking toward the SUV. The first ring was followed by an almost imperceptible click. I froze as the phone rang a second time before the call was answered.

  "I told you no one is taking your calls."

  Only because he was making the Stark communication servers re-route any call from my cell -- and probably the entire area code of Martin County -- to his phone. With Kessa, Reed and any other resource I could think of willing to redirect a resource my way having company phones, I would keep coming up against the brick wall of Trent Kane.

  Heat flushed my cheeks as an angry sweat began to bead beneath my clothes.

  "Mia is in danger, Trent. Just as real as Dubai."

  He sucked in air through his teeth then snorted it out his nose. "Can't think of a better motivator, brother. There's a ticket at the airport for her, too. Tell her the truth, get down on your fucking knees and beg, tell her you love her and were stupid and wrong, give her that damn ring you've had around your neck for the last four months..."

  Kane was wrong. I needed to eliminate the threat Morris posed, just as I had eliminated members of the Holy Front and the minor princeling who had funded their terrorist cell. I needed it done before any harm came to Mia, including the soul deep hurt she seemed to experience the instant her eyes landed on me.

  Expediency would only come with company resources. To get them, I had to undermine Kane's confidence, make him doubt an earlier decision so he would doubt having initiated the protocols and return control to me without my leaving Mia unprotected to straighten things out.

  "You fucked up putting her under Reed," I accused.

  That earned me a hiss.

  "I had to think about the company, too, had to keep the affair and your...tastes...from winding up on the front page on the National Enquirer or an actual fucking newspaper."

  "You mean our tastes, brother," I pressed. "Your mistake was telling him the whole story. You should have known he would keep her at arm's length, and that everyone around him would fall into line."

  I heard the hard slap of flesh hitting leather and pictured Kane punching his chair.

  "What did you want me to do, let him find out from her?" Anger bubbled over in his voice. "You really want to do that to him after everything he went through with Katherine? Why don't you just ask me to put a gun to his head and pull the fucking trigger?"

  "You still fucked up." He hadn't, not on either count, but I couldn't back down without losing the larger argument that I desperately needed to win. "If you couldn't put her there without telling him, you should have found another solution."

  "Fuck you, Stark." A moment's silence was followed by the sound of his back hitting the seat cushion and a breathy chuckle. "I'm not deactivating the protocol. You want your company and the resources to protect the woman you love, come back and fight me for them."

  The line went dead. Propelled by my fist, my phone bounced off the nearest pine tree. My knees hit the ground, all the adrenaline I'd bottled up during the phone call overloading my system at once.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck!

  I glared at the still intact phone. I had other ways to get to key personnel within the company, but Kane wasn't stupid. The Stark servers spied on themselves, generating user reports for "hot" keywords. Any search related to Mia, her stepfather or any other person in the entire county would get flagged and sent to Kane. That's if the keywords weren't blocked on the servers to begin with.

  Someone else could reason with Kane -- Reed could. Reed would want to protect Mia. But if we failed -- if I failed in protecting her -- what would be the cost to Reed?

  I settled from my knees onto my ass, the air I inhaled feeling thick and jagged as it moved through my windpipe and circulated in my lungs. Reed had been with Kane and me from Fort Bragg all the way through our last tour in Baghdad. He had married his childhood sweetheart along the way. Gotten her pregnant, too, right before we rotated into Iraq.

  I closed my eyes, squeezed them tight to relieve the tension cementing in my face. A dull, internal roar vibrated against my eardrums, blocking out the chirping of the birds around me. Opening my eyes, the forest floor looped a slow circle around me.

  Fuck --
my body was ready to fight. Kane had brought that on. But there was no one to punch, no immediate adversary to chase or flee. The adrenaline just kept pumping, sending my heart racing, the air moving through me in a rate that quickly approached hyperventilation. If I didn't calm the fuck down and breathe slower, the carbon dioxide levels in my blood would plummet, increasing the dizziness and bringing with it an unpleasant, tingling numbness.

  My best course of action would be to grab the phone, run to the SUV as fast as I could, and let the physical exertion eat up the adrenaline. I got on my knees, my hands on the ground to push up. The buzzing in my head increasing, I rolled onto my side then onto my back, my vision filled with the green needled pines above me.

  Green like Mia's eyes.

  Keppler had been right. She belonged in Keeling, seemed to spring up from its ground with her sweet, fresh looks -- looks she shared with Reed's ex-wife, Katherine, each woman having dusky hair, lush bodies, and pale skin that colored easily.

  Painfully ironic the other details they would come to share because of the men who chose to love them.

  The bomb in Dubai had been placed by members of the Holy Front, an extremist group opposed to an American company performing quality checks on the security protocols and systems for UAE military installations. Nothing personal -- if another company had won the bid and started executing on the contract, it would have been the limo of their senior executive mangled and on fire.

  The bomb in Baghdad had been impersonal, too. Instead of a car, it hit an old office building repurposed as temporary housing for those traveling on government business. Walls and ceilings had collapsed. Secondary bombs had impeded assistance to those inside.

  Katherine, five-and-a-half months pregnant, had been on a two-week visit before flying and Reed's duty restrictions insured she would not see him again until months after the baby was born. He had ordered and begged her to stay home, but she had found a way to secure the permissions without his authorization. A family friend who served as chief of staff to a senator on the Committee on Armed Services greased the paperwork. From his office in D.C., the damn fool thought it was safe, not understanding that it was never safe, no matter how many days passed without gunfire or explosions.

  An official stamp on a piece of paper and a plane ticket to hell culminated in a doctorless labor at five months, her husband's torso over hers the only thing separating her pregnant belly from the wall that crushed down on them. Kane and I were visiting when the blast hit. No way out or in, more explosions around the building. We pulled at the debris covering them with broken fingers as the pool of blood beneath Katherine slowly expanded.

  The baby wanted out.

  We all wanted the fuck out.

  On the ground in North Carolina, my breathing finally slowed. The air shook as it entered and exited my body. Not quite sobs -- I'd stopped crying over Reed's lost child a long time ago. I had moved on from the frequent replay of images in my mind, Katherine's screams and moans echoing in my head. I had taken my lesson from the tragedy, too.

  You can't protect what you can't control.

  Reed hadn't been able to control his lovely, willful wife. They had both suffered for it, long after the original loss. The damage from the explosion and the hours before medical care could be received had left Katherine infertile.

  Three years passed before she formally left Reed, but the dissolution of their marriage had started in a Baghdad hospital and intensified with each visit Reed took stateside to find her more and more withdrawn.

  He lost his mind when he got the papers, the sounds coming from his throat eerily reminiscent of Katherine's howls as they bounced off the rubble trapping her. Emergency leave denied -- he went AWOL. Who wouldn't -- you give the Army your blood and that of your wife and child and the gratitude comes back as a piece of paper with a thick, red DENIED stamped on it, no officer in the company having the balls to sign the form.

  We nursed Reed back to sanity, Kane and me. We shredded our re-enlistment papers when they came, overturning the commander's desk before finding that stamp and marking the man and his walls.

  DENIED DENIED DENIED

  We had laughed about the vandalism afterwards, but never in front of Reed. We were always respectful around him, wanting to protect him against the memories. That's why I wanted the medical staff in Dubai to lie to Mia -- to make the loss seem less than it was. I wanted to protect her then -- and now.

  Knowing I couldn't do that on my back, staring up at patches of blue sky as the last of my tears streaked down my temples and into my hair, I took a final rough breath and stood up.

  It was time to neutralize Evan Morris.

  By any means necessary.

  His to Cherish

  "For the last time, I'm not getting a gun." I stabbed the key in the Mazda's door and unlocked it before looking over my shoulder at Gillie. "I'd just as likely blow my own hand off."

  "Stark said you'd be obstinate about--"

  My head whipped from side to side, freezing Gillie's tongue before the next word could foolishly escape. "I told you, I don't want to hear any more about your conversation with him."

  A bald-faced lie except for the fact I didn't want to hear either man recounting it. If someone handed me a recorded version, I probably would have listened to it a dozen times since Gillie showed up at the hardware store as my shift ended and told me about Collin tracking him down. I had expected some conversation between Stark and the police after Gillie made me file a complaint on Evan with all the ugly details and Collin's rescue of me, I just hadn't expected Stark to initiate the discussion.

  "Fine." Gillie held his hands up in surrender. "No gun, no talking about Stark. But what about a taser until you've got enough time in at the firing range to feel comfortable shooting a gun?"

  My shoulders dropped. If I'd had a choice between a phone or a taser that morning when Evan started to bust in my door, I would have taken the taser.

  Unready to relent gracefully, I rolled my eyes at Gillie. "Is there a secret taser shop in Keeling I don't know about?"

  "Got a spare at my place." He cleared his throat, a dark maroon spotting his tanned cheeks for an instant. Reaching between my body and the car, he opened the door and nodded for me to climb into the driver's seat. "Follow me."

  I complied, if only to shut him up and not appear totally ungrateful for all the assistance he had given me. He lived on the west side of town, the last real street of houses before the city limits gave way to woods and farms. His parents lived a few more miles out, growing hay and other crops when the rain cooperated.

  I waited outside while he fetched it, relieved he didn't ask me in like I expected him to. When it took him less than five minutes to emerge, I imagined some sliding wall that, at the push of a button, revealed an arsenal worthy of a city S.W.A.T. team.

  I reached for the gun-shaped taser, but he held it up and away from me. "What's so funny, Miss James?"

  "Just that you found it so quickly."

  He wrinkled his nose at me, the freckles scrunching together to form a darker line. "Weapons aren't like pens or remote controls, you don't just leave them scattered around."

  "Duly noted." I nodded, attempting to make the gesture solemn despite the earlier grin he had caught me wearing. Surprised I could relax around him so easily after Evan's threats and Collin's attempt to get me back to Stark International, a fresh threat of tears stung my nose and eyes. Trying to cover them, I reached for the taser. "May I have it now?"

  He continued holding the taser away from me. "You have any idea how to use this?"

  "No," I confessed and lowered my hand. "I had pepper spray once. Sat around in the bottom of my purse for two years before the nozzle broke and everything leaked out. I really liked that purse."

  Gillie rolled his eyes at me, showed me the safety and slid it off, then pointed the taser toward the center of his yard and fired. Wires shot out, falling to the ground when they found no living flesh in which they could embed. He showed m
e how to eject the wire cartridge at the front of the barrel then talked me through loading a new cartridge on my own.

  Seeing a man in his early thirties exit the house next door, Gillie cupped his hand to his mouth. "Hey, Carl, want to make twenty bucks?"

  I jabbed an elbow in Gillie's ribs before whispering at him. "Don't you dare suggest I shoot that man."

  He whispered back, his lips against my ear as Carl crossed into the yard. "That's a week of lunches for his kids."

  Unable to argue as Carl stepped within whisper range, I glared at Gillie. He looked at me from the corner of one eye, that side of his mouth rising up in a smile before he acknowledged Carl.

  Gillie tilted his head at me. "She needs to see one of these in action, so she isn't afraid to use it."

  "Okay." Laughing, Carl rubbed his slightly rounded belly. "I ain't been tased all week!"

  He held his hand out and Gillie passed over a crisp twenty. "You gonna spot me, John?"

  Gillie took in a deep enough breath for me to realize he hadn't thought the transaction through that far. I looked at him, a little part of me momentarily gleeful at the idea of tasing Carl if it would teach Gillie not to be so pushy and over-protective.

  "Guess I have to," Gillie laughed back. He moved behind Carl, guiding him about eight feet away from me. "That's accurate to fifteen feet, Mia, but you probably won't have a steady hand and need to keep it within ten."

  I nodded.

  "And no less than five if you can help it, or you're just as likely to have the attacker fall on you with the wires."

  I nodded again.

  "Come on, girl," Carl joked. "The suspense is killing me."

  I raised the barrel of the taser and tried to ignore the open throttle of my heart as it pound against my rib cage.