by Shauna Allen
Text copyright ©2018 by the Author.
This work was made possible by a special license through the Kindle Worlds publishing program and has not necessarily been reviewed by Stoker Aces Production, LLC. All characters, scenes, events, plots and related elements appearing in the original Special Forces: Operation Alpha remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Stoker Aces Production, LLC, or their affiliates or licensors.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always, my love and gratitude go to my magnificent husband and children. I couldn’t do what I love without your support and endless smiles. You are my heart.
Thank you to my two favorite Susans in all the world! Susan Stoker, for allowing me into this phenomenal world and sharing your awesome Stalkers with me, and Susan Muller, for being an amazing friend.
Kimberly Dawn and Ella Gram, thank you. I think you know why and I hope you know how much I appreciate you. Always.
Lots of love to my Shauna’s Angels Street Team, my Divas, every reader, reviewer, blogger, and supporter who has embraced this and every other book along the way. You’re a part of the dream, and I couldn’t do it without you.
~ ~
***Please continue reading after the last page for a complete listing of all my books, including my Family Creed series and my YA series written as SC Montgomery. ***
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One
Johnny
The rocking chair creaked on the front porch as I squinted against the bright December sunshine, my heart squeezing painfully in my chest. The phone sat silent in my hand. Deathly fucking silent. Just as it had for days after my team had gone dark last week and become incommunicado. I was as useless as tits on a bull—no, worse than that—shuffling around my parents’ five-thousand-acre ranch just outside of Eagle Pass, Texas, nursing my right shoulder back to full fighting strength after being shot by a drug cartel scumbag.
I was a highly trained Marine. I wasn’t a cry baby. But it was damn hard not to feel sorry for myself, being holed up here, while the rest of my team moved out with our SEAL partners to work leads and track down the bastards who shot me up, among other things. Hell, my shoulder was too jacked for me to even be of much help with the chores on the ranch. I couldn’t heft the hay bales or work the horses. I was pretty much relegated to my rehab therapy with my therapist and old high school friend, Joanna, and helping Mom with some of the small household stuff like dishes and dusting. I was pretty sure my mother was secretly enjoying having her big, bad Marine son home and cleaning toilets.
But, damn it, if even she wasn’t out helping Dad take a horse into town to the vet, leaving me alone with the animals, a sprinkling of ranch hands, and our foreman, old Pete.
Well . . . and Scarlett and her boys, though I tried to pretend she didn’t exist because, well, that was just too damn painful, and my shoulder was pain enough.
I glanced down at my phone and rocked the chair harder as I became inexplicably agitated.
I tried Tito’s number again.
Straight to voicemail.
“Damn it!”
I looked over at the murmur of a familiar female voice in the distance about one click away. I swallowed at the sight of golden honey hair shimmering in the sunlight as womanly curves encased in denim bent down to scold a certain six-year-old for something or other. Poor Nathan. He was always up to something. Reminded me of myself on this ranch when I was his age. It was only his first day of Christmas break and he was already up to mischief. It was going to be a long two weeks.
His younger brother, Daniel, joined them and Scarlett turned to watch them make their way to the playscape my parents had installed just for them when she had started working here doing the books two years ago.
Two horrible years ago.
She lifted her hand to shield her eyes from the sun, and I didn’t have to be close to know the exact shade of hazel of her eyes or the little flecks of gold that shimmered in them when she was angry. Nor did I have to be within inches of her body to know she had the most adorable freckles across the bridge of her nose and the cutest damn dimples a man could get lost in when she smiled, and the sexiest curves this side of the Pecos River, or that she smelled good enough to eat—she always had.
I also didn’t need reminding that her heart belonged to someone else—someone I could never, ever compete with in a million years . . . my dead best friend.
~ ~
I puttered around the house until the sun began to sink into the horizon, painting the sky deep oranges and pinks. Mom and Dad would be home from the vet soon and I had nothing better to do, so I grabbed some ground beef from the fridge to start a pot of chili for supper.
I circled my right shoulder to stretch it before reaching for a can of beans, hating the ache that had burrowed deep under my rotator cuff. Joanna would work that hard tomorrow, I was sure.
I rounded back toward the stove, but froze next to the kitchen sink, my gaze tracking out the window. The air was still, but something suddenly felt . . . off.
The hair on my arms stood on end as my brain began to catalog details of the yard like a battlefield, moving on instinct. Nothing out of the ordinary. Still, I knew—
Then I heard it.
The faintest cry. Tiny, but because I was listening, I picked it up.
The boys.
Heart storming my eardrums, I bolted for the back door, not bothering with my boots, and streaked down the steps toward the sound. I was at a sprint, heading on instinct for the pond before I could form another coherent thought. Twilight was descending a deep lavender now, the air chilled, bringing bumps to my flesh as my intuition kicked in like a screaming banshee.
There was a small sputter and a splash, then silence.
The scariest damn sound I’d ever heard.
“Nathan!” I screamed as I neared the pond, my socked feet squishing in the cold, soggy ground. “Daniel!”
I got to the water’s edge and spotted a tiny blue jacket strewn on the ground next to one of Daniel’s GI Joe toys. Another one floated listlessly in the water.
Without slowing down, I dove straight into the pond, the frigid temperature punching me straight in the heart like a sledgehammer. I swam toward the toy, my eyes wide in the murky water as I begged for a glimpse of the boy in the dark depths.
My lungs began to burn. My head felt like it was going to explode.
I rushed up for a deep breath of air and dove down again, a silent prayer on my lips.
Just as my chest was about to implode with the need for air, a flash of white caught my eye. I swam for it. An arm. I tugged. Tugged harder, yanking him from the weeds and dragging him up, up, up.
He was limp in my arms as we bobbed to the surface. “Daniel.” My teeth chattered, my words barely coherent as I swam toward shore with thick, clumsy limbs.
In the distance, I could hear his mother calling his name now, but I didn’t have the energy to yell out.
I drug us both out of the water and checked his pulse. His skin was icy cold. His little lips were blue.
Nothing.
“Daniel Rayburn,” I scolded, my voice trembling as I positioned his head for CPR. “Don’t you die on me, boy. Your mama loves you too much and you can’t leave her like your daddy did. I won’t have it.” I forced two breaths int
o his tiny, frigid body then began to compress his chest. Breaths, chest, breaths, chest.
As Scarlett’s now frantic voice neared, he showed his first signs of life, sputtering and coughing, blowing pond water into my face. I rolled him to his side. “Over here!” I yelled as loud as I could, though my voice was still frozen. “We’re over here.”
Two
Scarlett
I followed the feeble voice through the brush toward the pond, my heart in my throat. When Nathan had moseyed back to my office without his little brother hot on his heels as usual, I’d just known something was wrong.
“Where’s your brother?” I’d asked, but he’d just shrugged, his mind back at the stable, daydreaming about horses as always.
“Daniel!” I hollered again, my boots slipping in the mud.
“He’s here!” came the voice again, louder this time.
Johnny?
My heart clutched for altogether different reasons now. What would Johnny be doing out here at this time of night? I barely saw him outside the house unless he had to be, and he avoided me and the boys at all costs, as if the sight of me pained him somehow, which broke my heart. He’d been Todd’s best friend in high school, and he’d always been sweet to me. I’d had so little sweetness in my life, I often found myself daydreaming that he’d look at me as more than a friend. Now, I just wondered what I’d done to offend him. But, if Todd taught me anything, it was that my very existence offended most men.
I broke through the last line of brush into the clearing next to the Ray family pond. I paused, my eyes adjusting to the darkness that had quickly descended.
Something moved.
And arm waved. “Here.”
Oh, God. Two bodies were lying on the ground, one large, one small, both soaked. I rushed over and fell to my knees, my hands instantly on my son. He was breathing, but icicle cold and barely responsive to my touch. “What happened?”
Johnny flopped to his back and faced the moonlight. “He fell in. He needs to be warmed up. Get him to the house and call for help.”
My gaze flew back to my child’s face. His eyes were closed, his flesh pale.
“Go,” Johnny urged, not moving a muscle, his own breathing shallow, his arm draped across his stomach as if it was too much effort to move.
Tears bit my eyes, hot and harsh. I nodded even though I knew he couldn’t see me, and scooped my baby boy into my arms. I shot Johnny one last quick glance then ran as fast as I could toward the office.
I’d left Nathan with Old Pete the foreman, and two sets of wide eyes met me when I returned with my soaking bundle. “Pete,” I yelled as I dashed up the porch steps. “Johnny is by the pond and he needs help. Go!”
He didn’t ask any questions and took off as quick as his old legs would carry him. I threw a blanket at Nathan. “Take this and my cell phone. Help Mr. Pete and don’t leave his side. You hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He took off to follow, guilt scribbled all over his face for leaving his brother unattended.
But the guilt was mine. I should’ve known better than to leave Daniel in his care, even for a few minutes.
I cranked up the office heater and stripped the wet clothes from Daniel’s body then wrapped him in a blanket. I checked his pulse and breathing again as I dialed 9-1-1 from the office line.
Big hazel eyes, so much like mine, finally opened. “Mommy?”
Relief made me dizzy and I sank down next to him. “Yes, baby. I’m here.”
“I fell in the pond.”
“I know you did.” I brushed the damp hair from his forehead. “And you scared me to death.”
“I lost my GI Joe.” Fat tears filled his eyes.
“That’s okay, honey. We’ll get you another one.” I tugged the blanket up higher under his chin as the 9-1-1 operator answered the call and I gave her my information.
As we spoke, headlights filtered through the blinds and I knew Mr. and Mrs. Ray were back from their trip to town. Good God. How was I going to explain that their recuperating war hero son had nearly frozen to death saving my son from drowning while I’d been preoccupied?
Doing what?
Working?
Well . . . technically, yes. I could explain it away at that, but if I were being totally honest, I spent half my time lately daydreaming about their broody boy.
Daniel began to squirm and sat up. “Where’s Mr. Johnny? He got me out of the water.”
“He’s outside,” I said. “Mr. Pete and your brother went to check on him.”
He nodded, and the operator mumbled something about the paramedics being close by just as Mr. and Mrs. Ray made their way inside, stomping their feet on the mat. Mrs. Ray spotted us first and paused, her eyes pinging back and forth between me on the phone and Daniel.
“What happened?”
“I fell in the pond,” Daniel answered helpfully, his lips only barely blue.
“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Ray said, rushing over, doting over him as if she was his grandmother. “Are you okay, baby?”
He nodded. “I nearly drownded, but Mr. Johnny saved me. He jumped in and pulled me out.”
Her eyes flew to mine, round as silver dollars.
I nodded then tilted my head toward the pond. “Pete went to him.”
She faced her husband. “Go check on them, will you?”
“Of course.” Mr. Ray spun back out the door and raced down the steps, his boots clomping away as he ran toward his son, who had selflessly risked himself to save mine.
The heater made the room into a sauna by the time the men had a sopping Johnny up to the porch and the paramedics arrived to check everyone over. He refused to go to the hospital and I would’ve sworn he resented all the fuss. Instead, he insisted they focus on Daniel and stomped off toward the main house, saying he just needed a hot shower and a bed.
“Scarlett?”
I ripped my eyes from his retreating back. “Sorry?”
Mrs. Ray’s gaze narrowed quizzically. “I said I’d be happy to keep Nathan tonight so you can go to the hospital with little Daniel.”
“Oh. Right. Thank you so much.” I dropped my head and rubbed the back of my neck. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . . I’m a little bit overwhelmed and . . .”
She gripped my other hand. “It’s okay, sweetheart. We understand. Go. Be with your baby. We’ll take care of Nathan.”
I nodded my thanks and climbed up into the back of the ambulance. As they slammed the doors and we drove off down the long, dusty driveway, I glanced back at the house, and I would’ve sworn I saw Johnny’s face staring back at me from his bedroom window, his eyes as lost and forlorn as ever before.
Three
Johnny
I watched the ambulance lumber away with Scarlett and Daniel inside, relieved more than I cared to admit that the boy was alright. Jesus, if I hadn’t gotten there in time . . .
I spun away when the front door slammed and little feet pounded up the stairs.
“Mr. Johnny!”
“In here.”
The door opened and Nathan’s pale face appeared, my mother’s right behind him.
She hustled inside to fuss over me like I was a child. “Oh, my God, you must be freezing. Are you okay?” She yanked up another blanket from the foot of my bed and wrapped it around my shoulders. “Why are you still in these wet clothes? Good God, Jonathan Nathaniel Ray. Look at you.” But she wasn’t looking at me. She was racing around my room, yanking out clean clothes, then turning on my shower. “Why on earth you wouldn’t go to the hospital is beyond me. Stubborn as your father, I tell you.” She spun to face me, hands on her hips, the shower hissing behind her. “Get in here and warm up, then put on those warm clothes and meet me downstairs so I can feed you something hot, do you hear me, young man?”
I shot Nathan a glance, but he just smirked. “Yes, ma’am.”
Once they left, I showered, the hot water stinging as it thawed my skin and bones. I closed my eyes, haunted by the vision of Daniel’s face in that wat
er. What if I’d been another minute or two later?
I shook off the thought and soaped up, washing off the dirt of the pond. Once I was clean and reasonably warm, I dried off and put on the clothes my mom had picked out, to appease her, if nothing else.
My shoulder ached from the exertion of the night, so I downed two aspirin before heading downstairs. I found my parents at the kitchen table with Nathan, who was coloring quietly, looking so much like his mother it nearly took my breath away.
Scarlett Rayburn had always been a beautiful girl. Always. But she’d grown into a stunning woman, and it was becoming literally painful to keep my eyes to myself and my thoughts out of the gutter. I had to keep reminding myself that she was my dead best friend’s wife, the mother of his children, and therefore untouchable. But my damn wayward body didn’t seem to get the message of my do-gooder brain.
My dad looked up when I entered the room, his gaze as assessing and sharp as the ex-Marine that he was.
I shook off any word of concern and slid into my seat to look over Nathan’s picture. “Whatcha coloring?”
“A horse.”
Of course. The kid lived and breathed horses.
“Ah.”
Mom slid bowls of chili in front of us and I smiled thankfully up at her. “I was going to cook dinner before . . .” I let my words fall off unspoken and picked up my spoon. “Thank you.”
She took her seat. “You feeling alright?”
“I’m fine. Any word on Daniel?”
“Not yet.”
I nodded and we tucked into our meal. Thankfully, my parents didn’t bring up anything else about my dip in the pond while we ate. Mostly they chatted with Nathan, enjoying having the little guy around to liven things up at the table. I knew they adored Scarlett and her children and had been waiting patiently for me or one of my brothers to settle down and give them some grandchildren, but so far, we’d eluded capture by the female species. Having these boys around would have to do for the time being.
Hell, once upon a time, these might’ve been my boys had I played my cards right, not been such a chicken shit, and asked Scarlett out when I’d wanted to in high school. I’d had it so bad for her back then, but my buddy, Todd, had beaten me to the punch, and they’d hit it hot and heavy, marrying right out of school. And the rest, as they say, is history. I’d had to force myself to be content with watching their happiness from the sidelines, convincing myself that I was happy for them, always the third wheel, stuffing any feelings I might’ve still had for her to the back of my heart because they were wildly inappropriate. He was my best friend. She was his wife. Luckily, I joined the Marines and deployed, and it was so much easier when out of sight meant out of mind. Mostly.
