Hazardous Holiday (Men of Valor)

by Liz Johnson

  The man’s eyes grew bright as he looked at her driver’s license. “Ziggy? Oh, he’s here. In their offices probably.” He quickly handed back her license and gave her directions to a trailer.

  She repeated them to herself over and over. “Left, right, across from the third pier.”

  The building wasn’t much, marked only with a number and a few big trucks in the parking spaces beside it.

  She pulled into a spot and took a deep breath. She could do this. Things were going to change, but it didn’t have to be for the worse. They’d already survived one adjustment. They could get through another. With a firm nod of her head and a silent prayer heavenward, she opened her door, then helped Cody out of the backseat.

  Just as Cody’s feet hit the ground, a small white SUV flew into the spot two over. A gorgeous brunette tumbled out from behind the wheel. She sprinted for the door to the trailer, and it slammed closed behind her.

  Cody looked confused, his little eyes squinting against the sun.

  “I think we’re in the right place,” Kristi reassured him. “Someone is excited to see her husband. Are you excited to see Zach?”

  “Yes.” He pumped his fist in the air as best he could, and she ushered him toward the building, holding open the door as he ambled in.

  Compared with the bright sun, the fluorescent interior lights were almost black, and she had to blink quickly. As soon as her eyes adjusted, she spotted the same brunette from outside, swinging around the neck of a man in brown camouflage. His arms locked around her waist, his eyes closed as they spun.

  “Miss me?” he asked, and she replied with a kiss.

  Kristi suddenly felt very out of place. Maybe they should go wait in the car. Or drive over the bridge and wait for Zach to show up at the house. This was a time for sweet reunions between real loves, not awkward embraces with faux wives.

  But just as she snagged Cody’s arm, a familiar voice made her insides tremble. It was low and filled with concern.

  “Kristi?”

  Cody wiggled free and ran for Zach, who easily scooped the thin boy into his arms. Zach’s smile was genuine but surprised as he patted Cody’s back and ruffled his hair.

  “Good to see you, little man.”

  Cody threw his skinny arms over the broad shoulders and hugged Zach’s neck like they were best friends. “You came back!”

  “Told you I would.”

  “And you’re in time for Christmas!”

  “You don’t say.” Zach’s smile faltered as he looked in her direction and caught her gaze.

  Embarrassment washed over her for no particular reason, and she wrapped her arms around her middle.

  The corner of Zach’s eyes crinkled as his gaze dropped to the floor, and she felt every inch of his survey. He stepped closer and leaned in, his warmth wrapping around her. “Good to see you.” He pressed his lips to her cheek, and her nerves prickled to life, down her neck and right into her already-seasick stomach.

  The best she could manage in response was a trembling smile.

  “The transplant coordinator says I’m almost at the top of the list.”

  She thanked God for Cody every day. And especially when his random outburst drew all of Zach’s attention and a big grin.

  “How’re you feeling?”

  Cody shrugged, wilting into Zach’s shoulder. “Tired mostly. Momma makes me take a break every day. Even when Mrs. Drummond is staying with me while mom’s at work.”

  Zach laughed, a rich baritone that reverberated off the fake-wood walls, at Cody’s euphemism for naps. “I might be able to match you break for break, man. I haven’t gotten a full night of sleep in a while…”

  “What were you doing?”

  “Cody, no,” she interrupted. “Don’t ask—”

  “I was protecting people who can’t protect themselves.”

  Cody’s eyes filled with sadness, and the pout of his lower lip quivered. “Did their daddies die, too?”

  With a flash of the same sadness in his own eyes, Zach nodded. “Some of them.”

  “Then I’m glad you went to help them.” Just like that, Cody assessed that Zach’s work was worthy, and he moved on to the next topic of interest, pointing at the embracing couple. “Who are they?”

  Zach turned to look behind him. “That’s Willie G.—I mean, Will Gumble and his wife, Jess. And that’s the senior chief.” A tall, lean man stepped out of an office and walked up to them, holding out his hand to shake Kristi’s.

  “Matt Waterstone. You must be Kristi. Zig talks about you all the time.”

  A truck full of gravel emptied into her stomach, and she barely managed to shake his hand before her knees began trembling. What had Zach been saying about her? Did they all know she’d been forced to marry a man she didn’t love for the sake of her son? Her hands shook, and she wrung them in front of her, trying not to be intimidated by the steel in his posture.

  Zach grunted his disagreement but didn’t get out a word before the door flung open and three towheaded kids raced inside. They shouted and cheered as Matt squatted before them, scooping even the oldest—probably seven or eight—into his arms.

  Each child was given a hard kiss on the forehead before Ashley, their mom, arrived. The kids seemed to know the drill, and they parted ways as she reached her husband and held him tightly.

  Kristi took several shuffling steps backward. She didn’t belong here. Not with these real family reunions. Grabbing for Cody’s hand, she snagged Zach’s bare forearm instead, and they both jumped at the contact.

  “I’m sorry.” Her voice barely carried, but the firm shake of his head told her he’d heard her just fine.

  “Are you ready to go home?” he asked.

  She looked away. “Anytime.”

  “Let me get my bag.”

  When she reached for Cody, the boy whimpered and tucked his head into Zach’s neck. Kristi flinched. “I’m sorry. He’s really tired. This is usually one of his rest times.”

  Zach didn’t quite smile, but there was a tenderness in his eyes as he readjusted the weight in his arm. “No problem. I’ll be right back.”

  True to his word, Zach ducked into an office and returned in less than a minute. The large camouflage bag slung over his shoulder was bigger than her son, but he carried both without any indication of the burden. With a wave to his fully occupied teammates, he ushered her into the bright sunlight and to the car.

  Usually she had to wrestle Cody into his seat when he was on the verge of sleep, but Zach made it look easy. And with his bag stowed in the trunk, he looked from the driver’s door to her hands to her face. “Want me to drive?”

  “Oh.” Her gaze dropped to the faintly jingling keys in her trembling fingers. That’s right. She didn’t have to drive all the time now. She wasn’t alone anymore. Even if she didn’t know quite what that meant. “Sure. That would be nice.”

  When she climbed into the passenger side, she had another reason to be grateful she’d passed over the keys. His letters were still strewn across the floorboard, and she scrambled to collect them and shove them into her oversize purse before he noticed.

  *

  Zach couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her, even as he pulled off the base and toward the bridge.

  He’d never had a welcoming party before. His mom and dad had tried to meet him following his first deployment, but after his team had been delayed and then called back to duty, they’d headed back to Texas. This was new. And not unpleasant.

  “You didn’t have to be here today.” His tone came out thicker, gruffer than he’d intended, and her eyes flashed wide.

  “Should we not have come? I didn’t know what you’d want, and we didn’t realize—”

  He held up his hand quickly to cut her off while he cleared his throat. “No. I’m glad you did. I just wasn’t expecting it. You didn’t have to.”

  Kristi’s head dipped, her hair falling over her shoulder and blocking his view of her face. “Ashley called and told me to be here.
I thought maybe you’d asked her to get in touch with us.”

  His stomach gave an involuntary jerk, and he pressed a fist to his knee. He should have thought to do that. He’d just never had a family in San Diego before. Not even an unconventional one.

  “I guess we both have some adjusting to do.”

  She heaved a little sigh that sounded as tightly wound as he was. And in some strange way, it helped to know that he wasn’t the only one unsure how to navigate this new terrain.

  As he pulled her little green four-door onto the bridge, a large black van came up behind them. He watched it through the rearview, its bulk taking up most of his mirror and making the hairs on his arms stand up. It was following them awfully closely.

  He frowned but kept his speed up, shifting into the middle lane of the eastbound traffic. The van stayed put, and he let out a slow breath.

  “Cody’s been so excited to see you. He told the checker at the grocery store that his SEAL was coming home. I think she thought you were a pet.”

  Zach chuckled. “I’ve been called a lot worse. He’s a good kid. It was nice to get his emails every week.” With a glance into the backseat, he checked on the sleeping boy. “How’s he doing?”

  Kristi hugged her giant bag to her chest and plastered on something that he assumed was supposed to resemble a smile. It came much closer to a grimace.

  “He’s…tired. All the time. He’s not getting enough oxygen, and the doctor said that pretty soon he’ll either have to carry around a canister or move into the hospital full-time.”

  That made sense. The kid’s lips were borderline blue, and his breathing was too fast.

  He shot another glance in Cody’s direction.

  But his gaze snagged on the two black vans that were now behind them. His pulse soared.

  Snapping his focus back to the front, he saw what he’d missed before. A third van in the left lane, slowing down. In a few seconds it would be at their side.

  The vans had set up a tactical maneuver.

  He’d seen a thousand of them in training and in the field, and it didn’t take him more than a second to work out what was happening. They were going to box him in. To what end, he couldn’t be sure. Would they try to force his car off the bridge?

  As if on cue, the van to the left jerked to a near stop, tires squealing and cars behind it laying on their horns.

  The painful screech stopped Kristi’s chatter. “What’s going on?”

  Zach motioned toward the van, then to the right, where another pulled up alongside them. They didn’t seem to be trying to force him off the bridge, then—so what was their plan? He slowed way down, putting extra space between him and the vehicle ahead. It was a tractor trailer. Running into that could seriously injure him and Kristi and Cody. Was that the goal?

  He continued slowing down to the annoyed honks of everyone behind them. But he didn’t have another choice. There were three eastbound lanes and no way off the two-mile bridge. Traffic was hemmed in by a cement barrier blocking oncoming traffic on the left and a relatively low guardrail on the right. But with enough force, at the right angle, the car could go up and over.

  And into the Pacific.

  His stomach sank faster than a car in the ocean.

  The van on the right was edging closer to them, while the one on their left held its position, keeping Zach from an evasive maneuver. Braking hard wasn’t going to work either. Not with the third van right on their six.

  Kristi gasped and covered her eyes, then nearly lunged for the backseat. “Cody.”

  Zach gave her a push until she was facing the front. “Sit down. Keep your belt on.”

  It was terse and a bit sharp. And all he could manage at the moment.

  The van to the left pulled ahead while the one on the right veered into their lane. Zach didn’t have another choice. He had to pull into the vacancy, even as the lumbering black beast on his right kept pressing them closer and closer to the divider. If they hit it just right, the front end could crumple in on them. Or they could flip over the divider into oncoming traffic.

  He had to get out of there.

  He had to get his family to safety.

  Find the opening. Find the exit strategy.

  His instructors had drilled it into him. There was always a way to escape. He just had to wait until it presented itself.

  It took half a second to see it. He didn’t pause to analyze. He just floored it. They shot ahead of the van on the right, which couldn’t keep up with the lighter sedan. Zipping behind the semi and into the far lane, they shot forward into the clear. The vans tried to catch up, but the end of the bridge was in sight.

  As soon as they were on land, he veered off to a side street, searching for a pursuit that didn’t come.

  Kristi’s chest rose and fell rapidly, her panting breaths filling the otherwise silent car.

  Zach narrowed his gaze and stared into her pinched features.

  “You want to tell me what exactly I came home to?”

  TWO

  Zach eased Cody into the bottom bunk and pulled the covers under his chin. The little guy had slept through the whole ordeal on the bridge and even through the tense drive back to the town house. But now he let out a loud yawn, and his eyes blinked open.

  “Is it nighttime?”

  Zach leaned over Cody and shook his head. “Nope. But for now, you should get some rest. Have a good na—” he pulled himself up short “—sleep.”

  Cody yawned again and snuggled beneath the red blanket covered in classic Corvettes. “Okay.”

  Kristi watched everything from the doorway, and when he sneaked past her, she stayed put, her head never turning away from Cody’s face. It glowed in two low beams, the headlights of a red ’57 Chevy night-light.

  After several long seconds, she followed Zach down the stairs toward the kitchen, tripping on his duffel, which he’d dropped by the front door.

  This wasn’t a good sign. He never left things lying around, but one quick trip up the stairs with the kid, and he’d already forgotten his usual routine.

  “Sorry.” He grabbed the bag and carried it through the kitchen before shoving it into the laundry room, which now housed a metal shelf between the washer and dryer and more types of laundry detergent than a grocery store aisle.

  What else had she changed while he’d been gone?

  But there were more pressing questions that needed to be answered first.

  She worried her bottom lip between her teeth, her eyes unseeing. As if on autopilot, she grabbed a plastic cup, filled it with apple juice and held it out to him.

  “I could go for a soda, actually.”

  “What?” She jumped at his voice and looked down at the cup in her hand, then back at his face. The blank mask she’d been wearing since the bridge fell away, and an actual smile dropped into place. “I’m sorry. I was thinking…”

  “About who might have been trying to push us into the Pacific?”

  Her brows locked together, fear flashing through her deep brown eyes, and he suddenly hated himself for being so blunt. But tiptoeing around an issue had never been his forte.

  Looking away from her, he grabbed a can from the fridge and popped the top. Tipping it back, he took a swig. And nearly spit it out.

  Diet.

  Yuck.

  Glancing over to see if she’d noticed his near spit take, he watched as she ran her hands over her hair, a wild mass of honey-colored curls that reached well past her shoulders and looked softer than satin. “I just don’t understand,” she said. “Why would someone do that? They were trying to…”

  “Kill us. Yes.” Her face paled, and he tried to keep his voice low and gentle. Not easy after a year with a bunch of guys who didn’t do coddling. “And they wanted it to look like an accident.”

  She swallowed, the sound filling the otherwise silent kitchen. Pressing a palm to the counter and the other over her stomach, she took several great breaths as the fear in her eyes shifted into something
that resembled anger. “My son was in that car.”

  The truth hit like a boot to the kidneys. If someone was after him or Kristi, Cody would have been collateral damage, and whoever was inside those vans didn’t care.

  If a six-year-old wasn’t safe, none of them were.

  Zach took a step toward her, and she matched it in reverse, keeping three feet between them. But she kept her chin up and her eyes open and said nothing.

  “That was broad daylight, Kristi. Someone was blatantly targeting us.”

  “I know.” Her words carried a subtle tremor that she must have noticed because she paused, straightened her shoulders and tried again. “They were after me.”

  His entire body went on high alert, every muscle tensing, every nerve crackling. She sounded so certain, but he needed more details. “Why do you think that?”

  Neck and shoulders stiffer than a frozen tarp, she stared right into his eyes. “Because Jackson Cole pointed right at me and said he’d make me pay.”

  The floor seemed to disappear beneath him, and he stumbled to a stool at the counter. He pointed at the seat beside him. “Maybe you should start from the beginning.”

  She looked from the spot beside him to the juice in her hand several times before nodding, setting the cup in the sink and then padding around the end of the counter and swiveling onto the stool.

  “I’m not even sure where the beginning is.” She stared down at the granite counter.

  “Why don’t you try from the day I left?”

  Another small nod. “I applied for a job right before you left.”

  “With the lawyers. Right. In one of Cody’s emails, you said you got it. Are you still working there?” He’d told her she didn’t have to work, but she’d insisted. She’d gotten to know one of Zach’s neighbors—an elderly woman who lived alone—who was happy to keep an eye on Cody while she was at the office in exchange for Kristi driving her on a couple of errands every week. Kristi had told Zach that she needed to make friends and start a life here. So he hadn’t argued the matter.

  “I’ve been with Jessup, Jessup and Holcomb almost as long as you’ve been gone. I’m a part-time receptionist. Just fifteen hours a week. It’s a prestigious firm with a good reputation—but the team isn’t very big. The three partners, two junior lawyers and some paralegals and investigators.”