“I studied up,” she said. “I was plannin’ to give the girls an in-depth tour and history lesson tomorrow.”
And there you go! This trip wasn’t totally about me bein’ selfish and wantin’ to get within spittin’ distance of you. I was goin’ to make it educational too.
Her conscience immediately answered with a snidely worded, Whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep at night, sister.
Sometimes her conscience really needed her smarty-pants ass kicked.
“No,” Bran said again. Just that single syllable spoken with the utmost authority.
Maddy wanted to shove her hands on her hips and scream, Well, who the hell died and made you King Shit? But she’d learned long ago that another old saying was true: It was easier to catch a fly with honey than vinegar.
She batted her lashes and pasted on a false smile. “So you’re tellin’ me you already know you need to be careful around the northeast side of the fort’s parade grounds?”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. She could see him struggling. Finally, he gritted, “No. Why there?”
“Because there’s a weird openin’ in an old magazine house that the bad guys could easily pop out of.” She tried not to sound smug. She wasn’t sure she managed it. And given that was the case, she reckoned, Oh, what the hell. Might as well press my luck. “And do you know the placement of all the old gun rooms?”
He shook his head and shrugged. “But this won’t be the first time we’ve had to go into a situation blind.” He turned to Mason. “You ready?”
“What’s the plan when we find them?” Mason asked.
“Well, we already tried the carrot. So let’s give ’em the stick, what’d’ya say?”
Mason nodded. “My thoughts exactly.”
Bran turned to Rick, leveling on the young ranger a hard look, one he’d probably perfected in places and in situations he’d just as soon forget. “Now, like I told you, if anyone but me, Mason, or those girls comes through this door, you don’t hesitate. You shoulder that rifle and let ’em have it.” He tilted his head toward the machine gun he had taken from the bad guy. Bran had quickly gone over how to operate the weapon with Rick, all the while handling the rifle as easily and familiarly as if it were his own.
“I’ll hold down the fort,” Rick said, weapon in hand, his handsome face contorting. “No pun intended.”
When Bran and Mason turned for the door, Maddy’s frustration turned to desperation. She clutched Bran’s forearm. The heat coming off his skin was nearly enough to burn her.
“Please let me come,” she pleaded. She couldn’t stand the thought of staying safe inside the ranger’s station while Bran and Mason were out risking their hides. Besides, she truly believed she could be an asset. And if Bran would just take a moment to consider—
“No,” he said, going for a world record or something.
“Ugh!” She threw her hands in the air. “No? No? That’s your favorite word, isn’t it?”
“It’s a classic,” he told her calmly, succeeding in making her more irate. “So much simpler than, say, ain’t gonna happen or not a chance in hell.”
Mason made a move toward the two of them, and Maddy’s irk boiled over. “You”—she swung on the big man—“shut up. I’m warnin’ you.”
Mason held his hands in the air. “I didn’t say anything.”
“Doesn’t matter. I heard you thinkin’ from three feet away.”
“That a fact?” Mason lifted one black eyebrow, his startlingly blue eyes sparkling in the light from the bulb.
“Yes, that’s a fact.”
“Then you must’ve heard me thinking you’re absolutely right.”
Maddy was nodding before he finished. “That’s right. And I could really do without you—” She stopped so suddenly she was surprised her vocal cords didn’t leave skid marks on her throat. “I’m sorry.” She did a double take. “Did you just say you think I’m right?”
“Let Miss Maddy go with y’all,” Sally Mae piped up. “If it was me out there with those men”—her voice hitched, but her chin was held high—“I wouldn’t be fixin’ to trust anyone but her to come and get me.”
Maddy sent her a grateful smile before turning back to Bran. She didn’t have to say Well, what do you have to say to that? She made sure her eyebrows did the talking for her.
With a curse, Bran turned to Mason. “You really think this is a good idea?”
Mason shrugged. “None of this is good.” The man had a way of making the obvious sound strangely discerning. “But I think it’ll be better with someone who knows the grounds. Besides, if those guys are still hoping to hold her for ransom, they’re not likely to take any potshots in her direction.”
“Good. Yes.” Maddy nodded. “I hadn’t thought of that. I can totally be your shield. She fisted her hands on her hips and turned to Bran. “Looks like you’re outvoted.”
A muscle was twitching beside his lips. “This isn’t a democracy.”
“Oh, come on!” She’d tried the honey. It hadn’t worked. So bring on the vinegar. “Don’t be such a pigheaded…uh…pig.” Great. Brilliant, Maddy. “Unless you can come up with two reasons why I shouldn’t come along, I’m comin’. No matter what you say.”
“You don’t know how to fight.” He lifted a finger. “You don’t have a weapon.” Up went a second finger.
“Name ten reasons,” she challenged, pretty sure steam was pouring from her nose.
“Fine,” he agreed after a long, tense standoff where they waged a bloody battle with only their eyes. “You can come.” Maddy beat back the urge to holler Victory is mine! “But you do exactly as I say when I say it.”
“Roger that.” She realized she’d mimicked his standard comeback when he narrowed his eyes. “Um…what I meant was ten-four.” She had to curl her fingers around the hems of her shorts to keep from saluting.
“Christ, this is gonna come back to bite me on the ass,” he muttered before turning to Mason. “You want me to lead the way?”
“Now where’s the fun in that?” Mason said, and Maddy knew from the emails she’d exchanged with Bran that the phrase was their old SEAL Team motto.
“Then be my guest.” Bran motioned toward the door before turning back to Maddy. “You stick to my six like a bad rash, you hear me?”
“You got it.” She threaded her fingers through his belt loop when he followed Mason out the door. With a “six” as fine as Bran’s, sticking to it wasn’t a hardship.
* * *
7:41 p.m.…
“Well, here’s another fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into,” Bran whispered to Mason, trying to forget that Maddy’s little fingers were still twisted around his belt loop. Her knuckles had brushed against his lower back with each step they’d taken to their current position, which was hiding behind a bramble bush a few yards from the spot where the body of that teeth-sucking shit-for-brains lay cooling on the sand.
The imposing redbrick walls of Fort Jefferson filled their vision. Ninety percent of Bran was already second-guessing bringing Maddy along. It was the ninety percent that, in the cold light of the moon, considered her a liability, not to mention a goddamned distraction. As for the remaining ten percent? Well, that part of him growled with feral approval every time she as much as breathed. So just for the record, that ten percent part of him was a complete and utter imbecile.
“This sucks,” Mason muttered, scanning the bridge over the seawater moat.
“Roger that.” The heat of the night pressed down on Bran’s shoulders like a pair of strong hands, making him feel like he was carrying more of a load than just his weapon. He gritted his teeth when Maddy pushed up on tiptoe behind him to see over his shoulder. Her warm breath fanned his ear and raised the hairs along the back of his neck. He swatted at his ear and turned to scowl at her.
“I can’t see,” she whispere
d. “You’re blockin’ my view.”
And because he didn’t want her to know how shaken he was by her nearness, by her touch, he decided to play it cool. Play it smart. Give her exactly what she’d come to expect from him. “Babe”—he turned and flashed her an exaggerated wink—“I am the view.”
Even in the low glow of the spotlights on the seawall and the occasional flash of the lighthouse, he could see her roll her eyes and fight a grin. “And there’s the Bran I’ve come to know and love. Hi there. I’ve been missin’ you tonight.”
Hearing the word love on her lips in reference to him had him swallowing hard and searching frantically for some pithy reply. He couldn’t come up with one, so he went with the decidedly unpithy reply of a silent scowl.
Maddy considered him for a second before shaking her head and releasing his belt buckle. He heaved a sigh of relief when her knuckles were no longer pressing against his back. “He always like this?” she whispered to Mason.
“Like what?” Mason asked.
“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”
“Pretty much.”
“I think they make meds for that.”
“Mmmph.”
“You two realize I’m standing right here, right?” Bran demanded in an incredulous whisper.
“Right,” Mason said. “So how do you want to handle the fatal funnel?”
“That sounds ominous.” Maddy curled her lip. “What’s a fatal funnel?”
“It’s when you enter through a narrow space, like a hallway or an alley or a damned bridge through an archway, and you’re silhouetted against the entry point to the defenders inside,” Bran explained. “That’s the funnel part, anyway. I suspect the fatal part is self-explanatory.”
He heard her gulp. Yeah. You got it, babe.
“And considering no one took any shots at us as we were making our way here,” he whispered to Mason, “that probably means the dickheads are holed up inside with a defensible position, biding their time and just waiting for us to go on the offensive. Makes sense. Considering they’re in a goddamned fort, which was built for exactly that strategy.”
“Wish there was another way in,” Mason muttered. “Maybe we could swim around back and try to scale the seawall and then the curtain wall. Get in that way.”
“Maybe,” Bran mused, turning to Maddy and looking her up and down. He frowned when he did some quick muscle-mass to body-weight calculations.
“What?” she demanded. “What’s with the face?”
“I was born with it,” he said drolly. Yeah. He was definitely Jekyll and Hyde. “And I was once again asking myself why I decided to let you come along, because no way are those scrawny arms of yours”—he dipped his chin toward the set of lithely muscled biceps under discussion—“strong enough to get you up that curtain wall. Not unless you get bitten by an irradiated spider between here and there and suddenly turn into Spider-Woman.”
“How awesome would that be?” Maddy feigned wonder. “And just so you know,” she continued, “you agreed to let me come along because I know another way into the fort.” She batted her lashes so fervently he was surprised he didn’t feel a breeze.
He and Mason exchanged a look. Mason was the one to say, “Do tell, Miss Powers.”
“The reason they call this place the Dry”—she made quote marks with her fingers—“Tortugas is because there’s no natural fresh water available anywhere on the islands. So when they were buildin’ this fort, they had to construct large cisterns to catch rainwater and store it.”
“Same thing we do on Wayfarer Island,” Bran told her. “So what?”
“So this fort was built with over sixteen million bricks. Just think about that for a second. Sixteen million bricks on top of shiftin’ sands.”
“Is this history lesson headed somewhere?”
She gave him a look that promised pain to some of his softer body parts. He wisely snapped his mouth shut.
“The main reason this fort was never finished,” she continued, “is because the mammoth weight of the structure kept crushin’ the cisterns, allowin’ seawater to seep in and contaminate the freshwater.”
The wind chose that moment to kick up. And the lighthouse made its revolution, briefly flashing over the beach and illuminating Maddy’s hair until it sparkled like corn silk.
Bran regretted not asking Ranger Rick if he had a ball cap she could borrow. He also regretted not considering that before they made their way along the beach to this bush.
“Over the years,” Maddy continued, “the crack in the foundation of the fort and the cistern grew. It’s big enough to swim through. It’s against park rules, of course. But there have been a few folks who’ve done it and posted pictures on the Internet.”
“And you know where this fissure in the foundation that leads to the cistern is?” he asked.
“Southwest wall. Between the two corner gun rooms.”
Bran tried to convince himself there was a better way. One that didn’t involve dragging Maddy through an underwater tunnel.
“You have that thinkin’ line between your eyebrows.” She pursed her lips. “Which usually doesn’t bode well for me.”
He searched her face, looking for…he wasn’t sure what. But all he saw in her eyes was stony resolve. And maybe a little desperation. She was willing to risk it all, her life even, on a chance to save those girls. “Okay, then,” he said before turning to Mason. “Thoughts?”
Mason nodded. “Worth a try.”
Bran blew out a breath at the same time he ran a hand through his hair. It was stiff with salt and still damp in places. “Well, you know what the SEALs say, right?”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Maddy offered.
It struck him just how much Maddy knew about him. How much she knew him. He’d let her in. He’d let her get close. Too close. And in doing so, he’d let himself fall. Just a little. Or maybe a lot? He wasn’t sure. What he was sure of was that he had to stop the downward trajectory now, before it was too late.
“That’s our Team motto,” he told her. “The SEAL motto is something different.”
“So then what do the SEALs say?”
“The only easy day was yesterday,” he told her.
“Hooyah,” Mason said, shouldering his weapon and quartering the area in front of them, preparing to make a move.
When Bran looked back at Maddy, she jerked her chin in a quick, businesslike fashion. She was ready to jump into the fray without a second thought.
God help me. She’s too brave by half.
“Hold up, Mason,” he said, setting his M4 aside and grabbing the hem of his tank top. Since the last time he’d seen Maddy, he’d entertained about two thousand fantasies surrounding the events that might lead to him taking his clothes off for her. But nothing he imagined had been anything like this.
Available July 2016 from
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Order Julie Ann Walker’s second book
in the Deep Six series
Devil and the Deep
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Julie Ann Walker is the USA Today and New York Times bestselling author of the Black Knights Inc. and Deep Six romantic suspense series. She has won the Book Buyers Best Award and has been nominated for the National Readers Choice Award and the Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA award. Julie is prone to spouting movie quotes and song lyrics. She’ll never say no to sharing a glass of wine or going for a long walk. She prefers impromptu travel over the scheduled kind, and she takes her coffee with milk. You can find her on her bicycle along the lakeshore in Chicago or blasting away at her keyboard, trying to wrangle her capricious imagination into submission. For more information, please visit www.julieannwalker.com or follow her on Facebook, www.facebook.com/jawalkerauthor and/or Twitter @JAWalkerAuthor.
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Hot as Hell (The Deep Six) Page 14
