What the Heart Holds Safe (Delta Force Book 4)

by M. L. Buchman

  “But—”

  “Shut up, Derek.” The name felt like a caress as she said it. As if she could finally acknowledge the man, rather than the boy she kept at a careful distance.

  He shut up.

  “I wish to god I could tell Jimmy that. Not that I ever let him see it. But I wish I could tell him that and let him know I’m not angry at him any more.”

  “You were the one thing Jimmy and I always agreed on.” Derek nodded as if talking to her brother right there, next around the circle on their tractor tire.

  “What was that?”

  “That you were the best woman on the planet.”

  “And you were both deluding yourselves.” She wasn’t any of that.

  “Says you,” again Derek smiled at her…for her…because of her. “From where I’m sitting,” he thumped the tire again, “Jimmy and I had it dead to rights. Besides…”

  He trailed off, then reached out to caress her cheek. This time she let him and could feel that impenetrable wall she’d built so high—so high that she barely knew herself—simply get brushed aside as if it had never been there.

  “Besides,” he repeated in a whisper as soft as his caress. “It’s rude to argue with both a dead man and the man who loves you.”

  He pulled her in, with the lightest of pressure.

  Derek leaned in to meet her halfway, but paused just before their lips touched, when she could see herself so clearly in his dark eyes. “There’s only ever been you, Cindy.”

  She swallowed against the tears, the tears that hadn’t spilled at Jimmy’s death, that hadn’t spilled since she was a little girl afraid in the dark.

  She was no longer afraid. Could never be with Derek beside her.

  “There’s only ever been you, Derek,” she whispered back as the tears flowed.

  Who knew that all of the tears stored inside her heart were tears of joy.

  About the Author

  M. L. Buchman has over 50 novels and 30 short stories in print. His military romantic suspense books have been named Barnes & Noble and NPR “Top 5 of the year” and twice Booklist “Top 10 of the Year,” placing two titles on their “Top 101 Romances of the Last 10 Years” list. He has been nominated for the Reviewer’s Choice Award for “Top 10 Romantic Suspense of the Year” by RT Book Reviews and was a 2016 RWA RITA finalist. In addition to romance, he also writes thrillers, fantasy, and science fiction.

  In among his career as a corporate project manager he has: rebuilt and single-handed a fifty-foot sailboat, both flown and jumped out of airplanes, designed and built two houses, and bicycled solo around the world.

  He is now making his living as a full-time writer on the Oregon Coast with his beloved wife and is constantly amazed at what you can do with a degree in Geophysics. You may keep up with his writing and receive exclusive content by subscribing to his newsletter at www.mlbuchman.com.

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  Carla Anderson rolled up to the looming, storm-fence gate on her brother’s midnight-blue Kawasaki Ninja 1000 motorcycle. The pounding of the engine against her sore butt emphasized every mile from Fort Carson in Pueblo, Colorado, home of the 4th Infantry and hopefully never again the home of Sergeant Carla Anderson. The bike was all she had left of Clay, other than a folded flag, and she was here to honor that.

  If this was the correct “here.”

  A small guard post stood by the gate into a broad, dusty compound. It looked deserted and she didn’t see even a camera.

  This was Fort Bragg, North Carolina. She knew that much. Two hundred and fifty square miles of military installation, not counting the addition of the neighboring Pope Army Airfield.

  She’d gotten her Airborne parachute training here and had never even known what was hidden in this remote corner. Bragg was exactly the sort of place where a tiny, elite unit of the U.S. military could disappear—in plain sight.

  This back corner of the home of the 82nd Airborne was harder to find than it looked. What she could see of the compound through the fence definitely ranked “worst on base.”

  The setup was totally whacked.

  Standing outside the fence at the guard post she could see a large, squat building across the compound. The gray concrete building was incongruously cheerful with bright pink roses along the front walkway—the only landscaping visible anywhere. More recent buildings—in better condition only because they were newer—ranged off to the right. She could breach the old fence in a dozen different places just in the hundred-yard span she could see before it disappeared into a clump of scrub and low trees drooping in the June heat.

  Wholly indefensible.

  There was no way that this could be the headquarters of the top combat unit in any country’s military.

  Unless this really was their home, in which case the indefensible fence—inde-fence-ible?—was a complete sham designed to fool a sucker. She’d stick with the main gate.

  She peeled off her helmet and scrubbed at her long brown hair to get some air back into her scalp. Guys always went gaga over her hair, which was a useful distraction at times. She always wore it as long as her successive commanders allowed. Pushing the limits was one of her personal life policies.

  She couldn’t help herself. When there was a limit, Carla always had to see just how far it could be nudged. Surprisingly far was usually the answer. Her hair had been at earlobe length in Basic. By the time she joined her first forward combat team, it brushed her jaw. Now it was down on her shoulders. It was actually something of a pain in the ass at this length—another couple inches before it could reliably ponytail—but she did like having the longest hair in the entire unit.

  Carla called out a loud “Hello!” at the empty compound shimmering in the heat haze.

  No response.

  Using her boot in case the tall chain-link fence was electrified, she gave it a hard shake, making it rattle loudly in the dead air. Not even any birdsong in the oppressive midday heat.

  A rangy man in his late forties or early fifties, his hair half gone to gray, wandered around from behind a small shack as if he just happened to be there by chance. He was dressed like any off-duty soldier: worn khaki pants, a black T-shirt, and scuffed Army boots. He slouched to a stop and tipped his head to study her from behind his Ray-Bans. He needed a haircut and a shave. This was not a soldier out to make a good first impression.

  “Don’t y’all get hot in that gear?” He nodded to indicate her riding leathers without raking his eyes down her frame, which was both unusual and appreciated.

  “Only on warm days,” she answered him. It was June in North Carolina. The temperature had crossed ninety hours ago and the air was humid enough to swim in, but complaining never got you anywhere.

  “What do you need?”

  So much for the pleasantries. “Looking for Delta.”

  “Never heard of it,” the man replied with a negligent shrug. But something about how he did it told her she was in the right place.

  “Combat Applications Group?” Delta Force had many names, and they certainly lived to “apply combat” to a situation. No one on the planet did it better.

  His next shrug was eloquent.

  Delta Lesson One: Folks on the inside of the wire didn’t call it Delta Force. It was CAG or “The Unit.” She got it. Check. Still easier to think of it as Delta though.

  She pulled out her orders and held them up. “Received a set of these. Says to show up here today.”

  “Let me see that.”

  “Let me through the gate and you can look at it as long as you want.”

  “Sass!” He made it an accusation.

  “Nope. Just don’t want them getting damaged or lost maybe by accident.” She offered her blandest smile with that.

  “They’re that important to you, girlie?”

  “Yep!”

  He cracked what might have been the start of a grin, but it didn’t get far on that grim face. Then he opened the gate and she idled the bike forward, scuffing her boots through t
he dust.

  From this side she could see that the chain link was wholly intact. There was a five-meter swath of scorched earth inside the fence line. Through the heat haze, she could see both infrared and laser spy eyes down the length of the wire. And that was only the defenses she could see. So…a very not inde-fence-ible fence. Absolutely the right place.

  When she went to hold out the orders, he waved them aside.

  “Don’t you want to see them?” This had to be the right place. She was the first woman in history to walk through The Unit’s gates by order. A part of her wanted the man to acknowledge that. Any man. A Marine Corps marching band wouldn’t have been out of order.

  She wanted to stand again as she had on that very first day, raising her right hand. “I, Carla Anderson, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution…”

  She shoved that aside. The only man’s acknowledgment she’d ever cared about was her big brother’s, and he was gone.

  The man just turned away and spoke to her over his shoulder as he closed the gate behind her bike. “Go ahead and check in. You’re one of the last to arrive. We start in a couple hours”—as if it were a blasted dinner party. “And I already saw those orders when I signed them. Now put them away before someone else sees them and thinks you’re still a soldier.” He walked away.

  She watched the man’s retreating back. He’d signed her orders?

  That was the notoriously hard-ass Colonel Charlie Brighton?

  What the hell was the leader of the U.S. Army’s Tier One asset doing manning the gate? Duh…assessing new applicants.

  This place was whacked. Totally!

  There were only three Tier One assets in the entire U.S. military. There was Navy’s Special Warfare Development Group, DEVGRU, that the public thought was called SEAL Team Six—although it hadn’t been named that for thirty years now. There was the Air Force’s 24th STS—which pretty much no one on the outside had ever heard of. And there was the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment—Delta—whose very existence was still denied by the Pentagon despite four decades of operations, several books, and a couple of seriously off-the-mark movies that were still fun to watch because Chuck Norris kicked ass even under the stupidest of circumstances.

  Total Tier One women across all three teams? Zero.

  About to be? One. Staff Sergeant First Class Carla Anderson.

  Where did she need to go to check in? There was no signage. No drill sergeant hovering. No—

  Delta Lesson Number Two: You aren’t in the Army anymore, sister.

  No longer a soldier, as the Colonel had said, at least not while on The Unit’s side of the fence. On this side they weren’t regular Army; they were “other.”

  If that meant she had to take care of herself, well, that was a lesson she’d learned long ago. Against stereotype, her well-bred, East Coast white-guy dad was the drunk. Her dirt-poor half Tennessee Cherokee, half Colorado settler mom, who’d passed her dusky skin and dark hair on to her daughter, had been a sober and serious woman. She’d also been a casualty of an Afghanistan dust-bowl IED while serving in the National Guard. Carla’s big brother Clay now lay beside Mom in Arlington National Cemetery. Dead from a training accident. Except your average training accident didn’t include a posthumous rank bump, a medal, and coming home in a sealed box reportedly with no face.

  Clay had flown helicopters in the Army’s 160th SOAR with the famous Majors Beale and Henderson. Well, famous in the world of people who’d flown with the Special Operations Aviation Regiment, or their little sisters who’d begged for stories of them whenever big brothers were home on leave. Otherwise totally invisible.

  Clay had clearly died on a black op that she’d never be told a word of, so she didn’t bother asking. Which was okay. He knew the risks, just as Mom had. Just as she herself had when she’d signed up the day of Clay’s funeral, four years ago. She’d been on the front lines ever since and so far lived to tell about it.

  Carla popped Clay’s Ninja—which is how she still thought of it, even after riding it for four years—back into first and rolled it slowly up to the building with the pink roses. As good a place to start as any.

  “Hey, check out this shit!”

  Sergeant First Class Kyle Reeves looked out the window of the mess hall at the guy’s call. Sergeant Ralph last-name-already-forgotten was 75th Rangers and too damn proud of it.

  Though…damn! Ralphie was onto something.

  Kyle would definitely check out this shit.

  Babe on a hot bike, looking like she knew how to handle it.

  Through the window, he inspected her lean length as she clambered off the machine. Army boots. So call her five-eight, a hundred and thirty, and every part that wasn’t amazing curves looked like serious muscle. Hair the color of lush, dark caramel brushed her shoulders but moved like the finest silk, her skin permanently the color of the darkest tan. Women in magazines didn’t look that hot. Those women always looked anorexic to him anyway, even the pinup babes displayed on Hesco barriers at forward operating bases up in the Hindu Kush where he’d done too much of the last couple years.

  This woman didn’t look like that for a second. She looked powerful. And dangerous.

  Her tight leathers revealed muscles made of pure soldier.

  Ralph Something moseyed out of the mess-hall building where the hundred selectees were hanging out to await the start of the next testing class at sundown.

  Well, Kyle sure wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity for a closer look. Though seeing Ralph’s attitude, Kyle hung back a bit so that he wouldn’t be too closely associated with the dickhead.

  Ralph had been spoiling for a fight ever since he’d found out he was one of the least experienced guys to show up for Delta selection. He was from the 75th Ranger Regiment, but his deployments hadn’t seen much action. Each of his attempts to brag for status had gotten him absolutely nowhere.

  Most of the guys here were 75th Rangers, 82nd Airborne, or Green Beret Special Forces like himself. And most had seen a shitload of action because that was the nature of the world at the moment. There were a couple SEALs who hadn’t made SEAL Team Six and probably weren’t going to make Delta, a dude from the Secret Service Hostage Rescue Team who wasn’t going to last a day no matter how good a shot he was, and two guys who were regular Army.

  The question of the moment though, who was she?

  Her biking leathers were high-end, sewn in a jagged lightning-bolt pattern of yellow on smoke gray. It made her look like she was racing at full tilt while standing still. He imagined her hunched over her midnight-blue machine and hustling down the road at her Ninja’s top speed—which was north of 150. He definitely had to see that one day.

  Kyle blessed the inspiration on his last leave that had made him walk past the small Toyota pickup that had looked so practical and buy the wildfire-red Ducati Multistrada 1200 instead. Pity his bike was parked around the back of the barracks at the moment. Maybe they could do a little bonding over their rides. Her machine looked absolutely cherry.

  Much like its rider.

  Ralph walked right up to her with all his arrogant and stupid hanging out for everyone to see. The other soldiers began filtering outside to watch the show.

  “Well, girlie, looks like you pulled into the wrong spot. This here is Delta territory.”

  Kyle thought about stopping Ralph, thought that someone should give the guy a good beating, but Dad had taught him control. He would take Ralph down if he got aggressive, but he really didn’t want to be associated with the jerk, even by grabbing him back.

  The woman turned to face them, then unzipped the front of her jacket in one of those long, slow movie moves. The sunlight shimmered across her hair as she gave it an “unthinking” toss. Wraparound dark glasses hid her eyes, adding to the mystery.

  He could see what there was of Ralph’s brain imploding from lack of blood. He felt the effect himself despite standing a half-dozen paces farther back.

  She w
asn’t hot; she sizzled. Her parting leathers revealed an Army green T-shirt and proof that the very nice contours suggested by her outer gear were completely genuine. Her curves weren’t big—she had a lean build—but they were as pure woman as her shoulders and legs were pure soldier.

  “There’s a man who called me ‘girlie’ earlier.” Her voice was smooth and seductive, not low and throaty, but rich and filled with nuance.

  She sounded like one of those people who could hypnotize a Cobra, either the snake or the attack helicopter.

  “He’s a bird colonel. He can call me that if he wants. You aren’t nothing but meat walking on sacred ground and wishing he belonged.”

  Kyle nodded to himself. The “girlie” got it in one.

  “You”—she jabbed a finger into Sergeant Ralph Something’s chest—“do not get ‘girlie’ privileges. We clear?”

  “Oh, sweetheart, I can think of plenty of privileges that you’ll want to be giving to—” His hand only made it halfway to stroking her hair.

  If Kyle hadn’t been Green Beret trained, he wouldn’t have seen it because she moved so fast and clean.

  “—me!” Ralph’s voice shot upward on a sharp squeak.

  The woman had Ralph’s pinkie bent to the edge of dislocation and, before the man could react, had leveraged it behind his back and upward until old Ralph Something was perched on his toes trying to ease the pressure. With her free hand, she shoved against the middle of his back to send him stumbling out of control into the concrete wall of the mess hall with a loud clonk when his head hit.

  Minimum force, maximum result. The Unit’s way.

  She eased off on his finger and old Ralph dropped to the dirt like a sack of potatoes. He didn’t move much.

  “Oops.” She turned to face the crowd that had gathered.

  She didn’t even have to say, “Anyone else?” Her look said plenty.

  Kyle began to applaud. He wasn’t the only one, but he was in the minority. Most of the guys were doing a wait and see.