UnderFire

by Denise A. Agnew

  Under Fire

  Denise A. Agnew

  Book two in the Love Under Fire series

  The stakes are high and there’s only one man she’ll trust when danger rips her world apart.

  Kathleen truly understands the saying “always the bridesmaid, never the bride”. Was she nuts the day she agreed to be a bridesmaid for the eighth time? Probably. Especially when helping with this wedding means she’ll be in close proximity to rugged Major Jake Frasier—the man she fell in love with when they were in high school.

  Being out of control is the last thing Kathleen wants, and Jake tempts her to be the wild woman she used to be. He’s too hot, too disturbing, too stirring for her blood. But when gunfire strikes close, the fight for survival will forge a bond deeper than they ever imagined.

  Inside Scoop: The couples in the Love Under Fire series find love through the crucible of a mall shooting event.

  A Romantica® erotic romantic suspense from Ellora’s Cave

  Under Fire

  Denise A. Agnew

  Dedication

  To my own military hero, my husband Terry.

  Chapter One

  “Eight times,” Kathleen McSwain said under her breath as she stared into the window of the engraver’s shop.

  “What?” Lena Williams looked sideways at her.

  At least Kathleen thought she did. She was too busy staring at the sparkly items in the shop window.

  “I’ve been a bridesmaid, never the bride,” Kathleen said.

  Lena laughed softly. “Seven times. Patrick and Danelle aren’t married yet.”

  Kathleen gathered her hair back in one fist as she bent over to look at an exquisitely carved crystal statue of a bride and groom. “Where the heck are the Frasier brothers anyway?”

  She said their last name like a curse. She couldn’t help it.

  “Hey ladies.” A deep, masculine voice rumbled nearby.

  Kathleen started and turned.

  Chief Petty Officer Rick Frasier of the United States Coast Guard sauntered up to them. His hands were stuffed in his jeans. A mile-wide grin mixed with genuine amusement in his hazel eyes.

  Lena blushed to the roots of her short platinum-blonde hair, her green eyes wide, her expression surprised and maybe a little uncomfortable. Kathleen tried to stifle her knowing smile and couldn’t. Lena had it bad for Rick, even if it had been years since she’d seen him and they’d only become reacquainted the last few days. It was evident as hell—getting her to admit it, though, was a whole ’nother ballgame.

  “Hey.” Lena’s voice was so soft Kathleen almost couldn’t hear it.

  Rick’s gaze danced over Lena, his gaze assessing the delicate-looking blonde. “Good to see you.”

  “Hello.” Kathleen added her voice to the greeting. “Where are your brothers?”

  Rick cleared his throat and stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets. He wore a dark jacket and boots ready for the snow. “Matt had some errands to run but he’s on his way. Jake’s in the head.”

  Jake Frasier. Kathleen felt a flush heat her entire body. From the moment she’d seen him Saturday, her hormones had tripped into overtime and threatened to derail her cool. It wasn’t as if she’d never met him before, they’d attended high school together. Many years had passed since they’d seen each other and she’d tried not to visit Constitution if she could avoid it. But she certainly hadn’t forgotten everything that had happened so long ago. She’d known when she left Los Angeles to come to the wedding that they’d run into each other. What she hadn’t expected was her reaction to the totally hot adult version of Jake Frasier. She felt like a damn storybook schoolgirl, all aflutter, breath short and heart pounding with sensual excitement when he walked in the door.

  Get a grip, Kathleen.

  All three of the Frasier brothers could have posed for military recruitment posters. Each possessed that tough, hard and hot brand of lethal male sensuality that tended to make females sigh and want to have their babies. Not me. She didn’t have time in her life for men, especially those who traveled the world putting their fine-looking asses in serious trouble. The oldest brother, Matt, was thirty-five and in the marines. He’d recently returned from his second tour in Iraq. Jake was thirty-one and in the army. He’d returned from a tour in Afghanistan right before coming to Arizona for vacation and the wedding. Matt, Jake and Rick had grown up in Constitution, Arizona, with Patrick. Kathleen, Lena and Melanie were friends with Danelle. The ladies knew what had gone down all those years between her and Jake. At least part of it anyway. Years of resentment and an equal part shame had resurrected inside her when they’d come together for this wedding. She’d thought she’d gotten over him and had learned to forgive. Then he’d walked into the party Saturday, a badass army major, and every insecurity she’d fought so hard to cage had burst into the open with snarling intensity, all sharp teeth and claws. So had the long-suppressed attraction. Now he was a man and she was a woman, her attraction had reemerged after years of napping.

  “I thought you guys were getting your tuxedo measurements finished?” Kathleen asked.

  “We did,” Rick said. “We were late because of me. I have trouble with that.”

  Kathleen laughed softly. “Don’t they teach you to be on time in the Coast Guard?”

  “Yeah. It’s when I’m off duty I can’t seem to get anywhere on time.”

  “I’ve been known to be late.” Kathleen gave Lena a teasing look. “Ask Lena, though. She’s chronically early to everything.”

  Lena pushed her fingers through her hair. Her lips tightened and she hitched her black purse higher on her shoulder. “I’m going inside and getting this show started. The mall is only open for,” she looked at the chunky white watch on her wrist, “forty-five minutes.”

  Kathleen tucked her hair behind her ears. “I’m heading to the ladies’ room. I’ll be right back.”

  She left the two and started toward the ladies’ restroom around the corner. The narrow hallway between the engraver’s and the coffee shop seemed to go on forever. Once in the ladies’ room, she freshened up. Her reflection stared back at her in a mirror above the sink in the three-stall restroom. She looked tired, her unruly hair tumbling over her shoulders, her blue eyes marked by dark circles. Yeah, she’d hoped this week of vacation would mean sleep. What the hell had she been thinking? After the wedding she’d head back to Los Angeles and her job. She groaned. God, she didn’t want to go back that soon. She needed a huge break from the crap flying around her office. A big break of, say…forever?

  After she washed her hands, she pondered what to do. She couldn’t drag her bad attitude with her. Her friends deserved better.

  Air roared from the hand dryer but she heard sounds above the noise.

  Pop.

  Pop.

  The dryer shut off and she listened.

  Nothing. She shrugged and left the restroom. Then she heard it again. The popping this time came faster, louder. Hair rose on her body, a prickling warning.

  “What the hell?”

  A figure burst around the corner at a run. Jake Frasier. His face was grim, harder than granite and just as ruthless. All six feet four inches of male appeared intimidating as hell. More popping noises sounded, this time closer.

  “Hurry.” He grabbed her upper arm. “There’s a shithead with an automatic weapon and he’s heading right this way.”

  Fear sliced open a raw place inside her. Three people hurried down the hall toward them. Two men and one female. Jake waved them toward his position. He grabbed her elbow and propelled her toward the double doors leading to the outside. They came up against chained doors.

  “Shit,” he hissed, looking around quickly as the other people came running up. “Doors are chained. Into the storage room.”
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br />   Her breath hitched as she raced with him to the storage room. God, let the door be unlocked. He yanked the door open. They surged into the room and Jake secured the door with a chair as soon as everyone was safe inside.

  “Help me move this,” Jake said in clipped tones as he started to shove an empty metal bookshelf.

  A younger man helped while the middle-aged man in a suit did nothing. Jake and the younger man wrestled the bookshelves in front of the door.

  Jake turned to the small group. “Back in the corner. If this guy is shooting randomly, the bullets could get through the door and the shelves.”

  Kathleen felt almost as if she couldn’t get her breath but she did as he said, and so did the young woman nearby. The five of them clustered at the farthest back corner, against one wall. The storage room was lined with three rows of shelves from one end to the other, one behind the other, almost like library shelves—it was a big area. At least the shelving might afford protection but it cramped them against the back wall since there wasn’t that much room between the shelves closest to the back wall. Maybe six feet. Bottles of flammable liquid, buckets, mops and other cleaning supplies filled the room. It flashed into Kathleen’s mind that bullets could start a fire. Her heart galloped faster at the thought.

  Kathleen plastered her back into the corner. She clutched at her handbag, fingers tight around the leather. Her heart pounded in her chest, her throat tight.

  Jake stalked in her direction down the row, brow furrowed and mouth tight. In those seconds, as he walked toward her, she soaked in his presence with gratitude. She didn’t know why but Jake made her feel safer. Then again, he always had.

  He’d filled out over the many years since she’d last seen him. He was taller, his broader shoulders encased in a shearling coat. Everything about him, even his military-short black hair and piercing green eyes, had the sharper edge of maturity.

  His gaze locked with hers, concern in his eyes. She shivered as goose bumps traveled over her skin. Although the room was icy, her reaction had as much to do with fear as it did temperature. Jack stood in front of her, his back to the shelving with his palms flat on the wall on either side of her head.

  A second later shouting came from outside and pounding on the door. “Come outta there. Come out.”

  Kathleen held her breath.

  The man’s voice came from the outside again. “What the fuck is this? Come outta there!”

  Jake held his finger up to his lips and shook his head to warn everyone to stay quiet. Gray-hair’s cell phone went off, a high-pitched hymn—“Nearer My God to Thee”. He grabbed it off his waist and hit a button to silence the noise.

  Banging on the door made Kathleen jump and the man outside roared again.

  “Bitches, I’m going to take you down. People will fuckin’ listen to me when I’m through here.”

  Before Kathleen could move, gunfire erupted outside.

  Chapter Two

  As everyone cringed, Jake pressed Kathleen against the wall and curled fully around her as he pressed her head into his shoulder. The man outside raged again but this time his voice was farther away. Everyone stayed frozen for several seconds. Kathleen clutched at Jake’s coat, her body completely sheltered by his. Time seemed to come to a halt. To her surprise, her never-ending attraction to Jake grew more intense. God, he was big and hard and smelled like heaven. Her libido liked that he was trying like hell to protect her. Was she freaking nuts thinking about him this way while bullets were flying?

  “What just happened?” the graying, middle-aged man asked in a choked voice.

  The rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire continued. Jake loosened his hold on Kathleen and she drew back slightly. He still held her shoulders and her fingers flattened against his chest. She realized she was shaking.

  “You all right?” Jake asked.

  “Yes.” Her voice croaked the word, her throat so dry she could barely make a sound.

  He didn’t look convinced and didn’t release his hold on her.

  The young man with glasses next to Jake and Kathleen slid down the wall and sat. Jake grabbed his cell phone from inside his coat and dialed 9-1-1. While he was talking to emergency and giving details on where they were and what had happened, the gray-haired man called back whoever had called him earlier. His voice was thready but deep, perturbed and panicky as he relayed what happened. Jake broke off his call and started texting.

  “Who are you texting?” Kathleen asked.

  “My brothers.”

  “Of course.” She kept her voice low, half wondering if the shooter would come back soon.

  Then it struck her, and for a full few seconds so did shame. She’d just now thought of her dear friends. “Oh God. Lena and Melanie. Oh God.”

  Jake paused in his texting. “They’ll be all right. Matt and Rick will find them.”

  “Who are Matt and Rick?” the young man asked.

  “My brothers,” Jake said.

  The gray-haired man finished his call and placed his hands on his hips. “We should have found a way out instead of running in here.”

  Jake turned a skeptical look on the other man. “This was the quickest alternative to getting dead.”

  Gray-haired man’s mouth popped open but the younger man beat him to it by saying, “He’s right. We didn’t have any place to go.”

  “Is it terrorists?” the young woman asked.

  The young woman clutched her purse against her chest. Her long, straight blonde hair was a mess, her thin face pale. She wore a black coat, black sweater, black leggings and black boots. Her fingernails were painted black. Kathleen wondered if she was trying to look goth.

  “Don’t think it’s terrorists,” Jake said, still holding his phone.

  “How do you know?” gray-haired guy asked.

  “Because I’ve only heard one weapon fired,” Jake said.

  The older man made a doubtful sound. “Well, he’s probably killed everyone else out there.”

  Kathleen felt a sickening, cold wave roll over her. “Why would you think that?”

  Gray-haired man shrugged. “He’s got an automatic weapon.”

  Jake’s cell phone made a dinging noise and he looked at. “My brothers are alive and so are our friends Lena and Melanie.”

  Kathleen’s relief made her lean back against the wall. “Thank God.”

  Jake looked squarely at Kathleen. “Melanie’s with Matt, and Rick just got Lena out of the mall.”

  “So there was a way out,” the older man said with an accusatory tone, glaring at Jake like he’d committed a felony.

  Jake’s voice, when he answered, was cool and calm. “Nutcase out there must have forgotten to chain up one of the doors. If we’re in lucky he’s a real dumbass and this situation will be cleared up soon.”

  “I’ll vote for that,” the younger man with the glasses said.

  “Maybe we should introduce ourselves,” Jake said.

  After a round of introductions, Kathleen could now put a name with each face. The older man in the suit was Bob Ceno, the manager of a local bank. He said he was there for a business dinner at the restaurant in the mall. The young man with the glasses was a high school teacher and he had been shopping for a birthday present for his wife. He grabbed his phone out of his pocket and started texting her.

  The young woman was Charity Nicholson, a community college student studying anthropology.

  “You two obviously know each other well,” Mike said.

  “Since high school,” Jake said without looking at her.

  Kathleen hoped Mike wouldn’t ask for more details, and she breathed a sigh of relief when he didn’t.

  She started to feel shaky and unzipped her purse. She drew out a bag of nuts. “I’d share but I only have a few. I missed dinner and now I’m paying for it. I have to eat something.”

  “You diabetic?” Charity had a concerned look on her young face. “I have candy if you need sugar.”

  Kathleen chewed some nuts quickly. “No. I was
on a business call earlier and it ran longer than I thought it would. I just plain forgot to eat.”

  “Blood sugar low?” Jake put his left palm on the wall next to her again, his full attention centered on her.

  “Yes. Melanie and Lena keep telling me to stop skipping meals but sometimes I get caught up in stuff and forget.”

  Charity snorted softly. “Watch out for that. I got anorexic that way when I was sixteen.”

  Kathleen jolted with surprise, a pang of pure sympathy touching her as well as a piercing pain. Kathleen knew that people forgetting to eat didn’t compel them to become anorexic but she wasn’t starting a nitpick discussion on the realities of the eating disorder. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. I… My older sister died two years ago from anorexia.”

  Kathleen met Jake’s eyes and saw surprise cross his face. She was just as amazed he hadn’t heard about her sister. He didn’t say anything, though, and she was grateful. She finished the small bag of nuts while Jake continued texting his brothers.

  “Are they really safe?” Kathleen asked.

  “Yep. Matt and Melanie hightailed it into a bathroom and they’re locked in there. Lena was knocked down in a rush to escape but Rick carried her out. She has a sprained ankle.”

  “We should get out of here,” Bob said. “We could be in here for God knows how long.”

  “True.” Kathleen gave the man a tolerant look but she didn’t feel half so generous. “But we don’t know what’s going on out there. If we walk out that door right now, before the police have a handle on things, we could be shot. We aren’t the experts here.”

  “She’s right,” Jake said.

  “I agree.” The schoolteacher nodded and shoved his glasses back on his nose.

  The older man puffed up, or at least that was the impression he gave. A man with pompous written all over him even in the face of danger. “What makes you an expert?”

  Jake smiled but there wasn’t a hint of amusement in his face. “I’m in the army. I have combat training and more.”