Then it was a fast jog to where the Black Hawk waited. Once they were on board, Dec dropped a hood over Amjad’s head and the big bird lifted into the sky.
The STUD One operatives grinned, pulled off their balaclavas and exchanged high fives.
“Piece of cake,” Nick said.
Annie was back to crying and laughing at the same time. “I love you all,” she said. “You’re all wonderful.”
“Don’t forget handsome,” Chay said.
“And brave,” Aidan added.
“And brilliant,” Danny said.
Dec laughed along with them. Then he took Annie in his arms. The other guys looked at each other, then looked away.
“That was some stunt you pulled, Princess,” Dec said softly.
She laughed. “Theater Workshop 101.”
“What?”
“I took an acting class in college. I was awful.”
“How could you be awful at anything?”
“I was.” She touched his jaw. “I had two lines in a one-act play. I was so bad that the prof assigned me to paint sets.”
“Yeah, well, he should have seen your performance tonight.” Dec kissed her. “You were perfect.” He tilted her face up to his. “Honey. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.”
She wasn’t fine. She was trembling. And Dec had never loved her more than he did at that minute.
He drew her against him. “I thought I’d never seen you again, Anoushka,” he whispered.
He felt her tears against his neck. “I love you, Declan. I’ll always love you.”
He kissed her, kissed her again. Then he looked at the men for whom he would willingly give his life and grinned.
“All right, you clowns. It’s safe to turn around.”
The guys swung towards them. “Didn’t want to see a sloppy scene straight out of a chick flick,” Chay said.
They all smiled.
And Dec and Annie knew that, at long last, they were on the journey that would be the start of their new life.
END
EPILOGUE
The debriefing took several days.
First there were the STUD debriefings, conducted by James Black.
Next came other debriefings: First a guy from State, then a woman from the DOD, followed by a colonel—not Stuart, who had not been heard from again—who represented the Joint Chiefs of Staff. A guy with a big smile and empty eyes flashed a badge none of them recognized and said he’d explain who he was, but then he’d have to kill them. Everybody laughed. Nobody asked for a further explanation. There was a pair of studious types from CIA and a woman who chewed her nails from Homeland Security. A guy from NSA stopped in for a two-hour chat. A trio of intense-looking, intense-sounding guys from the alphabet-soup agency that oversaw STUD rounded out the cast of characters
After a week, the men of STUD One were all talked out.
The Secretary of State flew in from Washington to meet with Annie.
She had a phone call from that same city.
It provided the one light moment in a hard week.
“Princess Anoushka,” a somewhat familiar voice said, “this is the President.”
“Give me a break,” Annie replied. “Who are you? And which guy in Dec’s unit put you up to this?”
It turned out the call really was from the President. It took a couple of minutes until Annie was convinced, and then she did a lot of babbling to apologize. Fortunately, the President found her reaction charming and told her so.
And then, at last, Operation Renegade was officially over.
So was the reign of Cyrus of Qaram. He stood trial before three judges. Nobody was surprised by the sentence of death.
The citizens of Tharsalonia, emboldened by the actions of their Qarami neighbors, had deposed their king as well.
Altair Amjad, the Deliverer, had himself been delivered. To the justice system. Some kind of justice system, at any rate. The last Dec heard about him was from Black, who said not to quote him, but the word was that the badass terrorist was in a badass place and singing like a canary.
Now, all that remained was what Dec worried might be an even tougher operation.
Annie loved him. He loved her. She’d said she wanted to spend her life with him. That was what he wanted too.
So far, so good.
But exactly how did two people manage that when one was a Special Ops warrior and the other was a princess?
At least the political implications were history.
Qaram was an American ally. And Annie wasn’t a princess anymore.
“But she’s doing good things,” Chay said over beers one night at the LZ. Annie and his wife, Bianca, had gone to the ladies’ room. “Bianca told me Annie’s working with an international program that helps provide educational opportunities to girls.”
Dec nodded. “Right.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“Well, you know. My life. Her life. Big differences.”
Chay lifted his bottle of beer and took a drink. “My money’s on you guys. You’ll figure it out.”
“Yeah,” Dec said, all the doubt in the world in that yeah. He made a couple of circles on the tabletop with the wet bottom of his beer bottle. “Still, how do I know she hasn’t thought it over and decided it’s just gonna be impossible?”
“Thought what over?” Chay said. “Have you actually proposed to her yet?”
“No. Not yet. I mean, I just don’t know how she’ll respond…”
“How who will respond to what?” Annie said, as she slid into the booth next to him and nuzzled her face against his shoulder.
Dec looked stricken.
“How—how you guys will respond to the idea of pizza at the little Italian place up the road from here,” Chay said.
Bianca sighed. “My favorite restaurant.”
It was, indeed. It was Chay’s too. The little Italian place was where Bianca and Chay had had their fist date. A date that had started off as awful and had ended in hot sex on the beach.
They drove to the restaurant, Chay and Bianca on his Harley, Dec and Annie in his lovingly restored Pontiac Trans Am.
The Italian place was crowded. The other four guys from Stud One were at a booth, leaning in and talking quietly.
Chay and Bianca, Dec and Annie stopped to say hello.
The guys all stood up, exchanged high fives, kissed Bianca and Annie.
When they got to their own table, Dec said, “Weird.”
“What’s weird?”
“They all looked so serious.”
Annie nodded. “Especially Nick. Is he okay?”
Dec and Chay looked at each other.
“Sure,” Chay said. “Why?”
Annie shrugged. “He looked, I don’t know, kind of upset.”
Dec frowned. “Come to think of it, Black called him in yesterday. Nick said it was about some kind of assignment.”
“Yeah,” Chay said, “but isn’t he going on vacation next week?”
“Hello,” their waiter said cheerfully. “I’m Joe. I’ll be your server tonight. Have you had time to look at the menu?”
They ordered Chianti, antipasti, and four different kinds of pasta—but nobody’s attention seemed on the food. Chay and Bianca kept looking at each other in a way that said Do you remember that night? Dec and Annie couldn’t stop sneaking little kisses. When their waiter came to clear away the food they’d left untouched and asked if they wanted dessert, Chay and Dec said “No!”
“No, thank you,” Bianca and Annie added, because they were inevitably polite, even when each woman couldn’t wait to be alone with her guy.
They parted company at the door. Bianca and Chay went in one direction; Annie and Dec headed for his cottage on the beach where they’d been living together ever since Dec had brought her home from Qaram.
They kissed when Dec turned off the Trans Am.
Kissed again on their way to the front door.
Kissed again inside th
e dark cottage.
Dec took a deep breath. “Anoushka. I have to talk to you.”
She nodded. “I have to talk to you too, Declan.”
His heart sank. What did that mean? He wanted to ask, but he couldn’t work up the courage. Firefights were easier than this.
He raised her chin, kissed the tip of her nose.
“Okay,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound as worried as he felt. “How about I open a bottle of wine and we take it outside? Take a walk on the beach? How’s that sound?”
“Sure. That sounds great.”
He nodded.
She nodded.
Then he thought, okay, enough was enough.
“Annie,” he blurted, “my Anoushka, I love you. I adore you. I know there are a hundred reasons you could say no, but—but—”
“Are you asking me to marry you, Lieutenant?”
Dec was finding it difficult to breathe. “Yes,” he said. “I am.”
Annie smiled into his eyes. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Dec swallowed hard. “Was that a yes?”
“It was absolutely a yes,” she said gently. “Why would you have any doubts?”
“Anoushka.” Dec cupped her face in his hands. “I have a job that’s kind of crazy.”
“You have a career, my love, that makes me proud to know you and love you.”
“That’s nice. I mean it. But—but you’re accustomed to a different kind of life.”
“Yes,” she said softly, “I am.” She turned her face and kissed his palm. “I’m accustomed to the life I led when I was Annie Stanton. I want that life again—and I want it forever. You. Well, you and two kids. A dog. Maybe a couple of cats…”
Declan grinned as he gathered his princess into his arms.
“How about we plan the wedding first?”
She smiled. “An excellent idea.”
“We’ll have the ceremony wherever you choose. And a big party—”
Her Royal Highness, the Princess Anoushka, put her hand lightly over her lover’s mouth.
“I’d like to have the ceremony on our beach. The party too. Just our guys from Unit One.”
“Our guys,” Dec said, loving the sound of that.
“Well, and their dates. No date for Chay. I mean, Bianca—his wife will be his date. I’ve asked her to be my matron of honor. And we’ll want your Captain Black, of course. Does he have a wife? And we won’t leave out any of your friends who aren’t in Unit One. Certainly not. And, oh, your parents, Declan! I can’t wait to meet them. And—what’s the name of that friend of yours who left the service? Tanner. That’s it. Tanner. And his wife. Alessandra. She’s Bianca’s sister, isn’t she? And—”
“Wait. Back up a little.” Declan was laughing. “You already asked Bianca to be your matron of honor?”
“Uh huh. Well, I knew you’d get around to proposing sooner or later. And if you hadn’t…” Annie smiled. “I was going to give you one more week and then pop the question myself.”
Declan shook his head. “How did I ever get so lucky?” he said softly. “To find you. To have you fall in love with me…”
“Any woman would fall in love with you, Lieutenant Sanchez.”
Declan linked his hands in the small of Annie’s back.
“Really,” he said.
“Of course.” She leaned back in his embrace and fluttered her lashes. “You’re handsome. And brave. And strong. And smart.”
He laughed. “That’s all?”
“Well,” She said coyly, “there’s more…”
She leaned forward, stood on her toes and whispered in his ear.
Declan growled as he swept her into his arms. And Annie laughed and looped her arms around her lover’s neck as he carried her through their cottage, through their bedroom, to their bed.
And to the glorious future that stretched out before them.
Dear Reader:
I hope you enjoyed the story of Declan and Annie. I have to admit, there were times I got a little weepy as I wrote it and other times I laughed out loud. It would be wonderful to know if you had similar reactions.
If you haven’t yet read POWER, Book One of STUD, or PRIVILEGE, Book Two, be sure and go to my website, www.sandramarton.com, for information on where to get your copies.
As always, if you enjoy my stories, you can tell me so via email or Facebook. And you might want to leave a brief review wherever you buy my books. Great reviews are the best advertisements in the world!
With love and all my very best wishes,
Sandra
P.S. Guess whose story is coming next? Yes. Nick Romano’s. Nick is about to take on an assignment he absolutely doesn’t want. Nick is a really great guy, but he’s kind of stuck in a time and place when men viewed women as, well, not the weaker sex, but perhaps the more delicate one…
Is he in for a surprise!
Renegade: Special Tactical Units Devision (STUD) Book 3 Page 19
