The Heart's Command

by Rachel Lee

  Niall did not look back on his childhood fondly, and as a matter of fact had gone off to college mostly to get away from the whole sordid scene at first opportunity. He'd found a far steadier and reliable family structure when he'd joined Coast Guard aviation at the college. Here he felt safe, cared for. People were attentive to his needs in a way he'd never really experienced before. It was better than what he'd started out with, at least, and he was planning on a thirty-year career with the Coast Guard as a result. Here, Niall fit in. He was wanted. He was praised. He was looked up to.

  Niall had found out that Brie was being transferred to his station about a week before her actual arrival. He'd been in shock when he had first heard the news from someone over in the personnel department. And then his traitorous heart, which had never stopped loving her, sang with a joy that had brought unaccustomed tears to his eyes. Tears, of all things! Niall had cried when— He stopped himself. No, he didn't want to go there. Never again, if he could help it. The anguish was too great; the cross too heavy to bear, the guilt all-consuming. Shaking his head, he drummed his fingers nervously on the arm of the chair.

  Need of her warred with his guilt. Wanting Brie was like wanting air to breathe for Niall. They were divorced, but his heart had never taken that legal piece of paper seriously. Just when he thought he was over her, that he could get on with his life and leave the tragedy of their divorce behind him, Brie had been assigned to his station. Now, the memory of her abandonment stung him once again. It was as if Brie were pouring more salt into the open wound of his life by coming here. A part of him was wary of working with her in the cockpit. He'd have to stay on top of things more than normal, because he couldn't trust her. He'd never flown with her before, either. Husbands and wives assigned to the same station never flew with one another.

  Of course, Niall had no control over where Brie would be assigned; he was an SAR pilot, and at the end of each two-year tour of duty, search and rescue pilots were sent to another station. Kauai was one of them. Niall had never thought he'd see Brie again, because the Coast Guard had many stations across the U.S. More than enough to keep distance between them. Somewhere, though, the higher-ups in the Coast Guard had made the assignment without realizing they were a divorced couple. Working with Brie was going to play havoc on Niall as nothing else could.

  Rubbing his eyes, he took a deep, ragged breath. Hearing footsteps, he felt his heart leap in his chest. Was it Brie? His fingers curled in anticipation on the arms of the chair. Licking his lower lip nervously, he sat up tensely and waited.

  Two men entered the mission room. One Niall recognized as Lieutenant Rod Nichola, the OOD—officer of the day—who had responsibility for the twenty-four hour watch at the station. The other...Niall's face split with a sudden smile. Instantly, he was on his feet, his hand extended as Morgan Trayhern, the head of Perseus, the supersecret organization in the CIA, entered the room.

  "Sir," Niall said with enthusiasm, "it's good to see you again."

  Morgan turned and looked at the Coast Guard pilot. His serious features warmed immediately. Thrusting out his hand, he murmured, "Niall. How are you? I didn't know you were scheduled for this black ops. That's excellent news. We're in good hands, then."

  Gripping Morgan's hand, Niall pumped it with sincerity. "I didn't know this was a black ops we were being called in for, sir." He released Morgan's hand. Niall had worked for Morgan shortly after his split with Brie. The special undercover assignment had taken him away for three months, and Niall had needed the bone-jarring, dangerous mission to wipe the agony and loss from his heart.

  "Have a seat, Niall," Morgan invited. He turned. "Where's your copilot?"

  "She'll be here shortly," Lieutenant Nichola told him as he went to the mission planning table, a square surface with maps spread across it.

  Eyebrows raising, Morgan said, "She? A woman? Good."

  It was known that Morgan liked to pair male and female pilots because of their complementary skills.

  Just as Morgan turned toward the table, Niall saw Brie enter. She stood there, looking around uncertainly until their eyes met. And then she froze. Niall thought she looked even more beautiful than he could ever recall. Brie was already in the one-piece, neon-orange flight suit, her vest secured across her upper body. But he could see she still had that graceful, swimmer's figure as she stood before him, her red hair in a chignon at the nape of her neck and her normally ruddy complexion drained of color as she spotted him.

  Unable to stop the emotions clamoring inside him, Niall could do nothing but stare into his ex-wife's large, expressive blue eyes, which reminded him of the pristine beauty of the glaciers he'd seen on his Alaska assignment. The beautiful turquoise-blue of her eyes seemed unearthly to Niall, almost mystical, and he had always been mesmerized by it. Maybe she was unearthly.

  His heart surged with a keening cry of joy at seeing her once more. Yet the cold reality of her abandonment, the memory, as icy as a glacier, washed over him. His mouth thinned and hardened, and he glared back at her.

  The shock of seeing Niall once again slammed into Brie like a mighty ocean roaring full speed into a stone jetty. Rocking slightly in reaction, she tried to ignore his narrowing gray eyes, which studied her with ruthless intensity. At thirty-two years old, Niall was even more handsome than she could recall. He came from Black Irish stock, and his hair, though military short, shone with blue highlights. Standing six feet tall, he had a powerful athletic body and broad, square shoulders. There was nothing defenseless or vulnerable about him as he stood there staring back at her, more like an enemy than a friend.

  What else could she expect from him? Brie felt his anger and saw it in his gray, stormy eyes. He had a wonderful mouth made for kissing, one she had lost herself in so many times in the past. Now it was thinned with anger, telling her that she wasn't welcome here—not by him.

  Tearing her gaze from Niall, Brie tried to shore herself up, and walked confidently over to the table. She introduced herself to the distinguished-looking man with silver at his temples who stood there, looking dapper in a gray pinstripe suit. But as he smiled warmly at her, shook her hand and introduced himself as Morgan Trayhern, she felt chilled, as if ice water was pouring over her.

  She had never met Morgan Trayhern before. The only thing she knew about him was that he was the reason Niall had left her in her hour of need. In truth it was Niall who had volunteered to take the three-month black ops assignment for this man. But as she released Morgan's hand, she saw genuine gladness in his eyes that she was here, as a pilot, on this mission. Brie had to give him credit, at least, for not being prejudiced against women in the cockpit.

  "Let's have a seat here, shall we?" Morgan said to the pilots, and gestured for them to sit down at the planning table.

  Rod shut the door quietly and joined them.

  Morgan stood and spread out a map after handing them the black ops mission manuals. "Here's what we have going down and why you were called in to help us," he said. Opening his own manual, he turned to the first page. "One of the mercenaries with my organization, Perseus, has gone undercover. Burke Or-mand is our operative and he's been posing as a crewman aboard a tuna boat by the name of Jellyfish. It's really a drag runner in disguise. Burke has been wearing a wire to tape evidence against the drug lord, Torres Rebaza, who owns this trawler, and his younger brother, who is the skipper. Rebaza owns ten tuna clippers that ply the Pacific waters. His real cargo is cocaine, which is dropped out at sea by long-range airplanes flying from Mexico. The coke is packed in buoyant, watertight bales, which are picked up by the trawlers and stowed below."

  Morgan turned the page, to a colored photo of the mercenary. "We've found all this out because of Ormand. Once a tuna trawler gets the cocaine aboard, the crew continues to fish, putting the tuna in storage freezers where the coke's hidden. When they come in to the dock at Kauai to offload their tuna cargo, the cocaine stays—until after dark. Torres then sends his men in a van to pick it up under cover of night." Loo
king up at the pilots, he added, "The problem is, we've lost contact with Ormand. The boat was going to find shelter on a small island, Tortoise Isle, a hundred miles north of Kauai, and sit out this hurricane— at a place called Half Moon Bay. We know the Jellyfish made it to safe harbor at that part.

  "The radio that Ormand is wearing is a special state-of-the-art model," Morgan told them. "This radio has a button on it that, if pressed, sends out a signal to us—meaning that Ormand has been found out. It's basically a cry for help. If we'd received that signal, we'd have mounted a rescue effort immediately."

  "But you didn't get that signal?" Brie asked.

  Niall looked up. Brie's voice was husky and confident. He recalled that alto voice sweeping through him, recalled hearing her cry out in ecstasy as he'd loved her and they'd spun on ever widening wings of pleasure in one another's arms. Stop it. Stop. You can't do this to yourself. Tearing his gaze from Brie's clean profile—her slightly curved nose, high cheekbones and oval face indicating her Native American heritage—he stared down, unseeing, at the manual in his hands. Niall had had no idea how hard it was going to be to remain immune to Brie. Anger flared through him. She might be a temptress to him, but she'd also abandoned him. He had to remember that fact.

  "That's correct, Lieutenant Phillips. We received no signal."

  "Is it possible they killed him and threw him overboard, and that would explain why you didn't get the signal?" Brie pressed.

  Morgan nodded. "You're very astute, Lieutenant." He grinned wryly. "I like people with your kind of mind. You think ahead and look at the possibilities. Sure you wouldn't like to work for me instead of the Coast Guard?"

  Managing a thin smile, she said, "No, sir. I'm happy here, thank you." Brie quelled the anger she irrationally felt toward Morgan Trayhern. Her anger should, by rights, be directed solely at Niall, she knew. Morgan hadn't ripped him out of her life; Niall had volunteered for the mission. He'd run again. It was a pattern with him: any time life got too dicey, too emotionally painful, Niall bailed out and ran. Just as he'd run out on her during the worst emotional crisis of their lives.

  "Well, should you change your mind," Morgan teased lightly, "you just let me know."

  "Yes, sir."

  Turning his attention back to the mission, Morgan said, "Ormand is either already dead, or possibly, the device wasn't pressed and he's fine. The fact that we haven't received a signal could also be weather related."

  "Or," Niall suggested, "the device malfunctioned? Plus if Ormand was discovered, he might not have had time to press it. That's another possibility."

  "That's correct, Niall," Morgan affirmed. Paging through the manual, he said, "So here's what I need from you two. I need you to fly a fake SAR mission, which will be broadcast over the airwaves so your flight pattern doesn't raise suspicion. We're going to put the latitude and longitude about twenty miles away from Tortoise Isle. That's the point you'll fly to. The reason you'll do this is because we had a backup system built into Ormand's device. The second button has only a twenty-five mile range. A special radio device has been installed in the helicopter you'll be flying. You'll turn it on, fly around the island and see if you can pick up Ormand's second radio signal. If you don't, then he's probably all right. Or dead. If you do pick it up, then you will radio me back here, and we'll send out a special rescue unit from Perseus to pick Ormand up and blow the cover on the operation. You're not equipped to take on a ship load of drug runners by yourself. I don't want to raise suspicion by sending in a rescue team. Sending you in won't make them jump."

  "So, our fly-by is just that," Brie said. "We don't have to affect a rescue if Ormand's beacon is signaling us?"

  "That's correct," Lieutenant Nichola said. "Coast Guard doesn't normally get mixed up in a dangerous drug mission like this. Especially not tonight, because of the hurricane. The winds are increasing. You're going to have enough of a job just seeing if you pick up the signal. Even if all goes well, it's a hundred-mile flight to and from that isle on a nasty night and heavy winds and rain."

  "Nice to know we aren't going to be shot at," Brie said dryly. She glanced at Niall and her heart clenched. He was studying her critically. What was the look in his eyes? Need? Desire? Anger? Brie couldn't be sure. Her hands shook slightly as she thumbed quickly through the rest of the manual. Above all, she couldn't allow her personal feelings to get in the cockpit with him. Two years had given her time to let her bitter feelings subside and a new maturity replace them. But her heart was thumping wildly in her chest. How badly she wanted to say to hell with everything and simply sit down and talk to Niall, at length. Snorting softly, she decided that was a lost cause. The biggest thorn in their marriage had been a lack of communication. Niall had simply run away when things got bad. He had come from a one-parent family, and his adopted mother was rarely around while he was growing up. He wasn't used to relying on others and so he closed up emotionally, like a proverbial clam. Brie had had three years of hell with him, trying to get him to open up and be emotionally accessible to her. Like a lot of men, Niall didn't know how to talk on a personal, intimate level. Just when things were getting good in their marriage, and he was starting to open up, disaster had struck—the worst kind.

  "Questions?" Morgan asked as he twisted around and looked at each of them.

  "I have none, sir," Brie said. "Looks pretty straightforward from here."

  "No, sir," Niall told him. "This is probably going to be a long, boring flight fighting headwinds and gusts, getting thumped around out there."

  Grinning, Morgan said, "I suspect you're right, Niall." His smile disappeared as he looked from one to the other. "I want you to know we're grateful you'll do this. Our mercenaries are our highest priority, and I don't want to lose a single man or woman on an assignment if we can help it. I'm deeply appreciative of your and the Coast Guard's help on this."

  Niall stood. He smiled at Morgan. "We're glad to help, sir."

  Brie closed the manual and made notes in her flight log. Her heart was beating hard now. Within minutes, she'd be in the cramped cockpit with Niall, elbow to elbow with him. The last place in the world she wanted to be.

  Chapter 2

  Niall's mouth was dry as they sat in the helicopter outside the well-lit hangar. Wind gusts shuddered against the fuselage, where they were dry and protected as the rain poured down around them. The atmosphere in the cockpit was tense, to say the least, as he ran through the preflight checklist with Brie in a clipped, professional tone. Her own voice was cool and detached sounding as she responded. Outside, in front of them in the rain, the crew chief waited to give them the signal to start the engine.

  "We're set," Niall said gruffly, closing the checklist and stowing it in a nylon net pocket on the side of his seat.

  "Yes." Brie winced inwardly. She didn't mean to sound robotic, but she couldn't help herself. Being this close to Niall, squeezed into a narrow cockpit with him, was tearing her up emotionally. As she tightened her harness and put on her fire-retardant Nomex gloves, her hand accidentally brushed against his just as he reached up to flip on a set of switches on the instrument panel. Instantly, Brie jerked her hand away, as if burned.

  Hurt soared through Niall. And then anger. He reminded himself that Brie was no longer his wife. They were no longer intimate. She couldn't be trusted. She'd thrown away their marriage in one act of abandonment.

  "I'm not going to bite you," he snapped with unconcealed irritation. Jerking the chin strap of his helmet so that it fit more tightly beneath his clenched jaw, he saw her look toward him. Her eyes were huge with shock.

  "No?" Brie's voice became accusatory. "You did once before."

  Rocking internally from the anger tightly throttled in her low-pitched, husky tone, Niall pressed his lips together. "Let's just get this show on the road, shall we? I don't like this any more than you obviously do." Liar. His heart ached. How many nights had he lain awake, tossing and turning and thinking of Brie, of what they'd had—and lost?

  S
tung, Brie tore her gaze from Niall's dark and shadowed features. How terribly handsome he was. His face was narrow, with a strong chin and high cheekbones. He was proud of his Irish heritage; it was the one thing that he'd managed to salvage from his lousy childhood. His birth mother, Fiona Ward, had visited him once, when he was seven years old, and told him his father was Irish. Brie also knew Niall's birth father was an alcoholic. Seamus Farrell had married Niall's mother to escape Ireland's poor economy, and then left her as soon as he found out she was pregnant. Seamus had been a dark, morbid cloud floating in and out of Niall's life from age eight onward. About the only thing he'd given Niall was his name and his dark good looks. When Seamus waltzed drunkenly back into Niall's young life, he'd torn him up, emotionally. Those short visits had been rare, explosive and heartrending.

  She recalled how, one night, Niall had told her the story behind his name—how his father wanted him to have a name of an heroic Irish chieftain. Niall, in Celtic, meant "brave" or "chief." Seamus had wanted his son to amount to something, to be heroic, to do something important with his life because he himself hadn't. All Seamus Farrell could do was spin colorful and exciting yarns about hopes and dreams.

  Brie knew that Seamus Farrell's affair with alcohol was his undoing, and that he'd placed all his hopes and dreams in Niall. That was so unfair. She had seen how Niall had ordered his life around his father's unrealistic expectations and pipe dreams. At age eighteen, Niall went to court to have his last name become Ward, after his mother. He wanted no trace of his father in his life—not even his last name. But Niall had inherited one of Seamus Farrell's worst faults: running when things got bad. Seamus didn't have the maturity or responsibility to see things through to the end, and neither did his son. Niall had forsaken Brie, just as Seamus had forsaken his mother—at a time when both women had needed their men the most. Yes, father and son were alike in that area, unfortunately. It had been the main reason for Brie's divorce from Niall.