She heard the words, but they weren’t registering. It was too good to be true—she had to have missed something. “What are you saying?” she asked in disbelief.
“I’m stumbling through a proposal. Stumbling being the operative word here,” he told her. He took a breath and plunged in. “I’m not any good at this because I’ve never done this before. Maybe if I practice—”
Her eyes widened, and she cried, “Yes!”
He thought she was telling him to try again. “All right then, from the top—”
She shook her head. He didn’t understand. “No!”
Now he was completely confused. “Then you don’t want me to propose?”
“No.” She pressed her hand against her chest as if that would somehow still her hammering heart. “You don’t have to propose again,” she told him. “Because I’ll marry you.”
“Because I have family to spare?” he asked with a grin.
“Because every time you kiss me, you make the world fade away. Because you make me feel loved and safe. And because you make me want to make you feel the same way.”
“You already do,” he told her, taking her into his arms.
She’d never felt so happy in her whole life. Every inch of her felt as if it was smiling. “I guess all that’s left to do is for me to call Miss Joan and tell her that I’ve decided to stay here.”
Holding her to him, Sully looked down into her face. “Between you and me, I think she already figured that part out.”
She knew he was right. Miss Joan always knew everything before it happened. “I wonder if she’d like to be my matron of honor.”
“You know, I think she’s counting on it,” Sully told her.
He had an announcement to make, but first, just for a minute, he wanted to have Rae to himself.
And, lowering his mouth to hers, he did.
* * *
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Cavanaugh’s Secret Delivery
Cavanaugh Vanguard
Cavanaugh Encounter
Cavanaugh on Call
Cavanaugh in the Rough
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Special Forces: The Recruit
by Cindy Dees
Chapter 1
Staggering a little as she ran, Tessa Wilkes spied the finish line maybe a half mile ahead through waves of heat and dust. Whatever bastard had decided to call a twenty-mile run carrying a forty-pound rucksack a “sprint” should be shot. Right now. She volunteered to pull the trigger.
Her body hurt in every way it was possible to hurt. Three months of grueling, around-the-clock physical training had taken its toll on her. She’d reached the end of her rope, and her fingers were slipping off the last bit of said rope with every agonizing step.
She’d known going in that just because it had become legal for women to begin Special Forces training, it didn’t mean any were going to be allowed to finish the program and play with the big boys. The male instructors would keep doing BS like this run until they broke her. They were never going to back off.
Only she could make the pain stop. By quitting. By giving in. By accepting that she was never going to be one of them. She was sorely tempted to give up on her futile dream when she reached this one last finish line.
But no sooner had the impulse come to her than a wave of sheer, cussed stubbornness slammed through her. She was that horse who would die in the harness, still straining to pull its load.
Her face was on fire. Her lungs were self-combusting. The heavy pack hammered her feet into the ground with every step she took. But onward she staggered. Step after miserable step. At this point any reasonably fit person could walk beside her faster than she was running.
But she. Did. Not. Stop.
She’d asked for this insanity—begged for it, even—which made her misery even worse. It stripped away her right to complain. All she had left was anger.
She reached for her old friend, Fury. Born of rage at being powerless to control her life, it rose from her determination someday to become a strong, independent woman whom no man would ever push around.
Her steps stabilized. Her stride stretched back out into a full run. Less than a quarter mile to go now.
“Damn. Thought we had you there, Wilkes,” a male voice said sardonically from behind her.
She didn’t bother turning around to look. Lambert. A recently arrived instructor, he always wore mirrored shades and a baseball cap, which meant she had no idea what her latest tormenter actually looked like beyond that lean, chiseled jaw. And a physique modeled after the great masters of sculpture, of course. He never participated in harassing the trainees. He just watched. Mostly her.
He’d been hanging around pretty much continuously the past few days. Either he was studying her for who knew what inscrutable reason, or he was stalking her. Whatever. They could throw their best head games at her and run her till she dropped. When she got back up, she would just keep on going.
“Ahh, well. We’ll break you next time,” he murmured from just behind her. “Or the time after that. If you won’t quit coming after us, we won’t quit coming after you.”
His lightly delivered comment sent a chill through her. He was not lying. They would keep coming after her until they destroyed her.
The finish line of today’s “sprint” loomed ahead, and she pushed herself to reach it by envisioning a big glass of ice water waiting for her. She crossed the finish line and stopped cold, not taking one more running step than necessary as she panted in the oven-like heat.
She’d done it. One more time they’d failed to break her. A stone-faced instructor looked at a stopwatch and recorded her time on a clipboard without comment. She caught Lambert looking over Clipboard Guy’s shoulder. Both men pulled disgusted faces, then Lambert peeled off to head for the instructor’s building.
Screw them. She’d given it everything she had. Just because her triumph was their failure didn’t make it any less of a triumph for her. She bent over, planting her hands on her thighs, sucking in great, awful lungfuls of parched, scorching air.
“Wilkes!”
She looked up sharply at her barked last name.
“My office. Now.”
Crap. That was Major Torsten summoning her. No one knew exactly what he did around here, bu
t even the instructors treated him with deep respect. Frankly, he scared her to death.
In an act of bald-faced defiance, she forced her protesting legs to run to the door of the Quonset hut Torsten loomed in. One corner of his mouth quirked up for just an instant before settling back into its usual tight, disapproving line.
Torsten disappeared inside the building as she trotted up the steps after him.
“Sit.” He pointed at a wooden chair in front of the desk he’d moved behind.
She slipped off her pack and sank into the chair not a moment too soon. Her legs felt entirely boneless. They would have collapsed on their own in a few more seconds. In fact, her entire body felt like a marionette’s with the strings cut. She was going to hurt like a big dog in a few hours. Cool air-conditioning wafted down on her, as blissful as angel’s breath.
“Enjoy the run?” Torsten asked drily.
As if she would give him the satisfaction of showing even a hint of weakness. Not a chance. She shrugged. “Nice scenery. And I’ve done worse.” Which was a total lie.
He opened a cabinet behind his desk and tossed her a bottle of water. She snagged it neatly midair and downed it greedily. Meanwhile, he opened a brown manila folder on his desk and lifted out papers one by one, glancing through them at his leisure. She just enjoyed being still and letting her body temperature return to something resembling normal.
At length, he closed the file and stared at her long and hard enough that she had to consciously tell herself not to squirm. She’d gotten used to the mind games they played around here and had learned not to break awkward silences unless she had something specific to say.
“You’re out,” Torsten announced without warning.
Out? As in out of training? Her mind went completely blank. A single word took shape and popped out of her mouth. “Why?”
“You are underperforming. Your run and swim times aren’t coming down fast enough and your physical fitness test scores are not coming up fast enough for you to stand a chance in the remainder of this course. You’re out.”
Shock slammed into her, wiping her mind clean.
Ten years. Ten grueling, miserable, painful years she’d been training in hopes of one day having a shot at the Special Forces—practically around the clock. God, the things she’d sacrificed for this. A normal social life. The relationships she’d let pass her by. The friendships lost. Jobs turned down. She’d geared her entire life around this.
It simply couldn’t be over.
Besides. She already met all the minimum required scores to pass this training! And just like that, she was out?
“Are Jones and Peterson out, too?” she blurted. They were men in her class. Men whom she consistently outperformed and outscored.
“I’m not discussing any other trainees with you, Wilkes.”
She looked up at him, then. Stared into ice-blue eyes that did not for a second flinch in the face of her silent outrage. Arguing with him would be useless. Both trainees and instructors called him the Iceberg behind his back because the bastard never thawed and never budged.
The Special Forces did not want her. They had tested her and found her wanting. And they were not going to debate the decision with her. Just, “You’re out.” Done. Pack your stuff and leave.
Anger exploded abruptly in her gut, knocking the air out of her lungs, and leaving her panting with fury. This sanctimonious bastard dared to hide his misogyny behind her performance numbers? Why not just call it what it was? These male chauvinist pigs just didn’t want to let a girl into their little boys’ club!
She pressed words past her clenched teeth. “I get why you are resisting allowing women into your hallowed band of brothers. But it’s a mistake. Not many women have what it takes, but a few of us do.”
He leaned back in his leather executive chair and merely continued to stare at her, his entire demeanor cold and emotionless.
She warmed to her subject and ignored his body language shouting at her to shut the heck up. “We have talents and skills that would be an asset to the teams. You guys are weaker because of our exclusion. Other countries are already figuring that out, and you’ll end up scrambling to play catch-up. But by the time you catch on, the women you need will be so pissed off we’ll have moved on to other jobs. Other lives. You’ll be poison to the very women you need.”
“Are you done?” he snapped.
She crossed her arms defensively over her chest and pressed her lips tightly together, the rest of the rant she so badly wanted to throw at him barely contained. Silently, she flung the worst names at him she could think of.
Out of good names, she reverted to her Venezuelan mother’s native tongue for more.
He said more mildly, “You’ve got orders.”
“To where?” she demanded. God, that was fast. He’d already gotten her assigned to some other base? The man didn’t mess around when he tossed someone out of his unit.
“Phoenix.”
What on earth did the Army have for her to do in Phoenix, Arizona? The only military base nearby was Luke Air Force Base in Glendale. She wasn’t being cross-posted to the Air Force, was she?
“Lambo!” Torsten called.
Lambert of the gorgeous jaw poked his head in the door, hat and sunglasses gone for the first time, and she did a no-kidding, wrench-her-neck double take. She’d seen some beautiful men in her life, but behind the disguise, this one was in a class all his own. The guy was a walking recruitment poster. The motto on it would be, “Join the Army and become a living god.”
His American flag–blue gaze took her in coolly. Thoroughly. And everywhere his scrutiny touched her, she abruptly felt naked. On fire.
He looked away from her like she was about as interesting as a cockroach. She sagged in her chair and let go of the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
“Sir?” the god asked in a smooth, confident voice.
Oh, man. Her ovaries just melted.
Lambert stepped fully into the doorway and liquid heat pooled in her groin. The guy was hotness personified. Raw sex appeal rolled off him in waves that made her feel as if she was drowning in lust. Cripes. There should be nothing the least bit attractive about this guy. She wanted to be a Spec Ops warrior, not do a Spec Ops warrior.
“You have your orders, Beau. Direct orders.”
Lambert scowled fiercely at Torsten, and she looked back and forth between them. What was she missing? Why the emphasis on the words direct orders?
Torsten continued, “Escort Wilkes to the airfield. Put her on a plane and get her off my base. You know what her orders are. See to it she follows them.”
Torsten didn’t have to be nasty about it. He’d already won.
Lambert frowned thunderously, clearly not pleased—at all—at having to babysit her. He glared at Torsten, who glared back. If she didn’t know better, she would say they were communicating silently through some secret warrior mind powers.
Lambert made a sound of disgust, and Torsten replied, “Your objections are duly noted. But we’re doing this my way.”
“It’s a mistake—” Lambert started.
Torsten cut him off, snapping, “We’ve already had this discussion. Report back to me after you’ve gotten your head out of your ass.”
Lambert spun on his heel, scowling. “Let’s go, Wilkes. I’ve got places to go and things to do.”
She hefted her pack wearily over one shoulder and headed for the door after “Lambo.” She would lay odds he got that handle not entirely because of his last name but also in honor of a Lamborghini—the sleek, sexy Italian sports car.
“Hustle up, Wilkes,” Torsten said sharply. “Your ride’s already waiting. You’re late.”
She scowled. She couldn’t very well be late for an appointment she didn’t even know she had until ten seconds ago. “What about my gear back at the dorm?”
Wow. He really had it in for her, didn’t he?
She paused in the doorway and looked back at him. She spoke with quiet certainty, not by way of a whine, but stating a fact. “You’re making a mistake, Major.”
“I’m absolutely certain I’m not. And someday you’ll come to agree with me,” he retorted.
Never.
Tears burned at her eyes and she blinked them back furiously. She would be damned if she cried in front of these jerks. They didn’t deserve her tears. And she didn’t deserve this rude treatment. She was a freaking Army officer with a distinguished career behind her and ahead of her.
The walk of shame from the Quonset hut to the parking lot with Captain America at her side like a jailer was perhaps the worst hundred yards of her life. She felt the eyes on her. Everyone...everyone...noted her departure. She could physically feel on her skin the satisfaction of the boys’ club as it closed ranks against her. It was all she could do not to vomit up Torsten’s bottle of water in her humiliation as she climbed into a Hummer, her head held high.
It was a fight, but she wrestled back another bout of threatening tears as Lambert started the Jeep’s engine. She wasn’t going to cry for this jerk, either. A girl had to have a little pride, after all.
Lambert backed out of the parking spot and headed for the airfield. She commented sourly, “I knew folks around here hated the idea of women special operators, but this dramatic show of expulsion is a little excessive.”
“Take it up with Torsten. I’m just following orders.”
Orders he sounded irritated as heck over. What did he have to be mad about? He wasn’t the one being publicly humiliated. She had to get her mind off what was happening or she was going to break down and sob in front of all of them, and she would never give them that satisfaction. Searching desperately for a distraction, she mumbled, “What’s in Phoenix?”
Her escort merely shrugged. Even that casual gesture of his shoulder, fraught with rippling muscle under smooth, bronzed skin and a tight black T-shirt, was sexy as hell. At least Torsten had given her one last piece of eye candy to enjoy before he dashed her dreams and ended her life.
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