by Cindy Dees
Foley’s mouth twitched. “I know. I paid a couple of the bills for bars you busted up.”
He had? Sonofagun. Dutch pressed on doggedly. “I blacked out eventually. Lost a good chunk of my memory.”
Foley nodded again like this was no surprise.
“I’ve never told anyone, but I lost my memory of the night that Simon died, too. Until I met Julia again and spent this time with her, I had no recollection of what happened during the days leading up to the ambush or of the ambush itself.”
Foley’s eyebrows shot up, but the colonel made no comment.
Dutch pressed on. “I had a blackout the first time I saw Julia in Colorado. Since then, I’ve been having nightmares, and I’ve remembered pretty much all of what went on in Gavarone ten years ago.”
A heavy sigh from the colonel. “Nasty piece of business. Too bad it couldn’t just stay buried in your brain.”
“Yeah, well, another nasty piece of business was buried in there, too. One I’m obligated to tell you about.”
The colonel actually sat down on the foot of the bed now. He crossed his arms and fixed a penetrating gaze on Dutch, who did his damnedest not to squirm under the intense scrutiny.
“Lay it on me,” the colonel said quietly.
“I think I knew that Julia was setting us up. She dropped little hints here and there that I picked up on. But I was too…attracted to her…to admit to myself that she was a plant. I’m responsible for leading the squad into that ambush. I should’ve seen it coming. I did see it coming. But I let you all down. Christ…Simon…” he couldn’t finish the sentence.
Foley didn’t move a muscle. Just continued to stare at him intently. For a very long time.
Finally Foley said slowly, “We were all half in love with Julia. She suckered us all. Hell, I’m the one who led the team into that disaster. I’m the one who split everyone up in firing positions all around the compound. I’m the one who put Simon into a forward position, even though he was brand new to the team. It’s just as much my fault he died as it is yours.”
“That’s not true—” Dutch protested hotly.
Foley raised a hand and cut him off. “We were young. Inexperienced. The team had just been formed and none of us knew what the hell we were doing. This gorgeous babe came along and warped all of our brains. She was a great actress and she fooled us all.”
“But—” Dutch interjected.
“But nothing,” Foley retorted. “We succeed as a team and we fail as a team. We all failed Simon that night, Dutch. So maybe you did have an idea in the back of your mind that Julia was setting us up. I should have seen it, too. So should all the guys. Besides, even if we had known it was a trap, we very well might have gone in, anyway. I shouldn’t have put responsibility for the whole interaction with the informant on your shoulders. We should have called for more backup firepower.” He threw up his hands. “We did a dozen things wrong that night, all of which contributed to Simon’s death. You’re not the only one whose hands are dirty. We all carry your brother’s memory around on our consciences. Why else would nobody on the squad ever talk about that night, even now?”
Dutch stared. “I thought it was out of respect for my feelings.”
Foley snorted. “Since when are the guys in the Blackjacks that sensitive?”
Dutch grinned. The man had a point.
“Thanks for coming clean with me, Dutch. That kind of trust between us is what makes the squad work. But quit beating yourself up over Simon’s death. Or at least include the rest of us when you decide to have a guilt session so we can all wallow in it together.”
Dutch stared at the colonel. That was it? No court-martial? No walking papers from the squad?
Foley continued, “You’ll need to have a standard psych evaluation when you get back home to clear the blackout thing, but based on what you’ve told me, you had a repressed memory causing the issue. I can’t imagine it’ll pose any problem to you going back out into the field.”
Dutch blinked. His eyesight blurred for a second. What was it with all these sappy moments broadsiding him like this recently? Julia’d made him go soft, dammit.
The colonel nodded crisply, thankfully either ignoring or not noticing Dutch’s reaction. “So. Now that we’ve got that cleared up, you wanna go see your lady?”
Dutch surged up in the bed.
The colonel put a restraining hand on his shoulder. “Hold on, cowboy. They’re making me take you down to see her in a wheelchair. Seems none of the nurses want to get anywhere near you. Have you been a problem patient, Captain?”
Dutch grinned up at his boss.
He managed to get out of bed and into the wheelchair without flashing his bare ass at the colonel but was surprised at how winded he was by the brief exertion. Ferrare’s bullets had really done a number on his chest through his bulletproof vest. He had four melon-size purple bruises to show for it.
The colonel wheeled him down several long, quiet corridors. And then they turned into a hallway filled with Blackjacks.
Doc got up from a chair outside a door, while Tex and Howdy continued to lounge against the walls. The medic grinned. “Good to see you up and about, man.”
Dutch replied seriously. “Thanks for saving her, Joe.”
“Anytime, brother. Anytime.”
And then the colonel pushed him into a roomful of machines and monitors. In the middle of it all lay Julia. God, she was pale. So small and fragile-looking in the midst of all those tubes and gadgets.
The colonel parked him by her side and slipped from the room, closing the door behind him.
“Hey, gorgeous,” Dutch murmured.
Her eyes fluttered open. It took a moment for her to focus, but then she saw him and her whole face lit up. “Thank God you’re alive,” she said on an exhalation of relief.
“I almost lost you,” he said gruffly. “What were you thinking, trying to save me like that?”
Her lips curved up in a faint smile. “The way I hear it, you’re the one who ended up saving me. Like you always do.”
He shrugged. He would be just as happy if he could forget those frantic moments when he thought he was going to lose her. Maybe he could arrange another memory block somehow. “Doc did most of the work.”
She replied gently, “Yes, but it was your voice I heard, giving me a reason to fight to live.”
“You heard that stuff, huh?” he mumbled.
“Some of it. Enough of it,” she replied softly.
Had she heard the part about how he couldn’t live without her? “Julia,” he started. And stopped, at a loss for words.
* * *
Julia held her breath, even though doing so caused her intense pain. Please God, let him not be about to end their relationship. She waited as he continued to struggle for words.
Finally, she reached out, dragging an armful of tubes with her, and touched his cheek. “You know you can be honest with me.”
He sighed. Started again. “Julia. I’ve said some pretty harsh things to you. Believed some pretty harsh things of you. And I was wrong.”
She blinked in surprise.
“I owe you an apology. And I owe you a thank you for diving in front of me to take that bullet.”
“You must really think I’m a numbskull for jumping in front of a guy wearing a bulletproof vest.”
A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. “No vest is entirely bulletproof.”
“I was relieved when Doc told me you’d had one on.” She paused, then murmured, “I guess I looked incredibly stupid, didn’t I?”
“What I saw was an incredibly brave woman willing to sacrifice her life to save mine.”
She looked away, abashed by his praise. An awkward silence formed between them.
Dutch cleared his throat. “Actually, I came to negotiate a surrender.”
She closed her eyes. Of course. The Blackjacks still wanted her to testify against her father. Now more than ever, since he’d slipped through their grasp yet again. �
��I’ll testify against my father under one condition. You have to get my sister away from him safely.”
Dutch blinked in surprise. “Boss!” he called out.
Colonel Foley opened the door and looked in, along with Doc. “Yes?”
“Julia says she’ll testify against Eduardo as soon as we get her sister away from him.”
“Outstanding.” Colonel Foley turned to Doc. “Are you up for a trip to Gavarone?”
“Yes, sir,” Doc replied crisply.
Foley nodded and told his medic, “I’m not going to tell any of our support people what you’re up to until we find Ferrare’s mole, so you’ll be operating on your own until I can slide some more guys from the team down there without anyone finding out. Will you be all right on your own for a couple of weeks?”
The medic nodded confidently.
The colonel turned back to Dutch and Julia. “Don’t you two have anything more important to talk about than testimony in some dumb old federal investigation?”
Julia grinned at Foley’s comical waggle of his eyebrows before he left the room, dragging Doc along with him.
She turned her gaze back to Dutch, whose ears were turning pink, if she wasn’t mistaken. She bit back a smile.
“Actually, that wasn’t the surrender I was talking about,” he said reluctantly.
She drew in a quick breath that she instantly regretted. As the stabbing pain in her chest subsided slowly, Dutch stood up out of his wheelchair.
“Some pair we make, all beat up like this,” she remarked lightly.
“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “Some pair. Why break up a good thing?”
She frowned. She was missing the point. “What do you mean? What does this have to do with my surrender?”
“Actually, I was thinking in terms of my surrender. Of surrendering my heart into your care for, oh, forever.”
She lurched, heedless of the shooting pain in her chest. “Are you serious?”
He grimaced as he leaned down over her, his lovely blue eyes gazing deep into hers. “That’s not exactly the sort of thing I’d joke about, sweetheart.”
“Oh, yes. I accept those terms of surrender!” she cried out softly.
She reached up for him and he reached down for her, but both of them stopped partway and gasped in pain. They both laughed—gingerly. She didn’t care if it felt as if her chest was going to split in two.
She put her hands on his face and looked deep into the beautiful blue ocean of his gaze. “I love you, Jim Dutcher. Forever.”
He leaned forward and kissed her gently on the lips to seal the deal.
And her surrender to him was complete.
Epilogue
Joe “Doc” Rodriguez paused in front of a modest, white clapboard house on a nondescript street in a nondescript New England town. He needed to give the hidden security cameras a moment to relay his face to the armed men inside. No sense getting shot by some overenthusiastic federal marshal because he was too impatient to pause on the sidewalk and take in the gorgeous reds and yellows of the leaves blanketing the trees.
Christ. This place was so bucolic he could almost hear Martha Stewart gushing over it.
Dutch must be losing his mind, locked up in all this domestic tranquility, hiding Julia from Eduardo Ferrare.
Doc jogged up the front steps and crossed the covered front porch to knock on the door. Keeping his hands in plain sight, he waited patiently while the men inside confirmed facial recognition and cross-checked him against the list of allowed visitors.
The door finally opened. A stone-faced guy in a suit with a telltale bulge under his left arm let him in.
From the living room a familiar voice called out, “In here, Doc. Come join us.”
He rounded the corner and mentally lurched at the sight of a smiling Dutch sprawled on the sofa with Julia tucked under his arm. Never, in a decade of running with Dutch, had he seen the guy look so…happy.
Joy practically oozed from Dutch as he and Julia traded goo-goo looks and snuggled with each other. Since when did Jim Dutcher—the original Viking iceberg—fucking snuggle?
God save me from couples in love. Doc choked out, “Hey, Dutch. How are you feeling, Julia?”
“Better, thanks,” she murmured. She barely tore her gaze away from Dutch long enough to answer him and then went right back to staring adoringly at Dutch.
“You can be the first person to congratulate us,” Dutch said. “We’ve set a date for our wedding.”
Wedding? Another one? The whole damned Blackjacks team was getting hitched!
“Congratulations,” Doc mumbled automatically. “You’ll have to give me a hint as to what to get you two for a wedding present.” And good luck with the marriage thing, brother. In his experience, marriage had a way of turning sane people into their absolute worst selves and a way of ruining lives. It was a fate he’d so far dodged successfully, and he planned to keep it that way, thank you very much.
“What brings you to visit us?” Dutch asked.
“I’m about to leave for Gavarone to rescue Julia’s sister. I was hoping Julia might have a message for Carina. Something to let her know I’m legit and really mean to rescue her.”
Julia sat up abruptly, and then froze, wincing. She still had some healing to do from being shot, obviously. He related. He’d taken a bullet or two over the years, and they hurt like a bitch.
“Of course,” Julia murmured when she’d caught her breath. “Tell her I’m keeping my two musketeers promise by sending you to fetch her.”
“Your two musketeers promise?” Doc repeated.
“Correct. As children, we swore we were both for one and one for both of us against our father. She’ll remember the reference.”
Doc nodded. “Perfect. That’s exactly what I needed.”
“You’re sure you can get her away from my father safely?” Julia asked anxiously.
He smiled gently. “We got you away from him, didn’t we?”
“Yes, but he knows you’ll be coming for her, now. Rescuing her will be vastly more dangerous than rescuing me.”
Julia was not wrong. No question about it, separating Carina Ferrare from her father was going to be the most dangerous mission he’d ever attempted. And worse, he was going to have to go in alone. Unprotected. Without any safety net at all.
But it was the only way. Eduardo would spot a military operation to extract his only remaining daughter from a mile away.
The Blackjacks had been over every option they could think of, and the only one with a snowball’s chance in hell of working was the bold one. The daring, suicidal one—the only one Eduardo wouldn’t see coming.
“Bring her to me, Doc,” Julia said softly. “It’s the only wedding present I want.”
Dutch traded grim looks with Doc over her head. They both knew what was at stake on this op. Julia had agreed to testify against her father if, and only if, her sister was rescued from Eduardo’s clutches.
If Doc managed to pull Carina out, then they would at long last be able to nail Eduardo Ferrare once and for all.
But it was a gigantic if.
Doc replied gamely, “I’ve got this. Carina will be with you in no time, arguing with you over your wedding plans.”
Julia laughed. “You say that like you’ve met her. She always was the bossy one.”
So he’d heard. He’d also heard she was mercurial, unpredictable, and wild. He knew everything the United States intelligence community could tell him about Carina Ferrare…except how in the hell he was going to manage to sneak her out from under her father’s nose. Unfortunately, he was going to have to wing that part and pray she would play along with him…
Buy Doc’s Book
On sale December 12, 2017, you can read Doc’s book here.
Joe "Doc" Rodriguez's mission is simple: infiltrate the home of international crime lord, Eduardo Ferrare, convince his wild-child daughter, Carina, to marry him, and then run away with him, escaping her violent father's watchful eye.
Problem: Carina is angry, terrified, and not likely to go along with the plan. Not to mention, Doc has to go in undercover and alone, completely without support from his teammates--the Blackjacks--on the most dangerous mission of his career.
Even if he can convince Carina to marry him and flee her home and country, there's no guarantee they will make it past her father and his private army. It'll be a race against death to stay alive...and find love.
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