Hard Target: Elite Ops - Book One (32 page)

“So what are you saying exactly?” Anna asked, still oblivious to the chaos erupting around them.

He froze. “I’m not . . . I mean . . . I have no idea where this is going.”

She nodded, giving no hint of what she was thinking.

“But I don’t care. I know what I want.” He kept talking. If he stopped, he’d never get through this.

“I’m not good at relationships. At risking my heart. But I care about you—you and Zach, both. I know I’m no picnic. I have baggage, but I want to be with you. Hell, I want to grow old with you and keep you safe. I don’t want to let go of you just because we’re back here and not in the midst of bullets and mayhem.”

She didn’t answer. Instead she stared down at his hands. Reaching for his palm, she threaded her fingers through his and finally met his searching gaze. “Who says you’d ever have to let me go?”

Daring to let himself hope, he sat in stunned silence watching her as the words sank in. She was saying
yes
to whatever this crazy thing was between them. The relief was so intense, he felt a little dizzy.

She leaned in to kiss him, her lips offering a promise of more to come. His thoughts were a jumble and he broke the kiss, pulling her toward him as best he could with the cast.

“You’re sure you want to be with me?” He stared at her in wonder, determined to make sure he understood correctly. “After all this?” He couldn’t keep the disbelief from his voice.

She leaned in to kiss him again, smiling at his look of surprise. “I guess you’ll just have to trust me.”

Acknowledgments

I
T’S A BIT
intimidating to sit down and try to thank everyone who has helped make a dream come true. I’m worried I’ll inadvertently leave someone out, or I’ll end up thanking everyone—including my kindergarten teacher. With
Hard Target
I’ll have five books published, but this is the first time I’ve had the opportunity to include an acknowledgments page. With that thought in mind, here goes . . .

People have been so generous to me on my writing journey. No one creates or writes in a vacuum, and as I thought about what to say here, I realized just how many people have helped me along the way to take this story from the germ of an idea to the final words on the page (or e-reader). Any mistakes you may find in the story are mine, not theirs.

First, I want to thank Ellen Henderson—my critique partner and friend—who gave me the original concept for this book when she pointed me to a magazine article about children kidnapped in foreign countries by non-custodial parents. She said, “You need to write a story about this.” And she kept telling me I could do it, even when I wasn’t so sure myself.

Thanks to my friend Justin, who made such a difference in my own child’s life and who was there at just the right time to spark ideas for this story.

Thank you to my agent—Helen Breitwieser of Cornerstone Literary—for her encouragement, her impeccable judgment, and for always believing in me and my work.

Many thanks to Lucia Macro at Avon Books, who believed in this story as well and took a chance on me. To my editor, Erika Tsang, who helped make Leland’s story its very best while still making the process of revision surprisingly fun. And to her assistant, Chelsey Emmelhainz, who worked especially hard to make sure I was happy with the final result.

To all the folks at HarperCollins who have made this such a lovely experience and who have worked diligently on my behalf— Pam Spengler-Jaffee, Heidi Richter, cover artists, copyeditors, and others whose names I don’t even know and who have labored behind the scenes. I appreciate all that you do.

Thank you to my friend Mike Simonds, Chief Deputy at Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office, who always takes my calls and over the course of several books now has answered the most outrageous questions about criminals and law enforcement—without batting an eye or blushing.

Thank you also to Joyce Ann McLaughlin for taking the time to proofread and give such fantastic feedback. To Lena Diaz for the lovely blurb and the information on “cordite.” To James Rogers, Senior Forensic Investigator at Garland Police Department, for the technical details involved in how blood spatter works. And to Kat Baldwin—author and graphic designer extraordinaire—you’ve always made me look good. Thanks for continuing to do so.

Can’t get enough Kay Thomas?

Keep reading for a sneak peek

at the next book in her heart-stopping Elite Ops series,

PERSONAL TARGET,

coming soon from Avon Impulse

An Excerpt from

PERSONAL TARGET

“N
ICK
D
ONOVAN, YOU’RE
going to die!”

Nick felt warm blood, the crushing impact, and a burst of agony as bullets tore into his shoulder. More shouts echoed from down the hall. He fought to catch his breath and think through the pain. He’d been sleeping after a back alley doctor patched him up, only to wake to this chaos.

A hulking shadow lumbering toward him in the room registered at the exact moment Nick realized there was something in his own hand. He looked down and clenched his fingers, a huge sense of relief washing over him as his palm closed around the familiar handle of a Sig Sauer P226 9mm.

Thank God.
Someone had left him a gun.

He couldn’t see well enough to aim with much accuracy, but at the rate the shadowy figure was headed toward him, aiming wouldn’t be an issue for long. A deafening concussion rocked the room and a fireball whooshed in from the hallway. Nick rolled off his gurney to escape the conflagration, crashing to the terrazzo tile. Pain blossomed in his stomach and shoulder as an IV line gave way and medical tape ripped hairs from the back of his hand, spewing more blood everywhere.

Still, Nick hung on to the Sig—barely.

A smoky silhouette thrashed about on the floor a few feet to his left. Fire licked at the cool tiles under them both, and more shots blazed around Nick’s head from the opposite direction. He crawled toward a massive stainless steel cabinet that had been toppled during the, Jesus . . . the explosion?

For a fleeting moment he wondered if this was some kind of hallucination brought on by the medication for his injuries sustained earlier at Rivera’s compound, but the excruciating pain and the stench of smoke told him this was all too real and happening right now. Smoke continued filling the room. He couldn’t figure out where the shots were coming from. The smoky silhouette on the floor near him quit moving.

Shit, shit, shit. What in hell was going on?
His whole body still hurt from the wounds he’d suffered at Rivera’s and now his shoulder. His right hand was going numb.

Where was everyone? Where was Marissa?

He had a vague memory of arriving at what looked like a veterinarian’s clinic, complete with dog cages in the yard. Bryan Fisher and Leland Hollis had been there. Someone carried him inside. After that everything went hazy and gray till he woke up alone in this insanity.

How long had he been out? Hours? Days?

He wasn’t going to be able to do anything to help himself much longer. Another man moved through the thickening smoke—head down, running low. The smoky apparition was fifteen feet away when Nick wrapped his left hand around his right and fired twice. His fingers kept sliding off the trigger, sticky with blood and no longer working correctly.

Even through the haze he could see that the shadow was Cesar Vega, the enforcer half of the most lethal drug cartel in Mexico. Nick knew he’d hit him at least once. No way he’d missed at this range, despite his impaired vision and dexterity. Cesar continued racing toward him like a freight train, promising certain death with a booming voice that sounded like a concrete mixer. Between the threats, Nick could hear Cesar cursing in Spanish as he thundered through the doorway, heedless of the crackling flames. The dealer must be coked up and operating on adrenaline, even as he was bleeding out.

Nick tried to check the clip on the Sig, but his right hand was now completely numb and he was never more grateful to be ambidextrous. Once he was finally able to switch hands with the gun and wrap his left index finger back around the trigger, he was out of ammo.
Perfect.

Cesar’s progress slowed, the freight train was finally running low on steam, but the dealer still had an AK-47 with plenty of bullets. He stumbled and tripped. The impact of his body hitting the tiled floor was like the collision of a mac truck hitting a concrete wall, and the room shook. Cesar’s assault rifle skittered across the floor.

This was Nick’s chance, but he couldn’t move. The stitches across his stomach had torn when he rolled off the gurney. Blood seeped from new wounds at his shoulder. He and Cesar lay side-by-side, Nick’s own blood mingling with the drug dealer’s.

Cesar’s lips were blood-stained as he whispered just loud enough for Nick to hear. “They’re coming after yours now, and you can’t stop them.” The dying man laughed, his laughter changing to a cough as his damaged lungs filled with blood. Even so, he managed to rasp out one last threat. “It’s personal now. Your family will be dead in six weeks.”

The shocking words were meant to taunt, a final insult. Cesar never would have said it if he hadn’t thought Nick was dying, too. Nick struggled to sit up, and Cesar’s eyes widened in surprise. Obviously, he hadn’t been expecting Nick to move.

Nick leaned close to the downed man’s ear. “My family will be fine. I always see to it.”

Cesar’s eyes closed for the last time, and Nick heard another deep rumble starting further back in the building.
Damn.
He recognized that sound. He glanced at the door, seemingly a thousand miles away. He’d never make it.

He looked back at Cesar, dead now in a puddle of blood. The dealer’s dying threat galvanized him to action. He rolled toward the wall, wrenching himself to his feet. His vision swam and blood seeped into his eyes, but he hung on and moved his ass. Whatever happened, he was getting out. There was no other option. Nick Donovan took care of his family.

J
ENNIFER
G
RAYSON BACKED
into the driveway and turned off the ignition. Her day from hell was almost over. She’d always enjoyed the last week before Christmas break, but not this year. Newly divorced and alone in a town she hadn’t lived in since high school, Christmas felt like something to be endured—not celebrated.

As a college professor, this week of final exams had been unmitigated insanity. Her graduate students were bug-nuts crazy—obsessing over their final course grades and how their test scores and papers would affect internship opportunities. Give her clueless college freshman partying their brains out any day.

Maybe part of her was just plain depressed. Her divorce papers had arrived in the mailbox earlier this week. Due to the financial strain dissolving a marriage induced, she’d had to cancel her sabbatical this spring for the Paleo-Niger Project. Withdrawing from the project had cut deeper than the divorce itself.

That a philandering husband was less disappointing than a cancelled archaeological dig certainly testified to the state of her marriage to begin with, even before Collin’s affair with his grad student.

She slammed the car door a little harder than necessary. Bah, this was crazy. It was almost Christmas. She stood in the driveway waiting for the garage door to rise. Light from the full moon reflected off her windshield and illuminated the driveway. Breathing in the cool night air, she looked up at the stars through the bare limbs of a massive red oak. Just because she was in a place where she hadn’t lived for ten years was no reason to be maudlin. She was going to start thinking of things to be thankful for this instant.

For starters, she was grateful she was housesitting for her best friend and could get a change of scenery from her very small apartment with its the limited hot water supply. Angela Donovan and her family were on a Mediterranean cruise for the holiday, meeting up with her husband’s brother Nick.

The lick of regret and lust hit Jennifer simultaneously. But since she was turning lemons into lemonade tonight, she focused on her thankfulness resolution and banished Nick Donovan, with his heart-stopping kisses and heart-breaking tendencies, from her thoughts. She would not dwell on things that could no longer be changed.

Right now she wanted a glass of wine, a good book, and a long soaking bath with an unlimited supply of hot water. That was something to look forward to.

She reached for the light switch on the wall. As the overhead bulb flashed on, an arm snaked out of nowhere and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her against a hard, pungent smelling body. A wickedly serrated knife flashed in front of her eyes.

“Don’t move and don’t scream. You won’t get hurt.” The voice held a heavy Hispanic accent.

Onions and body odor overwhelmed her senses. Her knees wobbled and her stomach lurched. She nodded her head and the man’s grip tightened.

“I said don’t move!” The hand at her waist crept up her ribcage and his fingers brushed the underside of her breasts. She tried not to shudder.

What was happening?
Her mind raced to catch up.
This couldn’t be possible.

Another voice from across the room hissed. “No, she’s not to be touched. It’s only for show. That was a condition.”

“Who’s to know?” The hand continued to skate along her ribs and rub the front of her shirt. Fingers brushed across her chest once more rather brusquely. “She’ll not tell.”

The lights went out, plunging the room into darkness.

“Vega would find out. We don’t want to risk it.”

Jennifer looked up, but the man speaking was cloaked in the darkness. Two silhouettes were outlined by a light from the microwave clock in the kitchen.

“Hosea, you take her. Tie her hands and feet then strip her from the waist up. Snap the picture and get her out of here. We don’t know when the rest of the family will be home.”

The man Jennifer assumed was Hosea grabbed her by the shoulders. He didn’t smell as horrific as the other man, not that it meant anything. Criminals could shower like anyone else. She started to struggle before she remembered the knife. Hosea just held on tighter and steered her through the kitchen toward the living room and the fireplace.