Jayhawk Down
Authors: Sharon Calvin
Jayhawk Down
By Sharon Calvin
What appears to be a normal rescue mission goes horribly wrong…
Caitlyn Stone has always wanted to be a helicopter pilot. Hard work and determination got her there, and now she’s living the adrenaline-rushing good life, piloting Jayhawk helicopters for the US Coast Guard. Helping people is her life’s work, and the risk is not only worth it, it’s thrilling. But she never expected this kind of danger.
When ER doctor and Army Reserve Black Hawk pilot Stillman Gray sees Caitlyn expertly land a Jayhawk during a raging storm, he has nothing but respect for the beautiful Coastie. But he’s not the only one who’s noticed her. A terrorist is looking to hijack a helicopter, and he’s decided Caitlyn is the perfect target.
Caitlin’s past has taught her that the only thing a man in uniform can guarantee is disappointment. But when what appears to be a normal rescue mission goes horribly wrong, she’ll need to push aside memories of heartbreak and trust her military man enough to let him save her.
For more Gulf Coast Rescue, don’t miss
A Dangerous Leap
, available now!
77,250 words
Dear Reader,
This month, Julie Anne Lindsey kicks off a new cozy mystery series with
A Geek Girl’s Guide to Murder
. When a geek girl finds a friend’s body in her office, she puts her high IQ to work uncovering the killer. Check out this first book of The Geek Girl Mysteries!
Contemporary romance author Caitlin Sinead has a beautiful cover (seriously, go check it out) and a fantastic new story in
Red Blooded
. Peyton Arthur should be helping her mom become the next vice president of the United States, not investigating damaging rumors about her deceased father. And Dylan Torres, a campaign worker, should be keeping Peyton out of trouble, not falling for her.
Also in contemporary romance,
Finding Center
is Katherine Locke’s story of Zed and Aly. Ballet and Zed are two of Aly’s greatest loves, but it will take all of her strength to keep them both in her life. Check out the free online prequel
Turning Pointe
, as well as book one in the District Ballet Company series,
Second Position
.
Marine Sergeant Blaze Johnson kept his promise but Layna Blair couldn’t escape her past—now that Blaze is wounded, it’s up to Layna to save them both in Sybil Bartel’s
Impossible Choice
, the follow-up to her contemporary romance
Impossible Promise
.
We’re pleased to welcome Jill Sorenson to our contemporary romance lineup. This month we’re reissuing her ultra-sexy romance that gives us a peek into the world of motorcycle clubs,
Riding Dirty
. Psychologist Mia Richards wants revenge. Her new client, tattooed Cole “Shank” Shepherd, provides the perfect means. She just has to manipulate the felon-turned-informant into eliminating her husband’s killers—members of a rival motorcycle club. The first step, seducing Cole, is simple. As for walking away before she falls hard—it’s already too late…
Riding Dirty
will be available at a bargain price to lead into her September new release,
Shooting
Dirty
.
2015 RITA® Award-nominated author Lynda Aicher’s
Penalty Play
is the third book in the erotic sports romance Power Play trilogy. Starting defenseman Henrik Grenick has almost convinced himself he’s happy—until he meets unassuming Jacqui Polson. Fiercely independent with no need for hockey or the men who play it, Jacqui is the
more
Henrik wants, except sex is the only thing she seems to want from him. Can he change her mind or will the one girl he finally loves be the one who breaks his heart?
We have two fantastic male/male romances to share with you this month. Back with one of her popular erotic historical male/male novels, Ava March’s
Viscount’s Wager
,
the third book in her Gambling on Love series, will have you turning the pages and then going back for the stories you missed. When a viscount’s teenage crush returns to London, can the men grab their second chance at love or will the secrets they hide tear them apart once again?
What’s life without a little risk? Or a lot of risk, if you’re Sebastian Carlisle. He’ll never live up to the legacy of his dead brother, so why try? Being the wild child in a family of stuck-up rich snobs suits him just fine. Until he meets Micah Burke and everything changes. Pick up
Reckless Hope
, the next title in the Letting Go series by j. leigh bailey, this August!
Last, what begins as a normal rescue mission turns deadly in Sharon Calvin’s
Jayhawk Down
, book two of romantic suspense series Gulf Coast Rescue. ER doctor and army reserve Black Hawk pilot Stillman Gray has nothing but respect for Coast Guard lieutenant Caitlyn Stone, but he’s not the only one who’s noticed her—a terrorist is looking to hijack a helicopter, and he’s decided Caitlyn is the perfect target.
Looking for more great beach reads to cap off your summer? Be sure to check out our backlist of fun summer reading, including
Slow Summer Kisses
by Shannon Stacey,
Monster in My Closet
by RL Naquin,
Sharing Hailey
by Samantha Ann King,
No One Lives Twice
by Julie Moffett,
High and Tight
by Vanessa North and
Deadly Descent
by Kaylea Cross.
Until next time, here’s wishing you a wonderful month of books you love, remember and recommend.
Happy reading!
Angela James
Editorial Director, Carina Press
Dedication
First and foremost, this book is dedicated to the men and women of the US Coast Guard. They secure our waterways and ports, oversee our domestic and international fishing laws, protect our environment, and conduct search and rescue missions, often in unimaginable conditions. A special shout-out to Air Station Clearwater, the largest and busiest air station in the Guard, and home to my fictional heroes and heroines.
To my husband, Bill, who probably knows my characters as intimately as I do. But most of all, he always believed in me and my stories (and has the best Facebook friends!).
Contents
Chapter One
Clearwater,
FL,
Saturday, 3 September, 2100 hours
Lieutenant Caitlyn Stone raised an eyebrow at her aircrew’s boisterous entry into the briefing room. A gust of wind chased them as it rattled the huge rolling doors on the attached Coast Guard hangar.
Her flight mechanic, Joe Peterson, held rescue swimmer Clay Thompson by the scruff of the neck. His terrier-like shakes while they squabbled about a baseball game didn’t seem to faze the quick-witted Clay.
Thirty-year-old Joe was a known quantity, strong and loyal, but the twenty-two-year-old swimmer was still a mystery. The kid possessed a ready smile. Wiry and tanned to nut-brown, his dark hair contrasted with Joe’s buzz-cut blond hair and ripped muscles.
A sharp crack of thunder interrupted Joe’s ongoing harassment. Clay’s face paled and his dark eyes widened. His rejoinder to Joe lacked its earlier bite, prompting a considering look from Caitlyn.
As the helicopter’s commanding officer, it was her job to ensure the crew was ready for duty. If they launched tonight, it would be the swimmer’s first solo mission since transferring to their air station three months earlier.
“Clay, did you inspect the safety equipment on my helo?” she asked. Pretending to study the aeronautical chart she gave him time to regroup. If he concentrated on his job responsibilities he’d have less time to worry about the unknowns of a mission in a storm-tossed Gulf.
“Yes, ma’am. Everything’s in order and ready to go. We’ll be fine,” Clay assured her with sudden bravado.
Caitlyn looked up in time to see Joe punch the younger man’s bicep.
“Don’t worry, Clay, the lieutenant loves flying in this shit,” Joe said. “Besides, I haven’t lost a swimmer yet. If you go in the water, you’re comin’ out.” Joe winked at Caitlyn.
Caitlyn relaxed. Joe ran the hoist that lowered and raised rescue swimmers and the people they saved and had a rep for mentoring new swimmers. If he had concerns over Clay’s performance, he would have requested a different swimmer be assigned.
“Now, if it were terminally clear and calm—I’d suggest you hitch a ride with someone else,” Joe deadpanned.
“Sheesh, Peterson, that landing only bounced three feet,” she said with mock irritation. “It’s hard to concentrate when things are too easy. But tonight—”
A scramble alarm killed her explanation. Stunned, Caitlyn and her two crew members sat a second, then broke for the door like racehorses out of a starting gate.
The cavernous hangar, smelling of jet fuel, sweat and burnt coffee, roared with the sound of the tropical downpour. Ryan Greeley, Caitlyn’s favorite copilot, bolted out of the radio room, joining in the sprint toward a helicopter camouflaged by sheets of rain.
“Heard the Mayday. Boat down in heavy swells. Two men in a makeshift raft.”
“Roger,” Caitlyn said as she slipped a poncho over her head without breaking stride.
“Their signal’s bouncing from a circling C-130,” Ryan continued as they ran out the hangar door into a wall of water.
“We’ll pick up coordinates once airborne.” She tossed out the words, already intent on the preflight check of her helo. Leaving Ryan to his own duties, she circled the hulking HH-60J Jayhawk, looking for anything that could endanger their rescue mission.
Flying wasn’t a job. Wasn’t an avocation. Wasn’t even something she loved. Flying was encoded in her DNA as surely as her red hair and blue eyes.
Caitlyn climbed aboard the helo and stripped off her poncho. “All right,
Fly Baby
, let’s go fishin’,” she muttered as she flipped switches and eyed gauges. Ryan, already seated to her left, recited their checklist.
Forty-five-knot winds rocked the helicopter while its turbines spooled up, adding to the auditory assault. She keyed the intercom, or ICS, calculating possible abort scenarios. Caitlyn didn’t fear death. She feared screwing up. “You’ve got ten seconds to get locked and loaded.”
Ryan stowed the checklist, adding his “roger” to Joe’s chopped affirmative from the rear of the helo.
They were all charged up, just like she was. Except for the untried rescue swimmer, she knew and trusted these men without reservations. After tonight, she’d know about Clay.
“We have liftoff,” Caitlyn called as she pulled up the helo’s collective and added power.
Wind and rain smacked them around the sky. She tightened her grip on the cyclic and ignored the flicker of fear caused by a fifty-foot downdraft. A practiced sweep of instruments assured her she was in control. She thrived on control. Perversely, she preferred flying through chaos to get that control.
Another slap of wind punched adrenaline through her veins. God, flying on the edge was an aphrodisiac. On nights like these, she loved everybody.
“...her mojo’s risin’,” Joe’s deep baritone sang a refrain from the Doors’ “L.A. Woman” over the headphones.
Ryan joined in with a slightly off-key harmony. She shook her head and sent him an exaggerated eye roll.
“Careful, Lieutenant, our swimmer’s lookin’ a little green back here. I don’t think he appreciates your extraordinary flying skills,” Joe said.
Ryan eased his hands away from the controls when Caitlyn swung the helo into a forty-five-degree banked turn. She grinned at his hands-off posture. He knew better than to interfere unless she needed backup.
“Damn, you mean we’re flying with a legend and Clay doesn’t even know it?” Ryan said, arms crossed over his chest, fingers safely tucked away.
Caitlyn almost snorted. Yeah, right, a legend. She squinted through the rain. Maybe that’s why she couldn’t maintain a relationship. The men in her life couldn’t compete with her reputation. Should have canceled her Saturday night plans when she saw the weather report.
“Roger, base. ETA ten minutes on our current course,” Ryan responded to a radio call from their air station.
“Queen B, how was Dr. Golden Hands? Must be gettin’ serious. Wasn’t this your third date?” Joe asked over the ICS.
Caitlyn did snort at that. Maybe they’d been crewing together a little
too
long. “Make that a last lukewarm dinner with Dr. Your Emergency Doesn’t Count.” Bastard. If she was lucky, she’d be on call when his eighty-foot yacht sank. She’d throw the arrogant plastic surgeon a bucket and tell him to start bailing. Several blinding flashes of strobe-like lightning made her cringe. Even better, the rescue would happen on a night like this.
Doctors were officially going in a do-not-date column—along with wealthy playboys and military personnel. She refused to have her love life aired on the Coastie grapevine, thank you very much.
“What’s with this queen business? Is that a higher rank than lieutenant commander?” she asked. She’d found her rhythm, her eyes and hands reacting automatically to the storm’s yin and yang.
“Trust me. Queen is much more exalted than lieutenant commander,” Joe said.
“Hmm, queen.” Her mind already entertaining possibilities, she verified their heading and altitude over the black waters of the Gulf. “Instead of saluting, I’d have subjects genuflecting.” Oh, yeah, she’d enjoy a little bowing and scraping from her fellow Coasties.
Vying to become the youngest lieutenant commander at the air station, she felt pressured to excel at everything. She smiled at Ryan. “Yeah, I like that. Queen BITCH.” The helo dropped and did a quick rumba before she stabilized it again.
“But, ma’am, you’re not a bitch.” Clay’s voice cracked like a teenager’s. Three months out of Aviation Survivalist’s school, he sounded as green as Joe claimed he looked.
Lord, wherever they were recruiting these kids, she wished they’d stop. They were making her feel old at thirty.
Joe’s belly laugh rolled out of the ICS. “No, numbnuts, B-I-T-C-H, as in
Boys I’m Taking Charge Here.
Get it? It’s an acro—”
A transmission from the circling C-130 surveillance plane interrupted Joe’s explanation. They were over the spot where the boat had gone down.
Finding the survivors’ “raft” in the storm’s reduced visibility would be worse than spotting a hermit crab from a thousand feet. Caitlyn flew a tight grid. Two men were in twenty-foot seas somewhere below.
Depending on them for rescue.
“Got ‘em!” Joe called out. “Port side. Back ten feet.”
“Roger. Keep a visual while I come around into the wind,” Caitlyn responded. She marked the location and checked wave height as best she could in the reduced visibility.
“Drop lower.”
She did exactly as Joe instructed. When he ran the hoist, she had to rely on his eyesight. She couldn’t see anything going on directly below or behind her.
“Bait the hook and lower the line. Let’s see what we can catch tonight,” Caitlyn said.
Joe directed the swimmer into position. The right-side door gaped, aerodynamics deteriorated, and Caitlyn fought the wind to keep the helo stable.
“Swimmer deployed!” Joe called over the increased sound brought on by the storm’s move inside.
Caitlyn locked her attention on the instruments while Ryan kept his on the waves. Ingesting water into an engine or dipping a rotor into the Gulf would constitute a major screwup. Not to mention a deadly one.
“Swimmer in the water!” Joe shouted.
Caitlyn wrestled the elements for ten long minutes before Joe winched the rescue basket onboard with their first survivor. The swimmer stayed in the water trolling for his next catch.
Ryan radioed base with their status as wind slammed into them with growing force. Awareness zapped across Caitlyn’s nerve endings as if she’d touched an exposed wire, leaving a wake of goose bumps. She jerked her head around to look over her left shoulder, half expecting to see a flicker of flames.
The man they’d just rescued stood hunched in the back, staring at her with unblinking black eyes. The low cockpit lighting enhanced the feeling of evil emanating off him like sulfur from a swamp. A bloody gash over his left eye and bunched fists chilled Caitlyn more than the storm’s cold breath.
The man’s mouth opened and closed silently. Had seeing a woman at the controls muted him?
He muttered something in a language she didn’t understand, then shook his head. “Sorry, I was not expecting such a beautiful woman coming to my rescue,” he shouted in Middle Eastern–accented English.
Caitlyn’s distrust went up another hundred percent. In her helmet and flight gear she was about as beautiful as a can of Spam. Wind rammed the Jayhawk, sending the man to his knees and Caitlyn back to her job. But it didn’t erase the creepy-crawly feelings his unblinking stare had generated.
“Everything okay?” Ryan asked. He’d grabbed the controls during her distraction and now eyed her with concern.
“Yeah, but keep tabs on our catch-of-the-day. That tuna we reeled in might be a shark.”
* * *
Dr. Stillman Gray III sucked in a lungful of smoke and frowned. His move to Florida failed to break the nasty habit he’d slipped into during his last deployment to Iraq. A flick sent the burning cigarette butt into a rain-filled “ashtray” maintenance kept by the rear employee entrance. He turned. Squinted at the rain.
Maybe his foul mood was simply a reflection of the shitty weather. For the “Sunshine State,” he’d seen more rain than sun, and right now it was coming down at a forty-five-degree angle.
Resigned to the inevitable, he dug his cell phone out of his tired blue scrubs and hit six on autodial. It was a number he’d grown to dread calling on a good day. Today wasn’t turning out to be one of those.
Officially, his ER shift ended three hours ago. But a five-car pileup on I-275 had kept him, and every other doctor they could commandeer, busy piecing together human carnage. Hell, maybe his bad mood had less to do with the weather than the bloody mess he’d been fighting for the last four hours. He rubbed the stubble on his face, listening to ringing on the cell.
The all-night diner down the street would delay going home. Delay going to a stark apartment filled with moving boxes he hadn’t bothered unpacking. Delay going through the motions of living?
His mother answered, irritation coloring her cultured voice. Since she had caller ID, it must be directed at him personally, but damn, that was nothing new either. “You left a message to call. No matter the time.” He sounded defensive to his own ears. Wasn’t that a hell of a note for a forty-two-year-old doctor?
“No, I’ve left multiple messages. What if it had been an emergency?”
“You’re a doctor’s wife. You would have dialed nine-one-one.” He hunched his shoulders. Great response. He’d launched an IED on a civilian. His mother, no less. Not that she could claim innocence. Their relationship had deteriorated into guerrilla warfare years ago.
“You need to talk to your father. You owe him your respect.”
Same old argument, and exactly why he hadn’t returned her call. No, make that
calls
. “Mother, I don’t owe him anything. Nor do I have anything to discuss with him. Grandfather accepted my decision to stay in emergency medicine. Father needs to do the same.” The ever-present drumbeat behind his eyes intensified.
“Stillman, you’re being selfish. How do you think it looks to his partners, his clients, when his only son refuses to join his practice? He was so excited when you returned to medical school after that foolishness in the army.”
The skin on the back of his neck tightened as if shrunk by the damp night air. His experiences during his first deployment to Iraq had convinced him to become a doctor. A real doctor. His grandfather, then his father, had built an empire nip-and-tucking only the wealthiest of the wealthy.
“Catering to never-ending narcissism holds even less appeal after my second tour of duty. If Father wishes to apologize to
me
, he has my number.” He clamped his mouth shut before more wounding words could escape. There had been enough bleeding for one night.
A bolt of lightning strafed the sky over the parking lot. Thunder followed in hot pursuit. “I’m sorry. I need to get back to work. I’ll call after I get a landline installed in the apartment.”
Static garbled her parting words before the connection dropped. An odd feeling that he’d missed something important wormed through his gut. Why was his mother trying to mend a twenty-year-old rift? What had happened to make her even try?
