Under Fire (Elite Force 3)

She backed down the hall, her mind full of how panicked she’d been when she tossed things into her backpack willy-nilly. How scared she’d been. How much calmer she felt with Liam’s arms around her.

“Then get to it.” He pushed to his feet in a tall lanky glide. “I’ll scrounge up something for us to eat.”

She hesitated half in, half out of the bathroom doorway. “Liam?”

He looked up, his glance slamming into hers. “Yeah, Rachel?”

There were so many things she wanted to say to him.

About how she’d missed him.

About why she’d never called in six months.

About how that silence actually said more about how much he’d affected her than if she’d called him up to shoot the breeze. But she wouldn’t.

She settled for “Thanks for believing me.”

***

Liam wanted Rachel to be right.

And damn, but that made him bat-shit crazy. He shouldn’t be standing here in front of the stove, throwing together stir-fry for supper, actually hoping she was being chased by a military traitor. The possibility that anyone he served with could actually be involved in something as unthinkable as betraying their country churned acid in his gut.

Olive oil popped in the pan and splattered the front of his uniform. Draping a black apron over his neck, he wrapped the ties around and yanked the strings into a knot in front. He chopped the last of the red pepper and pitched it into the wok with onions, carrots, and broccoli. The routine of cooking helped him channel his thoughts. Here, he could do something. He could take care of Rachel, even if it was just by making sure she ate. The way he’d cooked a kazillion meals for his mother during her cancer treatments. If she ate right, maybe she would heal faster. And if there was food on the table, his father would actually show up, which made Mom happy, even though the whole “happy family” picture was a joke.

Shit.

Just cook and quit ruminating… except he knew damn well why he was thinking of his mom right now. Because having Rachel here made him start thinking about having someone at his table, in his house, in his life. Holding her for thirty-five f**king seconds had just about killed him. He’d pulled away to keep from taking advantage. She was vulnerable, for Christ’s sake. He was supposed to be helping her.

Leaning into the fridge, he pulled out a leftover grilled steak from last night to cut up. After less than an hour with Rachel again, he felt himself tumbling head over ass in love with this woman who’d ignored him for six months. Now wouldn’t his team have a field day laughing at that? While they played marry one, kill one, screw one, he played marry one, marry one, marry one. Liam whack, whack, whacked the steak on the cutting board, raised the knife again, and—

He felt eyes on him. Felt? Hell, was he becoming paranoid?

No. He trusted his sixth sense when it came to personal safety. He looked behind him and found…

Disco sat at the head of the hall, between him and the bathroom, staring him down. Making it very clear he was protecting Rachel.

“Good boy.” Liam flicked a strip of sizzling steak into the air toward the dog. Disco caught it before it hit the ground. “Yeah, she probably has some rules about not feeding you table food. But technically it hasn’t hit the table yet.”

He settled back into preparing the meal, a ritual to make him feel more a part of family life and routine. Yeah, he missed having a woman around. He hadn’t entered any of his marriages lightly. There’d been no shotgun weddings. He’d planned to spend his life with each one. So while he trusted his instincts in the professional field, his team had a point. His relationship radar was unreliable. He was out of the marriage market, and Rachel was too special to risk having a quickie affair with.

The sound of the shower spray hitting tiles drifted down the hallway to torment him, only to be made worse by the interruption as a body slid underneath. Rachel’s body.

He grabbed the remote control and turned on the television, filling the room with the seven o’clock news. The lead story was kicking into gear about the upcoming international summit on satellite technology. Diplomats and military generals were traveling in from around the world. As he listened to the broadcaster detail the ramp-up, he couldn’t help but wonder if somehow Rachel’s airman might be losing touch with reality, blending the upcoming national summit with traumatic delusions. Regardless, they needed to talk with base security and make sure the young man wasn’t a risk to himself or others.

And plug whatever security holes that had allowed Rachel to break into his car undetected.

“Breaking news…”

The announcement interrupted the regular report and his thoughts. Liam glanced up at the flat-screen mounted on the wall behind the oak table. A map of Southern Florida filled the image, with a star flashing over a street map of a neighborhood.

“City block explodes into flames… One resident is believed dead… more unaccounted for… Fire marshals are unsure of the cause, but terrorism isn’t being ruled out…”

His sixth sense tingled with that bad, bad feeling to check his back… or Rachel’s.

He looked up at the newscast again just as Disco whimpered, pawing at the cabinets. Florida was a big state. The odds of that blast having anything to do with her were a million to one. The same odds he would have given on her showing up in his Jeep.

Her wallet lay on the dining-room table, where she’d tossed it when she’d fished out her clothes from her backpack. Without thinking twice, he left the sizzling stir-fry and strode straight over to flip open the well-worn tan leather. He pulled out cards stuffed inside until he found her driver’s license, checking her address.