Under Fire (Elite Force 3)

“Someone’s following us and gaining fast… damn it.” His arm shot out across her. “Brace yourself! We’re about to be hit.”

Rachel jerked around, expecting to find the silver sedan tailing her again. She looked and found…

Her navy blue SUV. With the customized license plate she’d chosen in honor of her dog. There was no mistaking the word Disco1 as the Ford accelerated closer. Her Ford, which she’d left on base and now someone else was driving…

Her car rammed the Jeep.

Chapter 4

Jolting forward and back in her seat, Rachel braced against the dash with one hand and reached behind with her other to grab Disco’s collar. If they’d been in her SUV, she would have had him in a crate, secured. Hell, if she’d been in her own vehicle, none of this would be happening at all.

“Liam?” she shouted against the roar of insanity. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” he said quickly, his voice calm, controlled, his toned body seemingly impervious.

Except she knew too well how even the strongest of soldiers could be brought down in a flash.

They slammed the concrete railing. Her body jerked and her thoughts fractured. She bit her tongue. The tinny taste of blood filled her mouth as the vehicle skidded. The echo of grinding metal shrieked along with honking horns. She looked out the passenger window as the Jeep scraped along the railing. The ocean churned below, dark and murky, waiting to swallow them if the barrier gave way. She looked up fast at the rearview mirror just as her SUV rammed them again.

The barrier had looked plenty sturdy when she’d driven over it earlier today. And now? It looked flimsier than a couple of two-by-fours holding out against a bulldozer.

Her heart lurched, then raced faster than the Jeep accelerating back into traffic. Squealing brakes sounded from behind them. She searched for ways to help, to alert Liam to anything that might help. In the rearview mirror, she saw a VW bug spinning out along the bridge, her blue SUV whipping fast. Oh God, what if this chase accidentally caused someone else to go over the side, into the ocean? Her dog jockeyed for balance with the same sure-footedness that had saved him when they worked disaster sites.

Liam steered on a dime and whipped around the other evening commuters. But so did the SUV, until it roared right up on their tail again. Whipping to the side, the vehicle—her car, which someone had stolen—accelerated beside them.

“Down!” Liam shouted, palming the back of her head.

She ducked just as a shot rang out. Both side windows shattered—driver’s, then passenger’s. Her heart in her throat, she reached to touch Liam’s chest right over the steady thump of his heart. A sigh of relief cascaded through her. With her other hand, she reached back. Her dog nuzzled her, crouching low without flinching. He was trained well.

Liam covered her hand with his briefly, firmly, then took the wheel again.

“I’m fine,” he said, the Jeep surging ahead. “But I need your help.”

“Anything,” she answered without hesitation.

>A thank-you note from a family after she’d located their toddler son in the woods.

Photos of her with her mom that she’d been meaning to scan into the computer and somehow never found the time.

A shoe box of memories from when she’d dated Caden, so little to commemorate a love that had filled every corner of her heart.

Her eyes slid to Liam. Tears clogged her throat. Her hand drifted to the top of her sleeping dog’s head, resting between the two seats. Liam covered her hand with his. A sprinkling of blond hair on his arms glinted, lighter than the dark blond hair on his head, cut short to military regulations. For some reason she’d remembered it longer before, but then she’d heard rules differed for special-operations warriors. And how funny to be thinking of his hair right now, but it was as if she needed to soak up every detail, reassuring herself again and again she’d chosen right.

“It’ll be all right. We’ll find Brandon Harris,” he said, sounding totally undaunted by everything that had happened.

“How can you be so sure? Someone burned my town house to the ground. I don’t give a crap about the contents, but the people who were hurt, what could have happened… That’s eating me up inside. I should have been more persistent. I should have made someone listen sooner.”

He squeezed her fingers before holding on to the steering wheel again. “All we can do is focus on the now. While you were loading the dog up, I went ahead and called my friend in the OSI. I passed along Brandon’s name. Someone’s driving over to pick him up now. That may be why he didn’t answer.”

He’d placed his call when she wouldn’t hear? Why? What had he said that he didn’t want her to know? Liam was so charming and he’d told her how much he cared about her. She’d trusted that, even if she wasn’t a big believer in the longevity of his “love.” She’d tried to be up front with him in return, because she honest to God didn’t want to hurt this incredible man.

What if she was wrong and Liam had been feeding her a line?

God, she hoped she’d done right by Brandon. He was already so suspicious of anyone military. Her stomach roiled just thinking of how freaked-out he might be. “And you trust this guy, your friend in the Office of Special Investigations? You trust he’ll be careful with Brandon and keep his traumatized state in mind?”

She’d come to Liam because of his air force special-operations connections, but now she wondered if those same ties would work against her. Not that she thought he would betray his country for even a second. But if he gave the wrong people the benefit of the doubt, she could be in even more danger. Brandon could be in danger.

Liam adjusted the rearview mirror, the three garters swaying. “I trust her completely.”