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Call it what you will, they were there.
They couldn’t get enough. They couldn’t find a place to slow down.
She feared she’d never see him again.
He didn’t know if he would come back alive to even look for her.
She was his gift.
He was under her skin.
They would never be the same.
Even after she finally fell asleep in his arms, he lay watching her, storing up this memory for the bad times he knew were coming as he headed into his second tour of duty in Iraq.
***
His flight out of Washington Dulles left at 8:00 a.m., and he was dressed and walking out the door at half past six. He paused on the threshold and looked back, needing that last sight of her. She was curled up on her side, sound asleep and clutching his pillow.
He couldn’t bring himself to tell her goodbye.
She’d laid down the ground rules. No boundaries. No last names. No regrets.
But even as his plane was taxiing down the runway for takeoff, he was filled with nothing but regret. If only he’d known her last name.
***
She woke up suddenly, and even before she opened her eyes, she knew he was gone. His scent was all over her, and she could still feel his mouth on her body and his hands in her hair. She was only twenty-four years old, and he’d ruined her for ever wanting another man. He was in her blood, and she didn’t even know his last name.
Chapter 1
October, five years later, in the Florida Keys
The sun was barely above the horizon. Service personnel were already preparing breakfast in the galley of theAquatic Adonis, an eighty-foot luxury yacht belonging to Gianni Rodini. Gianni and seven of his friends had been partying onboard for days, but this was their last. Within hours they would be heading into port.
Fancy yachts like his had been disappearing for months up and down the southern seaboard. From the Pacific coast. From the bay area of Houston, and along the Florida coastline. It was assumed the boats were being boarded by pirates who then sailed them to the Bahamas, repainted and refitted them, and then used them to ferry contraband from port to port, or sold them outright to unsuspecting buyers.
The pirates left no witnesses, and the few bodies that had been found all had execution-style wounds. There was nothing on them that would lead the authorities to identify the people responsible.
The feds were getting flack. The ATF was getting flack. And the DEA was getting flack. When the FBI learned of Rodini’s plans to take his yacht out for a weeklong cruise among the Keys, they planted one of their best undercover agents onboard with a sat phone and a gun.
Her name was Rusty Caldwell. She was twenty-nine years old. Average height. Physically fit. A sharpshooter with blue eyes and red hair. She went in as a sous-chef for the galley chef and did what she was told with as little comment as possible. She’d learned long ago that the quieter people were, the more invisible they became to others. And being invisible mattered in her line of work.
The crew knew they were sailing into port today, but instead of the usual morning chatter, they were unusually quiet, and Rusty noticed. She kept following the chef’s orders in a quick and proficient manner, never looking up. Never meeting anyone’s gaze. But every instinct she had was on alert. Something was going down. She could feel it.
She had gone to the cooler with a basket to get mangos and pineapple for the breakfast service, and was coming out with the produce when she overheard two of the crew at the other end of the hall. Sound carried in that corridor, and even though their voices were low, Rusty heard enough to make her skin crawl.
“Inbound. ETA four minutes. Same orders. TNP.”
It could have meant anything. More guests arriving. Or maybe a fuel carrier. But in her world, TNP meanttake no prisoners. That gave them away.
She went straight into the kitchen, put the fruit on a counter, and then glanced up at the chef. “Making a quick trip to the head, Chef.”
“Fine, but don’t dawdle! Service is in thirty minutes,” he snapped.
“Yes, Chef,” Rusty said softly, and slipped out of the galley.
Moments later she was in her cabin. She grabbed her sat phone and made one call to her contact on the outside.
