1

Jacksonville, Florida

“I KNEW IT,” Olivia Burnett said on the heels of a sob. “I knew something was wrong when Grandma didn’t call on my birthday, yet you played it off like it was no big deal. Now, do you believe me?”

Shirley and Dude’s cozy Jacksonville retirement condo had been ransacked, down to the sofa and lounge chair cushions being slit. White stuffing looked like some twisted version of snow amongst the books. Broken memorabilia and photos littered the wood floor.

“Never said I didn’t.” Harding Breslow—the guy she’d been on-again/off-again dating for the past six months—knelt to glide a family photo from beneath the frame’s broken glass. “But they’ve been in Canyon Country. Cell service is sketchy. You told me they were off hiking and treasure hunting. I’m sorry, but nothing seemed inherently dangerous about that.”

“There wasn’t. Except for the cold.”

“Why didn’t they wait until summer?”

“Grandpa said that according to his new map, the treasure cave’s opening was only visible one day out of the entire year—the afternoon of the winter solstice.”

“Where did he first hear about the treasure?”

She explained about his friend Jimmy who’d died in Vietnam having told Dude about the El Diablo Incan gold hoard. Dude had always collected old maps, but once he’d found one at a private auction with El Diablo etched across the top, her grandfather had been extra-obsessed. “Grandma only agreed because she thought there’d be less chance of running into snakes this time of year.”

“True, but hypothermia doesn’t sound much more fun.”

“Did you have to bring up the temperature? As if I don’t have enough to worry about with bad guys apparently now involved.”

“Lucky for you that bad guys happen to be my specialty.”

She snorted. “Oh, I know.”

Which was why their relationship was forever off. But she’d been so worried about her grandparents that she hadn’t known who else to call. Staring at the photo that had been taken five years earlier at her nursing school graduation, Harding brushed his thumb over the image of her face. Even from across the room, his imagined touch soothed her raw nerves. Their chemistry had never been an issue. Plenty of other things had.

“What do I do? I know they flew into Salt Lake City to stock supplies, but beyond that, where do I start in finding them? They promised to be home by Christmas. Now, it’s past New Year’s Eve.”

“First, you’re not doing anything on your own. We’ll find them together.”

“No.” She crossed her arms. “I’ve seen firsthand the way you handle things. I don’t want you involved.”

“Christ . . .” After putting an end table back on its feet, he sighed. “Are we back to that again? I told you . . .”

“Oh, I know. Danger is just something you do. No big deal.” Her sarcastic laugh was borderline hysterical. “Newsflash, Harding—it’s a very big deal to me.” Olivia’s grandparents had raised her since her foreign war correspondent parents had been taken hostage and shot when she’d been a little girl. Even decades later, she’d never forget their bloodied dead faces paraded across newspapers, magazines and TVs. Shirley and Dude had made life worth living. They’d comforted and coaxed her out of a deep depression and back into the warm Florida sun.

If something happened to them . . .

Not wanting Harding to see her cry, she turned her back to him.

“Hey . . .” Her heart broke more with his every crunching step across the deep layer of broken glass and memories choking the floor. When he finally reached her, wrapping her from behind with his solid arms, she knew the right thing would be struggling free. But she couldn’t. The terror of potentially losing her only remaining family was too strong. She never liked admitting she needed anyone, but in this case, she feared Harding might be the sole person who could make this right.

Leaning into him, hugging her arms over his, she begged, “Please help me find my grandparents.”

“Of course.” He spun her to face him, tucked his fingers beneath her chin, urging her to meet his gaze. His aqua eyes reminded her of the play of sun on shallow water. But there was nothing shallow about him. A former Navy SEAL, he was a battle-hardened, modern day warrior who never backed down from a fight. How ironic was it that the very quality she hadn’t been able to stand in him as a friend and lover she now most needed?

Releasing Olivia, Harding fished his phone from his khaki cargo pants pocket.

“Who are you calling?” she asked. Her tear-flooded gaze gutted him.

“A cleaning team.”

She shook her head. “Out of respect for my grandparents, I’ll do it myself.”

“No. I don’t want you here alone. Besides, you and I have better things to do.”

“What could be more important than restoring the home they love? What if whoever did this left a clue? Shouldn’t we call police? There could be fingerprints or DNA.”

“Babe . . .” He didn’t want to lose his patience with her, so he forced a calming breath. “The people who did this? They are the clue. These are professionals. They were in and out of here like ghosts. Shirley and Dude must have unwittingly stumbled into something bigger than either of them ever expected. When we used to come for Sunday supper and your grandfather rambled on about his various treasures, did he believe they were real?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I guess. I always thought it was a quirky hobby. Like when he took his metal detector to local parks.”

“Right.” Harding punched his cell’s speed-dial for the clean-up team.

“Right? That’s all you can say?”

His team answered, so he held up his hand to quiet Olivia.

The slashed line of her lips told him she didn’t appreciate his brusque demeanor any more now than she had while they’d dated. He wasn’t sorry. She’d already informed him that he wasn’t boyfriend material. A good thing, considering it had been a damned long time since he’d been a boy.

She wandered down the hall toward the three bedrooms.

Harding had worked with the team many times.

He gave them the address, a brief description of what they needed to do, then arranged for the unit’s key to be left with the gated condo’s security guard. Funny how everyone felt nice and safe behind iron gates, yet for any halfway adept bad guy, they presented zero challenge.

His next call was to his pilot to ready Trident’s jet.

“Let’s go.” Harding found Olivia in her grandparents’ bedroom. With the mattress shredded, dressers and closets ransacked, it looked even worse than the rest of the place.

“I can’t. I need to be close to them.” Her pace was frantic as she plucked Shirley’s blouses from the floor. The elderly woman favored bright colors and tropical prints.

Harding liked her and her husband. A lot. Which made this personal.

In his line of work, attachments were something he didn’t do. They made a man soft. His team had proven him right on more than one occasion.

Despite that fact, for Olivia, for Shirley and Dude—selfishly, for himself—Harding planned to move heaven and earth not just to find them but to bring them home alive and well.

He prided himself on never getting his personal life, or lack thereof, mixed with business. Then he’d met Olivia while his partner Nash’s wife, Maisey, had been under her care in a Jacksonville hospital’s ICU. While on duty, she’d not only had a sexy, take-charge demeanor, but a compassionate streak that had thawed a part of himself he’d assumed forever frozen. He’d seen things, done things no man ever should. That fact couldn’t be changed, no matter how much for Olivia’s sake he wished it could.

She’d welcomed him into her family and for a few too-brief months, he’d belonged. Oh sure, he was an integral part of his team—they were brothers—but that was different. Just like what he’d felt for Olivia and her grandparents had been different. He’d welcomed the change. Contemplated asking her to be his wife. But then he took a bullet for a high-profile client, and things between them were never the same. He’d seen it as no big deal. He’d been shot before and surely would be again. It was an occupational hazard.

To her, that risk proved unacceptable.

Today marked the first time he’d seen her in months.

“Stop.” He cupped his hands around her shoulders. She worked faster and faster to right this egregious, senseless wrong. “My team will handle this. What can’t be fixed, I’ve authorized them to buy. When we bring your grandparents home, they’ll never know the full extent of what happened.”

“That’s just it. What did happen? Why? Who would want to do this to them? None of this makes sense.”

“I know.” He took the clothes from her, resting them on the back of an overturned armchair. As if the time they’d been apart had condensed into mere hours, he took her into his arms and she let him. He kissed the crown of her head. “Promise. Together we’ll figure this out, okay?”

She nodded against his chest.

God help him, but he’d missed holding her. Protecting her. Guilt tore through him. If they’d still been together, might he have somehow seen this coming?

His cell dinged, signaling an incoming text. A glance at his phone showed they’d be wheels-up in an hour.