She swore when she was afraid, when she was in tense situations.

If he had the same tendency, maybe his heart wouldn’t be pounding a mile a minute with sweat dripping down his temple. He shoved the reality of killing a man out of his head and followed her. His focus sharpened as they crossed into the unexpectedly girly bedroom.

The bedroom sustained a light dusting of soot from the explosion yesterday and was mostly clear of the smoke from today. Emily glanced behind her before lifting the window open. She was careful with the pretty lace curtains, pushing them aside before she snuck out. “Callie, follow me. John—”

“I’m on the rear.” He was used to being at the back. Rear command. The medic who pulled people from the front line to safety. Silence when Emily disappeared through the window relieved him. The shooter had moved. He’d either been the one in the apartment, or he was getting ready for his next shot.

John kept scanning, searching for any sign of movement on the rooftops as he helped Callie through the window. “You okay?” he asked quietly, as the sound of sirens came to life north of them.

Callie whispered, “Fine.”

The fire escape dropped them into the alley, across from where the first shot had come.

The SUV hauled tail around the corner and screeched to a stop on the blacktop. Marcus disembarked in an instant, armed and covering them, watching the vantage points. For such a small town, this alley seemed to have too many. They were like sitting ducks.

Emily tossed her duffel into the trunk. “Let’s go.”

John hesitated. It wasn’t like Hawk Elite, or like John personally, to leave the scene of a crime.

“Vega,” she said. He moved forward and realized their unexpected third wasn’t following. Callie stood, a vaguely shocked and paralyzed glaze on her face.

Bullets cued the end of their reprieve, raining down from the fire escape above.

Marcus’ return fire deafened John and jolted Callie into motion. The man had jumped onto the fire escape to pursue their attacker in the same instant John leapt for the girl, taking her down and rolling her small frame toward the building. The sting of a bullet grazed his shoulder.

Emily looked up, took aim, and shot with her .45. The man jerked back from the strike, breaking the window and falling into her apartment.

“Nice shot,” John said, helping Callie up from the ground and hurrying back to the car. He couldn’t leave her here, but she resisted him, reminding him that she wasn’t an operative. She didn’t understand what was going on. “We’re going with Emily. Do you hear me, Callie?” He spoke harshly into her ear as he dragged her back, hoping this fiasco wouldn’t land him in jail on kidnapping charges.

She gave up the struggle at his explanation, and in seconds, they were both in the car with Bobby driving south.

“Marcus,” John said, looking back. Had he been hit? Were they leaving a man behind?

Bobby glanced into the rearview mirror. “He’s holding on to the perp until the police get there.”

“You on Bluetooth?”

“Tactical communications, man.” Malcolm grinned, a little maniacally, as he touched his ear.

“I want one,” John mumbled good-naturedly, even as his heart tried to slow from the adrenaline rush. They hit the main road and an explosion ripped the air behind them.

Next to him, Callie screamed.

“Fu—dge,” Emily muttered. “She shouldn’t be here.”

“I’m okay.” Callie regained some composure. “Just startled me.”

John leaned forward and looked into the front seat. “Emily. You want to climb up, take shotgun?”

She gave him a funny look.

“I don’t mean that literally. Geez.”

She laughed, and it was a good sound to hear during this crazy situation. For him…and for Callie, who visibly relaxed as she realized she was still surrounded by friends.

He called Hawk.

“Vega, what’s going on?”

“We need extraction. We have a situation here—” John’s temper simmered. “Someone was shooting at us.”

“Is everyone okay?”

“I don’t know. Marcus, he stayed behind. Yelled at us to take off, that he’d stay behind with the shooter…” Silence filled the vehicle—cold and ominous. “I don’t know what happened back there. But the place blew to hell as we drove away. Big kaboom.”

“Shit.”

They were heading south now. John leaned forward over the back of the seat. “Where?”

“Eddie Keith,” Bobby said. “Twelve miles south.”

“We’re headed south along the coast. Over to Keith’s shack.”

“Good,” Hawk replied. “He’ll take care of you. I can have a team there in two hours.”

“Can you make it less?”

Hawk was silent for a moment before he came back on. “Chopper’s on its way.”

“Thanks.” John sat back and clutched his phone in unexpectedly shaky hands. “Looking forward to seeing the old bastard again.”

Emily made a sound of disbelief.

“You’re his secret.” John rested his head back as that little piece of the puzzle came through. “I came to him in that first year, looking for you. I should have known when I did find you. He led me on a bit of a wild goose chase.”

Emily’s smile was smug, but it turned worried as she glanced into the rearview mirror. “We need to get Callie back home.”

He nodded. “How you doing, Callie?”

She sat against the seat, looking much smaller than he remembered from their brief meeting, and he suddenly had an awful feeling that she was even younger than he thought. She bit at her thumbnail, looking from John to Emily, and then quickly and hesitantly at Bobby. “So, what are you guys, like spies or something?”

Emily tensed. “No. We’re the good guys, Callie. And I swear, we will get you home as soon as it’s safe.”

“Why were those people shooting at you?”

John wasn’t sure Emily was going to answer. And he racked his brain for a plausible answer that wasn’t going to give up her secrets or scare the crap out of the poor girl.

And his shoulder was starting to throb. He pulled his t-shirt down to see the ragged line across his skin. The bleeding had stopped, thank God.

“I made a mistake once.” Emily looked at Callie in the rearview mirror. “Someone got hurt.”

“So they want payback?”

Emily’s gaze found John’s, and she shrugged. “Maybe. The truth is, we don’t know who was shooting at us.”

“We’ll find out,” Bobby reassured her. The police would ID the dead body, and hopefully get some info from the guy on the fire escape. It was a start, and a decent one.

They drove in silence until Bobby pulled up to Eddie’s place. The sun was gone, below the horizon so that only the dark gray of twilight remained. Wind blew up the coast, making the lack of light and the moving trees seem like something from a creepy horror movie.

John got out and went to the trunk. “Get Callie inside, Emily. Bobby and I will do a perimeter check before I come in.”

“Come on, hon.” Emily’s voice was soft, filled with sympathy. She helped the younger woman out of the back seat, put an arm around her shoulders, and walked her up to the porch. She played a hard-ass, and in all likelihood, she probably was one, but there was a softer side to her.

John liked knowing it was in there.

Eddie opened the door before they reached the top step. He ushered them in and gave John a nod.

Eddie had a small grove surrounding his place, had let nature do its work, not worried about keeping it cleared for tourists. There was a jungle-like atmosphere, and the sound of the waves was muffled by the overgrowth of cedar and devilwood. Deadwood covered the sandy grounds, and grasses grew through them.

Bobby went one way and John walked toward the shore, finding a small saltwater pond on the south side of the property. Flowers grew around it, wild and unkempt. Finally, he hit sand, and followed that back up the shore until the cabin peeked through a stand of live oaks.

Eddie was alone on this strip of land. Quite unusual for this area south of Kitty Hawk.

Though he loved coming to the shore, John avoided the tourist traps. Habits of growing up with so many siblings. He liked being alone. This was his kind of place.

He circled the house and met up with Bobby on the landlocked side. All was quiet. Not even sounds of traffic from the road a hundred yards inland could be heard. Bobby raised his hand. “I got first watch.”

“Let me know if you hear from Marcus—” But John stopped. “Get a hold of him, actually. I want sit-rep in ten.”

“Yes, sir.”

Entering the house, he toed off his sandals inside the door and followed the sound of voices into the living room.

“Holy smokes! This is so cool.” Callie seemed to be recovering.

“We’re clear for now,” John announced to no one in particular.

“And if that changes, I have a boat on the dock just shy of one klick south.” Eddie handed a bottle of Gatorade to Callie. “Come on, kid. We can call your parents from the phone in here.”

John watched as the mismatched pair moved into the dimly lit living area. The shag rug and the orange and brown couch made him want to pull out a game of Scrabble or checkers. “Jeez,” he muttered. “I need a place like this.”

Emily had moved into the porch and was tapping away at a keyboard. He came up behind her, watching as she moved through two browsers and another encoder before getting into a messaging system for her email.

He rested his hands on her shoulders. She bore a heavy weight on them, and they were tense from the stress, but he was grateful when she leaned back. “You okay?”

She hummed in response, neither a yes or no. “These people…Callie, she never should have been a part of this.”

He encircled her with his arms, and winced when the pain in his right arm came to life with a scream. The adrenaline was fading. Pretty soon, exhaustion and pain would be all that was left.

He could understand why she’d given up on this line of work.

John lifted a hand, intending to run it through his hair, but the pain stopped him.

“You’re hurt.”

“It’s a scratch.”

“Oh, for the love of God. Why does everyone say that?” Emily said with a roll of her eyes as she turned him so she could look at his arm.

“It’s the manly thing to say. And really, it’s not that bad.”

* * *

John followed her into the kitchen but didn’t let her help. He turned the water on, stripped out of his t-shirt, and leaned over the sink.

She swallowed. She stared. She was ridiculously unable to look away from the broad shoulders, the rippling muscles in his back, and the tanned skin. When he turned a little to get his shoulder under the water, she got a glimpse of his washboard abs, and the ruffle of light-colored hair that covered his chest.

“Yo.”

Emily looked up, heat rising on her neck. “What?”

“Behind you, on the counter. The first-aid kit.”

“Oh, oh!” She went for the big plastic container with the red cross on the front and brought it over to him. She set it down and opened it, shoving his hands away. “I can get it.” She found gauze and tape and set it aside while she dug for the antibiotic ointment.

“This is where you pour moonshine over the wound.”

She laughed but was quickly silenced when he kissed her softly on the side of her mouth.

A short breath escaped, and she squeezed the antibiotic ointment over the “scratch” and then used her fingers to smooth it out. “Okay.” She sounded like she’d never touched a man before. But holy moly, he was soft skin over hard muscle. Emily cleared her throat. She picked up the gauze, covered the wound, and taped it. Rummaging through the kit again, she found the Motrin and handed over three pills.

He threw it back and swallowed it, no water.

“Well, geez. I don’t think you need to prove your manliness, John. It’s quite apparent.” She messed with the kit until she could close the top, then latched it.

Finally looking at him, eye to eye, and loving how they were so much closer to the same height than she’d ever been with another man, she found him grinning. Rolling her eyes, she stepped back. “You’re not going to get all bigheaded, are you?”

“Maybe. A little.” He moved his arm then rolled his shoulder, testing the bandage.

“Feel okay?”

He nodded. “It’s fine.”

Bobby came in then, compelling Emily to pick up the kit and move away from John. She wasn’t sure why, but she knew things had changed between them since they’d left for Idaho. What if he wasn’t ready to share that connection?

What if he was merely testing the waters?

She had to work with these guys too.

Until she quit, anyway, which was becoming more and more likely.

“What’s up, Bobby?” John asked as he put his shirt back on. Too bad.

“The police have scoured the building and have a search going on, but there’s no sign of Marcus or the shooter.”