Captain Marley Mitchell clutched the satellite phone tighter, as if by pressing it harder against her ear she could somehow close the distance between her daughter, Maddie, and herself. “I love you, sweet pea, be good for Nana and Grandpa while I’m gone.”

Maddie’s sweet, soft voice filtered through the phone. “Are you going to fight the bad guys again, Mommy?”

As a captain in the Air Force with ten years of service under her belt, Marley had done her fair share of missions. She’d flown in and out of hot zones delivering supplies to troops in need and sometimes transporting the wounded when the Army’s helicopters weren’t enough. She’d seen death and hope, and every day she left her daughter at home, she did it out of love for her country.

“No fighting this time, sweetheart, just transporting some men so they can fight the bad guys. I’ll be home before you know it.”

Maddie giggled and the sound was music. “Don’t hurry too fast, Grandpa promised to make me chocolate milkshakes every night for my bedtime snack.”

Marley chuckled in response, not the least bit surprised. Her father, the now-retired Colonel Mitchell, had once given new meaning to the word taskmaster. He’d set a routine for Marley as far back as she could remember—out of bed at five, bed made, room clean, breakfast, and the list went on. Not one single person in the Mitchell household had dared step out of line, but along with all that military precision her father had always maintained his compassion and loving kindness. Marley’s parents had supported her through every single challenge in her life, including when her husband had died in combat and left her alone with a two-year-old child.

A child who had turned the stodgy colonel into an overgrown teddy bear. “Tell your grandpa he’s in trouble with your Mom when she gets home.”

Maddie giggled and then clicked something on the phone. Her father’s voice came through from the background. “This child doesn’t get enough spoiling.”

“Dad, spoiling is one thing, pumping her full of sugar right before bedtime is an entirely different matter.”

“You’re starving my grandbaby aren’t you? She’s all but skin and bones,” the colonel teased, and Marley’s lips curled in response. If there was one thing her child was not, it was a picky eater. She consumed food like a vacuum, refueling the endless energy that kept her bouncing forward.

“Okay, it’s your funeral. When she’s up at midnight wanting to play hide-and-seek, don’t come grumbling to me.”

“Maddie, you’d never do that to your dear old grandpa, now would you?”

Maddie giggled again. “Can we play monster hide-and-seek in the dark, Grandpa?”

Marley knew what her father’s answer would be before he’d even opened his mouth. Of course he would play monster hide-and-seek with his one and only granddaughter. Maddie had wrapped an invisible chain around his neck, and every time she tugged, Grandpa followed.

“If you want to, cuddlebug.”

Maddie squealed and Marley yanked the phone away from her ear, but it was too late for her eardrum, which was now ringing loud enough to drown out the constant chirp of insects from the jungle surrounding her.

She stood at the nose of her C-130, ignoring the insane heat beating down from the sun overhead in the small carved-out airport they were about to take off from. The special forces team had already loaded, and her copilot was in the cockpit doing the first round of checks by himself. Marley let out a long sigh and held the phone back up to her ear. “All right, sweet pea, Mom has to go for now. I’ll call you as soon as I get back from my flight, okay?”

“I love you, Mommy.”

Marley’s heart clenched like it always did when she was talking to her daughter from anywhere but home. More and more, she longed to be home with Maddie. Each mission seemed to take a little bit longer than the last. She had another year left before her contract was up for reenlistment, and although Marley hadn’t talked to anyone else about it yet, she’d already decided she was getting out of the military and going back to civilian life.

But as long as she was still in the Air Force flying soldiers, they deserved her full attention. She’d never given less than 100 percent to a single thing and she didn’t intend to start now in the homeward stretch of her military career.

There was some shuffling on the other end of the line, and then her father’s voice came on, louder this time, signaling he’d taken her off speakerphone. “What’s the mission?”

“Transport only, Dad. You don’t have anything to worry about.”

He scoffed, “As if I wouldn’t worry about my daughter.”

“Just like your daughter used to worry about you when you went on missions.” Even though her father had been gone a lot, and Marley had worried endlessly in his absence, the colonel had always come back home safe and sound and usually with some type of souvenir.

“Fair enough. Have any idea when you’ll be stateside?”

“Ten days. I have a two-day turnaround here, a few more small flights when I get back to base, and then we’ll fly out to the States.”

“All right.” Her father’s voice changed from soft and loving to pinpoint precise. “Do your double-check. Make sure you go back over the weather and the best alternate routes in your flight path. Don’t know where you are, but anything unaccounted for . . . “

“Is another opportunity for risk,” Marley finished for him.

“That’s my girl. See you in ten days.”

“I love you, Dad. Say hi to Mom when she gets home from her meeting.”

The lieutenant colonel cleared his throat, and there was a gravelly edge to his voice when he said, “Will do. I love you, too.”

Marley disconnected the call and shoved her phone in the Velcro side pocket on her leg. Her copilot had given her the new military issued sat phone a few hours ago after her old cell had been accidentally crushed under a heavy crate of supplies.

She rolled her shoulders back, and tilted her head from side to side, shrugging off the role of mommy and easing back into the familiar comfort of pilot.

Her parents would keep Maddie safe and sound and absolutely happy while she was gone, leaving Marley with nothing to worry about other than the task at hand, which was transporting a team of special operatives on a HALO jump. One of the scariest missions as far as Marley was concerned. Give her a C-130 any day of the week, she’d take that puppy up in the air and even land her in a combat zone, but jumping out of one with nothing more than a piece of material strapped on her back . . . ? That required a special kind of crazy.

She walked carefully around her airplane, methodically checking for any signs of disrepair. The loadmaster gave her a quick thumbs-up as she circled around the back of the plane and she waved in response, continuing on her journey until she reached the wide metal staircase leading up into the plane.

Marley put a hand on the railing—and then instantly yanked her burning palm back. Rookie mistake. She knew better than to touch metal barehanded in this kind of heat. If she didn’t get her head in the game, her life wouldn’t be the only one she was endangering.

Careful to avoid the scorching handle, she quickly jogged up the steps, closing her eyes in the welcome coolness inside the airplane. At least it offered cover from the sun’s brutal rays.

“Almost done with the preflight check,” her copilot, Thomas Ramsey, called out with a sarcastic tone to his voice that she could easily interpret: Hey, you’re slacking off and leaving me to do all the work.

“Be there in a minute.” She wouldn’t offer Ramsey any excuses; she’d done his check more than once. Besides, getting those last few minutes of quiet time to talk to her daughter before takeoff was well worth any ire she might incur from her copilot.

She’d do a quick brief with the operators, and check with the loadmaster once more before they dismissed. The light, high-speed mission called for only a skeleton crew. Normally they’d have two loadmasters and a navigator along with the pilot and copilot, but due to the highly classified intelligence on this mission, it was just going to be Marley and Ramsey handling the plane.

She descended the three steps down into the cargo hold and pulled up short a few feet behind a tall broad-shouldered man with dark salt-and-pepper hair. His black tactical shirt could do nothing to disguise the way his waist tapered into a narrow V, and when he shifted, power practically emanated from the rippling muscles outlined across his back.

Marley’s mouth went dry.

She hadn’t noticed a man’s shoulders since her husband, and he’d been dead nearly seven years.

The buzz of conversation around the room faded as the men became acutely aware of her presence. Suddenly, briefing this team didn’t seem like such a good idea. Intimidation was practically sparking off their shoulders and zipping around the cockpit.

And just like in junior high after her first outbreak of pimples and period, Marley was abruptly cast into the role of the outsider. Like everyone was staring at every single flaw on her entire body. The nine pairs of nearly expressionless eyes that whipped her way seemed to confirm her impression that every minute detail of her person was being scrutinized by every person in the room.

Every person other than the man with the sexy back and shoulders. He still faced away from her, and for some reason the thought of him turning around made her heart lurch in her chest like someone had hooked a giant chain into her and yanked.

As if he had some type of telepathic connection with her mind, the man glanced over his shoulder with all the attention he would pay an annoying horsefly buzzing around his ear. He dismissed her presence just as quickly.

But not before she caught a glimpse of a five o’clock shadow the same peppery shade as his hair, and a strong straight nose that matched thick dark brows.

One of the taller men to her left—and tall in this group was an understatement; they all qualified as near giants—cleared his throat and tilted his head in her direction. “Colonel, I think the lady wants to talk to you.”

Three things happened in that instant.

Anger swept straight up her torso and flushed her cheeks hot. The term ‘the lady’ all but discounted her.

Then it registered that the soldier had called the handsome man ‘colonel,’ which set her off for a different reason—her father was a lieutenant colonel.

Her third and final thought sent a new wave of heat through her, flushing her cheeks for a totally different reason that left her standing there mute like a freaking idiot. She’d felt more attraction to this man’s shoulders and back than she had to any man’s front in the better part of a decade.

Her senses heightened. Her skin prickled like she’d suddenly gotten a rash. As if on cue, the colonel slowly turned and stared directly into her eyes, his gray gaze momentarily leaving her mind as blank as the pocked stretch of concrete outside the plane.

The front was even better than the back.

“May I help you, ma’am?” His slow southern drawl caught her off guard—from the man’s hawk-like features, she’d expected a harsh and commanding monotone rather than the easy slide of words from his lips.

His hair was just a touch longer than a close-cropped military buzz cut, and her fingers itched to touch it and see if it was as silky as it looked. He took a deep breath and the movement shoved his pecs against his already tight black shirt, making her heart flutter like she was a freaking teenager. All she needed now were her old braces and bowl cut bangs, and she’d be straight back in the ’90s stuttering when the high-school basketball star looked at her for the first time.

“Ma’am?”

Someone from the right, she barely caught the movement of a blond beard in her periphery, said, “Colonel, maybe if you stopped with the interrogation stare?”

He blinked one time—as if blinking was an act of conscious control as opposed to subconscious physiology. She got the sudden impression that everything this man did had a purpose. Somehow his gaze still pinned her in place while her mind scrambled to form a logical response. She’d settle for any response right now, logical or not.

And then that steely gray gaze flicked down her body and back up. There was the briefest flash of fire and then nothing.

What was that?

That tiny movement clued her in to the fact that this colonel, whatever his name was, was actually a human being like her. In the last thirty seconds, he’d stripped her of her ability to think and react—two absolute essentials for a pilot.

Her heart fluttered again, in anger as opposed to lust, and she squared her shoulders and clasped her hands behind her back. Falling back on her training, the best safety net in moments of weakness, she said, “Sir, flight check is complete. We are ready for takeoff.”

Please let her voice sound stronger to them than it did to her. The operators would naturally hone in on weakness for the kill.

Plane meet lightning.

But for whatever reason, maybe it was mercy, the colonel chose not to acknowledge her thready tone and instead spoke to her like an equal. “Captain, I’ve heard only the best from your superiors and your equals. I’m glad to have you as my pilot on this mission. I’ll have my men ready for takeoff within the next minute.”

Great, he spoke in that clipped voice her father always used—the kind favored by men who were used to being in absolute control of everything around them.

Good thing Marley had dealt with that kind of command since birth. Her face smoothed into the expressionless mask she’d perfected long ago, her lips even quirking up at the corners as an added bonus. “Thank you, Sir. Due to the hostile guerrilla activity in the region, I’ll be doing a rapid ascent to 8,000 feet. Once we’re out of range for any surface-to-air missiles or rocket-propelled grenade launchers, I will level off. I will alert you when we are thirty minutes out from your scheduled jump.”

Marley paused for air, and then asked, “Do you have any questions or concerns I should be aware of?”

“Thank you, Captain. We are mission ready. As soon as you give us a go, we’ll be out of your plane.”

“Yes, Sir.” Marley spun, fighting the urge to turn and run and hide in the cockpit. Instead, she placed one foot deliberately in front of the other and ascended into the cockpit. Still, she was barely aware of her surroundings as she slid into her seat.

She’d been around plenty of elite operatives before, Marine special operations, Navy SEALs, CIA covert spies, but she’d never been crushed under the intense wave of absolute dominance emanating off every man in her cargo hold. Let alone their colonel—he’d had no name tag or identification on his black shirt and black tactical pants. To the innocent bystander he would look exactly like the rest of his team, but any person who slowed down enough to notice his air of authority would realize he was unmistakably the leader of that daunting group of warriors.

She was woman enough to acknowledge why her hand was trembling as she reached up and brushed a stray strand of brown hair back from her face.

“Everything okay over there, Mitchell?” Her copilot’s level tone brought her back into the cockpit and she glanced at him, afraid he’d picked up on her attraction for the colonel.

But he simply stared at her as if it were any other day and he were waiting on her to do her check . . . her check . . . dammit. Marley yanked the manual from the side pocket on her right and quickly flew through her round of crossed checks. Two minutes later, a full minute past the time she’d promised the colonel, Marley gave the signal for a go.

Her copilot didn’t need to radio the tower for takeoff, not for this kind of mission. This was the only airport within two hundred miles, and breaking radio silence would be a disaster. Any idiot with the talent and communications could hack into their frequency, paint a red target on her plane, and blast it into one million pieces—even if they didn’t know who they were shooting down.

As far as everyone in the area knew, this airport was used by drug cartels and terrorists—an impression it benefited the intelligence community to encourage. The only way people would discover its true purpose was to spy on it 24/7. She and the copilot wore flight suits, sure, but that was the only real tell. The men in the back were dressed as unobtrusively and deadly as possible.

“Firing engines one and two.” As if on autopilot herself, Marley reached forward and flicked the switch. The other propellers kicked into gear, followed by a loud whine as they hit full speed and powered to life.

The blasting sound gave her the same adrenaline rush it always did.

Palms sweaty—check.

Chest tight—check.

“Accelerating,” she said, embracing the rush like the pure sweet heroin that it was. Marley pushed the yoke forward, increasing speed rapidly.

Her copilot said, “Thirty miles per hour. Forty. Sixty.” The cracks beneath the plane whirred into a solid gray slab. They were approaching the dark green jungle like a bullet. Marley’s grip tightened on the yoke.

Her copilot kept going. “Eighty, Ninety.” He flicked up a cap on the right side of the dashboard. “Lowering flaps.” With another flick of his finger, he enacted the hydraulic system to push the flaps out and down on the wings. The plane lifted, settled back onto the running concrete, and lifted again. Marley yanked back on the yoke. The treetops couldn’t be more than twenty feet away. She pulled harder. The nose of the plane shifted upward. Blue skies filled her windshield, clear sailing as she ascended straight up into the lower level of clouds covering the atmosphere.

“Landing gear up. We’re at 8,000 feet. Enacting the automatic pressure control now.”

Her copilot pressed the button to automate the pressure inside the entire plane to ensure no one passed out from lack of oxygen as they continued to climb.

“Cruising altitude reached. Engaging autopilot,” Marley said.

“Roger,” her copilot confirmed.

She eased the yoke forward so they were flying in a smooth, level plane. Once the autopilot was engaged, she let go of the yoke and relaxed. There wasn’t anything marring the expansive sky stretched out in front of her; it was all smooth skies and white, puffy clouds. Marley felt at home here. This is where her soul settled—in the clouds with the dreamers and the birds and the stars.

They cruised in silence for the next hour or so. In the silence of the cockpit, Marley found herself mulling over what the operatives were doing in the back. The men would be completely geared up by now, their oxygen masks and parachutes strapped firmly on, checked over at least twice—their colonel would demand it—sitting in their jump seats waiting patiently for go time.

Jumping out of an airplane at this height, even though she piloted one, was nearly impossible for her to imagine without a shiver of apprehension. But she had no trouble imagining their commander willingly putting his life at risk in service of his country. He wouldn’t hesitate or falter—none of them would. Men like that made their country safe and made Marley proud to be a part of the U.S. military.

“Who’s watching your little girl this time?” her copilot asked, his fingers scanned methodically over the gauges on the control panel.

“Dad’s got her. He’s already promised her a milkshake every night before bedtime.”

Ramsey fiddled with the pressure gauge and then muttered, “You see this thing tick over a few minutes ago?”

“No, haven’t seen anything.” Marley zeroed in on the dial. A malfunction with the cabin pressure could lead to a lack of oxygen and hypoxia, and if she and her copilot passed out in the cockpit of the C-130, there could be only one result—crash and burn.

No, thank you.

She had no intention of anyone on her plane dying. Nor did she intend to orphan her daughter at such a young age. “I’ll check the manual. Some type of line could be loose.”

Her copilot leaned away from her. She heard the sound of a zipper opening, followed by the sound of Ramsey wrestling with something. Then he put a black oxygen mask on the small ledge beside his left knee. “Just in case.”

Her insides quieted, but the black mask was an option she hoped she’d never have to use. She checked the gauge one more time and pulled out her manual, skimming the table of contents and then flipping over to the page detailing the automated air pressure system. She flipped page after page, speeding through until she found the section she needed. “Says here that it’s a random glitch and typically not cause for alarm, but we should check the pressure in the line controlling the readings. There could be a crack or loose connection.”

They hit a pocket of turbulence. The plane shook and then righted. Marley ignored the omen and focused on the small black print, ignoring also the fact that her heart had kicked up speed in her chest.

“Anything else in there, Mitchell?” Ramsey gripped the yoke on his side but did not disengage the autopilot.

Attempting to blow off some steam and cover up her anxiety, Marley let out a shaky laugh. “You really that worried? C-130s are one of the most reliable, steadfast airplanes ever put on the market. I’m sure that little tick was nothing.”

Ramsey shifted in his seat, the movement betraying his nerves. He kept his eyes on the pressure dial, and Marley continued to read from the manual. “Looks like two possible causes—either the automatic pressure control is about to go out or there’s a loose line connecting the pressure reader gauge to the control panel. The latter ninety percent more likely than the first.”

Marley continued skimming, looking for the instructions on how to disassemble the lower panel to get in and check the wiring.

“Did I tell you my fiancée made me go to human resources the other day and increase my life insurance? I joked with her, accusing her of planning my assassination, but maybe she had a crystal ball or something,” Ramsey said.

Marley flipped the page faster. Okay, there was definitely some anxiety and fear pumping through her veins, but Ramsey was taking their situation to soap-opera-level drama. “I think you’re being dramatic, don’t you?”

“We should take this kind of stuff more seriously. Do you have enough coverage to support Maddie if something happens to you?”

Marley flipped another page, frustration mounting. “Of course I do. It’s called being a responsible parent.”

She’d added the extra coverage right after Maddie was born. So had her husband. He’d taken care of them even after his death. The money from his life insurance had enabled Marley to send Maddie to one of the top private schools in the entire town. And she’d been able to move closer to her parents so that she’d have a solid backup whenever she needed it.

She skimmed down the lines with her finger until she found the instructions on which panel to remove to check for a loose connection.

Ramsey fiddled with the panel again, but Marley ignored it as she concentrated on the manual, committing the steps to memory. She’d do the check and get back to the mission focus of delivering the troops safely for their HALO jump.

“Sorry about this, Mitchell. I had no choice.”

Marley continued to read, ignoring Ramsey’s cryptic words. Locate the green wire. Manipulate until solidly seated against washer attached to back pressure gauge.

The shriek of a warning alarm blasted through the cabin. Marley jerked her head up and stared in shock at her copilot. He had on his oxygen mask and was staring at her with regret. The flashing red light on the dashboard drew her attention, she heard the loud whoosh of air, and the pressure reading went to zero.

Her lungs locked.

He’d turned off the automatic pressure control.

The loud hiss of leaking air filled the cabin.

“You bastard.” She reached for his mask, and then the world went black.