Destiny’s Woman Read online

  USA Today bestselling author

  LINDSAY MCKENNA

  brings you another action-packed,

  emotion-filled story featuring the men and women of

  MORGAN’S MERCENARIES!

  “What’s happening?” Akiva asked unsteadily.

  “Nothing that isn’t good, gal,” Joe whispered rawly, holding her hand up in his larger one. “You deserve some goodness in your life, Akiva. I’m sorry for what happened to you. I wish…well, if I’d been there…”

  Warmth and happiness suffused her unexpectedly. Akiva pulled her hand free because she was suddenly frightened by how she was feeling. Wrestling with the happiness throbbing through her chest and warming her lower body, she folded her hands deep in her lap. The tender flame burning in Joe’s gray eyes nearly unstrung her. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, to dislike about this man. And that scared her badly.

  “Lindsay McKenna continues to leave her distinctive mark on the romance genre with…timeless tales about the healing powers of love.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  Coming soon from

  LINDSAY MCKENNA

  Morgan’s Mercenaries: Ultimate Rescue

  When an earthquake rocks Southern California to the core, it’s up to the men and women of Morgan’s team to save lives, conquer danger—and discover love!

  Look for four different stories in each of the Silhouette lines!

  Available in August:

  The Heart Beneath

  (Silhouette Special Edition #1486)

  Available in September:

  Ride the Thunder

  (Silhouette Desire #1459)

  Available in October:

  The Will To Love

  (Silhouette Romance #1618)

  The series reaches it breathtaking conclusion in November in Silhouette Intimate Moments!

  Don’t miss it!

  LINDSAY MCKENNA

  Destiny’s Woman

  To KaraHand’s Home in Lower Hutt, New Zealand,

  and the heart-centered women who care for those in need:

  Helen Henderson, RN, homeopath, Deborah Mustard, RN,

  Reiki healer, and Cathy Garton, RN, homeopath.

  I salute the “Coyote Sisters,” who work with the disabled,

  the mentally handicapped, the children who require

  twenty-four-hour-a-day attention. Thank you for being

  there to help so that the parents of these children can have

  a day off from their labors of love. You are truly pioneers

  in this area of help for such families. I honor your

  compassion toward those in need. Truly, the three of you

  are Jaguar Clan members in the finest tradition of healers

  for our world. Thank you for being who you are—

  great role models for the rest of us to follow.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  “Maya, you can’t ask me to go on a mission of this type with a male copilot in the back seat of my Apache helicopter,” Akiva said as she sat tensely in the chair before her commanding officer. Her words were low and tortured. Pleading. Without realizing it, Akiva curled her fingers into fists on her tense thighs. Anxiously, she searched her C.O.’s narrowed, emerald eyes for her reaction.

  Sighing, Maya sat back in her creaky chair, which had seen better days. Ordinarily, at the Black Jaguar Squadron headquarters, hidden deep in the Peruvian jungle about fifty miles from Machu Picchu, everyone got along with everyone else. Because of the importance of their mission, the U.S. Army had upgraded their facility from a base to squadron status. The change was good for morale, as well. Rarely was there an outburst of dissension such as the one Chief Warrant Officer Akiva Redtail was giving her right now. Propping her fingertips together, Maya leaned back and gave Akiva time to settle down.

  “Look,” Maya finally murmured in her husky voice, “the Perseus psychologist, Jenny Wright, came down here earlier this month and interviewed everyone who wanted to volunteer for these upcoming missions. Of all the applicants, she chose you to lead this clandestine jungle mission in Mexico. Jenny lobbied hard for you, Akiva, despite the fact that she’s more than a little aware of your prejudice against Anglo men.”

  Akiva’s nostrils flared and her eyes flashed with anger. “I’ve made no bones about my prejudice toward white men, Maya. I never have.”

  “Which is what got you in so much hot water when we were being trained to fly the Apache gunships at the army helicopter facility back in Fort Rucker.”

  “Yes,” she said through gritted teeth, “I’m guilty as charged.”

  As Maya studied Akiva, who was one of her best combat helicopter pilots, she withheld the bulk of her comments, knowing they would only hurt or inflame Akiva at this point. She knew Akiva well from years of working with the stalwart woman pilot. Akiva was half Chiricahua Apache and half Lakota Sioux, and a warrior of her people. The red headband Akiva wore indicated she had passed all the brutal physical and mental trials the Apache people had challenged her with in order to reach warrior status. Not only that, Akiva proudly wore what was known as the third braid of the warrior, as well. Her waist-length, lustrous black hair was down today, the small braid, which began at the center part, hung down among the thick locks streaming across her proud shoulder. Only an Apache who had fulfilled specific demanding tasks could wear such a braid.

  Because Maya wanted Akiva to embrace who she was, as she did every woman pilot at Black Jaguar Squadron, she allowed her to proudly wear the signs of her warrior status. After all, the prejudice against them as women combat pilots had been horrendous enough. Though the army was struggling mightily against old prejudices against women, Maya knew it was a wound that would be long in healing for most of the women pilots. Akiva certainly hadn’t taken to being treated like a second-class citizen at Fort Rucker, where she and Maya and many of the other female pilots on the squadron had trained.

  Leaning forward, Maya placed her elbows on her cluttered desk and slowly clasped her hands together. Akiva’s face was filled with anger, hurt and confusion. Not surprising, since she was the most aggressive gunship pilot at the base—she’d bagged a Russian Kamov to prove it. Akiva was Maya’s best pilot. Maybe it was her Apache blood, Maya thought, that gave her that natural aggression that was so needed in air combat. But being a pilot was one thing; being asked to command a small, hidden operation in Mexico was another matter entirely.

  Akiva was in her element here at the squadron. She’d thrived as a combat pilot and more than earned her keep. But now she was being asked to step into a command situation, and that was a whole other story. Not every officer had the capability, intelligence, sensitivity or desire to manage a base operation. If Akiva took the assignment, she’d be sorely challenged to develop new skills. Could she? Would she?

  Worst of all, Akiva’s prejudice against white men would be the test. Could Akiva lay her prejudice aside and treat everyone fairly, including her second-in-command, Joe Calhoun? Though Joe was half Comanche, Maya knew Akiva thought he was white. However, Maya decided not to bring this point up because Akiva had to learn to deal with not only white men, but men in general. Joe would be a real challenge to Akiva. Maya already knew that Joe realized Akiva would be a challenge to him. He already knew
Akiva didn’t like him, but he didn’t understand why. It wasn’t Maya’s job to fix this. It was up to Akiva and Joe to hammer out a truce for the higher goal of the mission.

  “Let’s look at this possible assignment another way,” Maya said, purposely keeping her voice low and soothing. Ordinarily, she left the door to her office wide-open; it was one of her policies here at Black Jaguar—an open door to the C.O. so that everyone knew they counted and could walk in and speak to Maya whenever they had a problem. That plan had worked well, but today, Maya had closed the door. She knew about the explosion to come, and did not want Akiva embarrassed by her knee-jerk reaction to what would be asked of her.

  Opening her hands, Maya continued, “I’m asking more of you, Akiva, than I’ve ever asked before. This assignment is not about a guy named Joe Calhoun who has been chosen as your copilot and executive officer at this new base ops. It’s really a question of whether or not you want to take on a commanding officer’s role or not. You must rise above your personal prejudice. That is what a good C.O. does. Everyone should be treated equally and with respect.”

  Nostrils flaring again, Akiva felt an internal trembling from her gut up to her throat. She was breathing chaotically because she was upset. Her fists tightened on the fabric of her black, body-hugging Nomex flight suit. “I would go to hell and back for you, Maya. Anything you’ve ever asked of me, I’ve tried to do to the best of my ability.” Her voice broke. “If you gave me a woman copilot and X.O., I’d say without hesitation that yes, I’d try my best to be a leader. But you’re throwing this white guy into the equation. Isn’t it enough that it’s going to be damn dangerous, with a lot of stress on the three-person ground crew and two pilots involved? Why throw in white bread?”

  Mouth quirking, Maya said, “We don’t always get everything we want in life, Akiva. You know that better than most.”

  “No kidding.” Her voice grated as she exclaimed, “I want this assignment, Maya. I know I can do it. I just don’t what an anglo along for the ride and in my rear seat.”

  “Joe Calhoun is our best night operations pilot. He taught night ops back at Fort Rucker for the last two years. He’s here now, teaching all our pilots on the Apache Longbow upgrade. You even took training from him. You know how good he is at what he does. This little experiment in a bottle that the Pentagon wants us to undertake in Mexico in order to disrupt drug shipments across the Gulf to U.S. soil, is very important. The government is modeling this mission based on the success we’ve had down here in Peru, stopping cocaine shipments to Bolivia with our Apache gunships. Mexico is home to one of the big drug cartels. The Feds want to set up this base in the jungle—a place near what was once used by drug dealers as a touch-and-go ops to land and take on a lot of drugs. It’s the perfect locale for us to hide.

  “I want this black ops experiment to be successful, Akiva. I need you to rise above your own prejudice toward white men and look at the larger picture. Through our work here, we’ve halted fifty percent of the drugs flowing to Bolivia for shipment across the world. That’s fifty percent less on the world market. The Pentagon is finally interested in the plan that I initiated here years ago. At long last they’re willing to invest time, money and coordinated effort to see if they can apply what we’ve learned here elsewhere.”

  Maya got up and jabbed her finger at her colleague. “And you’re the best pilot for this, Akiva. I need your aggression, your nose for combat, your fearlessness because we don’t know what you’re up against once we get that Apache helo, that three-woman ground crew and your copilot set up in the jungle. I don’t want to see our years of hard work screwed up because you can’t get a handle on your prejudice.”

  Lips flattening, Akiva looked up at her C.O., who stood six feet tall in her black flight uniform. Maya’s ebony hair shone with reddish highlights beneath the fluorescent lights. Maya wore no insignias on her uniform—standard operating procedure for a black ops covert operation, so as not to reveal any hint of who they were or where they came from. Still, Maya was a powerful woman, and Akiva’s respect for her transcended her own anger and frustration.

  “Listen,” Akiva growled, “I don’t want to screw up your plans. I agree with them. I want to see what we’ve carved out here in the jungle put to use elsewhere, too. My gun sights are on the druggies. It does my heart good to turn them back or down ’em. Please…I don’t mean to be a pain in the butt about this. I know I am.”

  “Yes,” Maya said mildly, “you are definitely being a pain in the butt, Akiva.” She came around her desk and sat on the edge of it, facing the pilot. Placing her hands beside her, Maya let the tension in the room build along with the silence. Akiva’s jaw was set, her full mouth a slash as she struggled to suppress her emotions. One of the many things Maya appreciated about Akiva was that she was always a straight shooter and honest about her thoughts and feelings. That was okay as a pilot. But as a commanding officer, Akiva couldn’t afford to use bald, undiplomatic words with the people on her team; it would cause immediate problems for everyone.

  “You know, there’s a big difference between being a gunship pilot and being an officer in command of a base.”

  “I know that.” Her mouth puckered, her arched brows knitted, Akiva flashed her a frown as Maya regarded her thoughtfully. “And I feel I can do it.”

  Maya had her doubts. Pilots were a fraternity; and although they faced many stresses, not to mention outright danger, Maya knew from her own experience that it was easy to be a pilot than a manager of people.

  “You know, when I hatched the plan for the Black Jaguar Base ops at Fort Rucker, I was mad as hell at the army establishment, at the prejudicial way they were treating our company of women training for Apache gunship flight.”

  “You took your anger and did something proactive with it,” Akiva agreed in a low voice. She tried to relax. Sitting back, she folded her arms against her chest and crossed her legs. “And every one of us women were with you all the way on your concept for this base.”

  “Yes, that made it easy for me to get on with my plans.” Maya saw the defensiveness in Akiva’s body. The intent expression on her oval face and the predatory look in her flashing, gold-brown eyes told Maya that Akiva wasn’t really listening to her; she was still wrestling with the fact that Chief Warrant Officer Joe Calhoun was to be her second-in-command.

  “If you think that putting this ops into place was easy, Akiva, you’d be wrong. It wasn’t. I had never thought of myself as a C.O. All I wanted was to be allowed to fly combat and do what I loved most. I never entertained the idea of being here in this capacity, believe me.”

  Akiva looked up at Maya, her eyes flat with confusion. “Who else did you think would do it? You created this place, this idea, out of nothing. Sure, we all helped, but you were the guide. You’re the one who had the vision.”

  “Vision…hmm…Yes, that’s the right word to use here, Akiva.” Maya smiled slightly. “Among your people, the Apache, do you have vision quests? A ceremony where you don’t eat or drink for three to four days, and you pray to your spirits for guidance and help to reveal the future?”

  “Yes, we do.”

  “And you’ve gone on such vision quests?”

  “Growing up on the res, I did. Why?” Akiva was becoming uncomfortable. She saw that glint in Maya’s emerald eyes and sensed she was up to something. That got Akiva’s attention, for her superior was a woman of immense mystical powers. Oh, everyone in the BJS—Black Jaguar Squadron—talked about Maya’s secretive background. It was whispered that she was one of the elite Black Jaguar Clan, a group of mysterious and powerful spiritual warriors who kept a very low profile, yet were out there on the leading edge, fighting the darkness. Akiva believed those stories about Maya, because among her own people, the jaguar was a living spirit. At one time, in the Southwestern U.S., jaguars had roamed freely—until miners had killed them all off and made coats out of their beautiful black-and-gold skins. Often Akiva had wanted to ask Maya about her background, for the
rumors about her and her healer sister, Inca, were well known at the base.

  “When was the last time you were on a quest?”

  Shrugging, Akiva muttered, “Five years ago, I suppose. Why?”

  “Aren’t vision quests about deprivation? You don’t drink water. You don’t eat. You starve your physical body in order to make it a receptacle so that spirit can come to you and give you a dream…a vision that will help you grow and become an even better warrior than you are now, right?”

  “Yes…” Akiva eyed Maya with growing distrust. She felt her C.O. heading toward some unknown goal with this unexpected maneuver in their conversation. She knew Maya’s mystical training had taken place among her people in Brazil, where she was born. Oh, Maya never talked about it, mysticism was not a common topic of conversation on the Black Jaguar Base. Daily combat missions and the interdiction of drug shipments was what their lives revolved around. So it was a big surprise that threw Akiva off balance when Maya started talking to her in an intimate, knowing tone about her own background and belief system. Native Americans had vision quests; it was one of the sacred rites they chose to undertake, sometimes on a yearly basis.

  It was a time of cleansing, a time to pray for healing of any bleeding wounds within them. And it was a brutal physical test, draining participants on the physical dimension in order to leave them open for spirit to speak to them—if they were fortunate enough to have that happen. An individual could go on a vision quest for four days and receive no vision, nothing. That was about the worst thing Akiva could imagine happening.

  “Where are you going with this little analogy?” she demanded huskily, watching her superior like a hawk. Akiva could feel the energy shift, change and become very solid around Maya. Akiva was not clairvoyant, but she had a kind of all-terrain radar that she called “blind faith knowing.” It had saved her butt many times out on gunship missions when deadly Black Shark Kamov helicopters, flown by Russian mercenary pilots paid by drug lords, had hunted her. She could sense the Kamovs before she ever saw them. Apache helicopters couldn’t pick up the radar signature on the Kamov, so all the pilots in the Black Jaguar Squadron had to more or less rely on their well-honed intuition to be able to feel the enemy out before the drug runners shot them out of the sky.