No Surrender Read online

  No Surrender

  USA TODAY Bestselling Author

  Lindsay McKenna

  Fresh from grueling years of pilot training, Alyssa Trayhern couldn’t believe the navy was about to crash-land her career. But why else assign her as copilot to cocky jet jockey Clay Cantrell? Aly vowed to defy Clay’s cruel hatred of her Trayhern name. Then rare glimpses into his vulnerable soul shook her rigid defenses…and left her longing to surrender to the heady onslaught of bittersweet desire

  Also available from Lindsay McKenna and HQN Books

  The Last Cowboy

  Deadly Silence

  Deadly Identity

  Guardian

  The Adversary

  Reunion

  Shadows from the Past

  Dangerous Prey

  Time Raiders: The Seeker

  The Quest

  Heart of the Storm

  Dark Truth

  Beyond the Limit

  Unforgiven

  Silent Witness

  Enemy Mine

  Firstborn

  Morgan’s Honor

  Morgan’s Legacy

  An Honorable Woman

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  January 1976

  “What now?” Clay Cantrell growled under his breath. He swung through the huge open bay doors of an old blimp hangar. Exhaustion from an arduous twelve hours as pilot on the United States Navy P3 Lockheed Orion was making his mind fuzzy. Clay didn’t want to look too closely at his emotions. This past mission had been a bitch. They’d busted an oil line in one of the four turboprop engines.

  Staying to the left of the yellow safety line, he glanced toward the center of the busy complex. Several P3s were in for maintenance checks, mechanics crawling all over them. Clay took off his garrison cap and ran his long fingers through his military-short black hair. Those who knew him well could recognize that particular gesture as a sign of frustration. Just what the hell did Commander Joe Horner want? Clay knew he’d been walking a dangerous line for the past year, ever since—

  He brutally rejected the memory. Rejected the rush of violent emotions that came with it. He swallowed against a forming lump, his gray eyes growing cold and distant. Screw the past. You’ve got to forget it. What counts is now, Cantrell.

  With a muttered oath, Clay opened the door that would take him into the outer office of VP 46’s commanding officer. Chief Yeoman Jo Ann Prater looked up. She was a woman in her late forties with red hair tucked neatly into a bun at the base of her neck. Women with red hair always intrigued Clay. It was as if the gold and copper highlights woven into the auburn strands promised complexity of character. And he liked complex women. Women—not situations. But right now, judging from the suddenly concerned look in Prater’s hazel eyes, he was about to step into one.

  “Good afternoon, Lieutenant Cantrell,” she greeted him briskly, rising. “Have a seat.” She pointed toward the leather couch to the left of her desk. “I’ll let Commander Horner know that you’ve arrived.”

  “Thank you,” Clay said, taking off his garrison cap and tucking it into a pocket of his dark green flight suit. He sat as gingerly as if he were sitting on a carton of eggs. He noticed that his hands were sweaty as he clasped them. Often, they shook—but so did any carrier pilot’s hands. Clay reminded himself that he was no longer an F-14 fighter pilot. He’d been relegated to the slow, matronly P3s. It was a safe transfer—safe and out of the way. His old squadron commander aboard the Enterprise had said it was best under the circumstances.

  Running a hand wearily over his face, Clay tried to ignore a burgeoning headache. What was up? His mind raced with possibilities—all of them making him uneasy. For the past year, he’d been unable to think in positives, only negatives. Funny how one plane crash could change his entire outlook on life. Well, that was the past. What did Horner want? Clay had made a lousy landing three days ago after a rough twelve-hour mission out over the Pacific Ocean, and the bird would have to have extensive maintenance on the port landing gear assembly, as a result. Could that be it? Or was it something worse?

  Their antisubmarine warfare squadron base, at the tip of San Francisco Bay, was shorthanded. All pilots were working more missions than was advisable. The squadron commanding officer was trying to remedy the situation by bringing new pilots on board, but it had been a slow process. Navy pilots, the cream of the crop of aviators, didn’t just grow on trees. They had to wait for the next group of pilots to graduate from Pensacola, the U.S. Navy flight school. Too many missions and not enough time off was everyone’s problem right now.

  Since coming to U.S. Naval Air Station Moffett Field, Clay had felt abandoned. Not even San Francisco’s magic spell could lift his depression. Maybe that was it. Clay admitted he wasn’t the pleasantest person to be around right now. Could it be that his crew was complaining about his constant snarling and the sharp, angry orders?

  Running his hand through his hair, Clay realized that he’d lost the prankster side of himself at the time of the crash. He never smiled or joked anymore. He didn’t see much to laugh about. Yeah, the CO was probably going to chew him out about his attitude problem. Damn.

  “Lieutenant Cantrell? The CO will see you now.”

  Clay rose, forcing a smile in Prater’s direction. “Thanks.” Here it comes. Clay knew no way to brace himself emotionally, because he had nothing left with which to defend his vulnerable feelings. Prater’s eyes gave her away. She looked almost sad for him as he walked by her desk.

  Joe Horner was standing when Clay entered the inner office. Snapping to attention, Clay announced himself. Horner, a man in his early forties with graying hair, nodded.

  “At ease, Lieutenant.” He pointed brusquely to a leather chair in front of his huge maple desk. “Have a seat.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Horner sat down, his blue eyes never leaving Clay’s tense features. “I’ve got some good news and bad news, Clay.”

  Great. Clay nodded. “Sir?”

  “As you know, we’ve been flying shorthanded around here for the past quarter. Transfers and a computer screwup in D.C. have left us holding the bag.”

  Relaxing slightly, Clay tried to ferret out Horner’s strategy. What was this preamble leading up to? “Yes, sir, it’s been tough on everyone,” he said cautiously.

  Horner’s narrow face thawed slightly. “Well, D.C. is finally starting to remedy the situation. They’ve given us two of the top graduates from Pensacola.”

  “That’s good news, sir.” Even a rookie pilot out of Pensacola was better than nothing. They could be taught cockpit procedure here. Clay brightened. Maybe he was getting a new copilot!

  “Very good news.” Horner sat down and tendered two files sitting in front of him on the desk, holding his gaze on Clay’s suddenly hopeful expression. “I’m assigning one of the pilots to you.”

  “Great!”

  “Perhaps,” Horner hedged. His thin mouth tightened. “Second Lieutenant Alyssa Trayhern is being assigned to you, Clay. And yes, she’s the sister of Morgan Trayhern, the traitor who cost an entire Marine company their lives.” Horner sat up, folding his hands and leaning forward. “I know your brother Stephen was the assistant company commander for the company that was wiped out, and that he was killed along with everyone else.” Joe pushed the orders toward Clay, continuing to watch him closely.

  Clay sat, stunned. First rage, then numbness hit him. He s
tared at Horner, his mouth falling open. Snapping it shut, he rose. “No,” he rasped hoarsely. “No!”

  “I’m afraid so, Clay.” Horner gestured toward the orders. “Read them yourself: direct from D.C. You’re to train her.”

  Reeling with shock, Clay stood, breathing in sharp gasps. His chest hurt, his heart ached. Tears wedged unexpectedly into his eyes, but the instant it happened, he jerked himself back to the present. Fighting for control, he uttered harshly, “I won’t take her! Sir. There’s no way in hell I’m working with the sister of the traitor who murdered my brother. Not now. Not ever!” He spun, dazed, to leave the office.

  “Lieutenant!” Horner’s voice rolled through the office like a shot being fired.

  Clay froze, his hand inches from the brass doorknob. Grab it! his subconscious shouted. Grab it, twist it and jerk it open. Get out! Escape! This was a nightmare. He had to be dreaming. Clay’s hand shook perceptibly, his fingers still reaching out.

  “Get a hold on yourself,” Horner ordered coldly, “and get back here.”

  Hatred poured through Clay as he slowly pulled his hand back. He gulped for air without success, and he could no longer jam his shredded emotions deep inside where he’d always kept them prisoner. Bitterness coated his mouth as he stood stiffly, his back still to his CO.

  “Look, I had nothing to do with this pairing, Clay. These are orders from Washington.” Horner’s voice grew soothing. “Come on, have a seat. There’s nothing either of us can do about the situation. It’s just one of those things. I’m sorry.”

  Sorry? Clay turned slowly, his eyes narrowing with anguish and burning rage. What little pride he had left intact after the crash, he used to salvage himself in front of his commander. With a monumental effort, he straightened, throwing his shoulders back as if ridding himself of some invisible load.

  “Have a seat,” Horner invited one more time. “I know this comes as a shock, Clay. I know how you feel about your brother dying in such a useless tragedy.”

  “No, sir, you don’t.” The words were ground out—a dog crushing a bone between his massive jaws. That was how Clay felt about this new assignment. He wanted to savage Trayhern. He wanted to hurt this brat of a woman who thought she could be a Navy pilot.

  Horner’s face grew closed. Insistent. “Sit, Lieutenant. Histrionics isn’t going to change one damn thing about this assignment for you or me.”

  The CO’s cold analysis was like ice hitting Clay. He sat, his knees suddenly shaky. He gripped the arm of the chair, his knuckles whitening. “This can’t be real, sir. Someone’s got it in for me back at the Pentagon.” Were they trying to drum him out of the service? Get him to retire after his first six years? Clay had wanted to make the Navy his career. He had only a year to go before fulfilling the mandatory six-year enlistment, but he intended to reenlist—providing he was recommended for it. Ever since the crash, though, Clay had wondered if they might politely railroad him out of the service. There were many ways to accomplish it, and this was one of them: make the environment so miserable that he wouldn’t think of reenlisting.

  “Let’s not overreact,” Horner was saying. He paced the length of his small office. Outside, they could hear the whistling whine of a P3’s turboprop engines revving up to trundle down the ramp toward takeoff.

  “Then give me one reason why Trayhern was assigned to me,” Clay demanded. His voice cracked, and he felt a warm flush crawling up his neck into his face.

  With a shrug of his thin shoulders, Horner said, “I can’t give you one.”

  “Sir, with all due respect, I can’t handle this assignment. She’s the sister to the man who killed my brother. My God—”

  “Look, I know this is tough.” Horner pointed to a board hanging on the wall, showing the names of pilots to fly the missions. There were many more flights than pilots. “You can see I’m strapped. I don’t have many pilots with more than a year’s experience in P3s, and I can’t put a green pilot and a copilot together. We’d be asking for disaster.”

  “But—” Clay grasped at straws, any straw “—why can’t I have the other graduate? Couldn’t we make a trade?”

  Tapping the file with Trayhern’s name on it, Horner said heavily, “Orders are orders.”

  Helpless rage entwined with real panic deep within Clay. “Then make a phone call. Surely this is a mistake. Whoever paired us didn’t realize Stephen was my brother.”

  Compassion showed in Horner’s taut face. “I’ve already made a call, Clay. And I did explain the situation.”

  “And?”

  “No go. The pairing stays as is.”

  Somebody’s got it in for me. Clay almost said it out loud, but bit down hard on his lower lip to stop himself from blurting out the words. The handwriting was on the wall. They wanted him out. He was a washed-up F-14 driver. In some head honcho’s eyes back in D.C., he was no longer a valuable commodity to the Navy. They didn’t want him to reenlist.

  Horner’s voice cut through Clay’s spinning revelations. “…Trayhern got top grades. She finished at the head of her class both at the Naval Academy in Annapolis and later at Pensacola. I think she’s a credit to the U.S. Navy, regardless of what her brother did five years ago. You should let the past remain there, Clay. Don’t confront her on the issue. Let it stay buried.”

  Buried. The word haunted Clay. Trying to maintain a poker face, which he was usually good at doing, he straightened in his seat. His stomach was knotted so tight, it hurt. Horner was asking for a miracle from him. Stephen had been murdered by Morgan Trayhern’s cowardly act, and their mother had died two days after receiving the news, as surely as if Trayhern had left her, too, on that hill. Clay had never known his father, so in two days he had lost his entire family. Morgan Trayhern had ripped the heart out of him by snuffing out the lives of the two people he loved most in the world.

  “Do you hear me, Lieutenant? Leave the past alone. You deal with lieutenant Trayhern as you would any green copilot trainee coming out of Pensacola.”

  Clay fought his anger, his utter anguish over this unexpected trial. He didn’t know how he was going to overcome the palpable hatred he felt. “Yes, sir,” he choked out. He wondered obliquely if Alyssa Trayhern knew she was being assigned to him. How would she react to the news? As he looked out the window, he saw a storm gathering in the west. Any moment now, it would begin to rain at the station. Was there ever a storm coming….

  “I hate rain,” Aly said to no one in particular as she drove her red Toyota MR2 sports car down the freeway. It was eight in the morning, and traffic speeding into the city of San Francisco was at its peak. She slanted a quick glance at the passenger seat where Rogue sat. The black and white Border collie whined, as if in answer.

  “The landlord of our new apartment said they call this the Bloody Bayshore. He mentioned it has more bloody accidents than any other highway system leading into the city. What do you think about that, Rogue?”

  The collie tilted his head and wagged his tail in a friendly fashion.

  Aly chuckled. “God, Rogue, I’m really beginning to feel free. Sometimes, I think this is all a dream after the past five years.” She narrowed her eyes in memory as she stayed alert on the rain-slick freeway. Were her trials really over? she wondered. Were the taunting, the insults hissed in her direction calling her a traitor, really over? Her hands tightened momentarily on the wheel. Aly knew she didn’t dare allow all her hurt and anger to surface. Like a true Trayhern, she had kept her head high and her shoulders squared, pretending to be impervious to the slings and arrows hurled at her because of Morgan.

  The Marine Corps had never officially listed her brother as missing in action or dead. His body had never been found after the 1970 slaughter on Hill 206 at the close of the Vietnam war. The only survivor, a private, had said that he saw Morgan escape into the arms of the North Vietnamese, a traitor. But Aly violently rejected that scenario. No way was Morgan a traitor! He’d never leave 180 men—his men—on a hill to be decimated by their enemy. H
e’d have died with them.

  So what had happened? Aly’s head spun with questions, and with obvious answers that she instantly denied. She knew her brother. He was a good man, a strong person with a streak of undying loyalty toward those he was responsible for, bred into him just as it was bred into the very bones of Aly and her other brother, Noah. Morgan would never have left that embattled hill just before the dawn attack, taking with him the only working radio in the company. That radio could have put them in contact with air protection and kept the company from being overrun. The press had repeatedly accused Morgan of turning coward and surrendering himself to the enemy in order to live, instead of dying with his men, but there were so many unanswered riddles and dead ends to Morgan’s disappearance.

  Agony sliced through Aly, tears surfacing unexpectedly in her eyes. More than two hundred years of Trayhern military service were permanently stained. And so were the lives of Noah, of herself and of her parents.

  Wiping away the errant tears with the back of her hand, she muttered, “We’re supposed to be happy, Rogue. We just leased an apartment. Today we shop for groceries, and tomorrow I sign on board at Moffett Field. This is the start of my career. Mom and Dad are so happy and proud of me.” She looked over at her Border collie, feeling not triumphant but only tired and drained. “We’ve made it, Rogue. This generation of Trayherns is on its way—hopefully—to brilliant military service. Maybe Noah and I can erase some of the black mark put on our name by the Defense Department and the press. We’ve made it—”

  The rest of her words were torn from her as a large white car slewed sideways in front of her as it tried to change lanes too quickly.

  Everything slowed down to single frames in front of Aly’s widening eyes. The white car’s brakes screamed, water spraying in high sheets. The water slammed against the windshield of her Toyota, temporarily blinding her. Cars were braking and swerving ahead and around her, as if the six lanes in front of her had become nothing more than a bumper car track.