To Love and Protect Read online

  LINDSAY McKENNA

  "When it comes to action and romance, nobody does it better than Ms. McKenna."

  —Romantic Times

  A homeopathic educator, Lindsay teaches at the Desert Institute of Classical Homeopathy in Phoenix, Arizona. She feels love is the single greatest healer in the world and hopes that her books touch her readers' hearts. Coming from an eastern Cherokee medicine family, Lindsay was taught ceremony and healing ways from the time she was nine years old. She creates flower and gem essences in accordance with nature, and remains closely in touch with her Native American roots and upbringing.

  TO LOVE AND PROTECT

  Lindsay McKenna

  * * *

  This story is for the men and women of our armed forces. Thank you for your dedication and patriotism. We have freedom because of you.

  Dear Reader,

  I was thrilled with the opportunity to write a brand-new MORGAN'S MERCENARIES story for this collection featuring two other great writers of military fiction. I haven't written about the Coast Guard for a while, and so I felt this was the ideal time to do so! As many of you know, I write stories that are close to reality. I've been through volcano eruptions, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and just about any other kind of natural disaster you can think of. Having had the opportunity to work closely with the Coast Guard over the years-fly in their helicopters and Falcon jets, ply the Atlantic aboard their cruisers and go on SARs (search and rescue missions) with them—I feel honored to write about these brave men and women.

  Too, I'm always thrilled to see Morgan in action. In this particular story I sent a man and a woman from Morgan's team to Hawaii, a place I've visited many times. I hope you enjoy this love story, which shows how life can sometimes offer us a second chance in the most unusual of ways.

  Warmly,

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 1

  Hell was one word in particular that Lieutenant Brie Phillips could appreciate more than most. Especially now, she thought as she sat on the wooden bench between the lockers of the women officers' ready room, her hands clasped between her thighs. Hanging her head, she stared at her long, thin hands, the blunt-cut nails, her mind and heart churning with turmoil, her stomach tightening. She had arrived at the U.S. Coast Guard station on Kauai, Hawaii, a month ago on a new assignment, not realizing her ex-husband, Lieutenant Niall Ward, was already on board. Up until now she'd managed to avoid seeing him. But she knew it would be inevitable that she'd be assigned to his flight duty roster. There were only so many pilots at the station, and they all flew with one another on a rotation system. Now her number was up and Brie was still reeling from the shock.

  Yes, hell had a new and galvanizing meaning to her. Hell was the fact that starting tonight, for a twenty-four hour tour of duty, she'd have to be his copilot on a search and rescue helicopter. Hell was the fact that in about five minutes she'd have to leave the safety of the women's ready room and go out to the mission planning room where everyone was gathering. Hell was having to face Niall again, after all this time.

  Looking at the Chase-Durer watch on her right wrist, a timepiece that many military aviators wore because it had many essential features a pilot needed, Brie tried to force out a full breath of air. When she got emotionally tense, she breathed shallowly and her gut tightened.

  "Relax, will you?" she muttered to herself between thinned lips. Her eyes narrowed as she looked around at the gray metal lockers. The place was quiet. Painfully so. But then again, it was 1800 on a Sunday evening. No one stayed around the Coast Guard station unless they were scheduled for weekend duty. How she wished she was at her bungalow up near Princeville, on the northern coast of this beautiful, green paradise.

  "It was paradise," Brie muttered. Until she'd found out that Niall was stationed here. In the two years since her divorce, Brie had lost touch with him after the first year—on purpose. Having contact with him had proved too painful to her heart. The last thing she wanted now was to be reminded of the awful, crushing agony she'd experienced with him and had barely survived. Yet, somehow, Brie knew, she was going to have to reach into the deepest parts of herself as a woman and bear this new burden.

  At twenty-nine, Brie thought she'd been through everything. But this latest twist in her life was one that she could never have conceived: she never imagined she'd be stationed with her ex-husband. Now she would be forced to fly with him.

  Worse, Brie had been told there was an emergency search and rescue to fly tonight in the face of a major hurricane that was bearing down on the island chain. The winds were already at fifty miles per hour, and at eighty, their helicopters would be grounded, unable to fly in such furious weather and rain.

  Heart thrashing painfully in her chest, Brie unclasped her hands and rubbed the damp palms against the bright neon orange of the single-piece flight suit she wore.

  "Get up, Phillips. You've got to act professional at this mission briefing." She wondered how he would handle their first meeting. Shutting her eyes, Brie felt shaky inside. She wanted to cry. Oh, how had her life become so tangled like this? Hadn't enough happened to her?

  Fortunately, she had her Native American beliefs to give her strength. Though her father was an Anglo, her mother's side was Cherokee. Raised by her anthropologist father and her medicine woman mother, Brie had grown up in a matriarchal environment where women were encouraged to be anything they dreamed of being.

  Right now, she needed to believe that the Grandparents, benefic spirit beings who worked directly with the Great Spirit, had her best interests at heart. Brie recognized her present predicament as a test. Even though she wasn't a medicine woman, she was the eldest daughter of one and would have been trained in those healing arts if she'd desired it. Instead, Brie had wanted to be a buzzard, a bird honored by her people, and spend her life flying gracefully on the unseen currents of Father Sky, far above his beloved Mother Earth. As a child, she would lie stretched out for hours on a grassy knoll in the mountains of North Carolina, where she was reared. Hands behind her head, she would watch through half-closed eyes as any number of buzzards, which flew in a family, spiraled high above her.

  Well, she'd gotten her wish to fly; she was now a Coast Guard helicopter copilot. And one of the best. She was due to become a full pilot shortly. Because Niall was a full-fledged pilot, she would have to work with him. And she was worried that if he bore any anger toward her, which was possible, he could stop her from progressing. Would he do that?

  "Get up," she commanded herself. Standing, she went through her usual perfunctory preparations. Opening her locker, she got out her life vest, put the knife into its sheath and double-checked to make sure all her gear, such as flashlight, food bars, whistle, emergency radio and beacon, were all there and working properly. It was time to go. It was time to be an SAR Coastie.

  Brie quietly shut her locker, then turned and left the small room. The highly polished, white tile floor gleamed beneath the fluorescent lights above. The passageway was empty; the doors on either side were locked. Everyone was gone who could be gone on this miserable, rainy Sunday night. They were home making sure there were protective boards across their windows, and doing whatever else they could to prepare for Hurricane Eve, which was being forecasted as a level-five storm with lethal possibilities.

  Tonight Brie was going on a top secret mission with her ex-husband, in the middle of one of the potentially most brutal hurricanes that Kauai had seen in the last ten years. How could her luck get any worse? And how was she going to handle being in the same room, much less the same cockpit, with Niall after not seei
ng or talking to him for two years?

  Lieutenant Niall Ward tried to still his chafing anxiety. He sat in the mission briefing room, hands tense on the armrests of the chrome-and-wood chair as he wrestled with the idea of the coming confrontation with Brie. Just thinking of his ex-wife sent his heart pounding wildly in his chest. He lifted his hand and wiped at the sweat on his brow. How was Brie after all this time? he wondered. Was she well? He had a hundred questions about her. At war with his anxiety was his anger over the fact that Brie had abandoned him at the most critical moment in his life. He was reminded once again that he could not rely on anyone—not his family, not even the woman he had loved. Brie hadn't trusted him when things turned nightmarish for them. She had asked for a transfer to another station just when things got bad. He would never forgive her for that transgression, just as he could never forgive his real mother for putting him up for adoption. He could trust no one. Even the couple who had adopted him at age two had done nothing to build his faith in others. His adopted father was an alcoholic who'd divorced his wife three years after Niall came to live with them. Niall became a latchkey kid, living with his single adopted mother, who worked long hours to keep food on the table. His biological mother stepped back, briefly, into his life when he was seven years old. A year after that, his biological father had, too, showing up unexpectedly from time to time, like a painful shadow, until Niall had graduated from high school.

  Niall did not look back on his childhood fondly, and as a matter of fact had gone off to college mostly to get away from the whole sordid scene at first opportunity. He'd found a far steadier and reliable family structure when he'd joined Coast Guard aviation at the college. Here he felt safe, cared for. People were attentive to his needs in a way he'd never really experienced before. It was better than what he'd started out with, at least, and he was planning on a thirty-year career with the Coast Guard as a result. Here, Niall fit in. He was wanted. He was praised. He was looked up to.

  Niall had found out that Brie was being transferred to his station about a week before her actual arrival. He'd been in shock when he had first heard the news from someone over in the personnel department. And then his traitorous heart, which had never stopped loving her, sang with a joy that had brought unaccustomed tears to his eyes. Tears, of all things! Niall had cried when— He stopped himself. No, he didn't want to go there. Never again, if he could help it. The anguish was too great; the cross too heavy to bear, the guilt all-consuming. Shaking his head, he drummed his fingers nervously on the arm of the chair.

  Need of her warred with his guilt. Wanting Brie was like wanting air to breathe for Niall. They were divorced, but his heart had never taken that legal piece of paper seriously. Just when he thought he was over her, that he could get on with his life and leave the tragedy of their divorce behind him, Brie had been assigned to his station. Now, the memory of her abandonment stung him once again. It was as if Brie were pouring more salt into the open wound of his life by coming here. A part of him was wary of working with her in the cockpit. He'd have to stay on top of things more than normal, because he couldn't trust her. He'd never flown with her before, either. Husbands and wives assigned to the same station never flew with one another.

  Of course, Niall had no control over where Brie would be assigned; he was an SAR pilot, and at the end of each two-year tour of duty, search and rescue pilots were sent to another station. Kauai was one of them. Niall had never thought he'd see Brie again, because the Coast Guard had many stations across the U.S. More than enough to keep distance between them. Somewhere, though, the higher-ups in the Coast Guard had made the assignment without realizing they were a divorced couple. Working with Brie was going to play havoc on Niall as nothing else could.

  Rubbing his eyes, he took a deep, ragged breath. Hearing footsteps, he felt his heart leap in his chest. Was it Brie? His fingers curled in anticipation on the arms of the chair. Licking his lower lip nervously, he sat up tensely and waited.

  Two men entered the mission room. One Niall recognized as Lieutenant Rod Nichola, the OOD—officer of the day—who had responsibility for the twenty-four hour watch at the station. The other...Niall's face split with a sudden smile. Instantly, he was on his feet, his hand extended as Morgan Trayhern, the head of Perseus, the supersecret organization in the CIA, entered the room.

  "Sir," Niall said with enthusiasm, "it's good to see you again."

  Morgan turned and looked at the Coast Guard pilot. His serious features warmed immediately. Thrusting out his hand, he murmured, "Niall. How are you? I didn't know you were scheduled for this black ops. That's excellent news. We're in good hands, then."

  Gripping Morgan's hand, Niall pumped it with sincerity. "I didn't know this was a black ops we were being called in for, sir." He released Morgan's hand. Niall had worked for Morgan shortly after his split with Brie. The special undercover assignment had taken him away for three months, and Niall had needed the bone-jarring, dangerous mission to wipe the agony and loss from his heart.

  "Have a seat, Niall," Morgan invited. He turned. "Where's your copilot?"

  "She'll be here shortly," Lieutenant Nichola told him as he went to the mission planning table, a square surface with maps spread across it.

  Eyebrows raising, Morgan said, "She? A woman? Good."

  It was known that Morgan liked to pair male and female pilots because of their complementary skills.

  Just as Morgan turned toward the table, Niall saw Brie enter. She stood there, looking around uncertainly until their eyes met. And then she froze. Niall thought she looked even more beautiful than he could ever recall. Brie was already in the one-piece, neon-orange flight suit, her vest secured across her upper body. But he could see she still had that graceful, swimmer's figure as she stood before him, her red hair in a chignon at the nape of her neck and her normally ruddy complexion drained of color as she spotted him.

  Unable to stop the emotions clamoring inside him, Niall could do nothing but stare into his ex-wife's large, expressive blue eyes, which reminded him of the pristine beauty of the glaciers he'd seen on his Alaska assignment. The beautiful turquoise-blue of her eyes seemed unearthly to Niall, almost mystical, and he had always been mesmerized by it. Maybe she was unearthly.

  His heart surged with a keening cry of joy at seeing her once more. Yet the cold reality of her abandonment, the memory, as icy as a glacier, washed over him. His mouth thinned and hardened, and he glared back at her.

  The shock of seeing Niall once again slammed into Brie like a mighty ocean roaring full speed into a stone jetty. Rocking slightly in reaction, she tried to ignore his narrowing gray eyes, which studied her with ruthless intensity. At thirty-two years old, Niall was even more handsome than she could recall. He came from Black Irish stock, and his hair, though military short, shone with blue highlights. Standing six feet tall, he had a powerful athletic body and broad, square shoulders. There was nothing defenseless or vulnerable about him as he stood there staring back at her, more like an enemy than a friend.

  What else could she expect from him? Brie felt his anger and saw it in his gray, stormy eyes. He had a wonderful mouth made for kissing, one she had lost herself in so many times in the past. Now it was thinned with anger, telling her that she wasn't welcome here—not by him.

  Tearing her gaze from Niall, Brie tried to shore herself up, and walked confidently over to the table. She introduced herself to the distinguished-looking man with silver at his temples who stood there, looking dapper in a gray pinstripe suit. But as he smiled warmly at her, shook her hand and introduced himself as Morgan Trayhern, she felt chilled, as if ice water was pouring over her.

  She had never met Morgan Trayhern before. The only thing she knew about him was that he was the reason Niall had left her in her hour of need. In truth it was Niall who had volunteered to take the three-month black ops assignment for this man. But as she released Morgan's hand, she saw genuine gladness in his eyes that she was here, as a pilot, on this mission. Brie had to give h
im credit, at least, for not being prejudiced against women in the cockpit.

  "Let's have a seat here, shall we?" Morgan said to the pilots, and gestured for them to sit down at the planning table.

  Rod shut the door quietly and joined them.

  Morgan stood and spread out a map after handing them the black ops mission manuals. "Here's what we have going down and why you were called in to help us," he said. Opening his own manual, he turned to the first page. "One of the mercenaries with my organization, Perseus, has gone undercover. Burke Or-mand is our operative and he's been posing as a crewman aboard a tuna boat by the name of Jellyfish. It's really a drag runner in disguise. Burke has been wearing a wire to tape evidence against the drug lord, Torres Rebaza, who owns this trawler, and his younger brother, who is the skipper. Rebaza owns ten tuna clippers that ply the Pacific waters. His real cargo is cocaine, which is dropped out at sea by long-range airplanes flying from Mexico. The coke is packed in buoyant, watertight bales, which are picked up by the trawlers and stowed below."

  Morgan turned the page, to a colored photo of the mercenary. "We've found all this out because of Ormand. Once a tuna trawler gets the cocaine aboard, the crew continues to fish, putting the tuna in storage freezers where the coke's hidden. When they come in to the dock at Kauai to offload their tuna cargo, the cocaine stays—until after dark. Torres then sends his men in a van to pick it up under cover of night." Looking up at the pilots, he added, "The problem is, we've lost contact with Ormand. The boat was going to find shelter on a small island, Tortoise Isle, a hundred miles north of Kauai, and sit out this hurricane— at a place called Half Moon Bay. We know the Jellyfish made it to safe harbor at that part.

  "The radio that Ormand is wearing is a special state-of-the-art model," Morgan told them. "This radio has a button on it that, if pressed, sends out a signal to us—meaning that Ormand has been found out. It's basically a cry for help. If we'd received that signal, we'd have mounted a rescue effort immediately."