Page 2 of Unintended Love

Javier chuckled. “I grew up in Georgia, as you well know. That Bible Belt is cinched so tight, I can guaranDAMNtee you that they will never give up praising the Lord Jesus. Southern women aren’t ever going to give up those pretty little shoulder-baring sundresses that barely cover their ass for an abaya. Texas girls will never cover that big, beautiful hair with a hijab. No matter what state they’re from, especially girls from the north, they certainly won’t give up those teeny-weeny bikinis at the beach. Nope. Extreme fundamentalist Muslims are never going to take over the United States.”

“Teams like ours and Ashlin’s are here to make sure they don’t even come close,” Clint asserted as he slowly turned and scanned the mountain behind them.

“Speaking of Ashlin, in case I never told you before, I’m flattered as hell you chose me to be your best man.”

Clint smiled. “Nobody else I’d rather have at my side.” That was the truth. He and Javier had fought side-by-side for years during their tours as Delta Operators. Each had dragged the other off the battlefield, injured and bleeding.

“I’m still surprised you married her. You barely know her.”

“Actually, I’ve known her for several years.” And lusted after that compact little body of hers almost the entire time, not something he would admit out loud to anyone. “It’s been at least four, maybe five years since she came home with Xena for the first time at Christmas. She showed up at our house, usually the one in the States, but she’s been here several times, too. My sister would bring other women home she was training with who didn’t have someplace to go over a holiday. Ashlin is a lot of fun. She has a real crazy streak a mile wide in her. She’s quite the daredevil.” Clint didn’t dare mention that both Ashlin and Xena had trained at the Joint All-Female Special Operations School and were as skilled as any of the men on his former Delta team.

“I thought you two were very familiar, more so than you did with the other women we partied with in Las Vegas,” Javier admitted.

“Until that night, I’d never touched her, say nothing about kiss her.” He grinned to himself as he remembered their wedding night. He wasn’t as drunk as everyone thought.

“You made up for it that weekend. The two of you couldn’t seem to take your hands off—argh,” Javier cut off mid-sentence.

Clint quickly peered around the rock he was hiding behind. Through his night vision goggles, he watched a tall man grab Javier from behind, tilt his head back, and slit his throat. In thermal mode, he could see the blood spurting from his friend’s neck.

Quietly, he pulled his pistol from his thigh holster and aimed. The shot hit the intruder in the head before he scanned the woods behind him for more targets. Identifying no human forms, he quickly crawled from behind his rocky hidey-hole and sprinted the seventy-five feet to Javier, praying he’d arrive in time.

After hurriedly checking the tango to be sure his headshot killed the man, Clint tapped his in-ear communication device. “Operations command. Did you get that last? Javier’s down. His neck—” Clint swallowed hard on the next words he had to say. “He cut his fucking neck.” He pulled Javier’s balaclava down to apply pressure on his femoral artery. There was so much blood.

“Clint. Operations here. Helicopter is in the air. Can you get him to the extraction point?”

He scooped up his teammate in a fireman’s carry and ran down the mountain as fast as his long legs would go. The shot had no doubt awoken at least a few of the rebel soldiers. They’d be looking for them within minutes.

“Headed there right now. We need to get him to the clinic as fast as possible. Wake up the doctor.”

Clint didn’t remember anything about the trip down that mountain. At the edge of the meadow designated for extraction, he carefully laid Javier on the ground next to him, hidden in the trees.

Javier grabbed Clint’s bicep with more strength than he thought possible. Eyes closed, he croaked out, “Prom…me.” The toll it took him to expel each word was evident in the gap between them. “Care…of…Th…dor.”

“Save your breath. Don’t you fucking die on me,” Clint threatened through clenched teeth.

“Prom…sss.” His grip on Clint’s arm weakened.

“Stay with me.” Clint held Javier’s head in both hands, staring into his now-open eyes. “Hang in there, buddy. You want to see that baby of yours.”

Bubbles of blood gurgled from his neck.

Javier gasped for breath and gazed into Clint’s eyes. “Prom…ise.”

“Fine,” Clint snapped with more anger in his voice than he’d wanted. He pulled Javier’s torso to his chest and wrapped his arm around his injured throat to slow the blood flow. “I promise to make sure your wife and baby are taken care of.”

Javier closed his eyes and melted away into Clint’s lap on his last exhaled breath.

Chapter 1

“This one in Montana looks to be a more developed camp than the one in Pennsylvania.” Ashlin Carter, Lady Tiger to her teammates, pointed to the most recent satellite photos spread out on the light table. “See here?” She tapped her index finger on what seemed to be small cabins barely visible under the tall pines. “If we overlay the thermal images from the shots taken last night, these look to be sleeping bodies.”

“I’ll bet this is some kind of medical facility.” Kira Frost picked up another thermal photograph and laid it on top of one taken a few hours ago. “They are lying in a clinic configuration, and their body temperatures are slightly higher than the others.”

“Good catch, Lady Cougar,” Piper Knight, the only other member of their team who was married, complimented the team doc. “I think you’re right.”

Mia McCormick, known better as Lady Cheetah to the small group of women gathered in the dark room, bent over the backlit table with a magnifying loop. “I don’t think those are rocks. I think they want us to believe those are boulders. It is damn good camouflage, but check out what happens when I overlay the thermal images taken last night. Large animals don’t lie so perfectly side-by-side. I think those are tents with covers to match the large rocks in that desert area of Utah.”

“Let me see.” Kira stepped around the glass table with the huge topographical map of the United States strewn end-to-end. It was underlit, so they could best see hundreds of satellite photos taken in the past twenty-four hours. She laid her own magnifying glass over the area in question. Sometimes, the women preferred to go old-school rather than depending on computers. “Hot damn, Mia. I believe you’re right.”