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Soldier's Pregnancy Protocol
Beth Cornelison
Erin framed his face with her hands and rested her face against his. “I’m here, Alec. For whatever you need. Always. I promise.”
He sank his fingers into her hair, holding her close and covering her face with achingly tender kisses. Desperate kisses. Kisses full of affection and emotion and words left unsaid. Words that hovered near the surface. Words she saw reflected in his azure eyes.
She felt the tremor that shook him, and her body answered with a quaking need and clamoring hunger. She held him tighter, angling her hips and shifting her legs, wishing she could climb inside him. Fill him. Give him all the love he’d been denied and had denied himself for too many years.
About the Author
BETH CORNELISON started writing stories as a child when she penned a tale about the adventures of her cat, Ajax. A Georgia native, she received her bachelor’s degree in public relations from the University of Georgia. After working in public relations for a little more than a year, she moved with her husband to Louisiana, where she decided to pursue her love of writing fiction.
Since that first time, Beth has written many more stories of adventure and romantic suspense and has won numerous honors for her work, including a coveted Golden Heart Award in romantic suspense from Romance Writers of America. She is active on the board of directors for the North Louisiana Storytellers and Authors of Romance (NOLA STARS) and loves reading, traveling, Peanuts’ Snoopy and spending downtime with her family.
She writes from her home in Louisiana, where she lives with her husband, one son and two cats who think they are people. Beth loves to hear from her readers. You can write to her at PO Box 5418, Bossier City, LA 71171, USA or visit her website at www.bethcornelison.com.
Soldier’s
Pregnancy
Protocol
Beth Cornelison
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Keyren Gerlach, who gave Alec and Erin new life!
I appreciate all you do.
Prologue
Without a sound, Alec Kincaid inched on his belly through the sticky black mud of the South American jungle until he had a clearer view of the Cessna awaiting takeoff from the small clearing. The acrid scent of jet fuel and jeep exhaust tinged the smell of rotting vegetation and the fragrance of the orchids blooming around his hiding place. His body ached from lying motionless for the past twelve hours, but his gut told him his efforts would soon pay off. In spades.
After ten years, working black ops for a counterterrorist team so secret the group didn’t even have a name, Alec had learned to rely on his instincts and not much else. Except training. Except Daniel LeCroix, aka Lafitte.
He trusted his partner with his life. And had many times. Just this week.
In the past five years, Alec had lost count how many times he and Lafitte had relied on each other for survival in the murky world of espionage and counterterrorism.
Because of the risks they took, their rogue lifestyle, the pirate code names they’d adopted seemed apropos. Blackbeard and Lafitte.
He clicked his tongue three times into his lip mic. Three tangos.
In his earpiece, he heard Daniel’s reply, a short puff of air. Affirmative.
Alec sighted his AK-47 on the rebel fighters as they loaded boxes of weapons into the aircraft. But these drones were not his ultimate target. Intel indicated General Ramirez, the murderous leader of the rebel fighters, would be leaving on this flight.
If they netted Ramirez today, he and Daniel could be swilling rum with a couple senoritas on a beach in Acapulco by nightfall—Lafitte and Blackbeard savoring the spoils of a completed mission. Three years of mucking through mosquito-infested rain forests and living weeks at a time off grubs and stubborn determination had led to this moment.
Anticipation thrummed through Alec. His nerves jangled, but he didn’t so much as draw a deep breath. Any movement, any noise could give away his position. He held his post without flinching, even when one of the deadliest spiders in Colombia dropped from an overhanging branch and crept up his arm. To his neck. Inside his mud-caked camo T-shirt …
His gut pitched. Mother of Joe, he hated spiders!
Through his headset, Daniel could probably hear the rapid fire of Alec’s pulse as the arachnid skulked down his back.
The rumble of a motor cued him to an approaching jeep. Spider or not, Alec forced his focus to the new arrival, years of training kicking into high gear.
Daniel grunted. See that?
Alec puffed on the mike. Affirmative.
Daniel clicked twice. Two more men.
General Ramirez and a guard. Five tangos against the two of them. A cakewalk.
But foreboding rolled through Alec like a thundercloud. It didn’t add up. Why wasn’t the general better guarded? Alec held his breath as General Ramirez climbed from the jeep, shouting directions in Spanish to his men. With a low whine, the Cessna engine turned over, and the nose propeller spun.
Every muscle in Alec’s body tensed. Ready.
All of his senses honed in on the scene before him. Waiting for the right moment …
Ramirez stepped away from the jeep, turned his back. Alec had a clear shot, but Uncle Sam wanted Ramirez taken alive. The general’s guards were fair game, though. Alec curled his finger around the trigger of his assault rifle. Took aim. Prepared to charge the aircraft and kick some rebel ass.
But across the clearing, a blast of gunfire ripped from the jungle. Peppered the jeep, the Cessna. The aircraft exploded in a ball of flame and black smoke. The concussion shook the ground and reverberated in Alec’s chest.
What the hell?
In his earpiece, he heard Daniel mutter the same expletive that popped in his mind.
Chaos erupted. Ramirez clutched his chest. Fell.
The rebels returned fire. Shooting blindly. Spraying the area with a hail of bullets.
Uniformed men, a rival militia force, surged from the line of trees.
Mud splattered, and the foliage hiding Alec shredded under the barrage of gunfire.
“Pull back! Abort!” he grated into his mic.
Daniel didn’t respond.
“Copy, pirate? Abort!” Alec repeated as he shimmied backward through the black ooze, scrambled to his feet, and shook the nasty spider out of his shirt. Still crouched low, he wove through the maze of trees while three years of tedious undercover work went to hell in the clearing.
Where was Daniel, damn it? Why didn’t he answer?
A helicopter buzzed low over the clearing. Suddenly the jungle teemed with enemy fighters.
Don’t jeopardize the mission. If things go south, it’s every man for himself. He and Daniel had sworn to abide by the agreement as they broke camp yesterday morning. But yesterday, Alec had arrogantly believed nothing could stop him and his partner from bringing the general in.
Sweat and mud stung Alec’s eyes as he plowed through the dense rain forest. A bright green bird shrieked and took flight as Alec charged through the mist-shrouded jungle. He pressed on, despite stiff muscles and the encumbering weight of the black sludge he’d smeared on his skin for camouflage.
Daniel was as highly trained as Alec. His partner would be fine.
Alec glided through the rain forest like a jaguar, already mentally regrouping. Ramirez had been shot. If the general died, the sources he and Daniel had cultivated would hear the news and report to them at the rat-nest motel in Medellin. If Daniel made it out, he’d know to meet Alec there.
If Daniel made it out? Alec clenched his teeth and shoved the negativity aside. His partner would make it out of this hellhole and meet him in Medellin. Or, regardless of what they’d agreed, Alec would find his partner. No matter what it took.
Chapter 1
Cherry Creek, Colorado—Nine months later
Alec stood in the motel bathroom, ready to chuck his cell phone into the toilet. The water would render the phone and all the data on it useless, erasing the last traces of his trail before he went underground. He’d been followed for a couple of days. The time had come for Alec Kincaid to disappear.
When he’d called the black ops team leader and told him he was going dark and extending his leave of absence indefinitely, he’d received an earful. Time for Alec to get his ass back on assignment, Briggs had bellowed. The team needed him.
Maybe so. But first Alec needed to lose his tail.
Though their orders came from unnamed officials within the U.S. government, the elite twelve-man team operated off the grid, an independent entity funded through offshore investments and hidden behind dummy corporations. Long before the Office of Homeland Security was formed, the team had been working for Uncle Sam in foreign hot spots or doing jobs the U.S. military couldn’t legally tackle. The work was covert, dangerous … and lucrative.
At thirty-five, Alec could easily retire and live off his investments, so extending his personal leave time was not a hardship.
But, as Briggs had reminded him, the team was already short one man due to Daniel’s disappearance. The team had changed Daniel’s status from MIA to presumed dead after five months and given up their search.
Daniel. The only person he’d allowed himself to trust or give a damn about since his mother taught him his first hard lesson in misplaced loyalty, the pain of betrayal. Then Alec had abandoned his only friend. Maybe he was more like his mom than he wanted to believe. Didn’t matter that he’d personally looked for Daniel for nine months. He’d gotten nowhere. He had no more information now about his partner’s disappearance than he’d had that hellish afternoon in the Colombian jungle.
Alec swallowed the bile and sour guilt that swelled in his throat. As he held the phone out over the toilet, the screen lit up like the Christmas trees currently lining the streets of Denver. He paused, considered ignoring the ring. But Alec pulled the phone back and flipped it over. Just in case the call was Daniel, finally surfacing.
Checking the caller I.D., Alec recognized the name of the woman who’d bought his house in Cherry Creek last week. He frowned. Why the hell was she calling?
He conjured a mental image of the woman, and a kick of libido replaced his suspicion. Alec never forgot a face, especially one as stunning as Erin Bauer’s. He’d ogled more than her face last week as he’d toted cardboard boxes out, and she’d carried wicker baskets and flowery pillows into his old house.
He started to toss the phone without answering, but a prick of unease stopped him. Not answering felt too much like leaving a loose end unresolved. Better to see what she wanted. “H’lo?”
“Um … Mr. Kincaid?” her sweet female voice chirped. “This is Erin Bauer. I bought your house on Hurley Street.”
“Yeah?”
“Well, you have some mail here, and I was hoping you’d give me your forwarding address.”
“Don’t have one.”
“Oh. Then … maybe you could stop by and pick it up? Although a lot of it’s probably junk, there’s a bill from the power company and a personal letter that looks impor—”
“Toss it all,” he interrupted. He also remembered the woman’s tendency to chatter nonstop.
“But—”
“I don’t need it.”
“Even the letter?” She sounded appalled. “It was hand-delivered by messenger this afternoon. It looks important.”
“Hand-delivered?” Suspicion reared its head again. “Who’s it from?”
In his line of work letters could be deadly. A piece of Deta-sheet fit easily inside an envelope to make a letter bomb. He preferred to deal by phone. By encrypted email.
“There’s no return address,” Erin said. “I could open it and read it to you if—”
“No!” A cold sweat popped out on his lip thinking of Erin’s lush little body, blown to bits by an incendiary device intended for him.
She snorted indignantly. “Ooo-kay. Just an idea.”
He’d have to go to the house and pick up the damn letter, if only to be sure she didn’t snoop and get toasted in the process.
“There’s a name or something in a corner on the back,” she said.
His old house was almost certainly being watched. He couldn’t just waltz up to the door without being seen. Alec rubbed the back of his neck and stewed over this hitch in his plans. Delays didn’t sit well with him.
“It’s hard to read the writing, but it looks like La-something.” Erin paused. “Lafire, maybe?”
Alec jolted. “What?”
“The word in the corner of the envelope. It’s written in chicken scratch, but it looks like Lafire or—”
A chill skittered down his neck. “Lafitte?”
“Uh, yeah. Maybe.”
Alec’s stomach somersaulted. His mind leapfrogged as he strode toward the motel door. “Listen carefully, Erin. Put the letter down.” He kept his voice under tight control, even as adrenaline and hope surged through him. “Don’t touch it again. Got it?”
He prayed she hadn’t already obliterated any fingerprints on the envelope, destroyed evidence that could help him find Daniel.
“Uh, yeah. I got it.” Her tone was rife with unspoken questions.
He expelled a harsh breath. “Look, I’ll be there as soon as I can. In the meantime—”
He jammed on his shades and scanned the parking lot before stepping out into the December sunshine. Alec jerked open the driver’s door of his rental car and dropped onto the front seat. Was the letter really from Daniel? And if it was, why hadn’t Daniel come in person? Or sent an encrypted email? A letter was not protocol. Yet this letter could answer all his questions about what had happened to Daniel that fateful day months ago.
Or it could be a trap.
“In the meantime, what?” Erin asked.
Alec squeezed the phone. “Just sit tight. I’m on my way.”
As he sped out of the parking lot, Alec pitched the cell phone in the motel swimming pool.
Lifting her face to the sun, Erin Bauer savored the unseasonably warm day before she stooped to collect her newspaper from the end of her driveway. By tomorrow, the weatherman said, conditions more typical of the Christmas season in Colorado would blast into town.
As she unfolded the newspaper, Erin scanned Hurley Street for signs of Alec Kincaid. More than two hours had passed since he’d said he was on his way. Not that she was watching the clock.
