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Unbelievable.
She took a deep breath and rubbed the ache at her forehead, checking her last row of desserts. What was the point of having a schedule if you ignored it? Didn’t people realize that a wedding reception with formal seating required split-second timing and no distractions?
Silver trays laid with white linen napkins?
Done.
Spun-sugar flowers arranged at each seat?
Done.
Mini rum cheesecakes plated?
Ditto.
Three-tier chocolate ganache wedding cake decorated with edible flowers?
Perfect.
Gina straightened the marzipan figures of two Olympic speed skaters, which the bride and groom happened to be. Through a porthole she saw clouds skirt a gleaming row of waves. Another glorious day at sea on a top-rated cruise ship, but she’d be too busy to enjoy it.
Laughter spilled into the room. A door opened and the bride appeared, radiant in a chiffon halter gown with vintage lace that clung at her hips and neck. At her side, the groom stood tall in an elegant black tuxedo. A smile stretched over his happy, sunburned face.
This was it, Gina thought. This was love, exactly the way it should be.
Exuberant and gracious. Taking risks. Staying vulnerable. Not jealous and demanding, calculating selfish returns. And didn’t Gina know all there was to know about that kind of love?
She pushed the thought deep, buried with all her other sad memories. A wedding was no time to dredge up the past. Besides, the champagne was chilled, waiting to be poured into Waterford crystal beneath a display of Orange Beauty tulips.
Her staff was flawlessly efficient, the menu a perfect mix of classic and trendy for the young, excited bride and groom.
She felt a knot form at her forehead. This was her second wedding that day. On a big cruise ship, weddings were the top guest request, and Gina was known for creating the best wedding cakes on any cruise line.
The bride and groom held hands, flushing as eighty-five guests offered cheers and catcalls. At her nod, Gina’s skilled staff poured the first chilled champagne and circulated with tempting desserts.
Music filled the room. Slow and soft, the notes tugged at Gina’s heart as she watched the bride and groom exchange lingering kisses.
The dancing began and the regular waitstaff took over. Her team was done.
As she straightened a silver urn of flowers, Gina had a quick impression of wary eyes, short cinnamon hair and a stubborn chin.
Her eyes, her chin. A face too angular for beauty, and eyes whose strength made most men uneasy. Right now pain circled behind her forehead, vicious and swift.
She was getting worse.
The thought filled her with panic. She needed more time.
“Hey, Chief, you okay?” One of her staff, a slender ex-kindergarten teacher from San Diego, studied her anxiously. “You’ve got that look again. It’s like last week when someone smashed your thumb with their heaviest marble rolling pin.”
Gina forced a smile. “Hey, it’s called resting, enjoying the sight of a job well done.” She hid her embarrassment with casual dismissal. “Anything wrong with my taking a rest?”
“Not a thing. But you never rest. And for someone trying to enjoy her success, you looked too worried.”
Gina made a noncommittal sound and cleared the last serving tray. What was the point of dwelling on what you couldn’t change?
Her vision was going. End of story.
It wouldn’t happen in a day or a week. Maybe not even in a year. But the deterioration was noticeably increasing. Despite the newest medicines, her vascular problems were eating away at her vision neuron by neuron, robbing her of the career and future she’d planned with such care.
Put it away.
Shrugging, she headed to the kitchen door. “I’m not distracted now, so let’s move. We’ve got another event in four hours.”
She took one last look at the bride and groom, who had joined hands to cut the first wedge of her exquisitely iced white chocolate cake with trailing sugar roses. The pair didn’t look back, oblivious to the world as they fell into another slow kiss.
Gina wasn’t really jealous. In a world of bad luck somebody deserved to be happy.
She’d believed in love, dreamed of it, felt certain the right man would appear. When he did, she’d know him instantly.
Nice dream. Stupid dream.
When the man had appeared, she’d chosen wrong. He’d robbed her of many things, the most important among them her innocence and trust. He’d taken her job and her reputation. Now she had no dreams left.
One more line item to cross off your day planner, she thought wryly. No Rose Garden wedding with a formal arch of swords. For some reason she’d seen that vision ever since she was twelve.
She blew out an irritated breath and gathered her equipment. At least she’d made a lot of people happy. With every new event she worked harder, pushing her skills. On the days when her headaches and dizziness were too intense, she’d pull out the bottle of pills hidden inside an empty package of Kona coffee and swallow two.
The pills were working for the moment. But they weren’t a cure. Worse yet, they created side effects.
Without a word her brawny Brazilian sous chef slid the tray from her hands. No one said a word, but Gina felt the eyes of her staff. They knew. They had noticed her unguarded moments of pain.
Funny, she’d been so sure she had fooled them. Maybe you didn’t fool anyone but yourself.
As she felt their silent concern, tears burned at her eyes. Tall, studious Andreas from Brazil touched her arm. Then the others closed ranks around her, two in front and three walking behind.
Emotion engulfed Gina at the unspoken signs of trust and protection. She’d lost her father years before; she hadn’t seen her mother in months. This was her real family, the people she had cursed and laughed, sweated and trained with.
The only real advice her mother had ever given her was that falling in love was a curse. Nice advice for a teenager. But over time Gina had come to believe it. Lucky for her, she was too busy for relationships to have a place in her life.
She squared her shoulders. “Andreas, Reggie, did you finish tempering that white chocolate for the tea cakes?”
“All done, boss. But I need some help with the spun sugar.” Andreas rubbed his jaw. “It keeps cracking at the edge of the petals.”
“Did you double-check the temperature and humidity?”
Gently the conversation turned to safer waters. In the sharp argument over the merits of Colombian vs. Mexican chocolate, Gina forgot about her fear and the bouts of occasional pain. She forgot the headaches and the sudden dizziness.
Who needed love or sex when you could make a killer crème brûlée?
CHAPTER FOUR
Foxfire training facility
Northern New Mexico
One month later
TWENTY.
Twenty-one.
Twenty-two.
Sweat beaded his shoulders and chest, and exhaustion hammered at his concentration. Trace ignored everything until only the heat and pull of his muscles remained, strength returning in slow, almost cruel increments. As the weights rose, he focused on his arm, battling against his own weakness. He had work to do, missions to run. Foxfire men were constantly prepped and ready to deploy at the ring of a pager. Each man had unique skills, and Trace knew his absence made everyone’s work harder.
Thirty-three.
Thirty-four.
More sweat.
More pain. Muscles screamed, their boundaries reached and then crossed until Trace was lost in a haze of pure muscle memory and hints of his old, preambush strength.
His commanding officer appeared in the doorway. “Nice to see you have a good work ethic. Just the same, you should take it easy.”
Trace grinned. “I’ll take it easy the same day you do, sir.”
Wolfe Houston smiled faintly. “Point taken.”
All of the team had been by to see Trace in the past few weeks, offering dry humor and information about current personnel deployment or upcoming missions. Trace had reveled in the details of the job that was his life, the focus of his whole passion for nearly eight years.
It was a job he could discuss with few others, not even his brave, tough sister, Kit, who managed an isolated ranch northwest of Santa Fe, where she trained the finest military service dogs Trace had ever seen.
It was his sister Trace worried about now. But he kept his tone casual as he finished his last set of curls. “Have you seen Kit and the dogs? Is everything okay at the ranch? No sign of any more cougars, I hope.”
His commanding officer eased his long legs down, settling into a nearby chair. “Kit’s fine. So are the dogs. Damned if those four don’t get smarter every day. Last week we were running a bomb-detection scenario and the team figured out where I’d hidden the dummy device even before I’d let them off their training leashes. It’s a sad day in Red Rock when four puppies make a trained professional look bad.” But there was pride in the officer’s voice.
Wolfe Houston had good reason to know the state of the ranch. He had just returned from two weeks of canine assessment exercises—and a passionate homecoming with his soon-to-be wife. Although Kit never asked for details about where the dogs had come from, she had enough experience to know that they were special.
Of course Wolfe could never reveal the nature of the secret program that had produced such unusual animals.
Trace was relieved that things were fine at his family’s ranch. The unmistakable happiness in Wolfe’s face meant that things were fine with Kit, too. It was strange to think of his stubbornly independent sister getting married. But if she had to pick anyone, this man was the right one.
Trace put down his weights and dried his face with a towel. “So they’re as good as everyone hoped?”
Wolfe stretched his arms behind his head and chuckled. “Is the Pope Catholic? I’ve put in a recommendation to Ryker that the four dogs never be split up once they’re sent on military assignment.” A shadow crossed his face. “Kit is worrying about them already.”
“She’ll tough it out. By the way, has Ryker finally okayed your request to set a formal date? I’d like to be there to give away my sister, you know.”
Lloyd Ryker was a long-time government power broker at the highest levels; he kept his cards close to his chest and ruled the Foxfire facility like a medieval potentate. Because he got results, his foibles were overlooked.
Wolfe frowned. “One day it’s yes, the next day it’s maybe. When I pressed Ryker, he told me I’d have an answer this week. It might even be true,” the SEAL said dryly. “He’s not going to be happy when he finds out that I got the marriage license anyway, and our blood tests are already submitted.” His eyes narrowed. “Or what will pass for a specimen of my blood.” Rules were rules. Any scientific details relating to Foxfire were top secret and that included all team members’ medical reports.
“Give him hell,” Trace said wryly. “My sister deserves to be happy, and for some crazy reason she’s set her sights on you.” His shoulder had begun to ache with a low, dull throb.
Ordinarily he’d agree that marriages involving Foxfire team members wouldn’t work, but Kit knew the score. His sister could handle whatever fate—and the U.S. government—threw at her.
So Trace hoped.
It was Wolfe’s career choice that gave Trace some bad nights. Who knew better than a fellow SEAL how often work would intrude? Trace knew just how much uncertainty his sister would have to live with. He hoped she could learn to accept the unknown, because virtually every aspect of the Foxfire program required absolute secrecy.
He and Wolfe and the rest of the team had volunteered, and they knew the rules. But could Kit or any other woman—no matter how remarkable—live with the tight constraints that program security imposed?
Trace didn’t have an answer for that.
Ryker, the civilian head of Foxfire, had a rule against personal involvement, and for good reason, in Trace’s opinion. But Wolfe and a second Foxfire member had gotten involved up to their eyeballs. Now they were part of deep, stable relationships that had to be faced, not swept under the carpet. If Ryker couldn’t accept that fact, he would lose two of his best men, including Wolfe, their team leader.
Trace realized that Wolfe was staring at him. “Something wrong?”
“If you keep overdoing your workouts, I’ll put someone here to watch you.” Wolfe met Trace’s glare. “Take this one by the book, hotshot. Your body has been through hell and back. Give it time to recover.” He studied Trace through narrowed eyes. “Are you going to do another set to keep your mind off it?” he said quietly.
Trace didn’t move.
“We both know Marshall’s death is bothering you.”
Trace started to answer, then looked down at his hands. He didn’t want to talk about Marshall. Hell, he didn’t want to think about the death of the teenager he’d rescued from particularly nasty South American kidnappers two years earlier. Her death was ruled a suicide, but Trace was having a hard time believing it. Marshall was a fighter and a survivor. Lost and confused, she still had shown the courage of a soldier during her captivity.
It didn’t make sense that she’d overcome so much just to give up in the home stretch.
He was fighting to accept her death, fighting to acknowledge his grief. If he’d kept in better touch with her afterward, things might have gone differently. If there were problems, she might have confided in him.
But beating himself up now wouldn’t help anyone. It was too damn late to do what friends do—supporting each other, watching each other’s back.
And he wasn’t going to spill his guts to Wolfe. This was his own problem to work through. “The rehab is taking too long. My shoulder’s much stronger now. I keep thinking if I can work a little harder or a little longer—”
“All you’ll do is blow out your shoulder.” Wolfe faced him squarely. “Do me a favor and get well before you report for duty. Otherwise, you endanger all of us in the field.”
Trace knew Wolfe was dead right. Every man relied on his team for life-or-death backup during a mission. If Trace screwed up on an assignment, he could get other people killed. “Roger that, sir. I’ll gut it out.”
Even though I’m going to shoot someone if I don’t get out of rehab and back to work soon. He wanted his chips functional, too.
He was getting to like the Superman experience.
“Glad you’re being reasonable. And in the spirit of being reasonable, Ryker told me to give you this.” Wolfe’s lips twisted as he slapped a thick envelope on the table beside Trace. “You’re shipping out in forty-eight hours.”
“Mission orders?” Trace grabbed the envelope and tore open the seal eagerly. “Urban or jungle target?”
“Neither.” Wolfe crossed his arms. “You’ll be at sea.” He cleared his throat. “On a cruise ship to Mexico.”
