on operational missions for most of a decade. Mike had sent him to monitor Whidbey and to bring back hard Intel on the people surveilling the area for a possible terrorist attack.
He couldn’t take the chance of giving his location away with a cellular communication. Plus, Mike would have too many questions. Brad didn’t have time for questions.
Because this op had taken a major detour in the bright blaze of an explosion. An explosion he’d caused. Justifiably, but the local cops weren’t going to wait for him to explain that part. He also had to keep the über-classified nature of this mission in mind.
His rigorous training meant his thoughts could wander as he struggled up the cliff. And that kept the enormity of the physical task he had to accomplish more manageable.
How the hell had a small-town domestic terrorist cell obtained a surface-to-air missile? If they wanted to provoke a response from Naval Air Station Whidbey, why hadn’t they tried something on land? Was this to see what the Navy’s local capabilities were?
No fewer than a dozen scenarios fought for priority in his overtaxed mind. The terrorist cell he’d been sent to infiltrate had seemed amateur at best, Taliban or al Qaeda wannabes.
He hadn’t believed they were connected to anything on a grander scale. Until yesterday.
Channeling his frustration into the energy he needed to climb the cliff side was another survival tactic he’d used innumerable times. He’d never had to use it in his own country, though.
Anger made the blood roar in his ears. There were terrorists running free on Whidbey Island, and they’d almost succeeded in shooting down a US Navy aircraft.
His toehold, a small ledge, crumbled as he tried to cling to it, and his ribs slammed against the rough wall. An involuntary grunt left his chest, along with his air.
Focus, breathe, reach, climb.
He’d done this kind of thing when he was in worse shape. He remembered scaling an enemy compound wall with broken ribs and a collapsed lung... The searing pain in his side didn’t come close to the pain of past injuries.
The image of a beautiful woman with a voice as sexy as any he’d ever known flashed in front of him.
The same woman he hadn’t been able to erase from his mind in the year and a half since he’d seen her.
Joy.
He wished it was only the pain, the shock of his predicament, that made him think of her.
Had he really thought he’d be able to wrap up this case and then go reintroduce himself? After eighteen months of no contact, except reading her Facebook page via the fake one he’d created? Not that he’d been keeping track as he faced down the devil himself and came through the hell that was his life those last six months of active duty.
He wished, too, that he had someone else, anyone other than Joy, to rely on. Anyone other than the woman who’d already done so much for him and his colleague.
Now he had to ask her to trust him again—but without the evidence he’d provided in Norfolk. He gritted his teeth. Joy Alexander deserved better than to be drawn into the reach of such evil.
But you need her intelligence, her skill...her.
His fingers ached, and he wasn’t even halfway up the cliff. Worrying about Joy was just his brain’s way of distracting him from his discomfort. Another operational habit.
Schedules and crises had prevented him from connecting with her sooner. Clearing his name of a murder allegation had been another stumbling block, to say the least.
If he involved her in this op, there was no longer any hope of ever having more with her than what they’d always had—business. And yet, she was the only woman who’d completely believed in him, as a Navy sailor, a SEAL, a man.
Navy Lieutenant Commander Joy Alexander.
A wisp of memory drifted through his adrenaline-soaked mind—the tall, curvy Navy JAG he’d worked with, the attorney who’d defended him. It’d been a tough case.
She’d been tougher.
They’d made a good team. For six long months in the legal offices of Naval Station Norfolk, they’d slugged it out, seeking justice for an Afghan villager anyone else might have presumed guilty. It certainly would’ve been easier than facing down the entire United States Justice System with what initially looked like almost zero evidence.
Joy hadn’t given up from the very first minute they were introduced. In the aftermath of their trial win, his days had become bleak—for other reasons. He’d thought back to how she’d looked on that last day as she drove out of the legal building’s parking lot and waved goodbye.
He’d followed her Facebook posts while she was aboard the USS Lincoln, and then after, when she’d moved here to Whidbey. Brad didn’t post on Facebook; he lurked solely as a means of keeping in touch with the few old friends he had left. Joy had gotten out of the Navy and stayed on the West Coast to start over as a civvie.
He’d hoped to show up, take her on a date. If he got past his wariness over chasing a woman he still thought about. A woman he’d made love to in his mind countless times.
Like him, she’d been a loner. Dedicated to the pursuit of freedom and justice for all. The job was starting to wear on her; he’d seen it back then. He’d felt the same way. Dedicating your life to your country at eighteen, fresh out of high school, was noble and needed. Democracy had to be protected. Terrorists had to be stopped.
By thirty, the thrill of adrenaline rushes started to break down your body, no matter how fit you were, how dedicated. By thirty-five, you realized that the hard jobs were meant to be done by younger shipmates.
From what he’d gleaned, Joy had led a relatively charmed Navy career. Still, as they worked on the case together, he’d seen the fatigue shadowing her, too.
He knew she’d felt the attraction between them—he’d seen it in her glances, the way her hand crept to her throat in an unconscious defense mechanism. If they’d met elsewhere, some situation in which he wasn’t an enlisted SEAL and she wasn’t a Naval Officer JAG, their relationship might have played out very differently.
A different ending was what he’d hoped for when he saw that she’d gotten out of the Navy, too. They were both civilians now, free to take up with whomever they wanted.
And then he’d been assigned this mission.
You’ll never be free.
As he pulled himself over the edge of the cliff and onto grass that felt surprisingly soft after the rough-hewn cliff side, he figured he had three more minutes to make it inside her place.
Good thing he was in her backyard.
He’d memorized her address and the surrounding locale back at the office, when he’d done a search on her, just in case.
In case he had a chance to ask her out. Instead, he had to ask her for help. Again. He vowed to get what he needed and get out before the terrorists knew he’d been here, before Joy could wind up like his ex-fiancée.
Dead.
The question he’d ignored, the question he had to disregard, nipped at his conscience.
How are you going to let her go a second time?
* * *
“WE’LL HAVE A deputy out there as soon as we can, ma’am.”
“I have to report to work in an hour. Can I give you my work address and they can take my statement there?”
“No, ma’am.” The emergency operator’s voice was firm. Practiced in getting panicked people to tell her what she needed.
Joy wasn’t panicked. But she was getting annoyed.
“I’m just trying to do my