Heart of Danger (Special Ops) Read online

  Copyright © 2012 Shunta Montgomery

  All Rights Reserved

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  Publisher’s Note:

  Heart of Danger is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, event or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Special Thanks

  Thank you, Barb, for catching the mistakes I missed. Your assistance with editing has been wonderful.

  Thank you to my friend U.S. Air Force Colonel Susan Cardin-Hoffdahl, who entertained my questions about military men. Thanks to your patience and your wealth of knowledge I feel as if I’m able to at least put a little more fact into a whole lot of fiction.

  Thank you to all of my readers for showing your support for my work by buying, reading and keeping my books on your shelf/kindle/nook or other reading device. You all are amazing.

  Books by Capri Montgomery

  Betrayal of the Dove (June 2012)

  Vendetta

  Shadow Hills: M is for Murder

  Seducing the Bodyguard

  Shadow Hills: No Valentine

  Shadow Hills: Fallen Hero

  Fahrenheit

  Secrets and Lies

  Returning Sheba

  Saints and Sinners

  The McGregor Affair

  Dream Walker

  The Geneva Project

  The Admiral’s Daughter

  Dangerous Obsessions

  Watch Over Me

  Educating Australia

  Maid for Hire

  And Many Others…

  Coming August 2012:

  Explosive: Deadly Connections ~ from the Men of Action Series

  About the Series

  The Special Ops series is currently comprised of four segments with each segment including approximately four books. We'll have military men, secret agent men, federal agents, firefighters and more. The first segment of the series is Special Ops: Search and Rescue. In this segment we’re following four retired military men in their private search and rescue agency. They go over to retrieve the “package” when nobody else can. Three Air Force men (not counting the on-call pilot) and one Marine make up the elite Squadron. These men are ready for action, highly skilled and the most effective team for any search and rescue mission.

  The four segments of the Special Ops series so far are:

  Special Ops: Search and Rescue

  Special Ops: Witness Protection

  Special Ops: Homeland Security

  Special Ops: Inferno

  I hope you will come along with each of the books in the series for the action, the romance and the very sexy men and women heating up the pages of these stories

  Heart of Danger

  Chapter One

  Why did she have to be in love with him? She worked for their agency, four military guys with their own search and rescue company and she had to fall in love with him—Micah Dillard. He was smart, would risk his life to save a friend, confident and oh so sexy. And there he was with the perfect blond Barbie who was lucky enough to be sitting there enjoying his embrace. Why couldn’t he see how she wanted him?

  When he went missing overseas she couldn’t sleep, she couldn’t eat, she thought he was dead and three months later they found him, alive and brought him home…they brought him home with her, Jocelyn Crane, the woman he was sent over to rescue.

  “Oh, bloody hell,” she mumbled under her breath as she watched Micah stroke his fingers through Jocelyn’s hair wishing the entire time that he had been running his fingers through her hair. The bar was hopping. The music was playing and she was over here at the bar getting their drinks while they celebrated. “Screw this,” she took the clear drink sitting on the bar and downed it in one gulp. That was a mistake and she knew it, but at the moment she just didn’t care.

  “Well hello.” Natalia turned to see a blond haired man sitting there. He had striking blue eyes, just the basic blue, nothing like the Caribbean ocean blue green that Micah had. “That was my drink, gorgeous.”

  “Sorry,” she looked at Charlie. “Can you get him another one and I’ll pay for it? The guys want to place an order to, Charlie.”

  “Natalia, you don’t drink.”

  She shrugged. “I do tonight.” Tonight she was going to need something to help her get through watching Micah and Jocelyn play with each other. She chuckled under her breath; play with each other, as if that’s what they were doing. Well with all the touching Jocelyn was doing, maybe that was what they were doing. She really didn’t want to think about it.

  “Don’t worry about putting the drink on her tab. I’ll cover it.” Charlie poured another of whatever the blond was drinking in the glass. “I’m David,” he handed her the glass. “On me,” he grinned. She took that one and downed it too. It was nasty just like the first, but if it was going to help her stop feeling this pain in her heart and manage to get through the night she would drink as many as she had to. Although given her issues, alcohol really wasn’t the smartest solution. For some reason, tonight she just didn’t care.

  “Go easy, Natalia.” Charlie quipped. Her dark chocolate ebony skin was so perfect. She envied that perfection. Perfect women always got the men they loved. Charlie was dating Jethro Jackson, one of the guys in the company, which is why the guys spent so much time at this particular bar.

  “Want to dance, gorgeous?”

  “Sure,” she tossed her head to the side, flipping her hair just a little. He took hold of her hand and pulled her out onto the dance floor. A Selena Gomez song was on. She heard the words. “I, I love you like a love song…” She knew she loved him. He just didn’t love her. She let the pulsing beat move her body as much as she could because David was seriously crowding her space, but the booze was going to her head already and somewhere in that alcohol induced haze she imagined David to be Micah. She let him rub against her; his hands covering her body in ways that she wished Micah would caress her. Oh boy, she was drunk. That’s why she didn’t drink, because just like all the women on her father’s side of the family she couldn’t handle even a sip and she had just downed two glasses.

  “Want to go outside, gorgeous?” She didn’t remember answering him, but she did remember shaking her butt out the door. The next thing she remembered was being up against a car and having lips on her lips, on her neck, on her shoulder. Hands going up her blouse.

  “Micah,” she moaned.

  “Sure baby, I’ll be whoever you want me to be,” his hands went to her skirt and as he caressed her thighs as he pushed the skirt up.

  “Get your fucking hands off of her!”

  The man touching her jumped back. If it weren’t for the car behind her she would have hit the ground hard. She looked up to the four angry men surrounding her. “Oh,” she whispered. “Who are you?” She looked at the blond. She vaguely remembered he told her his name at some point.

  “That’s what you need to do to get laid you bastard? You get a woman drunk and then put your paws all over her.”

  “Hey, she had those drinks on her own. And she’s not drunk. She only had two.”

  “She’s drunk and you can see that,” Micah growled. “Get the fuck out of here before I beat some respect into you.”

  “That’s my car,” he pointed to the chunk of steal behind her.

  Micah reached out to
her and took hold of her arm. She jerked her arm away from him. She didn’t want him to touch her. No, she did…but not like this.

  “Come on, Natalia.” Alex stepped in and pulled her away. She stumbled. Walking while drunk in four inch heels was definitely a mistake.

  “Damn,” Micah scooped her up into his arms.

  “Put me down.”

  “I’ll put you down when I get you home. What the hell were you thinking?”

  “I was just having fun,” she moaned. “I don’t feel so well.” She pushed against him, struggling until he put her down and then she threw up right there. Nobody would ever say any of the Bright women knew how to hold their liquor.

  “Oh hell; I’ll get you home, Natalia. What were you thinking?”

  “I drove here,” she tried to stumble away from him.

  “And you’re still too damn drunk to drive.”

  Well he never was one to mince words. “I’ll take a cab.” She didn’t want him to take her home either—or maybe she did, but not while she was falling over drunk.

  “Yeah, you do that—some other day,” he scowled down at her. “I’m taking you home.”

  She looked back toward the door and she saw Jocelyn come out, looking perfect as usual. “Go back to your company,” she mumbled. “I can find my own way home.”

  “I’ll take her, Micah.” Alex stepped up to the plate. He was always the nicest to her. They were all pretty nice, but Alex always seemed to get her. Jet and Preston were older, and forever focused on their missions, but Alex was the twenty-six year old kid who had done his tours and come out to work for Micah and the guys. Micah was the second in command even though the agency was his baby he handed leadership over to Preston because Preston had been his CO in the Air Force. Preston handed out the assignments and Jet, he was the best when it came to getting into and out of places unnoticed. They were all great, but the only one she was in love with was Micah.

  “I got this,” Micah took hold of her upper arm. She was either going to walk or be dragged. “See that Jocelyn gets to her car all right please?”

  “Sure man.” Alex yelled as Micah literally dragged her beside him. His long legs took the steps too fast, so angrily; she couldn’t keep up. Her shorter legs weren’t really going to make that pace. His five nine frame to her five foot frame was still a big enough difference to make her have to walk faster to keep up with his leisurely paced movements. On a good day she could handle that, but right now was not exactly one of those good days, and he was no longer walking at a leisurely pace. He was practically sprinting.

  He reached his truck, yanking his keys out of his pocket and unlocking the door from the slender black remote on his key chain. He opened the door. “Get in.” He wasn’t asking her. He was telling her to. She got in, unsteadily so, and she felt his hand push against her butt as she almost fell back out while trying to get fully in. His hand felt so good there, so right, and she wanted him to put it back, but he didn’t. The moment she sat down he slammed the door shut, walked around to the other side and got in.

  “Put your seatbelt on,” he started the truck and waited for her to comply. While she fumbled with the seatbelt he just sat there looking at her until, frustrated by her lack of coordination, he took the metal buckle from her and jabbed it into the other side. He put the truck in gear and pulled out hard and fast.

  “What were you thinking? You can’t drink and you know that. Isn’t that what you always tell us?”

  “I know,” she moaned. Her head was starting to hurt and it didn’t help that he was nearly yelling at her. She never drank because she knew the curse of the Bright women. None of them could handle even a sip. Her mother had told her before she went off to college to keep her lips off of anything with alcohol in it. “Remember what happened when your dad let you have a sip of his bourbon?” Yeah, she remembered, but she was ten at the time and she assumed that it went to her head because she shouldn’t have had it in the first place. It was her own fault because her dad was drinking something that she didn’t know what it was. She asked if she could have some and he just handed it to her. It was so nasty she didn’t have more than a sip and she spent the rest of the afternoon paying for it. “But just in case you forgot,” her mother had said. “Have some of this.” She gave her a fruity drink that tasted really good, but had her drunk as the cliché skunk within ten minutes. That was her mother’s going away to college gift to her. It was her way of reminding her that she couldn’t have even a sip, no matter how good the drink seemed it would always affect her the same way. So she didn’t drink—until tonight.

  “What were you thinking, Natalia?”

  “I was thinking I didn’t want to feel anymore.” She sighed as she turned her head away from him and immediately everything went black.

  Micah pulled into her driveway. “Come on, where are your keys?” He shook her a little, but it was clear she was out like the proverbial light. “Where the hell could you possibly hide keys in that getup?”

  His options were to search her, or to take her back to his place. He shook his head before searching to see if there were any pockets on that suit anywhere. They had come from work, but while they had shown up at the office prepared to go out that night, she had come in her standard suit ensemble with the stiletto heels. She had said she wasn’t going with them and they had assured her it was mandatory. Maybe they should have told her to bring somebody with her. They all had dates; even though Jet’s woman was working behind the bar she still came over and socialized when she could. Natalia was the odd number to their group outing and maybe they should have considered that.

  “Thank you,” he whistled as he found her keys clipped to the belt underneath her suit jacket. “I’ll get the door and come back for you,” he told her. Not that she could hear him. He walked up the steps to the porch, opened her door and disarmed her alarm. He had the code because he had the code to all of their alarms. They all did, except for Natalia; she didn’t have alarm codes—none other than her own.

  He stomped back down the stairs, opened the door on her side of the truck and pulled her out into his arms. She was passed out. He looked at her and shook his head. She was too innocent for this. How she made it through college without having something bad happen to her was beyond him—no, maybe it wasn’t. Natalia wasn’t a social butterfly. She probably never went out, never did the sorority thing, or the parties that they had on campus.

  When he saw her dancing with that blond guy he had an acute sense of awareness to the fact that she wasn’t the wall flower they thought she was. She was shaking her behind, dancing provocatively as that bastard had his hands all over her. She was gyrating and moving like she was dancing with the love of her life. They all saw her. They all assumed she was just…well hell, they didn’t know what they assumed. They had taken their eyes off of her when the next song came on and when they looked back she wasn’t on the dance floor. When Charlie came over and told him that she had just gone out the door and that she’d had two vodka straights they knew she was in trouble.

  “No more alcohol for you,” he put her down in her bed and then pulled off her shoes. “You’re going to have a whooper of a headache come morning.” He shrugged. “I hope you remember what happened so you don’t do anything that stupid again.”

  She rolled onto her side, one leg bending and the other sticking straight out. The move caused her skirt to edge up her thighs, the soft fabric caressing her body while showing some of her pantyhose clad thighs.

  He looked her over before shaking his head. He pulled a knitted blanket off the bedside chair and covered her. “I’ll take the couch,” he wasn’t sure he should leave her. He felt a need to protect her like he would protect a little sister. At least that’s what he told himself. She was like the sister he never had, or at least that’s what he thought until he felt the slow ache in his groin watching her dance tonight.

  Micah kicked off his boots, pulled off his shirt and stretched out on her sectional. He picked up his c
ell phone on the first ring. “Yeah,” he grumbled.

  “Did you get her home okay?”

  “Alex, I swear I never took her serious when she said she couldn’t drink, but she can’t drink,” he lowered his voice. “She passed out. She’s in bed. I’m going to sleep on the couch tonight. I don’t want to leave her alone.”

  “Good idea. Charlie says her car can stay overnight and we can pick it up in the morning.”

  “Thanks, Alex.” He ended the call while thinking of Natalia. Why had it taken her getting drunk for him to see her as a woman? She was thirty-two years old, but to a lot of people she looked underage. The older the viewer the younger they thought she was. Ages ranged from fourteen to eighteen, but nobody ever guessed thirty-two. She was small in frame and in stature. She was cute—until tonight that was all he would say, but tonight he had seen her differently. She was hot.