Code Name: Ghost (A Warrior's Challenge 1) (3 page)

“Commander, two intelligence reports came in
from Team Three Delta.” She took a step inside the office, although
she hadn’t been invited. “I think you’ll want to look at them.”

“Why is that?” His gaze surveyed her from
head to foot, like a machine scans a bar code.

He wasn’t wasting any time testing her.
“Because the report from Kabul is in regards to Haji Mulhar. He’s
one of—”

“I know who he is,” the Commander said,
sitting up slowly. “Take a seat, Ms. Banks.”

She approached his desk, noticing she could
see through the glass into the ops room. One-way glass. She’d have
to remember that before digging for a slipped bra strap.

She didn’t know what to expect when she’d
responded to the post for a job at Coronado. None of them had
really expected to get an interview. They were Canadian after all
and Gord and Barry were civilians, she had been enlisted. It was a
big move, but one she, Barry, and Gord had agreed was the right
thing to do.

The old man with a full head of white hair
gave her a fatherly look. Right from the start, Captain Redding
offered patience and encouragement, but he was also very much in
charge, and she liked that.

She laid the reports in front of Commander
Austen, but he didn’t spare a glance, instead keeping his brilliant
blue eyes on her. Intimidation 101. He who looks away first accepts
the submissive stance. Submissive wasn’t part of her vocabulary.
She swallowed sharply, seeing the long, jagged scar cutting across
his cheek. How could a man be this wickedly handsome and a warrior
at the same time?

His low voice seeped into her soul like
swirling fog across a quiet lake, causing an unsettled feeling. He
was a Commander, all right. Without a word, he commanded everything
around him, including the involuntary flutter in her heart. “Team
Three Delta sighted Mulhar in a village they infiltrated last
night. Their extraction time is two hours. They’re looking for
further orders.” A minute grin slipped across his lips. God knows,
if he had her under a light, she had to wonder if she’d give it all
up to his fierce eyes.

Trying to knock her off course, he said,
“Your employment file practically floats with praise, Ms.
Banks.”

Dominance part two. Try to unsettle your
target by changing direction and causing distraction and
uncertainty. “Yes, sir, do you have a response for the team?”

“What was your main desire for wanting to
work for this department, Ms. Banks?”

Desire? He should have used the word
purpose.
“Because I wanted to challenge my skills. Do you have
a response for the team?”

“Are you being challenged?”

She straightened in her chair. This wasn’t
just a case of having to prove herself, he was going to push her
buttons. A sharp quake of fear eclipsed, but she fisted it deep
inside her. She liked challenge, not conflict, being in her own
personal war for over ten years, she avoided it at all costs. The
Commander’s head tilted, drawing a slow glance across her features
as if seeing something she didn’t want him to see.

“You’re starting to, sir.” Her patience
dwindling, she held her comments under tight reign. The Commander’s
gaze hardened. Had she nudged a block in his resolute foundation?
Was he going to fire off into a rage? Because she could do that to
a man, break his restraint and turn it to violence. She remained
silent, waiting for him to either turn her into a pile of ash or
stand down. One movement, one fidget and he’d have her.

“What would you do, Ms. Banks?”

Smack that cocky look off your gorgeous
face for starters.
Her gaze darted away from his with the
insolent thought.
Bastard.
When she looked at him again, his
expression warmed a few degrees, but he was still waiting for her
response. “Extract without Mulhar.”

“He’s on the top twenty list of wanted men,
Ms. Banks.”

“Yes sir, however, the team have located the
three missing Americans from the embassy. A delay could cause that
mission to fail. They know where Mulhar is. He’ll remain in the
area, thinking his location is safe, if they don’t acknowledge him.
You can send a second squad in to recover him.”

Commander Austen nodded once, slowly. “Do
that, Ms. Banks.” She rose to see Captain Redding give her a wink.
One step from the door and freedom the Commander said, “Ms.
Banks?”

She turned, steadying herself for the
warning shot he was about to fire across her bow.

“Your record is very impressive.”

Huh?

Commander Austen rose and strode toward her,
stopping only inches away. Was this intimidation again? Looking at
him meant stretching her neck back. She waited. Standing her
ground, she ignored the sensation of quicksand replacing the floor
beneath her feet. Breathing was impossible with him so close. Did
this man ever laugh or was he as tainted by life as her? The small
creases around his eyes told her he might, and she wondered what he
looked like when he dropped the walls warfare had built around
him.

A muscle flickered in his jaw as he gazed at
her with his striking eyes—the eyes of a predator. “You’ll have to
prove yourself. I’m not taking flourished observations and
compliments from another source.”

The alpha male was so damn predictable.

“Bring me the response before you send
it.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll do it now.”

* * * *

The Commander stood staring at the empty
doorway, the echo of her presence remaining in the room with him.
When the smooth skin of her cheeks flushed and her eyes dilated
under his gaze, his own body had gone taut in response. His
subconscious recognized something in her eyes, but it wasn’t
registering. She made him edgy, and he didn’t like edgy.

He’d been home a week, and instead of taking
a break, he came in to work until Kayla finished her rotation. She
had three days off, and that’s all he took as well. Today was her
first day back. Before he’d removed his cap this morning, his eyes
were seeking her out. Even her body movements unsettled him. Red
mentioned she was a half-blood aboriginal from a tribe in northern
British Columbia. His team’s Master Chief, Mason Briggs, was part
Cherokee. Raised in Arizona, Mason retained a close connection with
his roots. He wondered if Kayla did the same.

Knowing Red wouldn’t be in for another
thirty minutes, he found her file and scoured the contents.
Numerous letters of commendation accompanied it. The first thing
his eyes sought out was her marriage status—single. Like him, she’d
joined the Canadian Navy at seventeen. What surprised him was she
was a commissioned officer, a lieutenant. Then on her own time
achieved a bachelor’s degree, majoring in child psychology, yet she
had no children.

Why would a woman who seemed to have a
stable foundation pick up her roots and move to the U.S.? It didn’t
make sense. Being strikingly beautiful and single didn’t make
sense, either. There was no way she could have the abilities listed
in her personnel file, and it was a long list from extensive
knowledge in military technology to strategic combat analyzes, the
three pages blew his mind.

Taking a break from dissecting her
accomplishments, he raised his gaze to watch her. A Navy SEAL sees
a lot of
bad
in his life, but he’s also given moments of
serenity. Many times, he watched the sea as she changed from a soul
swallowing blue to fire, under a setting sun. That’s what Kayla
reminded him of, a creature with inspiring beauty on the outside,
but on the inside—what the hell was on the inside?

“Don’t think you’ll be running her off any
time soon,” Red said, drawing him back to the present. “At least
not like the last five who transferred because of you.”

“I could kill you for this,” he grumbled,
taking the few steps back to his desk.

Red coughed out a laugh. “Any particular
reason why?”

“I think you damn well know why.”

Red shrugged innocently. “Something I
missed.”

“Who was on the board with you when you
hired her?”

“Commander Masters.”

“He’s a skirt-chasing prick.”

Red’s brows rose, but he didn’t say, ‘Like
you?’ “And—Captain Sheer and Lieutenant Law.”

Law was Team Three’s lieutenant. Sheer
worked with BUD/S in the training department. Both solid guys.
“What did they think of her?”

Red gave him a resigned look. “She’s here,
isn’t she? We didn’t cut her any breaks, Ghost. She stood on her
own two feet.” Red jerked his head. “See something in her file you
didn’t like?”

Crap
.

A knowing smile swept across Red’s face.
“She’s solid, intelligent, and a team player. Kayla’s been Navy all
her life. You want to paint paradigms, go ahead, but even Masters
struck out already.”

“What?” His attention pinned itself on his
mentor. “What do you mean?”

“First week she was here, he came sniffing
around.”

Figures, the guy was married and had three
kids, but it didn’t stop him from spreading any woman’s legs. Of
all the SEALs, he and Masters had always had a tense working
relationship. Most women liked his alpha male routine, no doubt
Kayla would, too. “And?”

“And—she politely shot him down, in
flames.”

Relief washed through him. The woman had a
good sense of character. Swiveling, he watched Kayla return to
John’s side. The flourish of her knee-length skirt swept against an
ass that made him swallow deeply. The other night the redhead had
seen to all his needs, but the sexual angst he was feeling wasn’t
nearly gone. Damned if Kayla’s face hadn’t flashed in his mind at
the most inopportune time.

Instead of the sway of long red locks
against his bare chest, thick brunette curls brushed through his
mind. Gripping thin, cool hips, his imagination filled his hands
with full, warm, olive skin.

Dammit anyway.
He yanked open his
middle drawer, rifling through it. Maybe a brunette? Plucking a
card with a woman’s swirling script, he stared at it. Vanessa.
Vanessa who? Did it really matter? Tossing the card back in with
all the others, he slammed the drawer closed.

He eyed the man responsible, or at least the
man he was going to blame for hiring Kayla.

“Problem?” Red goaded.

He was definitely buying Red the ugliest
sweater he could find next Christmas.

* * * *

Mace Callahan and his squad entered the
galley. He groaned as he saw the line stretched halfway to the
door. Just
getting
lunch was going to take three-quarters of
it. He heard the six other guys from his squad echo his groan at
seeing the line.

Civilian and military personnel merged into
one smooth operating naval base located on Coronado Island, a short
swim from San Diego. He knew. He’d done it enough times after
pissing the Commander off. Scanning the hall, Mace saw the Basic
Underwater Demolition training recruits known as BUD/S, who hoped
to become SEALs like them, standing in the line.

They’d spend six months in Coronado going
through their phased training. These guys were only on phase one,
and some of them looked like hell, and they hadn’t even gone
through Hell Week yet.

BUD/S training would separate them from all
the other Special Operation forces. The hard-assed thirty percent
or less that made it through would prove to themselves they were a
league above everyone else. Mace remembered those times well
enough. Ten years had passed since then, and those training days
were a cakewalk compared to real life.

“Let’s grab some chairs and wait till it
thins out,” Pat
,
“Zodiac” Cobbs, Alpha squad’s lieutenant
suggested, aiming for a table near the lineup.

“Wow, would you look at that,” Mace said,
barely sitting his ass in the chair, watching a woman enter the
galley. “Where the hell did she come from?”

“Cool your jets, Mace,” his lieutenant
warned.

He watched, as did the rest of the guys. The
woman had a hairpin curve from hip to breast. Obviously civilian,
she wore a pair of stone-washed jeans and a blue and white striped
jersey clung to her endowments nicely. A pair of high-heeled navy
blue boots clicked on the tile floor as she crossed it. He loved
dark brunettes, especially with waves of delicious hair, and eyes
as deep as outer space, like hers. Mace tracked her as she wove her
way to join the line, past the ant trails of men and women
shuffling by with their steaming trays of lunch.

Tony “Tinman” Bale, their heavy weapons
operator, craned his neck to watch as well. “Maybe she’s just
passing through,” he said, jerking his blonde brows. “That’s the
best kind, Mace.”

Mace’s sniper-trained eyes zeroed in on her.
Ignoring the action around her, she concentrated on her phone. “Bet
I can get a date,” he challenged, squaring off his shoulders and
eyeing Tony and Nathan Young, their newest member. All of them were
bachelors, and so was Clay “Ditz” Sacks, their communications man,
but he was engaged—technically, he didn’t count.

“Twenty bucks says you’ll strike out, Frog,”
Clay challenged, making the bet without pause.

“Yeah, I’m in, too. One look at you and
she’s gonna run screaming in the other direction,” Tony added, then
focused on the Commander as he approached. “Commander, we
debriefing today?”

Mace shoved his chair over to make room.
Commander Austen was everyone’s boss, but he still put his life on
the line, leading their missions. No one really understood why.
Most commanders of a SEAL team directed from outside the hot zone.
Lieutenant Cobbs didn’t mind having him onboard. Both the Commander
and Cobbs had been special warfare ops for twenty years. The
Captain of the Port, Josh Redding, joined them as they settled
their trays on the table.

“Hey, boys," Captain Redding greeted,
nodding his head of white hair. “Good to see you all made it
home.”