Heart Strike (32 page)

“
He's
a bird colonel. He can call me that if he wants.
You
aren't nothing but meat walking on sacred ground and wishing he belonged.”

Kyle nodded to himself. The “girlie” got it in one.

“
You
”—she jabbed a finger into Sergeant Ralph Something's chest—“do not get ‘girlie' privileges.
We
clear?”

“Oh, sweetheart, I can think of plenty of privileges that you'll want to be giving to—” His hand only made it halfway to stroking her hair.

If Kyle hadn't been Green Beret trained, he wouldn't have seen it because she moved so fast and clean.

“—
me!
” Ralph's voice shot upward on a sharp squeak.

The woman had Ralph's pinkie bent to the edge of dislocation and, before the man could react, had leveraged it behind his back and upward until old Ralph Something was perched on his toes trying to ease the pressure. With her free hand, she shoved against the middle of his back to send him stumbling out of control into the concrete wall of the mess hall with a loud
clonk
when his head hit.

Minimum force, maximum result. The Unit's way.

She eased off on his finger and old Ralph dropped to the dirt like a sack of potatoes. He didn't move much.

“Oops.” She turned to face the crowd that had gathered.

She didn't even have to say, “Anyone else?” Her look said plenty.

Kyle began to applaud. He wasn't the only one, but he was in the minority. Most of the guys were doing a wait and see.

A couple looked pissed.

Everyone knew that the Marines' combat training had graduated a few women, but that was just jarheads on the ground.

This was Delta. The Unit was Tier One. A Special Mission Unit. They were supposed to be the one true bastion of male dominance. No one had warned them that a woman was coming in.

Just one woman, Kyle thought. The first one. How exceptional did that make her? Pretty damn was his guess. Even if she didn't last the first day, still pretty damn. And damn pretty. He'd bet on dark eyes behind her wraparound shades. She didn't take them off, so it was a bet he'd have to settle later on.

A couple corpsmen came over and carted Ralph Something away, even though he was already sitting up—just dazed with a bloody cut on his forehead.

The Deltas who'd come out to watch the show from a few buildings down didn't say a word before going back to whatever they'd been doing.

Kyle made a bet with himself that Ralph Something wouldn't be showing up at sundown's first roll call. They'd just lost the first one of the class and the selection process hadn't even begun. Or maybe it just had.

“Where's check-in?” Her voice really was as lush as her hair, and it took Kyle a moment to focus on the actual words.

He pointed at the next building over and received a nod of thanks.

That made watching her walk away in those tight leathers strictly a bonus.

Day eight and no formation until 0600 hours. Kyle felt like he'd been lazy and slept in. He did a rough head count. From the first day of 104 candidates, they were down by at least twenty-five.

Several hadn't made it through the day-one PT test, which hadn't even been hard. The only unusual part of the physical training test had been the amount of it. Most of these guys had been in advanced branches of the military—Special Forces, Special Ops, 82nd Airborne. How could these guys not have been prepared for a round of hard-core PT?

Sergeant Carla was one of only three regular Army. All three of them were still in. You had to be tough to think you could jump straight from Army to Delta without spending a couple tours in Special Operations or as a Special Forces Green Beret first.

He'd won his first-day bet with himself when he watched the Hostage Rescue Team dude nearly drown halfway through the hundred-meter swim in full clothes and boots toward the end of day one—without even a rifle in his hands. He'd panicked, grabbed for the boat moving along beside him, and voluntarily quit.

This was real, not a game. He should have known that before he walked through the gate. Sympathy level: zero.

The first day had cut six; the first week had cut about twenty more. Half of those couldn't deal with the brutal physical workouts, and the other half couldn't deal with the rules. He could pick out another twenty he didn't think would survive much longer for that second reason. Sympathy level: same.

Delta Selection rules were oddly too simple for most. Life in other units of the U.S. military was about explicit orders that told you exactly what to wear, how to make your bed, where to be, and what to do.

Delta rules rarely lasted more than three sentences—for an entire day's exercise. Last night's bulletin board had said simply, “0600. No rucks.” That meant no brutal hike with a heavy rucksack, at least not to start the day.

A lot of the guys had cheered when they'd seen that. Assessment Phase had been a week of escalating workouts, lots of PT, and lots of heavy-duty hikes. First day had been an 0200 start, a full ruck, and eighteen miles along the roads of Fort Bragg. They'd also been told that there was an unspecified time limit to each hike, so they shouldn't dawdle.

Any drill sergeant worth his salt would have added something more. “…Dawdle like a little old ladies' knitting circle.” Or “…like the lame weaklings we expect from the other services.”

Not Delta. Just, “Don't dawdle.”

Not real helpful.

Unlike Green Beret assessment and training, no instructor was hovering beside you, yelling at you to dig in and keep up. In Delta, if you lagged, a member of the testing cadre slipped up quietly beside you and asked if you wanted to voluntarily drop out. If not, they let you grind it out against a hidden clock that they never revealed. At times he wondered if the training cadre even knew what the time limits were or if only the sergeant major in charge knew the required maximums.

Whatever was coming, Kyle already knew it would be harder than the day before, heavy rucks on their shoulders or not. No cause to cheer or be depressed. Steady. Just like Dad had taught him.

Without preface, the cadre started calling roll as the sun cracked the horizon, and most guys pulled down their sunglasses. As each man was called, he stepped forward. Per standard practice, they were given a swatch of colored cloth with a number to pin to their uniform and then told to climb into truck number such-and-so.

Today his swatch was “Red 4,” and that's all any instructor would call him by for the rest of the day. Truck 2 looked no different than the other two. Only three trucks. They were going to be sardined in by the time everyone was called.

He had looked for a pattern to their numbering but found none. That bothered several of the guys; made others a bit paranoid as they were certain it was a reflection on their prior day's success or failure. Kyle saw no pattern, decided it was a mind game, and stopped thinking about it. They clearly didn't need him to know, so he didn't worry about it.

He admitted to being pretty pleased when “Green 3” climbed into Truck 2 as well. The trainees filled the side benches of the truck as they climbed in, and Carla Anderson ended up directly across from him. She had kept to herself, ignored the subtle harassments, and put down the more obnoxious ones. In whatever direction the candidates would be dispersed through the day, he'd account starting out across from her as a good beginning.

It had become clear to him after day two that she could handle herself just fine. A brain-dead grunt had grabbed her ass and found himself head down in a toilet—not the flush kind, the slit-trench latrine kind. The aggressor hadn't been in the barracks that night; she had. No one said a word and everyone left her pretty much alone after that.

Kyle had been pleasantly surprised as Carla continued to survive each day. Woman was damn tough. She might keep to herself, but she gave a hundred percent. As often as not, she'd be on his heels at the end of each hike or exercise. He sure as hell knew where she was at all times, close and moving at full tilt. She pushed him hard and he appreciated the extra motivation.

Also, in this sea of guys, she was a sweet relief to look at, even if the “Don't Touch” sign was glowing bright above her head.

“Check it out,” she said and nodded toward the rear of the truck. They were the first words she'd spoken directly to him since asking where to check in.

He turned to look. Damn, he'd been staring at her again. He really had to cut that out. Well, if she wasn't going to complain, maybe he'd just enjoy it while it lasted.

Out on the assembly ground, thirty guys were still standing at roll call when the Sergeant Major closed his clipboard.

The three trucks that the roll-called soldiers had climbed aboard started their engines but didn't move off. They weren't packed in any tighter than usual.

“Men.” The Sergeant Major raised his voice.

Kyle could hear him clearly despite the rumbling.

“You have failed to achieve the times necessary on the hikes. We will be sending you back to your units with letters of praise. You are fine soldiers, but regrettably, you aren't what The Unit is looking for. Thank you all. Pack your gear. Transport arrives in fifteen minutes. Dismissed.” The Sergeant Major snapped a salute that was returned sloppily by the shell-shocked soldiers left standing in the dirt.

“Shit!” Kyle knew a half dozen of these guys. Three were Green Berets from his own battalion, though none of his own company were here. They were damn fine soldiers.

The trucks dropped into low gear and moved off as the shock continued to ripple through those left behind. Several dropped to sit in the dirt. Others stood and wept openly. Most simply watched the trucks drive away with a look of desperate longing on their face.

“Harsh,” Carla observed.

Kyle looked at her. No sign of pity in her face. No sign of fear that it might just as easily have been her left standing in the dirt. A number of the guys on the truck looked aghast at their narrow escape from such a brutal cut, a full third of their forces gone in a single moment.

Sergeant Carla Anderson wasn't worrying about being cut. She was facing what was right in front of her. Like a good soldier, she focused on what came next.

He was starting to learn that whatever it was, she'd hit it full force and be damned good at it. Few soldiers and, up till now, no women, ever truly impressed him.

Kyle gave her a grin across the jouncing bed of the truck as it slammed into the now-familiar potholes along the road outside Delta's front gate.

“On the bright side, at least they'll be spared an opportunity for you to send more of them swimming in a latrine.”

She smiled back. It was a good smile, the first one he'd seen cross her face. It was easy and lit her eyes as well. “At least I didn't break any bones. I guess I
was
being a little mellow. I was in a good mood that day.”

He cringed in pretend fear. “Ooo, so scared.”

“How little you know.”

That was the most words he'd heard her say since her arrival, the guys seated to either side watching her in surprise.

Himself, he was under the sway of that hypnotic voice and wouldn't mind hearing a lot more of it. But it took a more than a pretty face and a bit of training to make Delta. So, show her that there was a deep end of the swimming hole.

“Will we be seeing you at the end…girlie?”

Her returned smile was wicked; wicked enough that he wondered if there might be a latrine swim in his own immediate future. If so, he wasn't going in alone.

“You'll be seeing me only if you're still here, tough guy.”

Kyle laughed back. It was a good moment.

And Sergeant Carla Anderson, both the soldier and the woman, impressed the hell out of him.

M. L. Buchman has over forty novels in print. His military romantic suspense books have been named Barnes & Noble and NPR “Top 5 of the Year” and twice
Booklist
“Top 10 of the Year,” placing two titles on their “Top 101 Romances of the Last 10 Years” list. He has been nominated for the Reviewer's Choice Award for “Top 10 Romantic Suspense of 2014” by
RT Book Reviews
and for the prestigious RITA Award for Romantic Suspense. In addition to romance, he also writes thrillers, fantasy, and science fiction.

In among his career as a corporate project manager he has: rebuilt and single-handed a fifty-foot sailboat, both flown and jumped out of airplanes, designed and built two houses, and bicycled solo around the world.

He is now making his living as a full-time writer on the Oregon Coast with his beloved wife and is constantly amazed at what you can do with a degree in geophysics. You may keep up with his writing by subscribing to his newsletter at
www.mlbuchman.com
.

Devil and the Deep

The Deep Six

by Julie Ann Walker

New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author

A flaming desire with earth-shattering repercussions…

Maddy Powers's life revolves around fund-raisers and charity events—but she can't forget the daring former SEAL and the scorching kiss they shared before he disappeared into the deep blue sea.

Bran Pallidino carries a dark secret behind his lady-killer eyes—one that keeps him from pursuing a serious relationship with Maddy. But when she's taken hostage, he enlists the men of Deep Six Salvage to embark on a dangerous mission to save Maddy.

As they fight her merciless kidnappers, they discover this isn't a simple hostage situation, but something far more sinister. Passion boils between Bran and Maddy, but what good is putting their hearts on the line if they don't survive the dawn?

Praise for Hell or High Water:

“Readers will be panting for the next in the series.” —
Publishers Weekly

“Hot men, hot action, and hot temperatures make for one hot romance!” —
BookPage

For more Julie Ann Walker, visit:

www.sourcebooks.com