Relentless

Copyright © 2009 by Kari L. Walker

First published in 2010

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Her stomach flipped like she'd just dropped three floors in a runaway elevator. Rhys had never looked at her like this. Everything about him radiated erotic promise.

He closed the remaining distance separating them and stopped in front of her, then took her hands in his. The simple contact jolted deep in her womb. Nev craned her neck back to meet his eyes, and the sheer desire revealed there stunned a gasp out of her. Rhys's expression made her think he wanted to eat her alive. When he tugged her to her feet, she obeyed without a thought, riveted by his focused expression.

Before she had time to wonder what he would do, he slid his hands up over the intensely sensitive skin of her inner arms and over her shoulders, up her throat to her face. The seductive touch was completely at odds with the molten heat blazing from his eyes, and set her heart pounding.

She'd sensed this in him, this volcanic heat beneath the icy exterior he showed the rest of the world. This was the real man beneath the cool facade.

“Ms. Cross writes well, with smoothness and polish, and her ability to create sub plots means that she makes a [stalker] theme refreshing. Go for it— this is a super read.”

~Between the Lines WRDF Review

“Truly one of the most remarkable stories I have read. Kudos to Ms. Cross for a story well told.”

~Graded “A” by Simply Romance Reviews

“
OUT OF HER LEAGUE
is a tantalizing story that has well-developed characters plus lots of mystery, suspense of the ever-present stalker. Ms. Cross’ description of settings brings the locations to life and reveals even more about the characters. Her smooth, easy-flowing writing is a joy to read, AND the love scenes are truly love scenes, not just sex— ah!”

~Rated 4.5 books by Long and Short Reviews

“Clearly written with an eye on the commercial potential of today's more explicit romance fiction,
OUT OF HER LEAGUE
is a bona fide page-turner, peppered with profanity and violence, and with a slow, but steady, progression to several steamy sex scenes... . Cross’ prose is spare, fast-paced and evocative, with enough narrative hooks and violent jolts to snare even those who profess to deride this kind of fiction.”

~Peace Arch News

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Relentless

COPYRIGHT (C) 2009 by Kari L. Walker

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Contact Information: [email protected]

Cover Art by
Kim Mendoza

The Wild Rose Press

PO Box 708

Adams Basin, NY 14410-0706

Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

Publishing History

First Crimson Rose Edition, 2010

Print ISBN 1-60154-784-6

Published in the United States of America

Walter Reed Army Medical Center,

Washington, D.C.

Tuesday afternoon, mid-November

He was a walking miracle.

No one had expected him to make it. They'd all told him that, from the doctors and nurses to the PT staff and the people who'd brought him his meals. He shouldn't have survived his injuries, yet he had. Now? He couldn't wait to get the hell out of the place that had been his prison for the past eight weeks.

Slinging his heavy duffel over his right shoulder, Rhys Sinclair headed up to the ICU to say goodbye to the nursing staff there. Least he could do was say thank you, since they'd brought him back from the dead.

Well, them and Neveah, the American surgeon he and his CIA-sanctioned team had gone into the Afghan mountains for. They'd rescued her from notorious radical Farouk Tehrazzi and his evil minions. Right before everything went to hell.

That's all Rhys remembered from the op, but he was aware of the rest of the story and the irony of it. He'd freed Neveah from her vindictive captors, and hours later she'd wound up saving his life when he hit the landmine. Was it only two months ago? It seemed like it had all happened in another lifetime.

Tugging on the brim of his twin's cherished Red Sox ball cap, he pushed the steel door open and stepped out of the stairwell. Behind the nurses’ station desk, the fiftyish head nurse looked up from her paperwork and broke into a huge smile. “Hey, handsome.”

A grin tugged at his lips. “Hey, Gina.” He walked over and leaned a forearm on the countertop above her desk.

“Come to say goodbye?”

“Yep. I'm officially outta here, thanks to you and your staff.”

She waved his thanks away. “Trust me, you have yourself to thank for making it through. I've never seen anyone with such incredible will.” She laced her fingers together and laid her hands atop a file with his name on it. “I was just going over all your paperwork. Bet Doctor Adams is pretty thrilled with your recovery, huh?”

Rhys stilled. “Doctor Adams?”

“Yes, don't you know her?” Gina gave him a confused look.

Neveah, crouched on the dirt floor of the filthy hut when he'd burst through the door. Her lips peeled back from her teeth, a feral snarl of warning issuing from her throat. Her hair, once so lush and beautiful, lay in greasy disarray around her shoulders. Her eyes glinted with a wild fear. In one bloody hand she held a rock she'd pried from the wall. She hunkered in front of her helpless colleague to defend him, and her deadly expression made it clear she would attack if he came closer.

Rhys shook away the stark memory. Yeah, he knew her.

“She was real involved with your progress while she was here.”

His lungs seized for a moment. She'd
been
there? When?

“And when we moved you out of the ICU, she insisted the floor nurses and PT staff update her personally each day.” Gina frowned. “I thought you knew.”

“No.” God, he'd had no idea Neveah would go to such trouble for him, especially after what she'd been through. He glanced down at the file on the desk. “May I?”

Gina hesitated for a moment, then handed him the binder with a conspiratorial smile. “Just between us, okay?”

“You bet.” A funny sensation bloomed in his chest when he flipped the cover open and glanced at the recorded entries. He read about his status upon arrival from Germany in the Medevac; the meds he'd been given to reduce the intra-cranial pressure and swelling in his brain for the eight days he'd been in the coma; and finally, the visitors log. His eyes skipped over the list of names, sticking on one in particular.
Sweet Jesus...

When he studied the dates, he couldn't believe it.

“Better give that back before I get caught.”

Rhys closed the binder and returned it, caught off guard by what he'd just seen. He couldn't figure it out. It didn't make any sense. “Thanks again, Gina.”

“My pleasure. Come back and visit us anytime.”

He shook his head, but softened the rejection with his version of a smile. “No offense, but I don't plan on coming back.”

Once he'd said the rest of his goodbyes, he headed back down to the physical therapy area with its bland beige paint and smell of stale sweat. He'd shed gallons of the stuff in here over the past six weeks, putting in countless physically and mentally exhausting hours, biting back grunts of pain while his muscles strained under the burns scars across his back and shoulders. All in all? He was damned glad to be leaving the place once and for all.

He'd just stepped inside when Ben, his six-minutes younger twin brother, appeared through the far door. A swell of pride hit him. “Hey, punk.”

“Hey, hard-ass.” In a way, the familiar Southie accent soothed Rhys. Ben grinned as he strolled over, a former Army Ranger just under six-four and ripped, chomping on his Big Red gum. His pale green eyes sparkled with mischief, their color emphasized by the black lashes and brows they both had. “Check you out.” He ran an approving gaze over him. “You look like a million bucks.”

Yeah, well, compared to how he'd looked when he'd first arrived, that wasn't hard, was it? Rhys pulled off the Sox cap and ran a hand over his skull trim. The newly grown hair covering his surgical scars on the right side was soft against his palm. “Here. Think it's time I gave this back.”

Feigning horror, Ben recoiled. “Jesus, put it back on. You think I wanna walk out of here with you looking like a freaking Frankenstein?”

Rhys's lips tugged upward. His brother was the master of talking smack. “Just take it.”

“You sure? I don't need it back yet. Maybe it's still got some magic in it.”

“I think it's done me as much good as it's going to.”

With a shrug, Ben pulled it on and clapped a brotherly hand on Rhys's back. The cinnamon scent of his gum hung in the air between them. “Damn, you look good in your civvies. Gotta tell you, there were times I thought I'd have to bust you out of this place to take you home.”

Tell me about it
.

He'd thought of busting out a few times as well, and his recent years as a Delta Force member had given him plenty of creative ideas about how to make that happen.

Rhys shifted the duffel higher on his right shoulder, then decided to place it over his weaker left one to give it more work. Hard as he'd pushed himself, his left side was still weaker than the right. And while the right was stronger, he wasn't as coordinated as he wanted on that side.

That's what happened when you suffered a penetrating wound to your right parietal lobe.

Not that he should complain. He was one of the lucky ones. A lot of the veterans he'd met here had it way worse than him. The not-so-lucky traumatic brain injury patients at Walter Reed were still up in the neurological ward. Some in comas, others little more than drooling vegetables. Every single day he counted his blessings that he wasn't numbered among them.

“You're gonna need some new threads, there, Superman.”

Rhys glanced down at himself and swept a palm over his black button-down silk shirt. It was too tight across the chest now, the placket puckering from the strain.

“What'd you put on, like ten pounds of muscle in the last two months?”

“Eight.” And it still wasn't enough to make him as physically powerful as he'd been before his injury. That bothered him. Strong as he was, he wasn't sure if he'd be able to go out into the field again. His chances of making it back into the unit were pretty much nil now. If it turned out he couldn't, he had no idea what the hell he was going to do with the rest of his life.

“What does that make you, like, a double XL?”

“Nope. Plain old XL, same as you, only taller.” He'd never pass up the opportunity to jab his brother about being vertically challenged.

Ben scowled. “Whatever, by like, two inches.”

“Still makes you shorter, doesn't it?” He flexed his fingers around the straps of the duffel hanging off his shoulder, a surge of restlessness coming over him. “Let's go.”

Ben followed him out into the underground parking and unlocked the shiny black F-150 he'd parked close to the elevators. Rhys was damned glad to get to it. How many times had he sat in his hated wheelchair behind the plate glass window to watch his twin climb into the cab and drive away, back to real life? While Rhys had returned to his sterile room to stare out the tiny window.

He'd done that too many times to count, and the pure frustration of having to stay in the hospital and wait for his body to play catch-up with his brain had been hell.

With a sense of liberation, Rhys opened the passenger door and slid onto the seat, still conscious of a lingering hesitation in his right arm and leg. No one would notice the delay unless they were a rehab specialist, but
he
knew it was there, and it drove him crazy. He expected one hundred and ten percent from himself, in everything he did. Period. Brain injury or not.