Don't Look Back, page 1
Sometimes history is better left buried…
* * *
Six months after barely escaping a nightmare, Kira Hanson is ready to take the trip of a lifetime—one she hopes will answer questions about her father’s clandestine work recovering art stolen during World War II. But before she boards her flight, she’s waylaid by a friend in need and finally comes face-to-face with the Navy SEAL who saved her six months ago and then ghosted her.
* * *
Lieutenant Commander Randall Fallon is thrilled to cross paths with the shy art historian, but within minutes of their reunion he learns she’s in danger once again. Uneasy with the idea of her embarking on a trip to track down art thieves on her own, he just might have to reprise his role as undercover bodyguard and follow her to Europe posing as an art buyer.
* * *
Things heat up between Kira and Rand when he tracks her down in Malta, but it soon becomes clear that Rand’s instincts were correct. Kira’s digging into her father’s secrets has unearthed an unexpected enemy.
DON’T LOOK BACK
Copyright © 2024 Rachel Grant
All rights reserved.
* * *
ISBN-13: 978-1-944571-66-5
* * *
Copyediting by Linda Ingmanson
* * *
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locations are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
* * *
All rights reserved.
* * *
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in encouraging piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Contents
Books By Rachel Grant
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Epilogue
Firestorm Excerpt
Fiona Carver Series
Flashpoint Series
About the Author
Books By Rachel Grant
Evidence: Under Fire
Before the Storm: One Hot Night (prequel)
Into the Storm
Trust Me
Don’t Look Back
* * *
Evidence
Concrete Evidence
Body of Evidence
Withholding Evidence
Night Owl
Incriminating Evidence
Covert Evidence
Cold Evidence
Poison Evidence
Silent Evidence
Winter Hawk
Tainted Evidence
Broken Falcon
Fiona Carver
Dangerous Ground
Crash Site
* * *
Flashpoint
Tinderbox
Catalyst
Firestorm
Inferno
* * *
Romantic Mystery
Grave Danger
* * *
Paranormal Romance
Midnight Sun
* * *
Writing as R.S. Grant
The Buried Hours
24.3-a
This one is for Sung-Hee,
I love our history and the joy we shared as goofy tweens and yet-to-be-swan early teens. I’m just as excited for the renewed friendship being forged now. I’m grateful we can look back and refresh each other’s memories. Looking forward is even more exciting.
Prologue
Newport News, Virginia
December
Lieutenant Commander Randall Fallon dropped to his knees beside Dr. Kira Hanson’s prone form. Her position was unnatural. His hands hovered above her for the briefest of moments before his training kicked in, blocking out the shock of finding her in this condition.
He ripped off his tactical gloves and felt for a pulse on her neck. It took a few seconds for him to locate it, but when he did, relief washed through him. Steady and strong.
He whispered into his radio that he’d found her. Alive.
He rolled her to her back and swallowed against the horror of her battered face.
This was an op. He was a Navy SEAL, and this was just another hostage rescue.
Those things were only partly true, but he needed to treat this like any other op. Same as Lieutenant Chris Flyte had vowed to do moments ago when they separated so he could rescue his lover from a terrorist and two American oligarch traitors.
Kira wasn’t Rand’s lover. Hell, he’d only met her slightly more than twenty-four hours ago. But she’d cast some sort of spell on him in the few brief hours they’d spent together. Now, here she was, unconscious and battered, and it was his fault.
He hadn’t taken out the little prick who’d threatened her yesterday when he had the chance.
Her breathing was steady, same as her heartbeat.
He turned off his mic before touching her face. “Kira. Sweetheart.” His voice caught. The gash on her forehead was bad. “Speak to me.”
Shit. He’d been a SEAL for nearly a decade, and never once had he used the word sweetheart on an op.
But this wasn’t an op. Not a sanctioned one, anyway. It didn’t matter that a few rooms away, a badass Valkyrie was in the process of taking down one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, who wasn’t, in fact, dead as had previously been reported.
This was an op. And it wasn’t. And Kira wasn’t his sweetheart.
“Kira…” He gently stroked her bruised cheek. “Wake up, baby.” Shit. Show respect, asshole. “Dr. Hanson. Speak to me.”
Then, like a miracle, her eyes fluttered open. She let out a pained groan.
“Dr. Hanson. I’m sorry. Help is coming. Are you…do you have injuries I can’t see?”
Her eyes weren’t focused. He knew she wasn’t really present. It was enough that she was conscious, even if not lucid. Still, her first words surprised him.
“Are you allergic to strawberries?”
The question triggered a choked laugh. “No, sweetheart.” Her breathing remained even, but he had to ask. “Are you? Are you having an anaphylactic reaction?” In addition to being beaten?
She let out a pained sound that might have been a laugh. “If only.” She raised a hand and touched his cheek. “You look like my love.”
His heart twisted. What does that mean?
She grabbed his hair and pulled his face to hers. Only inches separated them.
“Apollo. I hate you almost as much as I love you. And I really, really fucking hate you.”
The debriefing with the FBI took forever, but finally, Chris, Diana, and Rand were cut loose to go to the hospital. Rand paced the waiting room.
Kira will be fine. She has to be.
Freya and Cal arrived, followed twenty minutes later by Morgan, Pax, and their two-year-old daughter, Valentine. The little girl reminded Rand of his sister’s kid, right down to the Disney Princess costume.
Finally, Kira’s father arrived. Yesterday, Kira had told him that she’d known Freya since childhood. Their parents had been colleagues. Rand knew nothing about Freya’s family, but Conrad Hanson met Freya’s proffered hug with a cold handshake.
It was weird because Freya never hugged.
“You did this.” Kira’s father’s words held sharp accusation.
“Dr. Hanson, we had no way of knowing—”
It was strange seeing Freya—a badass former CIA operative in her late thirties—take a deferential role, but it made sense given her history with Hanson.
She was saved by a man in medical scrubs who greeted Hanson with a handshake, then pulled him aside for a private conversation before escor ting him into the secured corridor to Kira’s hospital room.
Rand understood the reasons for HIPAA, but at that moment, he wasn’t a fan.
Freya dropped into a chair in the corner of the waiting room and rested her head in her hands. Her husband, Cal, rubbed her back and murmured consoling words.
He understood Freya felt horrible for putting Kira in the crosshairs, but Rand was the one who’d dropped her off at her apartment without a thought for her security.
He’d seen the guy’s eyes yesterday. Rand knew what it looked like when a man was capable of true evil, and he’d seen it directed at Kira. But instead of considering her safety, he’d focused on getting a date with her.
Freya leaned against Cal. “I never should have asked for her help.”
“She’s going to be fine,” Cal said.
“Physically, maybe. I should have seen this coming.”
If anyone deserved Kira’s father’s hate, it wasn’t Freya Lange. Rand was the one who should shoulder that blame. It was small consolation that the man who’d orchestrated her abduction would die in prison for his other crimes.
He couldn’t sit still and resumed pacing the room. Finally, Kira’s father reappeared. Everyone turned to him expectantly.
“All of you need to leave.” His gaze fixed on Rand. “Especially you.”
Rand did the only thing he could. He left.
Chapter One
Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story
Virginia Beach, Virginia
June
Six Months Later
Teaching a bunch of soldiers, sailors, and marines nearly half her age that it was a bad idea to loot the countries they were deployed to was not how Kira Hanson had expected to spend the last Tuesday in June. She was supposed to be heading to the airport, embarking on her first-ever trip overseas. This kind of gig usually went to an in-house Army or Navy archaeologist. After all, the Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab was only a few hours away from JEB Little Creek-Fort Story, but CHML didn’t have anyone to send at the last minute when Dr. Diana Edwards, who had a contract to conduct these trainings through Friday Morning Valkyries, had been hospitalized with appendicitis requiring emergency surgery yesterday.
Kira owed Diana her life, so when the archaeologist needed a pinch hit, Kira would always step up to bat. Even if she had to bump her flight a day. Thank you, changeable tickets.
Now here she was. She’d driven down from DC in the wee hours of the morning to give herself time to review the presentation materials before she faced her first classroom of fifty or so students. Three sessions today—one in the morning, two in the afternoon, and she’d be done. Then the long drive home. She’d catch her rescheduled and rerouted flight to Malta at seven a.m. tomorrow.
Six hours of teaching. She could do this. Or, given her anxiety, she might vomit on her shoes and spend her lunch break crying in a closet somewhere.
She’d liked teaching when she was in grad school. But that was at a university where, in theory, at least, students wanted to be there. They took art history courses because they liked the subject, or they thought it would be an easy A, which it wasn’t.
She had a feeling these students wouldn’t be so keen on the subject, but at least there was no tuition, no tests, and no grades. Kira was way more nervous than her students would be.
She took several deep breaths as she sat behind the steering wheel and stared at the building. She’d made it through Pass and ID with the help of a civilian Navy employee who’d met her at the gate. She’d cleared the first hurdle.
Social anxiety was nothing new for her, but she usually managed it with careful planning. It helped that work was one thing she had confidence in. She was a recognized expert in her field. But this wasn’t her usual environment, and there’d been little time to brace herself for standing in front of a room and teaching 150 total strangers for six hours.
It was an equation for an anxiety attack.
She took a long, slow breath. Today, I am a Valkyrie.
Well, except she wasn’t a Valkyrie. Not really. She was a consultant for Friday Morning Valkyries, but she’d never taken Morgan’s defense classes, or Freya’s tradecraft training. She didn’t have the security clearance of all the real Valkyries. She didn’t travel abroad and run down artifact traffickers. Her fieldwork was limited to archives on the East Coast.
Until a few weeks ago, she couldn’t get either the security clearance or passport necessary for being a Valkyrie. But with help from the State Department, she had finally obtained a little blue book of freedom. The security-clearance part would come later. It was enough to have an actual passport.
And tomorrow, she’d get her very first stamp.
That thought centered her. Eased the queasiness in her stomach.
I am going to Malta.
She climbed from her car and smiled at the NAVFAC—Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command—employee who’d escorted her onto the base and then politely waited in the parking lot for her to get over her minor panic attack before entering the building.
“Sorry. Got a text I needed to reply to,” she lied. Hopefully, he hadn’t been watching her and seen she wasn’t using her phone.
“No problem. We’ve got an hour before the first session.”
It took fifteen minutes to get the projector to work with the prepared presentation Diana had sent her. She then ran through the slides and accompanying notes. It was familiar information, but she was glad Diana taught classes on the regular, because the notes were detailed enough that Kira wouldn’t get stuck wondering why there was a slide of Indiana Jones in a refrigerator without the accompanying point that was being made, even though the joke should be obvious.
She smiled at the silly meme. She didn’t expect it from Diana, who always seemed so serious. But then, Kira and Diana met over serious circumstances, so it might be their brief history and not the woman’s personality.
Students filed in minutes before the start time. They all wore fatigues of one kind or another. The slightly different patterns and cut probably indicated which branch of the military they were from. Little Creek was part of a joint base run by the Navy, but the other part, Fort Story, was Army. Plus, Norfolk wasn’t far, and, for all she knew, personnel from there had also been assigned to one of these training sessions.
This was the kickoff for a series of trainings Diana had proposed to the Department of Defense. Her depth of experience in the Middle East and knowledge of the artifact trafficking world—and recent acclaim for identifying and taking down a terrorist leader—would be a big draw for students who might otherwise grumble at being forced to take the class.
They’d be disappointed when they learned they were being taught by an understudy. Hence, Kira’s nerves.
