Broken Falcon, page 34
That day at park headquarters, she’d been too angry to tell Xavier their big news and she still hadn’t told him. She wanted to, and she would. Soon. But every time she reached for the phone, anger would rise and steal her ability to speak. This was joyful news. For the rest of her life, she would remember telling the father of her child about her pregnancy. Did she really want that memory tainted by anger?
She imagined telling him dozens of different ways, but they always ended up tinged with bitterness. “Hey, funny thing, remember how you tried to get me fired two weeks before Christmas? Yeah, well I’m pregnant with your kid. Good thing I kept my job and didn’t lose my health insurance.”
Or, “Guess what? I’m having your baby so you might want to recant what you said so I don’t lose my job and the maternity leave I’ve accrued.”
She didn’t want to be bitter. She wanted to share the joy in her heart. But she didn’t know how to get into that mental space with Xavier.
Now she stopped in circular drive in front of the lodge and stared at the façade as memories of that night flooded her. His touch. His smile. His warm laugh and deep, masculine voice. The heat in his gaze during the intense stare down before that first kiss.
Staring at the lodge, she realized this was the first time she’d been able to think of Xavier without anger since mid-December. Maybe she should call him right now. She shook her head, irritated with the distraction of it all. She had work to do. She needed to check on the site. Check on George. Then head home before the storm hit.
She parked in the spot next to the handicapped spaces. Even in the middle of winter when the lodge was closed, she couldn’t park in a blue accessible spot. She hit the lock button on the SUV as she walked away, knowing that, too, was unnecessary. Some habits were too ingrained.
Before hiking to the site, she would check the fuse boxes to see if the outbuildings had power. This might not be about looting. A surge could have caused an outage at the blacksmith shop. She’d braced herself for the worst-case scenario, but there was a whole continuum of possibilities. This could be nothing.
She rounded the lodge, heading for the exterior basement door on the lakeside of the building. Wind swept along the roof, whipping water from the gutter and dropping it straight down the back of her neck.
She squealed at the frigid shower and pulled the hood of her raincoat up, protecting her neck too late to do any good. The temperature hovered at forty degrees, and the wind had a cold bite. She wished she’d grabbed her gloves from her pack in the back of the SUV.
She reached the basement door, which was at the base of a set of stone steps cut into the earth. She inserted her key into the lock, but it wouldn’t turn. She checked the key. Gray plastic ring around the top. It was the right key.
She inserted it again. It refused to budge.
Frustration won over and like a petulant child, she kicked the thick door. “Dammit! I do not have time for this.”
A chill ran down her neck, but it wasn’t raindrops that triggered it. Someone was behind her. She didn’t know how she knew this, because she hadn’t heard a sound except for the incessant wind. Before she could turn, she felt something press against her hood, at the base of her skull.
“Do you have time for this?” The words were a soft, malevolent whisper.
She knew what was pressed to her neck. What else could it be? A gun. Cold fear swamped her, as if a cascade of icy rain had drenched her neck, and slid down her back, under her clothes.
Her breath left her in a whoosh. She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t draw in air. Couldn’t scream.
Was this a looter? But why would they be here and not up at the site? Plus, looters only turned violent when confronted—yet this person was confronting her, not the other way around.
A hand snaked around her side, pulling her back against a hard body. From the size and feel, she guessed it was a man. He dragged her backward, up the stone steps. She released her muscles, becoming an instant dead weight, but the man didn’t falter, his grip merely tightened. When he reached the top he swung her around and tripped her. She landed face first in the wet peat that capped the grass. She finally regained breath and voice and screamed in pain and panic.
Instinct told her to protect her stomach, but her arms were yanked behind her. Her belly was still flat, at least, the fetus too small to be harmed by this violence. She bucked as he grappled with her hands and pinned her down with a knee on her back. She screamed for help, but it was useless. There was no one around for miles.
Metal cuffs even colder than her chilled skin cinched her wrists together. The man couldn’t be a law enforcement ranger. She knew every one and Jae was closest. Anyone not in law enforcement who carried around handcuffs must’ve planned this.
Am I being abducted?
Since when do looters abduct people?
Panic swamped her. She needed to escape. She tried to get leverage with her knees, to throw him off, but he was too strong. Too heavy. “Why are you doing this?” she choked out.
Hands ran down her body, checking pockets.
She could barely breathe. “Are you a looter?” she rasped in a low, breathless voice.
The man above her froze, hands stopping mid-pat down. “What?”
“Why are you doing this?” she repeated.
The man placed a hand on her shoulder and flipped her to her back. She lay there, her arms trapped beneath her, digging into her spine. He straddled her. She could see the gun he held, now pointed to the clouds, his military uniform, which included a tactical vest and helmet with night vision goggles mounted to the crown, and beneath that, his face, coated in forest colored paint. But his eyes weren’t hidden or disguised.
Tears and panic ceased, replaced by shock. It was like the wind had been knocked out of her. Again, she couldn’t speak or breathe.
She was staring into the eyes of Xavier Rivera, the father of her unborn child.
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“Grant shines in the heart-pounding romantic thriller that opens her Fiona Carver series.”
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In the remote and unpredictable Aleutians, danger comes without warning in an adrenaline rush of a novel by USA Today bestselling author Rachel Grant.
Archaeologist Fiona Carver has unfinished business in the Aleutian Islands. After an emergency evacuation cut her first expedition short, she’s finally back. But time is not on her side as she races to finish documenting the remnants of a prehistoric village, recover missing artifacts, and track down missing volcanologist Dylan Slater.
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When the two set out together on a perilous journey, it becomes more than a recovery mission. In their fight for survival, nature isn’t the only threat. They aren’t the only ones on the hunt. Mile by dangerous mile, someone is hunting them.
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In the volatile tinderbox of the Horn of Africa, Morgan Adler has made the paleoanthropological find of a lifetime. The discovery brings her to the attention of a warlord eager to claim both Morgan and the fossils, forcing her to make a desperate dash to the nearby US military base to beg for protection.
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Master Sergeant Pax Blanchard has orders to intercept Dr. Adler before she reaches the base, and in so doing saves her life. After a harrowing afternoon he safely delivers her to his commanders, only to find his responsibilities toward protecting the obstinate archaeologist have only just begun.
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Morgan and Pax are forced to work together in the Djiboutian desert heat, but it is the fire that ignites between them that threatens to combust them both. For the Green Beret, involvement with the woman he must protect is a threat to his career, while for the archaeologist, the soldier is everything she never wanted but somehow can’t resist. When Morgan uncovers a mystery surrounding Djibouti’s most scarce and vital resource, the danger to her reaches the flashpoint. For Pax, protecting her is no longer a matter of following orders, and he’ll risk everything to bring her back alive.
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When a food storage depot in famine-struck South Sudan is torched, American aid worker Brie Stewart flees, only to land in a market where she’s the next item up for auction. Is the attack on the aid facility another assault upon the war-torn fledgling democracy, or has her family set her up as a pawn in their quest for oil rights?
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Chief Warrant Officer Sebastian Ford crossed paths with Brie years ago when she was a shill for her family’s company, pushing a pipeline that threatened his tribe’s land. Determined to lead the rescue operation to save her, he won’t let her abduction—or the attraction that flares between them—get in the way of settling their unfinished business.
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The Green Beret’s skills are put to the test in the flooded grasslands of South Sudan, where they must battle nature and dangerous factions who are after more than oil. Bastian and Brie put their hearts on the line as they find themselves embroiled in a conflict that extends beyond country and continent. Together they must douse the spark before it reaches the flashpoint and engulfs everything they hold dear.
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CIA covert operator Savannah James is after intel on a potential coup in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but she needs a partner fluent in Lingala to infiltrate the organization. Sergeant First Class Cassius Callahan is the perfect choice, except he doesn’t like her very much. He doesn’t trust her, either, despite the sparks that flare between them, fierce and hot. Still, he accepts the assignment even though their cover requires Savvy to pose as his mistress.
They enter battle-worn Congo to expose the financing for the coup. A trail of cobalt, gold, and diamonds leads them into the heart of darkness, a jungle in which everyone is desperate to find the mother lode of ore and gems. Betrayal stalks them as they follow the money, but Savvy will stop at nothing to bring down the would-be dictator before he can ignite a firestorm that will engulf all of Africa.
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Deep in the sultry rainforest, spy and Green Beret forge a relationship more precious than diamonds, but Cal knows Savvy is willing to sacrifice anything—or anyone—to complete her mission. As they near the flashpoint, Cal will have to save her from the greatest threat of all: herself.
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US Embassy Officer Kaylea Halpert needs a date for a black tie event at a dangerous foreign national’s lavish home. Preferably someone with brains and brawn who can watch her back. Special Forces Sergeant Carlos Espinosa is more than happy to escort the beautiful, brilliant diplomat—who just might be a CIA case officer—to the party. Their night together only gets hotter when he discovers Kaylea burns for him too.
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Date night in Djibouti turns deadly when foreign agents target the couple. But who is the intended victim, the covert operator or the Green Beret? As Carlos and Kaylea use their combined skills to escape their captors, they uncover treachery that could ignite relations between the US and Djibouti—already at a flashpoint—and trigger an inferno.
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Broken Falcon
Copyright © 2021 Rachel Grant
All rights reserved.
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ISBN-13: 9781944571429
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Copyediting by Linda Ingmanson
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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.
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About the Author
USA Today bestselling author Rachel Grant worked for over a decade as a professional archaeologist and mines her experiences for storylines and settings, which are as diverse as excavating a cemetery underneath an historic art museum in San Francisco, survey and excavation of many prehistoric Native American sites in the Pacific Northwest, researching an historic concrete house in Virginia, and mapping a seventeenth century Spanish and Dutch fort on the island of Sint Maarten in the Netherlands Antilles.
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She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and children.
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Rachel Grant, Broken Falcon
