So, just as when she plotted a book, she had made a plan, an outline, then attacked this problem and gotten…nowhere. She felt like some avenging angel, but one that needed help breaking down doors. After three investigative agencies she’d approached had turned her down, she knew that what she needed were people not afraid of anyone or anything.
And every hour she wasn’t fighting this battle, she sat beside her sister and talked to her, hoping and praying that something would elicit a reaction. An eyelid tic. A muscle twitch. Anything at all. And the continued lack of response only made her angrier and more desperate.
When Dr. Hamilton had approached her about some possible help, she’d had many questions. Who were these people, anyway, who had their office in a plane? What kind of men were they? What was his brother like? Nolan, as he’d suggested she call him, had given her one of his rare smiles and pointed out that the kind of clients they had wanted everything under the radar. Galaxy was usually the client’s last resort, he’d told her, and covert was the best description of what they did.
Well, she was certainly looking for all that. The more she’d asked questions on her own and the more people had resisted her, the more convinced she’d become that at least one of them—Dane or Brianne— had deliberately been targeted.
While she’d waited for her call-back, she’d done a search for information about them. It was better to learn as much as possible about the people she was meeting, but the web was devoid of information about Galaxy. She’d then turned to finding out as much as she could about SEALs. It was critical that the people she hired fit all the qualifications. She’d learned they were an elite Special Operations Force, warriors trained in, among other things, counterterrorism. That they completed assignments against the worst possible odds and they did not know the meaning of defeat. Well, okay, then. Just what she was looking for, although she didn’t necessarily think counterterrorism entered into it.
Then she’d thought, but who knows? Something was very wrong here and it could be anything.
Watching Scott Hamilton walk across the tarmac to meet her, she knew at once he was exactly what she was looking for. He was the very image of what she’d imagined a SEAL to be, a seasoned veteran, a warrior with a take-charge attitude and a quiet air of power and confidence. Nothing would deter this man from completing his mission. He might as well have been wearing a T-shirt that said Don’t fuck with me.
Her instincts, which she liked to think were good, told her he was a man who meant business. Who didn’t shy away from trouble but gave it in spades. A man whose enemies feared him. That was exactly what she needed. Someone not afraid of anyone.
“Mr. Hamilton.” She nodded at him. “Blaze.”
She certainly wasn’t prepared for his overwhelmingly powerful presence, the sheer aura of masculinity and control—and, yes, the sexual magnetism—that radiated from him. She judged him to be over six feet with a lean, muscular body, a face marked by a square jaw and high cheekbones, a well-trimmed scruff of beard and a nose that looked as if it had once been broken. Maybe more than once. Whiskey-colored eyes looked out at her from beneath lashes a shade darker than the thick head of black hair. He was like a glass of smooth, fine whiskey with a sharp bite to it.
And oh, god, she felt as if she’d been bitten, and her body reacted accordingly. When he took her hand, her nipples hardened into tight peaks and the pulse between her thighs set up a wild throbbing. She had the wildest urge to strip off both their clothes and attack him right here on the runway. Damn! That definitely was not her. And sex was the last thing she should be thinking about in this situation. She had to focus on what had happened to Dane and Brianne, and was willing to do anything to get the answers she wanted.
The image of her brother-in-law’s body and Brianne’s pale face came alive in her brain, reminding her there was no time to think about sex right now. She needed to focus on why she was here. She had a mission to complete and she hoped these men would help her. After all the doors slammed in her face, she needed someone