Show No Fear - By Marliss Melton Page 0,1

here,” she warned him, grateful for the strength in the arm that kept her vertical. “The captain of the Elite Guard gave orders to blow up the building.”

Thoughts shifted across his face, too quickly for her to gauge. “Let’s go,” he rasped. Anchoring her to his right side, he hustled her toward the stairs. “I found her, Vinny,” he said into his mic. “Exit the building pronto. She needs medical attention.”

“I’m fine,” Lucy insisted. She could use a few stitches, but aside from that she was good to go.

He slanted her a frowning look, one that took in her battered appearance, the ponytail that hung askew, and the torn T-shirt hanging out of her pants. Bullshit, said his disapproving gaze.

A deafening explosion spilled them to their knees. With her heart in her throat, Lucy expected the building to incinerate. Only it didn’t. She shared a look of relief with James, who hauled her to her feet. Together they raced for the nearest exit.

“This one’s closer,” she insisted, yanking him toward a door tucked out of sight.

They flew out of it, setting off an alarm, the wail of which was drowned out by the clatter of the nearby fire-fight. She could only assume the commandos had cut off the Elite Guard as they sought to escape with their cargo of weapons.

“Run!” James urged, impelling her across the expanse of sandy earth. Her legs felt strangely leaden, like she was running in a dream. But if all this was a dream, then she’d awaken to find that James was just a figment of her imagination, a composite of long-forgotten yearnings.

At last he pulled her to a stop, holding her fiercely to him as they caught their breath. Speaking into his mouthpiece, he tasked one of his men to call for a helicopter extract.

Listening to his voice—familiar, certainly, but deeper and more resonant—she wondered what circumstances had compelled him to become a Special Forces soldier. The last she’d heard from him, he was working on a master’s in engineering at MIT, yet here he was, as hard-bodied as any action hero and, by all appearances, the officer in charge of his teammates. Who could have imagined?

When they got a moment to talk, she would assuage her curiosity.

“We’ll be there in a sec,” he said into his mic. But then he glanced sharply up at the sky. “No, we won’t. Here come the Cobras. Get down!”

With that scant warning, he tackled Lucy to the ground, somehow managing not to crush her. Lying with her left cheek pressed into the sandy earth and blood pooling in her eye socket, Lucy drifted into memories of the past. She had broken things off with James after the tragic bombing many years ago. She’d never imagined they would meet again like this.

Boom, boom, boom, boom! The ground shook as gunships pounded the fleeing convoy. Secondary explosions followed the attack for minutes on end, frustrating her desire to connect the dots.

“Why didn’t you answer me in the warehouse when I called for you?” he shouted, looking perplexed and frustrated.

“I think I blacked out for a minute,” she explained, recalling how the blood had rushed past her eardrums during the roof assault.

He was astute enough not to ask any probing questions, though he could surely feel the CD cases in her pocket, gouging his thigh.

As silence descended at last over the dusty, foul-smelling air, Lucy went to ask a question of her own—How on earth did you become a commando?—but James hauled her to her feet, cutting her off before the words reached her lips. “Echo Platoon, rally up at the Hummer,” he clipped. “Let’s get out of here while we still can.”

Their aerial attack would summon the entire populist army.

“Do you have your car key, by any chance?” he asked Lucy.

“Not anymore.” It’d been seized by the Elite Guard. “But I keep a spare under the bumper,” she told him.

“Excellent.” He was all business, as was she. Obviously, this wasn’t the time or the place for small talk. They weren’t young people anymore with the freedom to explore their options. James Atwater had a job to do, and so did she.

The sooner these commandos whisked her to safety, the sooner she could deliver these CDs to headquarters.

James Atwater might have been the most promising fish she’d ever caught and released, but Lucy Donovan was way too busy to even consider reeling him back in.

CHAPTER 1

Ten months later

Lucy Donovan loathed wearing pantyhose almost as much as she detested her three-inch