Forged in Smoke (Red-Hot SEALs #3)(23)
Looking more determined than ever, Amy set her jaw. “He’s a known associate of yours. Clay will haul him in for questioning.”
Cosky smiled. “He can try.”
Amy blew out a frustrated breath, which locked Mac’s attention on her pink, unpainted lips.
Sonofabitch. He wrenched his gaze away.
“I’m just trying to make this as easy as possible on the three of you. Having Clay hound you is only going to increase tensions.”
Another fair point, which Mac ignored. No way in hell was he trusting her life to a stranger. He turned to Zane. “I’ll take north, you take east.” He shot a hard glance at Jude. “That leaves you with the west ridge.”
“I’m telling you this is a mistake. If Clay sees Cosky, he’ll know the rest of you are here too.” Amy’s voice shed its patience and climbed into robust irritation.
Mac grunted an acknowledgment, mostly because he knew the response would annoy her as much as her constant questioning of his orders irritated him.
“Fine.” Blowing out another frustrated breath, she shimmied her shoulders and squared her stance, which cast a faint jiggle across her high, firm rack.
Mac’s attention splintered between her lips and her chest. His skin tightened. So did his crotch. His lungs sped up, trying to keep pace with his accelerating heart. Just f*cking perfect. It wouldn’t be long before his men questioned why he was wheezing before the action even hit. There was a time and place for arousal and it sure as hell wasn’t on the cusp of a mission in the middle of a crowd.
He should give some serious thought to getting the old boy neutered.
Shifting the MK20 sniper rifle and the MP5SD submachine—two of the weapons he’d handpicked from the compound’s arsenal—until they hung against his back, rather than his side, he caught Amy’s eye.
“Wait until we’ve tested your gear before calling your brother,” he reiterated.
Her lips tightened, but she nodded an acknowledgment.
With one last glance down the rutted dirt road, he struck out for the north ridge. At least the steep climb would give his libido something besides Amy to focus on. It was hard to maintain an erection when strenuous activity required a constant flow of blood to the brain, heart, and lungs. Not to mention the arms and legs.
By the time he reached the small stand of maple trees he’d chosen for camouflage, he was panting harder than ever. A sad commentary on his naval career. Somehow, through the years, he’d become nothing more than a desk jockey. Since his heart was pounding hard enough to interfere with his breathing, he waited a few seconds for his circulatory system to recover.
“Alpha one, copy.” Zane’s calm, cool voice came over Mac’s headset.
Mac grimaced at the lack of breathlessness in his LC’s voice. Definitely time to start using the base gym again.
“Alpha one in position.” Mac carefully regulated his breathing. “Alpha three?”
“Copy,” Cosky said.
“Alpha four?” Mac dragged the sniper rifle over his head and aimed the scope toward the west ridge, but there was no sign of Wolf’s warrior.
“In position.” Jude’s measured voice came over the air.
“Amy?” Mac asked.
Fuck, was it his imagination, or had his voice actually softened over her name? He tried to convince himself the unusual bout of gentleness was simply a latent round of that earlier, frustrating breathlessness.
“I hear you loud and clear, Mackenzie.”
Amy’s voice flowed smoothly through his headset. In stark comparison to his query, her voice was cold and flat and bristling with irritation. Apparently she hadn’t shed her annoyance over their earlier tussle.
“Alpha two? Four? You copy her?” Mac asked, nodding in satisfaction at the instant affirmations that hit his headset. He trained the scope on the east ridge. No sign of Zane either—he’d faded into the landscape as expected. “All right, boys and girls,” he said, turning the rifle back in Amy’s direction. “Time to get the ball rolling.”
Through the rifle scope he watched her dig into the pockets of the gray pants that hugged her ass far too intimately for his peace of mind. Somehow the tactical flex pants looked a hell of a lot better on her than they did on him, or Zane or Cosky for that matter.
She jabbed at the screen a couple of times and lifted it to her ear. Mac absently listened to her side of the conversation as she methodically passed on detailed directions to their rendezvous point.
Her brother was waiting for directions at upper Whatcom Falls Park, thirty minutes out. Which gave them plenty of time to get the lay of the land, and to identify problematic points of entry. He scoped out the hillsides and relaxed after a thorough sweep. His vantage point was damn near perfect. He had a clear, 180-degree view from his position on the ridge. The terrain he couldn’t scope fell within Zane’s and Jude’s positions. Nobody would be able to crash their party unannounced.
They settled down to wait. Thirty minutes after Amy’s call, a thick cloud of dust churned into the sky over the access road.
“Our guests have arrived,” Mac announced quietly into his comm.
The dust boiled thicker and taller as it closed on Amy and Cosky, and then a blue Ford Expedition broke into the open. He caught the flash of red hair from the driver’s seat, which fit the description Amy had given of her stepbrother. He swung the scope to the rear of the SUV, but all he could make out from his angle were two small, dark heads hanging low against the backrest.