slapped him. He stood for a moment, letting her quiet rage pass through him. It wasn’t her fault, he sourly admitted. He’d been the one to hurl the indictment that women were weak. That they shouldn’t be allowed into combat. He and Morgan had gotten into that very argument after making love on Christmas morning as a blizzard hit the Afghan village.
He and his SEAL team had holed up at the American-friendly Shinwari village to wait out the coming storm. To his everlasting surprise, Morgan had been there, too, with another SEAL team. The SEALs operated in small four- and eight-person fire teams throughout the Hindu Kush, rooting out the bad guys and taking them down. He hadn’t been able to swallow his surprise or disguise his pleasure at discovering she was there. Morgan had been assigned as a linguist with another team on a separate black-ops mission.
Rubbing his recently shaved jaw, Jake saw her disappear inside the building. He had just enough time to make his appointment with General Stevenson of the U.S. Army. His emotions, no matter how he tried, burned bright and intense over meeting Morgan once again. She had stood out at Annapolis from the moment he’d seen her in their plebe year. They were in the same class, and for two years, Jake had fought to ignore the tall, assertive redhead. Morgan was as physically strong as most of the men going through the four-year military program. Jake had watched her begin to shine and bloom in her third year. She’d been at the top of the academic list, a champion fencer on the fencing team, and her keen intelligence had been recognized.
He quickly walked across the asphalt parking lot, in deep thought over her. When had he fallen under her charismatic spell at the Academy? How had it happened? Jake had accidentally met Morgan as a third-year student at a local civilian pizza parlor everyone frequented on Saturday evenings. There were plenty of guys who wanted her. She’d always been surrounded by them, but she didn’t seem to care or notice any of them. Yet, when they’d met up at the bar to order pitchers of beer, something had happened.
“Damn,” he rasped, scowling. They’d accidentally grazed one another’s elbows. Jake remembered Morgan’s gaze meeting his. Those deep green eyes that made his heart melt, made his body go hot and hard with longing. Her nickname at the Academy had been Amazon because she was tall, physically strong and she had a bruising, in-your-face independence.
Jake remembered taking Morgan’s hand and leading her into the hall of the bar to be alone with her. He’d done something he’d wanted to do for years: kiss the hell out of her. Morgan, he’d discovered, had been watching him for a long time, too. He’d asked if she was protected, and she’d said yes, she was on the pill. They’d never made it back to the Academy until very early on Sunday morning. And their hearts and fates had been sealed, for better or worse.
He needed to stop remembering. Morgan wasn’t in his life anymore. Jake scowled and climbed the stone steps of the Pentagon. Up ahead were soldiers with M-16 rifles. Since the bombing of the Pentagon on 9/11, security had markedly changed. He would go through an X-ray machine before ever being allowed into the military bastion.
Jake aimed himself toward the outer ring, the E-ring. It was the only level that had windows looking out into the civilian world. Only senior military officers got those posh office assignments. This was where many top secret and black-ops missions originated. Curious as to why he was called off PRODEV, sixty days of leave granted to him after coming back from Afghanistan with his SEAL platoon, he arrived at the E-ring. Looking at the file he held, he saw the number of the office and turned to the right.
Captain Morgan Boland was sitting in a chair opposite the secretary’s desk when the door opened. Her eyes widened. Jake Ramsey, again? Her lips parted for a moment. What was he doing here? He stopped when he realized she was sitting there staring up at him. He had a stunned look across his normally unreadable expression. Shock bolted through her.
Morgan lowered her gaze, and her heart sped up. Why couldn’t she just ignore Ramsey’s darkly tanned face? His rugged good looks and those stormy-looking gray eyes of his? Her fingers tightened imperceptibly around the file in her lap. The only other empty chair in the small, cramped office was two feet away from where she sat. She listened as Jake went to the fortysomething-year-old blonde administrative assistant and gave his name to her.
“Thank you, Lieutenant Ramsey. General Stevenson will see you in just a bit. Would you like some coffee or tea while you wait?”
Jake took off his cap. “No, thank you, ma’am.” He hated having to sit next to Morgan, who was staring at him as if he were going to bite her. His traitorous body and heart clamored over being so close to this fiery woman. Jake wanted to be close. Wanted, somehow, to undo the wrong he’d done to her two years earlier.
Sitting down, he glanced over at her. Morgan was staring straight ahead, her hands tense over the file in her lap. He relished viewing her profile and then realized her once-perfect nose now had a bump on it. Had she broken it? He almost asked but thought better of it. There was an assistant sitting six feet away from them, and Jake didn’t want her to know how much Morgan hated him.
What to say to Jake Ramsey? Morgan felt heat radiating off his hard male body. The uniform showed how athletic and fit he really was. SEALs took exercise to a whole new level, plus six months climbing mountains in Afghanistan had honed his body into a dangerous weapon. She saw the SEAL gold trident on his well-sprung chest, rows of colorful ribbons beneath it. Jake was part of the best of the best black-ops teams the military had. She remembered those pale eyes of his going dove-gray as he’d made love with her. God, they were good in bed together. Too good. And above all, Morgan knew she had to keep a secret she would always carry from that last meeting they had. Jake would never know. Pursing her lips, she refused to say anything to him. Her mind churned with questions on why both of them were here, in the same office of the Pentagon. It made no sense to her.
A buzzer sounded on the assistant’s desk. She looked over at Morgan. “Go right through this door, Captain Boland. General Houston will see you. Room two, please.”
Rising, Morgan nodded, ignored Ramsey and opened the door. Inside, she saw two offices, one on either side of the hall. Turning to the left, she saw a frosted glass window with “2” painted in gold upon it and knocked firmly.
“Enter,” a male voice ordered.
Morgan’s heart picked up a beat as she opened it. Inside was a man in his late-fifties, fit, in a dark green U.S. Army uniform. The salad, or ribbons, across his powerful chest attested to his time and experience in the Army. There was silver on the sidewalls of his closely cropped hair. His eyes were sharp and intelligent-looking. Morgan came to attention in front of his desk.
“Captain Morgan Boland reporting as ordered, sir.”
“At ease, Captain. Have a seat. We need to chat.”
Indeed, Morgan thought as she took the only chair in front of the General’s desk. The man smiled a little as he clasped his hands and rested them on the dark cherrywood desk.
“What I’m about to tell you is top secret, Captain. But I already think you know what this mission is all about.”
“I’m hoping it’s an op to go after Sangar Khogani, sir. I’ve been pushing for it to find and kill him for the last couple of years.”
A grin leaked through the hardened line of his mouth. He handed her a file folder. “We’ve been listening, Captain. Read along with me?”
Opening the folder, Morgan felt her spirits lift. Her emotions shimmered as she quickly read the one-paragraph synopsis on the mission. Looking up, she saw the General giving her a penetrating look. Morgan waited for him to speak, even though she wanted to tear through the rest of the assignment and read the details. She hoped like
