That Summer Night (Callaways #6)
THAT SUMMER NIGHT
(Callaways #6)
BARBARA FREETHY
Also Available
In The Callaway Series
On A Night Like This
(Callaways #1)
So This Is Love
(Callaways #2)
Falling For A Stranger
(Callaways #3)
Between Now And Forever
(Callaways #4)
All A Heart Needs
(Callaways #5)
That Summer Night
(Callaways #6)
When Shadows Fall (Callaways #7) – Coming September 2014!
Nobody But You
(A Callaway Wedding Novella)
THAT SUMMER NIGHT
From #1 NY Times Bestselling Author Barbara Freethy comes the sixth book in the Callaway family series featuring love, mystery, and adventure!
Once Reid Becker was the best of the best, an elite soldier whose career ended abruptly in a mission gone awry. Derailed after a decade of intense focus, Reid is spending far too much time in his best friend's bar. Then Shayla Callaway walks into his life with a desperate plea for help. How can he resist a beautiful blonde?
The last thing Shayla Callaway was looking for was trouble. After years of medical school, she is months away from finishing her residency when a stint with a research team lands her in the middle of a game of drugs and money, and the only person who can help her is a burned out ex-soldier with a hot body and a cocky attitude.
Reid and Shayla have always put duty and career first. But as the danger heats up, so do the summer nights. Suddenly, it's not just about saving the world but about saving each other and a love they never expected…
© Copyright 2014 Barbara Freethy
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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(V2)
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Shayla Callaway woke up in a sweat, her heart racing, her mind spinning with horrible and disturbing images. It took her a moment to remember that she wasn't in a remote village in northern Colombia, but in the San Francisco apartment she shared with another medical resident. She'd been home for five days, but she had yet to fully process what had happened.
A persistent ring broke through the haze of her nightmare. She hoped it wasn't the hospital, asking her to come in and cover a shift. She wasn't ready to go back to work yet. Her hands needed to stop shaking first. She had two weeks before her next rotation started, and she hoped by then she'd be ready to return to the career she'd been pursuing for the past ten years.
But there was no familiar hospital number flashing across her phone, just the word
blocked
. Adrenaline ran through her already hyperaware body. She drew in a breath and told herself there was nothing to be afraid of. Grabbing the phone, she uttered a breathless, "Hello?"
"Shayla?"
The male voice crackling on the other end of the line belonged to Dr. Robert Becker, her friend, her mentor, and the brilliant doctor who had been missing since a trio of armed gunmen had broken into the Colombian clinic where they'd been working and killed three people, leaving a trail of injuries and trauma behind.
Robert had not been one of the dead or the injured; he'd been unaccounted for—until now.
Her hand tightened around the phone. "Robert? Are you all right? Where are you?"
"I'm in trouble, Shayla. I need your help."
"What can I do?"
"I need you to go to my office and get the gift you gave me for my last birthday. You remember what that was, don't you?"
Her brows knit together at the unexpected request. "You mean—"
"Don't say it out loud," Robert said quickly. "I don't know who's listening."
"What are you talking about?" she asked in confusion. "Who would be listening?"
"I can't explain right now. I need you to get the present and give it to my brother, Reid. Ask him to bring it to me on Sunday."
"Your brother? Isn't he in the Army somewhere?"
"He's out now. He's living in San Francisco, and he might just be my only hope of getting out of this alive."
A shiver ran down her spine at his ominous words. "Why don't I talk to the police, to my brother-in-law, Max? He can help you with whatever trouble you're in."
"This is bigger than the local cops. You need to find Reid and tell him to meet me. Please, Shayla, you're the only one I can trust."
"All right," she said, hearing the agitation in his voice. "Where do you want him to go?"
Robert hesitated. "I want you to tell him something, Shayla, and you have to say it exactly this way. Are you ready?"
"Go ahead."
"It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves. Say it."
"It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves. What does that mean?"
"My brother will know. Tell him Sunday afternoon, three o'clock."
"Sunday is three days from now."
"I'm not sure how long it will take me to get there or for you to convince my brother to help me." He paused. "Has anyone spoken to you since you got back, anyone from the State Department, the FBI or any other agency?"
"Yes, I've been interviewed by both agencies, and there have been a lot of questions about you. Your ex-wife also came by to see me. Lisa is extremely worried about you. I didn't know what to tell her."
"Don't tell her anything. You can't talk to anyone but Reid. Promise me."
"All right. I promise."
"I'll explain everything when this is over. I have to go, Shayla."
"Wait, where am I going to find your brother? Do you have his number?"
"No, but his best friend, Jared Stone, owns the Cadillac Lounge. He'll know where to find Reid. Don't tell anyone about this call but Reid. And don't remove the present from my office if anyone else is around. It needs to be done secretly. This is very important Shayla. Don't let me down."
"All right—"
The connection broke just as she got the last word out.
Her heart was still pounding against her chest as she set her phone down on the bed and glanced at the clock. It was almost eight a.m., and early morning light filtered into the room. At least, the sun was coming up. She didn't have to think about trying to force herself to go back to sleep for another few hours.
She walked across the room to the window and pulled the curtains open. The street of apartment buildings in the shadow of Twin Peaks was quiet, and the calm scene took down her anxiety level. Everything was fine in this part of the world. She didn't need to feel afraid.
As sweat dripped down the back of her neck, she turned her face toward the fan in the corner, lifting up her blond ponytail to let the air cool down her heated skin.
Normally, San Francisco in the summer was cool and foggy, but an unusual July heat wave had hit the day before, and the city would see temperatures into the hundreds by the afternoon, lasting into the upcoming weekend.
It was the same kind of weather she'd experienced in Colombia where she'd spent three months working in the region of El Catatumbo. In the language of the native people, the Bari, Catatumbo meant God of Thunder, and she'd quickly learned how appropriate that name was. Heat waves followed by massive electrical storms sent streaking bolts of lightning down from the sky that could devastate and destroy with spectacular and deadly beauty.
But then that was Colombia, a beautiful country but one of the most dangerous places in the world.
She'd gone there for two reasons, to provide medicine to the poor, to the people who were a three-day boat ride away from any kind of care, and to help collect data for a clinical drug trial Robert was running for Abbott Pharmaceuticals, a company on the edge of a breakthrough drug that would change the lives of millions of people suffering from Alzheimer's, including her grandmother.
It had started out as an adventure and an opportunity to take her medical skills into the field and to be a part of something amazing and wonderful, but it had ended in death and destruction. She'd barely escaped with her life.
She'd never been so close to death before, and she was having trouble dealing with not only the close call but also the guilt she felt for being one of the few to survive. But she had survived, she reminded herself. And she needed to keep moving forward, something that would be easier to do once Robert was safe.
She'd never heard his voice filled with so much fear. Robert was usually purposeful, analytical, and methodical—all the things a good scientist should be. But today he'd sounded desperate and out of control. What on earth was he involved in? It had to have something to do with what happened in Colombia, but she couldn't imagine what trouble could have followed him back to the U.S.—unless he wasn't back yet? Maybe he wanted his brother to meet him somewhere in South America.
The whole thing was crazy. She felt like she was in the middle of a spy movie. Robert's cryptic words about conquering mountains, his unwillingness to tell her anything over the phone for fear someone was listening in, and his questions about the FBI and the State Department were all very disturbing. She felt anxious and way out of her comfort zone. But what Robert had asked her to do was not that difficult, retrieve the present from his office and contact his brother. She could do that, and she
would
do that, because she owed Robert.
She'd met Robert during her first week of college. Having skipped two grades, she'd been an awkward sixteen-year-old her freshman year, able to compete academically but completely out of her depth when it came to social relationships. Eight years older than her, Robert had been a medical resident who'd come to speak to her class about a career in medicine.
After that lecture, he'd taken her under his wing, telling her he'd hit college when he was fifteen and knew exactly what it felt like to be isolated by a brilliant mind and social immaturity. Over the years they'd kept in touch as she made her way through medical school and Robert gained a reputation as a brilliant medical researcher. When she'd had a chance to take a twelve-week residency in Colombia that would include both clinical practice and medical research under Robert's lead, she had jumped at the chance, never imagining how it would all end.
Turning away from the fan, she walked into the bathroom and stripped off her damp tank top and pajama bottoms and stepped into the shower. She let the steady cool spray beat down on the tight muscles in her neck and shoulders for a good ten minutes. Then she dressed and went into the kitchen to make breakfast.
While the coffee was brewing, she popped a piece of bread into the toaster, finding comfort and reassurance in the familiar surroundings. She was home. She was safe. If she said the words enough times, maybe she would start to believe them.
She stiffened, hearing a key in the lock. She let out a breath of relief when her roommate, Kari, a petite brunette, entered the apartment. Kari was usually cheerful and energized, but today she looked decidedly weary, which was no surprise since she'd been on duty the last twelve hours.
"You're up early," Kari said in surprise. "Too hot to sleep?"
She nodded, happy to have the heat as an excuse. She hadn't told anyone what had happened in Colombia, not Kari, or her family. While the Callaways were wonderfully supportive, she couldn't bring herself to talk to them about that night of terror.