The Stealth Commandos Trilogy (66 page)

“Still love me?” Geoff asked, tilting her chin up and dazzling her with his emerald green eyes. “Just checking.” His mouth curved into the slow, sexy smile that never failed to make her heartbeat go weak.

“Oh, I suppose,” she said, sighing as if it were a terrible burden. “I’ve got to be honest, though. I’m not sad you have lots of disgusting money, but I think I could have been blissfully happy with the poverty-stricken artist. As long as he drew pictures only of me.”

“Umm,” he said, nipping her lower lip. “I’ve already got an idea for the first pose.”

Randy pretended to be frightened. “Is there leather involved?”

O
NE MONTH LATER ...

Randy tilted her face to the sky and breathed deeply, bathing her senses with fresh, sweet mountain air. Sunlight flickered brightly through the branches of a huge old sycamore as she walked around to the back of Chase and Annie Beaudine’s mountain home, a charmingly rustic cabin nestled in the foothills of Wyoming’s Wind River range. Her mission was to find the three men who were AWOL from the small anniversary party going on inside the cabin.

A roan mare nickered at her from its paddock as Randy passed by. She took it as a friendly overture, but didn’t stop to chat. Being a city girl, she’d had very little experience with animals who were bigger than she was, and now didn’t seem the time to test the horse’s good humor.

She spotted the missing persons in a grassy meadow that lay beyond the barn. Shirtless and shoeless in the dazzling sunshine, the three men were playing football as only ex-Marine buddies could. She stopped to watch as Chase Beaudine speed-hiked the football to Johnny Starhawk, then sprinted out to catch Johnny’s pass. Chase darted, dodged, and feinted, amazingly agile for a big man as he tried to outmaneuver Geoff, who was guarding him doggedly.

The football soared toward the clouds, a Hail Mary pass if ever Randy had seen one. Chase faked to the right, evading Geoff long enough to leap into the air as the ball dropped out of the sky. Just as Chase’s questing fingers were about to seize the prize, a bare foot flashed out of nowhere and karate-kicked the ball into oblivion. Geoff had launched himself like a weapon, using a spinning side kick to intercept Johnny’s pass.

Randy had to restrain herself from cheering.

Chase and Johnny howled in protest. “You can’t do that!” Chase complained.

“Does this look like a boxing ring, Dias?” Johnny shouted.

Geoff’s reckless grin became a grimace as his opponents rushed him, knocked him to the ground, and piled on top of him. A wrestling match resulted, and when the horseplay threatened to get out of hand, Randy decided it was time to break things up.

“
Gentle
men!” she called out, putting a drill instructor’s spin on the word. “There’s a party going on up at the house, in case you’ve forgotten. It’s time to open the gifts.”

A short time later she had the deserters in tow. They’d washed up at the faucet alongside the barn at her suggestion, and as she herded them into the cabin, she felt like a stern schoolteacher escorting the class troublemakers to the principal’s office.

“Here’s Daddy!” Annie Beaudine cried, plunking a redheaded baby into Chase’s arms the moment he entered the cabin. Their other child, a strawberry blond toddler, squealed in delight, attaching herself to Chase’s leg. Chase seemed a little embarrassed by all the attention, but it was clear he was also delighted by it.

Randy’s throat tightened at the tender way he scooped the toddler up and nuzzled her hair, kissing the child’s blond curls. His show of affection had a bittersweet effect on Randy. It stirred up old longings for the father she never had, but it also instilled in her the hope and the silent resolution that her own children would be as fortunate. Chase’s girls were very lucky to have a father who so obviously adored them.

Geoff hooked an arm around Randy and drew her close. “I want a half-dozen of those,” he murmured softly in her ear. Desire shimmered warmly in his eyes as he looked down at her. “What do you say?”

“A half-dozen kids?” Randy nestled into the crook of his arm and laughed weakly. “Don’t you think maybe we should get married first?”

“Listen up, folks.” Annie Beaudine clinked her glass of iced tea with a fork, calling the small crowd to attention. “Honor and Johnny, our happily married couple of one whole year, want to open their gifts. Right, you two?”

Honor was sitting next to Johnny Starhawk on the couch, and Randy thought she had never seen a more striking couple. Honor was as fair and lovely as Johnny was dark and arrestingly handsome. They looked as if they had been brought together by the same elemental forces that made magnetic poles attract, as if they were bound by their extraordinary differences. Their children would be something to see, Randy realized, drawn to the couple although she’d met them only that day.

Honor abandoned all pretense of ladylike restraint as she opened the presents, oohing and aahing over items that made ingenious use of the tradition of paper for first-anniversary gifts. Chase and Annie gave them a set of self-help books for young married couples, including an
Intimate Dinners for Two
cookbook and a primer on sensual massage. While Honor continued to unwrap packages, Johnny leafed through the books, promising her a very special evening when they got home.

Randy had no doubt that he could provide such an evening. He was possessed of the most riveting natural sensuality she’d ever seen in a man. He was also clearly madly in love with his beautiful, gentle wife.

Geoff waited until they’d finished with the other gifts before presenting Johnny with a special offering—an oil painting he’d made of Chase, Johnny, and himself in their early mercenary days. Randy recognized the painting as a replica of a snapshot Geoff carried in his wallet. The three ex-Marines were sitting in a bar somewhere, probably an exotic foreign port, celebrating their first recovery mission. The media had not yet discovered the trio they would later dub the “Stealth Commandos,” but Randy could see the potential for heroism in each one of them. In his military fatigues, cropped hair, and aviator sunglasses, Geoff looked young and reckless, flushed with the thrill of victory.

Johnny seemed to be struggling with emotion as he studied the picture, and even Chase looked slightly shaken by it. Finally Johnny composed himself enough to glance up and grin at Geoff. “You got my hair wrong, you chump. I never wore it that short.”

Laughter broke the tension as Johnny sprang up and gave Geoff a bear hug, thanking him for the painting. Randy’s heart was in her throat before the two men released each other. And then Chase joined them, clapping Geoff on the back affectionately and kidding Johnny about needing a haircut. Randy could feel the genuine warmth between all three men, and she hoped they would always be as close as they were this day.

As Geoff returned to her side she felt a rush of love that impelled her to clasp his hand tightly and squeeze it. How had she ever had the good fortune to find—or be found by—a man with so many wonderful dichotomies in his nature? He was tough and tender, strong and gentle, all of the traits a woman sought and cherished in a man, and yet on a deeper level, he had an affinity for human nature that allowed him to mirror a person’s soul in his work. There was a depth of understanding in him that made him all the more mysterious to her, all the more attractive.

As the party continued, Honor convinced her father-in-law Chy Starhawk, an Apache medicine man, to share his gift for prophecy with the crowd. With his long hair hovering like a white cloud around his shoulders, the shaman turned first to Geoff and Randy. A mysterious smile deepened the grooves of his sepia-colored skin.

“There is brightness around you both,” he said, studying them for a moment. “Like the light of day glowing through an overcast sky. It’s the brightness of a promise, of believing in things you can’t see with your eyes.” He hesitated, as if caught in the awareness, but not fully understanding it. “I see the sparkle of sunlight on deep green water.”

“Maybe the brightness has something to do with this.” Geoff took a small box from his shirt pocket and offered it to Randy, an expectant smile on his face.

Randy drew in a sharp breath as she opened the box. Nestled in lush white velvet was the most exquisite emerald ring she’d ever seen. Her hand flew to her mouth, trying to contain the surprise that trembled there.

“It was my grandmother’s,” Geoff explained, lowering his voice to an intimate level as he drew her into his arms. “My father gave it to my mother when they were engaged. I wanted you to have it. I’m sure they would have too.”

Randy could feel the ring’s brightness in her heart. It was as piercingly sharp as her feelings for him, and she wanted to believe that its rich light was a symbol of the love that would sustain them through everything, even the darker times that were in store for every relationship. In truth, she was still frightened of loving Geoff Dias, but she knew he harbored fears too. The loss of his parents had made him wary of a deep and committed bond, and yet he was willing to risk taking that step now, willing to risk everything. If he could open his heart to the dangers of loving a woman, then surely she could surrender hers to the fearful sweetness of trusting a man.

The light would sustain them.

The light was love.

Suzanne Forster, the
New York Times
bestselling author of more than forty romance novels, was on a career path to becoming a clinical psychologist until a life-altering car accident changed everything. While recovering, she tried her hand at writing to pass the time and quickly found that it was her true passion. Before she was ready to return to school, her first manuscript had won second place in a contest sponsored by the Romance Writers of America for unpublished writers. Before she knew it, she sold her first novel,
Undercover Angel
(1985), and embarked on a new path.

Throughout her career, Forster has made unconventional plot choices for the romance genre, such as setting her novel
The Devil and Ms. Moody
(1990) in the gritty world of motorcycle gangs, an idea her publisher resisted for years. The hero, Diablo, an intimidating yet tender rogue in black leather who rides a Harley-Davidson, was given the WISH (Women in Search of a Hero) Award by
RT Book Reviews
. For her Stealth Commandos trilogy she chose mercenaries and bounty hunters as her heroes.
Child Bride
(1992), the first in the trilogy, became her publisher’s top-selling series romance that year. The romantic thriller
The Morning After
(2000) appeared on several bestseller lists including the
New York Times
.  

RT Book Reviews
has twice honored Forster’s work, first in 1990 with a Career Achievement Award in Series Sensual Romance, and again in 1996 in the category of Best Contemporary Romantic Suspense. In 1996 she was also a nominee for the Romance Reader’s Anonymous Award for Best Contemporary Author. Her mainstream debut,
Shameless
(2001), won the National Readers Choice Award. Forster’s 2004 novel
Unfinished Business
was made into a movie, called
Romancing the Bride
, for the Oxygen Network.

Forster lives in Southern California with her husband, and has taught women’s contemporary fiction writing seminars at UCLA and UC Riverside.