The Stealth Commandos Trilogy Read Free

him that was alien—especially since his work demanded the gut instincts and lightning-quick reflexes of a hired gun. Even now the same ruthlessly competitive male drive that had always impelled him to take risks other men shrank from was telling him to quit playing wet nurse—and take control of the situation.
    “Weather in here seems fine,” she murmured.
    “Am I imagining things, Missy, or are you pretty anxious to get my clothes off?”
    She blushed slightly, but it was the graceful way her dark eyelashes swept up and her eyes turned to liquid that mystified and enchanted Chase. He could feel the pit of his stomach going soft and the area south of it going drum-taut.
    Somewhere in the logic centers of his brain, an emotional traffic signal was flashing steadily, PROCEED WITH CAUTION , it was telling him. SHARP CURVES AND SOFT SHOULDERS AHEAD . But Chase couldn’t drag himself away from her shimmering gaze long enough to pay much attention to it. His heart was pounding, and his throat was as parched as the dry stream bed where he’d met her. Take control? He couldn’t have found his own butt in an outhouse.
    Enough of this, he told himself.
    He bent over her, fumbling to redo the button he’d been working on, and then he rose abruptly and yanked off his hat. The Stetson sailed through the air like a Frisbee and landed on the kitchen table. The duster coat took wing and ended up in a heap on the floor next to the table.
    “All right,” he said, drawing in a breath as he turned back to her dangerous gaze. “I want to know what’s going on here. Who are you?”
    “Annie Wells,” she said without hesitation.
    The name didn’t strike Chase as familiar, but the way she was looking at him, with such unwavering certainty in her expression, made him ask, “Am I supposed to know you, Annie Wells?”
    “Yes. Most definitely. You married me five years ago.”
    “ Married you? What kind of nonsense is that, woman?” Obviously she wasn’t playing with a full deck. But the last part of her statement couldn’t be dismissed quite so easily. Five years ago? “I wasn’t even in this country five years ago,” he said. “I was—”
    “In Central America.” She finished the sentence for him, then added in a voice that wavered slightly, “You were on a recovery mission for the Pentagon in Costa Brava, and I was one of the Americans you rescued.”
    Chase felt as though he’d been blindsided. Memory rocketed him back to a time and place he’d made a concerted effort to forget. The mission in Costa Brava had been a nightmare for him personally. He and his partners in the recovery operation, Johnny Starhawk and Geoff Dias, had been sent to the tiny Central American republic to liberate several American scientists trapped during a rebel insurrection. Once inside the country, they’d split up, trying to locate the Americans. The only survivor he had found was a teenage girl hiding in a bombed-out convent. Tragically he hadn’t been able to get her out of the country alive. She’d been killed in a car accident on the way to the border. And he, too, had nearly been killed.
    “You’ve got the wrong man,” he said harshly, trying to shut off the disturbing wash of memories and the surge of mixed emotions accompanying them. Disbelief, anger, guilt, welled up in him. Who the hell was this woman?
    “No, it was you—Charles Beaudine. The man who rescued me had your face, your eyes. He called himself Chase. He even used a bullwhip. Oh, please, you must remember! I was hiding in a convent near San Luis when you found me. I’d been there a month, ever since my parents were killed by guerrillas.” Her voice cracked slightly, as if it was difficult for her to continue. “I remember every detail. You were wounded in a fight with one of the rebels. He had me in his rifle sights, and you took the gun out of his hands with your bullwhip. He pulled a knife, remember? He cut you.”
    Chase felt a spark of pain from the scar on