part0006

Hatch sat with her back against the wall and legs stretched out along the booth in the same restaurant where they’d said goodbye years ago. Being back here now felt odd. She always wondered what it would be like to see Cruise again. The anticipation of seeing his smile, hearing his voice, feeling his touch, left her palms sweaty.

She had met him after first making Task Force Banshee. He was a SEAL, part of an instructional cadre at an amphibious assault course. During her time there in Coronado, the two had proved they were as intense in the bedroom as they were on the battlefield. But the brightest flames burn fastest, and it wasn’t long before life and circumstance conspired to snuff it out.

Sitting at the same table where they’d last said goodbye seemed like as fitting a place as any to pick up where they had left off. It was Cruise who alerted Hatch to the Talon Executive Service team that was sent to kill her. If it hadn’t been for him and his early morning text message, Hatch doubted she would’ve been able to circumvent the threat. She owed him a debt of thanks, but beyond that, he owed her the answer to a question burning a hole in the back of her mind since she’d first received the message.

The only person capable of answering walked through the door. It had been five years since Hatch last saw him, but seeing him now, she couldn’t tell a day had passed. The tingle in her scar returned. Hatch ran her fingers along the raised puffiness of twisted thorny branches of scar tissue, wrapping her right arm from her wrist to her shoulder.

A wise café owner in Africa had taught her not to be ashamed. He told her not to hide it, to embrace it, which in the time since she’d learned to do. But here now, seeing Cruise again, she was conscious of it and wished she had opted for long sleeves.

Hatch was no longer the person she was when she first entered the military. She wasn’t the woman Cruise had known. The IED that tore her arm apart fractured her life, and from that point forward, everything had changed.

Cruise looked as though the battlefield hadn’t broken him. In fact, he somehow looked younger, happier. The years between their last encounter had resulted in markedly different impacts, at least on the outside.

He stopped a few feet away, arms crossed over his chest, eyes narrowed, smile on his lips. "Well, if it isn’t Rachel Hatch in the flesh."

In the flesh . Even his words stung, but what hurt worse was the way his eyes immediately darted to her arm. When he met her gaze again, he gave her the pity look.

"Don’t give me that look."

"It’s just—I should’ve been there for you." His arms dropped and he held his hands out, palms up. The edge on his face faded.

"You were deployed at the time. It didn't matter. Besides, whatever we had ended long before this." Hatch slapped the scar, showing her indifference to him. She didn’t know if it worked.

"I think I read somewhere that you had died in a horrible fire."

"Well, you look great for a zombie. But I hope you’re searching the menu for something to eat.”

Hatch felt her cheeks warm, the redness blotching her pale complexion. Cruise smiled. He was a handsome man, but Hatch knew him on a deeper level. Beneath his tough exterior was a kind soul. Cruise had laid it bare one night while having a midnight picnic overlooking the San Diego Bay. They were lying under the stars on the grassy Turner Field on the amphibious Coronado base. On that night, the moon looked as though it rested atop the placid water. It was the first time Hatch told him she loved him. As their lives drifted apart, Hatch promised herself that someday they would meet back where the moon kissed the water.

Cruise left for an eighteen-month deployment just as Hatch had been selected for Task Force Banshee. Even operating in the same theater, it was like living in two different worlds. They’d see each other on random occasions and although the time was passionate, it was brief. They were both married to the military. And now they were both effectively divorced.

Hatch let the thought marinate in her mind as she looked at the man. "Do they still make those coffee cakes? Those oversized ones?" Hatch could almost taste them.

Keeping conversation light, Cruise replied, "They do. I haven’t found any better in all my travels." He leaned back in his seat and called over in the direction of the kitchen, "Sherry, two cakes!"

Sherry, a cute dark-haired waitress in her late twenties, approached a moment later with two plates on a tray balanced in one hand and a pot of coffee in the other. She was followed by the scent of cinnamon sugar as it trailed from the coffee cakes. After topping off both mugs with fresh java, she winked and returned to her station.

"How’d you know about Talon?" Hatch asked.

"Wow. I haven’t even had my first bite." Cruise set his fork down. He dragged a hand across his stubble and blinked a few times. "Listen, I’m gonna tell you some things and I want you to hear me out to the end."

"I’m listening. I’ll eat, you talk." She smiled and cut a fork full of the coffee cake.

Hatch nearly spit the food out of her mouth. She scanned the room for a threat.

"Relax.” He attempted to calm her by holding his hands in front of his chest. “That’s why I said you have to hear me out. It’s just me."

Hatch continued to look around the dining room.

Cruise swept his hand across the table and put it on her right wrist. His pinky finger touched the scar. "It’s me, Hatch. Give me one reason you shouldn’t trust me."

“How about a dozen of them?”

His smile returned. “Give me five minutes and if you aren’t satisfied, I’ll wait here while you leave.”

She gazed into his eyes for several seconds. She’d seen the man in battle, ready to kill. Remembered the look on his face and the intensity in his eyes. That wasn’t there now. She relaxed a little. "I don’t understand."

"You’ve got Talon all wrong. It’s not what you think. They are cutting-edge defense contractors. We handle some of the most dangerous missions in the world, and trust me, the guys in my unit are as good as they come."

"Yeah, they’re good all right.” Hatch felt the rage rise inside her like bitter bile. “Good at hunting down a woman and her family. Tell me, Cruise, are my niece and nephew dangerous threats?"

"What happened to you was an anomaly.”

He kept going. “Talon is a private security company, plain and simple. Government contract work, foreign and domestic. What happened to you was done by a rogue element, a couple of old war horses with skeletons in their closets. Ones I guess they were willing to kill to ensure remained hidden.”

"My father was one of those old war horses." She grabbed her napkin and wiped her lips.

He reached for her wrist again, this time pulling her toward him. "I know. Listen, that regime is gone. You ended it. Talon wants to set things right after what happened in Hawk’s Landing. They came up with an offer I think you’ll want to hear."

An offer? She almost choked on her water. “First, why don’t you tell me how it is you learned they were coming to get me?"

"Total accident. I was in the process of putting a proposal together, trying to see if I could bring you in. We need a strong, tough female like you on our team."

"What does ‘female’ have to do with it?"

"Come on, you’re smart enough to know. On teams like this, similar to your Task Force Banshee, having a female changes the game, especially when she can operate at your level. That’s what I thought our team needed, so I was putting a package together to present you for recruitment."

"I feel like you’re talking about a free agent athlete."

"I’m talking about tier one operators. And I only pick the best for my team."

"Then let's hear the pitch.” She sipped from her mug. “And please make sure not to leave out the part where your company tried to kill me."

"When I was using our internal system to send my recruitment package, your name was flagged."

"What does flagged mean?"

"It means you were a listed target. Talon has an advanced information system. Once a name is flagged, the intel guys build a digital dossier giving the user access to pretty much every piece of the target's life."

"And that's how you found out your employer had sent people to kill me?" She sawed at her food with the knife, cutting it into small pieces.

"Not at first. I was unable to access the mission file associated with your name. It was beyond my clearance, which is odd because there’s very little that is." Cruise took the first bite of his coffee cake before continuing. "I gained access through backdoor channels. At first, I thought somebody had already begun a recruitment process on you.”

"Any recruitment effort failed the minute you all tried to kill my family." Steam rose from the cup of coffee in her hand. She thought of the fire that consumed her childhood home and all that she loved with it. A fire Talon had started. One that Hatch had extinguished. And in doing so had faked her own death. Since then, she had been looking over her shoulder for Talon's next hit squad. And now she was now having coffee with one of the enemy. What the hell kind of world had she wound up in?

"Listen, what happened to you was wrong. Nobody currently at Talon endorses what happened. And they weren’t a part of it. After I brought it to the attention of my boss, a little house cleaning took place." Cruise set his fork down as he slid his hand across to Hatch's again. This time, his thumb caressed the exposed scar. "Nobody will ever come for you again. I made sure of that."

Hatch knew what cleaning house meant. She looked into Cruise's deep, cobalt eyes. He was telling the truth.

"I'm sorry this happened to you,” he said.

"Everything happens for a reason." Had Hatch stayed in Hawk's Landing and settled into a life there, girls like Caitlyn Moss and Angela Rothman would be enslaved or dead by now. The course deviation created by Talon's relentless hunt had ultimately put her in position to honor her code. Help good people and punish those responsible.

"The money's not half bad."

His words jostled her back to the present. “What?”

“Talon pays well.”

"I don’t need blood money."

"It’s not blood money. Everything we do is on the up and up. These are government contracts. Every hit is sanctioned."

"Then somebody must’ve sanctioned what happened to my family and me.”

"They did, and I took care of it. Trust me, that’s over." His eyes bore into hers. "Talon wants to call a truce."

Hatch sat back, allowing her hand to slip free of his, ending the gentle caresses. "What if I don't like the terms of the truce?"

“I’m trying to save your life, Hatch.”

“So, if I say no, I’m dead?”

"If you don’t like the offer, walk away. Nobody on Talon's side will ever come for you. It's that simple."

Hatch absorbed it all. If Talon wasn't looking for her, she could return to her life in Hawk's Landing. She could be with her family. And with Savage. "I'll have to think about it."