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“You have three,” the man answered apologetically, before adding the word: “Sir.”

It was wildly humbling, staring up at this enormous piece of military hardware. The Chinook was swirled with greys and blacks, presumably painted to blend in with the sea. Only the sea was quite a distance away.

“Storm’s coming gentlemen,” the man in the uniform said to Gage and Maverick. “Nasty one, by the look of the weather map.”

Together the rest of us gazed up at the sky. It wasn’t just dark it was also angry now, the clouds swirling violently above us like a stirred-up hornet’s nest.

“Dust storm?” I asked.

“Sand,” Maverick said. “Big one.”

Not even two minutes later Devyn rushed from the house, trailing what looked to be three full backpacks of very heavy, expensive-looking gear. Two other men hopped down to grab his things, then jumped back into the chopper. That left him standing before me, holding my hands in his.

“I’m very sorry about this,” he said, his voice genuine. “I would’ve liked to… well…”

“Another time,” I told him. “Another place.”

I still had no idea what was going on. Only that he was being called away for something important. So important, in fact, that the US military had flown a Chinook through a sandstorm to pick him up from his house.

Shit, it only made me want him more as the father of my child.

Justas the father of your child?

“Hey! Julia!”

I whirled and saw Gage, who was ushering me in the direction the house. The chopper was getting ready to take off.

“Juliana,” I corrected him, running back. “Nobody calls me ‘Julia’.”

“Fine,” he winked. “We’ll go with Jules, then.”

I rolled my eyes, but with the noise of the enormous rotors spinning up it was too late to argue. Besides, the tall blond was far too cute to argue with.

Instead we cowered just inside the doorway, watching the big machine spin itself into the darkening sky. It nosed west, in the direction it had come, then flew off directly into the storm.

“What the hell just happened?” I asked, when it was relatively quiet again. “Why did they just—”

“We’ll tell youallabout it,” Maverick interjected, nodding back inside. His eyes were full of concern as he stared at the sky. “But first you’ll need to help us batten down the hatches.”

Twelve

GAGE

She worked fast, I’d give her that. Even better, she caught on extremely quickly.

“Hand me that pole?”

The woman who’d shown up asking for Devyn’s baby pulled the aluminum pole from the wall mount and handed it to me. I gave it a twist and extended it to its full length, then used it to close the skylights in the ceiling, high overhead.

“Good, now do those two also?”

Juliana took the pole to the other side of the room and followed my lead. She worked smoothly, turning the handle at the bottom that would pull the skylight closed with the hook at the top. By now, the wind had picked up considerably. Already we could hear it whipping through the atrium, which of course we’d sealed first.

Maverick jogged into the room just as Juliana finished. He saw the skylights and nodded his approval.

“Is the back of the house all buttoned up?”

“The sand shields are down, if that’s what you’re asking,” I replied. “This is our first real test of them, so who knows if they’ll do the job?”