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Until…
Until he couldn’t stay any longer.
He grabbed a beer from the fridge. He didn’t care that he was only in his boxer briefs; he walked out onto his deck.
The darkness surrounded him. The cool, night air dried the sweat on his skin. He set his phone on the railing, then leaned against the wood, and sipped.
His gaze moved toward the roof of Hollis’s place. He imagined her in bed, red hair everywhere.
He took another sip.
There was a story there. Something was bothering her. Sawyer had a finely tuned sense for trouble, and something was making her afraid.
What would terrify a wealthy, A-list actress, who had it all?
It sounded like her family wasn’t tight. It was hard to picture a mom who wasn’t impressed when their kid won an Oscar, and had starred in some of the most popular movies of the last decade.
He stared out toward the ocean. He should be keeping his mind and eyes off her. He had no time for a woman. All the shit he had lurking inside him…he had no desire to inflict that on anyone.
Those long-ago screams echoed in his head again.
He shook his head, and took another sip of beer. At that moment, his phone vibrated with a message.
The screen lit up, and he glanced at it.
You doing okay?
Damn, Vander Norcross—best Ghost Ops commander Sawyer had ever known—was uncanny as fuck. The man could sense stuff no one else would notice.
He tapped back a message.
Another night in paradise.
A second later, his phone rang.
“It’s late in San Francisco,” Sawyer said. “How come you aren’t asleep?” Vander ran a successful security business and was married. The thought of Vander as a married businessman always made Sawyer shake his head. He still couldn’t quite picture it.
Still, if someone had told him a few years back that he’d be a deputy sheriff on Maui, he probably would’ve laughed.
“My lovely wife is out on a case,” Vander said. “She’s due home soon.”
So, Vander was waiting for his police detective wife. “Ah. Got it.”
“How’s Maui?”
“Good. The work is…interesting. Mainly tourists doing dumb stuff.”
Vander gave a low chuckle. “Nice change of pace.”
“Yeah.”
Vander’s team had lost three members on a mission. Sawyer had been one of the new recruits to replace them, coming out of the Navy Seals. Ghost Ops teams were made up of the best of the best of special forces from all branches of the military.
Vander and his men had been hurting after their loss, but they’d welcomed him. He wished he’d gotten to serve with them longer before Vander had retired. But Vander kept in touch, and Sawyer knew that the man kept his finger on the pulse of what all the old team members were doing.
Just recently, one of them, Ren Santoro, had his research ship attacked off the coast of Hawaii. The attackers had been after a top-secret military Navy research project.
Ren and a scientist had washed up on Molokai, on the run from Chinese operatives. Vander had called Sawyer, and asked him to help them. Sawyer had pulled in some favors and hauled ass to Molokai to help Ren.