Page 61 of Secrets Along the Shore

“Koen?” He itched to grab the pistol that had been holstered on his hip six months ago. Now he had no weapons. Australia didn’t allow its citizens to carry or own weapons without a legitimate reason, which didn’t include self-defense. One of the few things he disliked about his home country.

Careful steps brought him deeper into his mate’s home. On the left, he got a glimpse of the kitchen. Items from the drawers lay piled onthe counter. All cabinet doors were shut, though. He moved silently through the living room. Without a pistol, he couldn’t clear the space as he’d been trained, but he wasn’t about to rush into any area, even if he just spoke with his mate five minutes ago. What had happened in that short time?

“Koen.” Tyler headed down the hallway off the living room. It led to the master bedroom and bath, as well as an office space. He checked around the corner of another hall to get a view of the bedroom.

Koen sat on the floor, surrounded by boxes and their discarded contents. He rubbed the day’s worth of stubble on his jaw as he stared at the picture frame in his hand. His eyebrows were drawn together in a look of worry, but he wasn’t hurt.

Tyler entered the room. “Mate, what’re you doing?” Had the man single-handedly wrecked his own home? The bedroom was more upturned than the living room. Piles of clothes crowded the bed, and shoes were strewn about the floor, as if the closet had been emptied.

His mate looked up. “Tyler.” He stood. “Pardon the mess.” Lines of exhaustion marked his face. He smoothed down his wrinkled button-up shirt, then stepped over a couple of boxes. His left hand gripped the picture.

Something was wrong. Really wrong. In Tyler’s twenty-six years of knowing Koen, he’d never seen his mate this way. He was always so cheerful and did everything he could to bring a little bit more sunshine into the lives of others around him. Now a weight rested over his shoulders.

“What happened?”

Koen shrugged. “I was looking for something.” He stepped past Tyler and headed back into the living room.

“No kidding.” Tyler swiped a hand over his face and followed his mate into the small dining room off the kitchen. Behind the circular table, a door led to the garage where Koen kept his SUV. Puppies yapped from the small space that Koen had created for the unexpected litter his dog had.

“Those pups are doing great.” Koen pulled out a chair and sat at the table. He set the picture on the table and covered the manila folderlying on the smooth surface with his hands. “I’ll give you one when they get bigger.”

Tyler worked his jaw. He wasn’t in a place to take care of a pet, but he doubted he’d convince Koen otherwise. He folded his arms. “You didn’t call me here for the dogs, did you?” It wouldn’t be the first time that the man had pulled him out of the Kimberley for a ridiculous matter, but it didn’t seem like this was like those times.

“No.” Although Koen’s eyes seemed hollow, like he was looking through Tyler, he gestured for Tyler to sit. “This is a life-or-death situation. I wasn’t joking.”

Tyler pulled out a seat and settled into it. He eyed his friend. His gaze drifted to the picture on the table. It showed Koen with a young brunette girl in his arms. Both smiled broadly at the camera as the girl wrapped her small arms around his neck.

He turned back to his mate. “Why pull me into it?” With Koen spending the last six months keeping Tyler out of danger, this didn’t make sense.

“Because I know you can do this.” Koen slid the manila folder to Tyler.

Tyler eyed the folder. This couldn’t be what he thought it was. He flipped it open and confirmed his suspicions. A file for a target. A picture of a brunette was pinned to the left side of the folder. On the right, several pages contained information on her. His eyes rested on her name.

Elara Atkinson.

“Your daughter.” He met Koen’s gaze.

His mate nodded. “Yep.”

Great. Just great. Tyler rested a hand over his beard. He didn’t have to ask whether she was a target for assassination or for extraction. Of course, Koen’s daughter was in a tight spot, and he wanted her out alive. And that’s why he handed the file to Tyler.

“I got a call from her yesterday morning.”

A surprise. Koen had told him that his daughter ran off, and he hadn’t heard from her in twelve years. A long time. The odds were that she probably died. But no. Somehow, she survived on her own at seventeen.

“I need you to extract her.”

Tyler shoved the folder away. “No, you need a team to do that.” Extracting someone wasn’t the type of mission that one could do alone. Too many things could go wrong. There needed to be several sets of eyes keeping surveillance of the location as well as orchestrating things to ensure that the target got out of enemy territory via boat or plane.

“I have a team.”

“Good—”

“But I need you on it.”

Tyler leaned forward in the chair. “No. You, of all people, know that you shouldn’t add new people to a team right before a mission. Too many unknowns.” Was Koen mad? He seriously wanted Tyler to rescue his daughter. He was risking his daughter’s life if he sent Tyler. Yeah, Tyler refused to believe that his COs were right, that he was done, but if his first mission after the IED went wrong, it’d cost his friend’s daughter. How was he supposed to take that kind of risk?

That wasn’t the only problem. Tyler refused to work with a team, although the reason he gave Koen was legitimate. The military wouldn’t take him back, and he’d rather be on his own—everything that had happened over the last several years pointed to the fact that he needed to be alone. If he got back into working at all, he had to do it solo.