Oath of Honor - Radclyffe

abandoned. The stab of loneliness was as frightening as it was

unexpected.

“You okay?” Cord said softly.

“What?” Evyn focused on Cord, read her concern. “Yeah. You

weren’t kidding about riptides. Freaking strong, and freaking cold.”

“The weather’s changing fast. We’re in for a blow. Maritime

reports say we’re looking at snow up and down the coast.”

“The water sure felt like it dropped twenty degrees.”

“In some parts of the current, it probably had—cold water pulled

up to the surface by changes in the wind and air pressure.” Cord

grimaced. “I’m really sorry I didn’t call off the exercise earlier.”

“Couldn’t be anticipated—or helped,” Evyn said, listening for

• 149 •

RADCLY fFE

the distant sound of the shower running. She really wanted to go back

and check on Wes. She wasn’t convinced Wes was as steady as she

claimed. When she’d finally located her, the powerful current had been

pulling Wes hard and fast out to sea. Wes had been spinning, sinking,

and she hadn’t been struggling. For a sickening, heart-stopping second,

she’d thought she was too late. She couldn’t remember ever being so

terrified.

“You want me to get your gear?” Cord asked. “You’re

shivering.”

“No.” Evyn ignored the chill spreading along her bones. “As soon

as I check with Gary, I’ll shower.”

Cord nodded. “I’ll be in my office.”

“Thanks, Cord.” Evyn turned away, pretending she hadn’t seen

the questions, or the concern, in Cord’s eyes. They’d gotten to be

friends over the years since she’d first met Cord during her water-

rescue certification. Back then, there’d been a tiny spark of interest, but

time and distance had made friendship more feasible, and she was glad

to have avoided the awkwardness that would have cropped up when

they had to work together. Besides, a friendship with no complications

was worth a lot more than a hot and heavy—and short-lived—affair.

That’s exactly what she should be looking for with Wes—a sound

professional friendship, but she couldn’t seem to get her head around

that. When she’d seen Wes disappear into the water, the only thing

she’d thought about was getting her to safety. She hadn’t thought

about the mission or protocol or the fact that they were in the middle

of an exercise to rescue the president. None of that had mattered, and

that was a big problem.

As if reading her thoughts, Gary walked up, set two gear bags

beside her, and said, “Stop beating yourself up. What happened out

there was an accident. You okay?”

“I’m okay.” Evyn leaned against the wall inside the entrance to

the rescue station. “Listen, you should get out of here if you’re going to

catch the flight home.”

“What about you?”

“I’m going to be here a while. I need to check Wes over, and she

needs to at least get some sleep before she flies. I’ll rebook us on a flight

out in the morning.”

• 150 •

Oath Of hOnOr

“You want me to stay?”

“You don’t need to. Your wife will be happy if you make it home

tonight, and you’ll score with her for the next time you can’t get

home.”

Gary smiled. “Damn sensitive of you…and I appreciate it.” He

paused. “You did right out there, Evyn—start to finish. Stop second-

guessing yourself.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know, Gary. I wasn’t thinking about

anything at all—I just reacted. If I’d waited just a minute, she might

have come right back up to the surface, Cord would’ve thrown her a

lifeline, and we could’ve hauled her in. Then you and I could have

gotten the president into the chopper, just the way it reads in the

rulebook. Instead, I went over the side without a thought to POTUS.”

“Jesus, Evyn, it was a training exercise and we had a team member

overboard. I would’ve gone after her myself if you hadn’t already done

it.” “Would you? That’s not the protocol and you know it. Our

responsibility is first to the president, and then to the team. We took

Wes through the same scenario with the shooting sim, expecting her to

leave wounded agents on the ground.”

“Oh, come on.” Gary snorted. “Sure, there was an element of

uncertainty during that sim, but she knew somewhere in her mind those

agents weren’t really in danger of bleeding to death. That makes it a

whole lot easier than having someone get pulled into a riptide.”

“Maybe,” Evyn said, appreciating his efforts to make her feel

better but not buying the excuse. She’d broken protocol—instinctively

and against all her training.

“I’m telling you,” Gary said, “I would’ve done exactly what you

did.”“I didn’t do it consciously, Gary. I didn’t even register we were

in the middle of a training exercise. My instincts are supposed to be

different than that.”

“You know what—we can hash this all out when we debrief. Right

now you’re standing there blue as a Smurf, shivering all over. You need

to get in the shower. You can beat yourself up back in DC tomorrow.”

“Look, I’m sorry,” Evyn said. Taking her anger at herself out on

Gary wasn’t fair. Not his fault she’d abandoned her training—it was

• 151 •

RADCLY fFE

Wes’s. Every time Wes Masters figured into anything, she totally went

off the rails.

“Forget it—it’s been a hell of a day.” Gary thumped her shoulder.

“Go shower, will you?”

“Yeah.” Evyn grabbed her go bag and Wes’s, and pushed off the

wall. “You better get started for the airport or you’re not going to make

it. Storm coming.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’ll get us checked into a hotel, call Tom, and bring him up

to speed.”

“Okay. But I want to see you when you get back to DC before we

debrief on this mission.”

“Why?”

“So I can make sure you don’t fall on your sword when it’s not

necessary.”

Evyn laughed. “Deal.”

She waved Gary toward the door and headed down the hall. She

wouldn’t fall on her sword, but she needed to get herself back on track.

She needed to do the job and forget about Wes going into the water,

forget about the panic that had hit her hard and filled her with terror

when she thought she’d lost her.

v

The locker room was unisex and small—a ten-by-ten-foot room

with three narrow gray lockers against one wall, a few open shelves for

gear and supplies above a bench opposite the lockers, a tiny closet with

a toilet in the corner, and another slightly bigger closet with a doorless

wooden shower stall. The water was still running in the shower when

Evyn walked in, and the single horizontal foot-high window above the

lockers was frosted with steam. She shed the canvas pants and hooded

sweatshirt she’d pulled on out on the patrol boat, dropped them next to

the bench, and grabbed a couple of white terry cloth towels from the

shelf. By the thinness of the material, they’d been washed a lot of times,

but they were clean and dry, and that was all she needed. The shower in

the other room turned off.

“Need a towel?” she called.

• 152 •

Oath Of hOnOr

“I got one, thanks,” Wes called back.

Evyn wrapped a towel around her torso and waited for Wes to

leave the shower. The already small room shrank further when Wes

walked in, her wheat-gold hair bronzed by the water, hugging her scalp

and fingering along her neck. Sparkling droplets beaded on her chest

and rained in thin rivulets over the muscles of her upper abdomen. Her

skin was goose bumped.

Evyn unfolded a towel and held it out. “You’re cold. Cover your

shoulders. You’ve got a pretty good bruise going there.”

“Thanks. Looks worse than it feels.” Wes rubbed her hair and

draped the towel around her neck. “There’s still plenty of hot water.”

“Good, I’m ready for it. Your bag is over there.” Evyn gestured

to the bags she’d left at the end of the row of lockers. “I’ll be out in a

second.”

She edged past Wes, a foot of space between them. Despite the

lingering cold that had taken up permanent residence in her bones, she

was anything but numb. Being close to Wes charged her muscles and

flooded her blood with heat and expectation. She tugged off the towel,

draped it over the side of the shower stall, and stepped inside, twisting

the hot tap all the way open. She added a little cold but kept the water as

close to steaming as she could stand, immersing her head, turning her

face into the spray, desperately hoping to purge the image of Wes’s body

outlined by the thin cotton towel. Strong shoulders, sculpted arms, the

swell of firm breasts, the stretch of abdomen and slight flare of thighs.

She shuddered and braced her arms against the smooth tile wall. She let

her head hang down while the heat beat against her neck and shoulders.

She stayed there until the water started to cool and then twisted the

taps closed. Briskly, she toweled her hair dry, finger-combed it, and

wrapped the last dry towel around her chest. She strode back into the

locker room, not looking in Wes’s direction, and quickly pulled on dry

jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. After donning thick wool socks and

kicking into her boots, she turned to Wes, who had stretched out on the

bench with an arm over her eyes. She might have been asleep.

Evyn smiled to herself. Wes was like every other first responder

she’d ever known—able to sleep anywhere, anytime, under any

conditions. She eased her emergency kit out of her go bag and crouched

next to the bench. “You asleep?”

• 153 •

RADCLY fFE

“No,” Wes said quietly. “Just enjoying being warm.”

“I know what you mean.” Evyn pulled out a blood-pressure cuff

and a stethoscope. “I want to check your BP.”

Wes moved to unbutton her cuff, and Evyn brushed her hand

aside. “I’ve got it.”

She unbuttoned Wes’s cuff and folded the sleeve up to her mid-

upper arm. Wes’s skin was lightly tanned, soft and smooth, the muscles

beneath firm and finely etched. She didn’t look at Wes’s face as she

wrapped the blood-pressure cuff around her biceps and checked her

pressure. “Ninety over sixty. Is that usual for you?”

“A little low,” Wes said, “but nothing worrisome.”

“Uh-huh.” Evyn wasn’t about to argue, but she wasn’t going to

let Wes self-diagnose, either. She checked her pulse. Sixty, slow and

steady, full and strong. Wes didn’t just look to be in good shape, she

was. “Do you run?”

“I row.”

“It shows.” Evyn pulled out a digital thermometer. “Put this under

your tongue.”

Wes moved her arm from over her eyes and turned her head to

look at Evyn. Her eyebrows rose slightly as she eyed the thermometer.

“I’m okay.”

Fatigue shadowed her eyes, darkening the green to nearly black.

Her lips were pale. She looked exhausted.

“Your vital signs are good, but you need fuel and rest.” Evyn

wagged the thermometer. “Under your tongue.”

Wes grinned wryly and opened her mouth.

Evyn slid the thermometer in, and Wes slowly closed her lips

around it. Her eyes held Evyn’s, and Evyn felt heat rush to her face. Her

thighs suddenly trembled, and she dropped onto her knees to steady

herself. Hell, she couldn’t even do something as simple as take Wes’s

temperature without starting to lose it. Well. She might be able to keep

her cool if she didn’t look at Wes’s mouth and imagine those moist,

sensuous lips closing around her. Wes put every one of her fantasies

to shame—and scared the hell out of her. She swallowed hard and

wondered if Wes could hear the tightness in her throat. Her heart nearly

froze when Wes’s hand moved toward her face.

Evyn stilled, feeling a little bit like a rabbit paralyzed at the sight

• 154 •

Oath Of hOnOr

of a predator drawing near. Wes’s fingers grazed her cheek, slid down

to her neck, and Evyn’s breath caught in her throat.

“You’ve got a bruise,” Wes murmured.

Evyn slipped the thermometer from between Wes’s lips and

pretended to stare at it. “Ninety-six. You’re too cold.”

“And your pulse is racing.” Wes’s fingertips rested over Evyn’s

carotid. “I bet if we took your blood pressure, it would be all over the

place. You need some rest too, Agent Daniels.”

Evyn wanted to move away from Wes’s touch. And she wanted

more of it. She wanted the fire streaming from Wes’s fingertips to

scorch through her, burning away fear and uncertainty and caution. She

wanted to explode. Her stomach trembled. She licked her suddenly dry

lips and eased away. “We both need a meal. Sit up, I want to check your

pressure while you’re upright. I’m not letting you walk out of here and

have you fall down halfway to the vehicle.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Wes said quietly, “but I’m not a

squid, you know.”

Evyn laughed. “I know. But I bet it’s been a long time since you’ve

had that kind of dunking.”

Sighing, Wes pushed upright. “True.” She closed her eyes. “And I

do have a little orthostatic hypotension.”

Instantly, Evyn forgot about everything except making sure Wes

was stable. She took her pressure again. “Seventy over fifty. You’re a

little dizzy, aren’t you?”

“Just a little.”

“Okay.” Evyn rose briskly. “We’re spending the night in Kitty

Hawk. You’re going to get some hot food into you and twelve hours’

sleep.”

Wes frowned. “I can sleep in DC. The trip back isn’t that long.”

“Sorry, I’m not taking a chance on you decompensating on an

airplane. Food, sleep, home tomorrow.”

“Should I ask who left you in charge?”

Wes sounded grumpy, which only proved she wasn’t at the top of