“Shit!” Her entire body flinched, and she grabbed the drone’s remote control, but the skirmish would likely be over before she could get it back to their location.
Tapping into the satellite feed wouldn’t work—there wasn’t enough time.
Her gaze flew up to the screen on the wall showing each team member’s vital signs through their bio-patches. Other than a minor spike in their heart rates, everything else appeared to be normal.
Someone yelled, “Drop it!”
There was the sound of a scuffle, some grunting, and what she assumed were twigs snapping beneath their boots.
Luna sat forward, her heart racing, and focused on the sounds in her ears and the numbers on the monitor. She was worried about all of them, but for some confusing reason, one particular man’s handsome face flashed through her mind.
Time ticked by for what seemed like days but was really only minutes.
“Perp is subdued.” Cole continued, “We’re all good.”
Luna blew out a long, relieved breath and dropped back against her chair. “Okay, good.”
“Yeah, Boone lassoed the guy like he was a cow getting ready to be branded.” Eddie Calabretta, the eternal jokester, chuckled.
Boone Langston was the newest member of the Darks Ops team. He was friendly, had an easy charm, and was drop-dead gorgeous. He seemed sincere, but Luna had been fooled by a charming, good-looking guy once before, and that situation had ended tragically.
“I’ll stick around for the debrief.” Luna put her hands on the edge of her desk, gave a gentle push, and rolled her chair to another desk behind her.
“Nah, it’s late, Luna,” Cole said. “Debrief can wait until morning.”
“You sure?” She was disappointed she would have to wait until tomorrow to hear all of the details.
That wasn’t the only reason for her disappointment, but admitting to herself that she wanted to see with her own eyes that Boone was okay meant he was wriggling his way behind her defenses.
She couldnotlet that happen.
“Yeah, it can wait until the morning.” Cole likely wanted to get home to his wife, Dulce, and their adorable little boy.
“Thanks for the backup, Luna.” Boone’s deep voice wrapped around her eardrum like a hug. “It’s always reassuring to know you’re watching over us.”
The rest of the team thanked her, too, but only his voice seemed to seep beneath her skin, threatening to breach the walls of her well-guarded heart.
“You’re welcome.” She tapped her headpiece and began preparing the post-op data she would need for their meeting in the morning.
Luna glanced up at the clock—almost ten o’clock. She should be exhausted after being there for close to sixteen hours, yet she was in no hurry to go home.
She loved her little house and knew it was secure. After all, her brother-in-law, Caleb O’Halleran, had personally seen to it that she was protected by one of his specially designed high-tech security systems. He’d even flown from San Francisco to install it himself.
But sometimes Luna felt … lonely. Which was ridiculous, since her solitude was pretty much self-imposed. When she’d first accepted the job with Dark Ops and moved away to Virginia, thousands of miles from Caleb and her older sister, Dawn, Luna had been adamant about needing her independence and wanting to build a life of her own.
A life lived outside of their overprotective bubble.
She understood and appreciated their need to protect her. After all, she’d made some pretty dumb decisions in the past. Decisions that almost cost multiple people their lives. People she cared about deeply.
“Enough,” she grumbled to herself, then slid off her headset, set it down on the desk, and jiggled the mouse to wake up her computer. “This data isn’t going to compile itself.”
Thanks to therapy and the love and patience of her sister, brother-in-law, and the rest of the O’Hallerans, she’d matured a lot in the seven years since her world imploded. But her ability to fully trust her own instincts was still fragile, and she wasn’t sure if, or when, she would ever be ready to extend that trust to a certain cowboy.
Luna stirred awake at the sound of voices coming from down the hall. She tossed off the blanket and swung her legs over the side of the cot. Her back arched as she stretched her arms high overhead and let loose a jaw-cracking yawn.
She’d ended up staying in the ops center last night.
Sammy Joslin, her counterpart at OSI’s PacNW compound and all-around genius, taught her the value of having a decent cot, pillow, and blanket in the ops center.
