She tried to run faster, but it was too late. He was too close, and her body had nothing more to give. She squeezed her eyes shut and pictured the last thing she wanted to take from this world.
Jake’s handsome face appeared in her mind’s eye. He smiled, the movement deepening the shallow lines bracketing each side of his mouth. His piercing blue eyes sparkled back at her.
I love you.The words whispered through her mind just before a sudden, sharp pain exploded in the back of her head. And then...nothing.
****
Jake McQueen couldn’tthink. God Almighty, he couldn’tbreathe. The dizziness and nausea hit him like a freight train as he reached for the remote, desperate to block out the nightmare playing before him. He willed his thumb to press the power button, but his fingers refused to follow the simple order.
“The brief clip you just saw was from the memorial service held yesterday in honor of the eight men and women who were violently murdered in what authorities are still reporting as a drug-related raid. Five weeks ago, the group of American doctors and nurses arrived in Toamasina, Madagascar to offer volunteer medical aid to those in need. As I’m sure most of our viewers already know, Toamasina was one of the many areas devastated by the massive hurricane that hit Madagascar early last month.”
Ah, God, not her.Anyonebut her!
Jake shook his head, his denial instant and final because no way, nofuckingway was this really happening. The media, the so-called authorities...they had to be wrong.
He continued listening to the TV, searching for something,anythingthat said this was all just some horrible mistake. However, the longer he sat there, the more Jake’s unwavering wall of denial began to crumble. Everything he’d just seen and heard pointed to only one truth—Olivia was dead.
While he and his team had been completing their most recent mission, her entire group had been gunned down. Their bodies burned beyond recognition. A week ago.
Jesus.
Finally regaining some bodily control, Jake raised the remote. He refused to sit and listen to another goddamn word about how she’d been brutally gunned down and then fuckingburned.
Just then, Olivia’s face filled the oversized screen. He froze in place. He couldn’t tear his gaze away now if his life depended on it.
Jake knew the picture well. He’d taken it the day Olivia received her nursing degree. She smiled back at him now from his TV, her laugh from that long-ago moment forever captured.
Gorgeous eyes with their mesmerizing swirls of greens and browns bore deeply into his own. They were eyes he’d always sworn he could get lost in, if given the chance.
Jake blinked, and her name appeared on the screen in bold letters beneath the picture—Olivia Bradshaw.
His best friend’s little sister. The girl he and her brother, Mike, had spent countless hours of their childhood tormenting...all the while, protecting her with everything they had. She was also the same girl who’d grown before his eyes into the most beautiful, compassionate woman he’d ever known. And the most stubborn.
Olivia had given him so much shit throughout the years, challenging him at every turn. Despite all her sass—or maybe because of it—Jake had never wanted a woman more.
For years, she’d been the star of more fantasies than he could count. The cause of more wet dreams than he’d ever admit. She was also the only woman who’d managed to steal his heart, and last week she’d died without knowing the truth about how he really felt.
A rush of bile hit the base of his throat and Jake barely made it to his kitchen sink before losing the fast-food lunch he’d scarfed down on his way home. A few minutes later, his hands shook so violently, it took three tries to get the damned faucet turned on so he could rinse the rancid taste from his mouth.
After running the garbage disposal, Jake splashed his face with cold water before reaching for the nearest dish towel. In a daze, he wiped the moisture from his skin before tossing the towel aside. His hands became two vice grips, grabbing hold of the sink’s edge, his knuckles white from the strain.
Hanging his head between his shoulders, Jake summoned every ounce of his training to force some much-needed air into his lungs. After several controlled breaths, he attempted to calm himself. To accept the unacceptable...Liv was dead.
He thought about the last time he saw her. Regret filled his gut when he realized it’d been nearly two full months.Too fucking long.
When his team wasn't away on a job, Jake and Olivia would talk on the phone or hang out whenever they could, just as friends. No matter how busy they both were, he always made sure he saw her before leaving town again—except this last time.
His team’s most recent job had been the very definition of last-minute. Jake had been home less than an hour, and hadn’t even had time to unpack his bags from the previous job when he got the call from his handler at Homeland, requesting a hostage location and extraction.
He’d barely had time to shower, let alone see Olivia, before heading out again. So, he’d left her a voicemail, promising to make it up to her as soon as he got back. Now he’d never get that chance.
Filled with sorrow, Jake squeezed his watering eyes shut. Rather than blocking out the pain as intended, his mind instantly conjured up images from their last day together.
The two had eaten and talked. They’d laughed. More than anything, they’d laughed.I can still hear her laugh.
It was always like that with her. They could joke around effortlessly, or just sit in comfortable silence. When it came to Olivia, everything was easy...especially loving her. So, why the hell hadn’t he ever told her?
You know why, asshole.
