O Christmas Knight Read online

  Major Bishop’s expression softened. “Yes, they’re healthy and safe, Knight. Do you want to take a moment?” She waved at the room in dismissal, and Tyler got up from the chair and walked to the windows that overlooked the lush green lawn and some shrubbery. She pinched her nose hard to fight back the tears of relief that now threatened to spill out.

  Dragging in deep breaths, she watched a bird hop from one branch of the shrub to another, its black watchful eye curious. Staring at the bird helped Tyler collect her emotions and stuff them back inside.

  She returned to the desk and resumed her seat. “Thank you.”

  She gave a hard nod. “You’ve shown amazing physical prowess while here, Knight.”

  “Thank you, Major.”

  “And a new personal best that also breaks all records on this base. Congratulations.”

  Tyler found a trace of a smile. “I would have liked a better time.”

  The major tipped back her head and laughed, and for the first time Tyler saw her as a woman with sparkling eyes. A laugh like hers would slay men’s hearts. Tyler wasn’t the only woman doing a job that, until a few years ago, only men did, and she admired each and every one.

  “I admire your spirit, Knight. When given praise, you admit you’re disappointed in yourself. But I’ve brought you here to tell you that the Marine Corps is not disappointed in you.”

  “That’s good to hear, Major.”

  “I won’t beat around the bush—we have a team ready to deploy to Kandahar.”

  Her heart hit her chest wall and pounded heavily.

  “There’s a small uprising there that needs attention. And we’ve had our eye on you for some time, Knight. You don’t only display extreme physical prowess but a very sharp mind as well, and we need both, as it turns out. I’m assigning you as Civil Affairs Specialist.”

  Tyler’s mind skipped back and forth across the title. “Would you please explain my duties, Major?”

  “Basically you will be rubbing elbows with the civilians and government officials in the area. Putting yourself in front of them to let them know we in the United States have their best interests and safety at heart. But we also need you to open your ears.”

  Her heart drummed faster. “Intelligence.”

  Major Bishop wasn’t about to commit to that word. “Every Marine must listen to what is being said around them and interpret that to make decisions. This is one of those times, Knight. We know you’re up to it.”

  She gave a nod. “I am.” Pride rose up, a cloud so heady that she could hardly see straight. “I’ll do the Corps proud, Major.”

  She stood. “Good, then you deploy with Team Omega in forty-five minutes. I have transport waiting for you at the airstrip.”

  So soon. Tyler stood too. “What about packing?”

  “Your bag and all the gear you need is already on the aircraft.” She braced her legs wide and eyed Tyler with—dare she think it?—admiration. “Good luck, Knight.” He stood and dismissed her.

  She saluted and turned for the door, hardly able to wrap her brain around what was happening. She was really getting her first mission, and for one so young and new to the ranks, it was an honor above anything she could have asked for. It crossed her mind that her big brothers had paved the way for her, laid down their reputation and she was just benefitting, like a little sister in high school who got preferential treatment from teachers because her brothers were well-loved.

  But she couldn’t think about that right now. She would prove herself, give her all.

  Semper Fi.

  The Marines’ motto branded her, and she raised her jaw a notch.

  She was directed to a jeep that drove her to the airstrip and then was ushered across the asphalt to the military aircraft. From there, she met her new team—all hard, callused and scarred men who eyed her with amusement, like they’d just wandered across a kitten in a war zone. She stiffened her spine and held her own. These guys couldn’t intimidate her, not when she dealt with five chest-thumping, arrogant asshole brothers every day of her life.

  * * * * *

  The first time Tyler had ever been fired at, she’d rolled to safety and marveled at the sound the bullets made striking objects around her.

  The second time bullets sprayed over her and her team, she got out her weapon and fired back.

  As her brothers would say, shit had gone sideways, and it was a damn good she’d proved her ability in intelligence as well, because she’d barely returned to Team Omega to warn them before the first shot was fired.

  She popped over the stonework wall and squeezed the trigger, her ears exploding with heavy fire coming from the men next to her.

  Dammit, this wasn’t supposed to happen. She’d spoken to the officials who’d promised peace, yet here they were trying to kill her and the five guys she’d come to know as brothers and love just as much during her last two weeks here.

  “Woolworth, don’t take your time! Get the launcher ready,” her captain bellowed.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Woolworth, a huge man with green eyes, a tiger tattoo on his right upper arm and a ready grin lift the grenade launcher to his shoulder with practiced ease.

  “Duck and cover your ears, Knight!” he called out.

  She hit the deck and pressed her palms to her ears as he fired. The explosion made pieces of stone crumble off the wall and rain down on her. Confusion clogged the air, along with dust. So much fucking dust. This country was all dust and fear, from what she knew from her short time here, but she had never expected that her team’s overtures for peace and a settlement in the dispute would come with this heavy price.

  A rich laugh rose from Woolworth, and Captain March gave another order to strike hard.

  Each of her moves was reflexive after all the training she’d had, both with her father, then brothers, and finally the Marines. Before now, though, she’d been aiming at a paper target. Now she was shooting to kill for real.

  There wasn’t time to dwell on that, not when they were under siege, outnumbered and pinned down in a fucking house that could be easily flattened. Suddenly she realized if the Afghan government wanted her dead, there wasn’t much she could do about it. Not with air strikes being so prevalent in this area.

  She reloaded and unloaded—watching a man fall from her bullet for the first time. It wasn’t a victorious feeling like playing a video game, yet she didn’t have time for the nausea rising in her gut. She shoved it down and got angry.

  “Well, look at the prom queen, opening up hell’s fires on these guys,” Woolworth drawled out, and everybody laughed but her. Was this what her brothers were like? Making jokes during missions and under heavy duress? She imagined Ben and Sean cracking jokes and the others laughing.

  Two hours later, nobody was doing much laughing, though. Captain March was on the phone, blasting orders at anybody who would listen. They needed backup and they damn well needed it immediately. They were sitting ducks in this house and they required assistance right the fuck now.

  Someone placed a hand on her forearm, and Tyler looked down at it and then up into the face of her teammate Joe Paris. The guys called him Joey but she just called him by his last name. At first, he hadn’t liked her, but as soon as she’d approached the Afghan official she was to meet with and spoken the Dari language with a pretty damn good accent, if she did say so herself, Paris had given her more respect.

  “Take a break, lay low for a few minutes. You’ve been at it for hours, and there isn’t a lot we can do right now,” Paris said in his low voice.

  She nodded and lowered her weapon, just now realizing her arms ached with fatigue. She leaned against the wall, feeling the stone pressing into her spine in the painful knots there, but taking comfort from its solidness that had acted as barrier between her and so many bullets.

  In a crouch, he turned to go.

  “Paris,” she called him back.

  He swung his head around.

  “Why haven’t they just leveled this
place, especially after we fired the grenades?”

  He grinned. “They’re keeping us alive as a power play. Anything else?”

  She started to shake her head and then thought of something. “Yeah. I wasn’t the prom queen.”

  He chuckled. “That doesn’t surprise me, Knight.”

  She watched him crouch-walk back to the house a few yards within the wall. At some point the wooden door had been blasted into shards, and she couldn’t imagine what else was destroyed inside.

  She rested where she sat, breathing hard and replaying her first kill in her mind’s eye. Then she promptly cut off that movie reel and focused on more productive thoughts. Like the upcoming holiday season. Thanksgiving with her big family, bigger now that her brothers had all brought wives home. The table would be bursting, elbow to elbow with people. A big Cajun Thanksgiving prepared by Maman and Lexi. Her mother would wave off praise as usual but Lexi would soak up the compliments and pretend to be so exhausted after slaving over the meal all day.

  She missed her twin. Missed her family. And she wanted to get home to them intact.

  The first explosions trembled the ground beneath her, and she scrambled to her knees.

  “We need that backup anytime, guys,” Captain March said calmly into the phone and then dropped it in order to raise his weapon. “Naptime’s over, you pansy asses! Grab your balls and your weapons and say a Hail Mary!”

  He opened fire and Tyler did the same. During a break in the noise, she called out, “I don’t have any balls, Captain!”

  He laughed but was too focused on leading them to say more.

  After two more hours of heavy fire, it was a wonder they had any artillery left, but of course they didn’t come to Kandahar unprepared. They’d tried for peace and had instead gotten locked inside a house on the edge of town for hours on end. Just as they relaxed, thinking it all over with, the war began again. The long hours of night were the worst for Tyler. She lost morale half a dozen times at least but rediscovered it just laying deep inside her in a hidden well she didn’t know she possessed.

  By dawn, though, she was bleary-eyed and she’d lost count of the bodies she’d watched fall. She dropped her head back against the wall, and her helmet tipped forward to cover her eyes. “When is that backup coming, Captain?”

  “Anytime now, Knight.”

  “Where the hell are they coming from—Antarctica?”

  Several guys laughed but she knew they were thinking the same. She saw the intense burning in their eyes that must reflect her own. She couldn’t remember what they were even fighting for anymore and wondered if they knew either.

  Her shoulders relaxed from sheer exhaustion and she drifted for a few moments, her ears still ringing from the shattering noise she’d endured for hours on end.

  When the next siege jerked her to alertness, fury struck. She got to her feet and lifted her weapon.

  Then she started crawling over the wall to shoot the bastards attacking them at closer range.

  * * * * *

  “Jesus Christ!” Hawk saw the Marine mounting the wall, exposing himself, and his heart gave a hard stutter. Sneaking in from behind undetected had been no easy feat of tactics, but he’d been given the leadership role of the reconnaissance team for a reason.

  He and the eleven men he was leading weren’t leaving the area without these six on Omega.

  “Knight!” The roar came from the team’s captain.

  Hawk almost came unhinged. Knight? Rumor was that all five brothers by that name were right now deep in the heart of Alabama dealing with some dirty shit. It couldn’t be any Knight that he knew.

  Yet when Hawk peered harder at the person determined to blow through the lines like some kind of goddamn GI Joe, he recognized the smaller figure of a female.

  Goddammit, it’s GI Jane.

  Hawk moved before he even willed his muscles to. He zigzagged through the courtyard in front of the house through a hailstorm of bullets and reached the front wall just as March dragged Tyler Knight back down to safety.

  She sat there for a moment, dazed as March blistered her ears with a telling off that would make a man’s gonads shrivel. But Tyler simply took it with a nod, twisted to face front again and took aim.

  The fighting went on for all of half an hour before the real backup came in the form of a blast that shook the house on its foundation but wiped out the enemy.

  In the hell of battle, Hawk had lost eyes on Tyler, and he was almost afraid to look around at the casualties their teams had taken, if any. He knew two of his guys had experienced minor injuries and had continued to fight despite their pain.

  One of the guys let out a low whistle. Then the typical burst of laughter traveled from one to another—pure relief to be alive given voice.

  Hawk got to his feet and glass crunched under his boot. None of the windows had made it and it was a damn wonder there had been only two injured.

  One of his teammates gave him a grin, teeth white against his brown skin. Sweat poured out from under his helmet.

  Hawk raised his jaw in acknowledgment of a job well done and moved through the house and to the wall.

  Slumped against the stone was a figure, smaller than the rest but still bulked out in gear. His heart gave a wild gallop, thinking her dead. Then she raised her head and let out a whoop of victory that had the rest of the men on her team cheering. One reached down and grabbed her by the hand, pulling her to her feet. He thumped her on the back, and Hawk was aware of how small she looked compared to the big Marine.

  How the fuck had she even come to be here? He hadn’t gotten wind that she’d been deployed. Of course, he hadn’t spoken to any Knights, not even his ex-wife Elise, in weeks. He’d come straight out of the swamps with nineteen body bags loaded into a truck and gotten news from the Pentagon that there was a situation and his skills were needed outside of the Homeland Security division OFFSUS, Operation Freedom Flag Southern US.

  Another guy swept Tyler up in an embrace, and she pounded him on the back.

  For years, Hawk had viewed her as the little sister, someone to protect. He narrowed his eyes, watching for some telltale interaction that revealed more than simple team camaraderie. No one was going to fuck with the Knights’ sister.

  The Marine let her go, and Tyler didn’t look at him again.

  With the fight finished, Hawk’s guys came forward to grip hands with Omega. Hawk was aware of Tyler’s position every second that ticked by, but she didn’t glance his way. Had she seen him?

  He broke away from Captain March long enough to circle the group, getting within ten feet of her. For a moment, he just examined her. A few cuts and bumps was all he saw, and she didn’t appear to have any other injuries. He felt relief trickle through him, pooling in his gut. At least he wouldn’t be facing the Knights with accusations that he’d failed to protect their little sister.

  At that moment, she looked up, straight at him.

  Their gazes locked and then they both twisted away. He couldn’t acknowledge that he knew the other side of Tyler Knight, the girl who paraded around in a bikini on the dock of her family’s bayou cabin. That woman wouldn’t want her fellow Marines to know such details, and Hawk was too afraid that looking at her would somehow show it on his face.

  But why had she turned away from him? She didn’t want to reveal her link to him either, which was damned odd. And if he was honest, fucking annoying.

  The big transport trucks rolled up and they were all told they would be taken to Kandahar Air Base. At that point, he was separated from Tyler as she climbed into the other vehicle.

  With her well-being out of his hands, he ordered his men to load up too and the entire bumpy ride back to the air base left Hawk brooding over that split second when he and Tyler had locked gazes. In that moment, he swore he’d seen relief mingled with fear there. But the threat was over at that point, so what was it she was afraid of? Surely not him.

  An hour later he’d showered and changed into a fresh set of c
lothes and when he entered a mess hall to the sight of enough food to feed an army ten times the size of this group, he immediately sought out the dark brown hair of the woman he wanted most to speak to.

  He strode right up to her. She stood there sipping a bottle of water like she had no clue who he was.

  “Tyler.” He bit off her name through his clenched jaw.

  She looked up but didn’t quite meet his eyes.

  He locked a hand on her arm and spun her to face him. “What the hell is your problem?” he whispered furiously.

  She jerked her arm free and walked out of the mess hall. He followed on her heels, dragging her back around to face him. Her eyes, dark and full of sparks of anger, pierced into him. “We didn’t need rescued.”

  He blinked. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me. You were pinned down for hours with no hope of putting an end to that attack. Your fucking captain called for backup!”

  “You guys weren’t there. You didn’t face what we faced, and then you swooped in and claimed all the pats on the back, you and your drone team that dropped the bomb on them!”

  He ground his teeth. “Are you just pissed off that you didn’t get to end it alone, six lone guys versus how-the-fuck-ever-many, all armed with assault rifles? Or are you pissed that it was my team doing the rescuing?”

  She dropped her gaze and he ducked his head to force her to look at him.

  “This was no time for heroics, Tyler. We already saw you nail at least five of those men in the thick of it. And I fucking saw you rush the wall like you were some invincible robot. What the hell were you thinking?”

  She stared up at him. “What do you want from me, Hawk? You want praise? Are you looking for me to get on my knees and thank you for helping us?”

  “Hell no. I just want you to acknowledge that we know each other on some level that is not this.” He waved a hand at the landscape, so different from their home of Louisiana. Grayish sands and colorless buildings clinging to a corner of the world that in his opinion, wasn’t fit for her to be in.

  “Fine.” She threw him a little wave and false smile. “Hi, Hawk. How are you doing? Would you care to grab some food from the buffet?” Her saccharine-sweet tone of voice grated on his nerves more than her avoidance.