Born Ready

Scott ran his right hand through his hair. The gesture moved the cuff of his T-shirt sleeve upward, revealing a deep puckered scar on the underside of his upper arm. It looked like he’d been shot with a harpoon.

Startled, she felt a knot of attraction form in the pit of her stomach. Oh, this was crap. She couldn’t like him simply because he suffered. For all she knew he was a drug dealer and that’s why he’d been harpooned. Mangrove channels made for great outlaw hideouts.

But somehow she wasn’t getting that vibe from him. Then again, she wasn’t particularly intuitive when it came to people. Plants and animals and fish, yes. Human beings? Not so much.

So there was absolutely no reason for her to be wondering what he looked like without a shirt on. His biceps were hard as baseballs. If his arms were that awesome, chances were his abs were equally spectacular.

She did not want to go there, but her rebellious stare slipped from his arm to his chest and on down to—

Jacqueline Michele Birchard you will not look at that man’s crotch.

Then something alarming occurred to her. What if he was spying on her? Oceanography was a viciously competitive field. Could he be out to steal her research project?

Don’t be so mistrustful. How likely is that?

Not likely at all, but she was her father’s daughter. She knew what kind of tricks people pulled to get a leg up in this cutthroat business.

Jackie snapped her gaze back to his face and said curtly, “If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Everly, I have things to take care of.”

“You never did tell me your name.” His voice was low, teasing.

And she didn’t want to tell him now. She didn’t trust him any farther than she could toss him. “Jackie,” she said.

“No last name?”

She hated dropping the Birchard name, but maybe if she gave him a name, he’d go away. “Birch. Jackie Birch.”

Only half a lie. Still, she didn’t like fudging the truth.

“Well, Jackie Birch, you have a nice morning.”

“Thanks. You, too,” she said automatically. All she wanted was for him to go away so she could get back to work.

“And seriously, do bring someone with you the next time you’re on the water. The buddy system works best out here.”

“Yes, yes.” Beat it, Skippee.

“I’d hate for anything to happen to you.” His smoky voice caressed her ears.

Then there she was again feeling completely unbalanced.

Without another word, he put his oar in the water, turned his kayak and paddled away, leaving Jackie stumped, stymied, suspicious and more than a tad sexually attracted to a total stranger.

She didn’t like it. Not one bit.

2

The Coast Guard is the shepherd of the seas.

—Late Chief Warrant Officer Benjamin Everly

UNITED STATES COAST GUARD Station Key West was a major base in the 7th District founded in 1824. Sector Key West was a unified command consisting of two patrol boats, eight duel boats and three small boat stations. Even though it was a small unit, Sector Key West’s responsibilities encompassed 55,000 square miles of territory, including the borders of Cuba and the Bahamas.

Every time Scott walked into his father’s old headquarters, a thrill ran through him. This was where he’d first fallen head over heels for the Coast Guard. His love for his chosen career had only deepened with time. He was living his father’s legacy. You couldn’t put a price on that kind of pride.

Although now he worked out of D.C., his heart still belonged to Sector Key West.

The place always stirred memories, but today his thoughts stayed anchored on the woman in the red bikini. In his mind’s eye he kept seeing her standing in the boat, vulnerable, fierce and sexy as hell. She’d said her name was Jackie Birch but that did nothing to alleviate his curiosity.

Who was this Jackie Birch, besides a pretty woman who swam alone in the mangroves? And why did he keep wondering what she would taste like if he kissed her?

“Scott!” Marcy Dugan, the civilian public relations liaison, exclaimed. Marcy was in her mid-forties, almost as tall as Scott, with a whip-thin figure from running marathons. “It’s so good to see you.”

“Don’t I get a hug?” He held out his arms.

“Of course.” She embraced him. “It’s so good to have you home.”

His strongest memory of Marcy was at his father’s funeral ten years ago. At the graveside, she’d placed a palm against his back and whispered, “Your father was so proud of you. I know you’re going to live up to his expectations.”

He’d done his best to do just that.

“How’s Megan?” she asked.

“Flustered. She keeps second-guessing herself on every decision.”

“All brides are nervous before the wedding. There’s so much pressure.”

“She really seems happy, though.”

“Dave’s a good guy,” Marcy said, referring to Megan’s fiancé.

“I’m glad to hear he gets your stamp of approval. I haven’t had a chance to really get to know him yet.”

Marcy smiled. “You’re having a hard time letting go of your baby sister.”

“Am I that transparent?”

“Yes.” She linked her arm through his. “But that’s okay. You’ve always looked after her.”

“Except she doesn’t need me to take care of her anymore.” He was surprised to hear a wistful note in his voice.

“It’s time for you to find a wife who will appreciate your protective qualities.”

“Too bad you’re not available,” he teased.

“Flirt.”

“If you ever get tired of Carl—” he winked “—you know where to find me.”

“Hitting on my wife again, Everly?” Chief Warrant Officer Carl Dugan drawled as he came down the hall toward them. Carl had been born in Corpus Christi, Texas, and although he’d lived in Florida for most his life, he never lost his Lone Star accent. “You’re late.”

“Normally, Carl eats breakfast at 6:00 a.m. sharp,” Marcy said, slipping her arm around her husband’s waist and patting his flat belly. “He held off for breakfast with you, so he’s bit cranky.”

Carl, while good-natured, didn’t believe in excuses, so Scott didn’t offer him one. Besides, how would it sound if he said he was late because he’d been ogling a girl in a red bikini? “My apologies, sir.”

“You can stop calling me sir. You outrank me now.”

“That’s never going to happen. I was calling you sir long before I ever joined the Coast Guard.”

“Well, you’re on vacation so I guess I can let your tardiness slide,” Carl joked. “I’m hungry as a whale. How about you?”

“You know me. I can always eat.”

“See you boys later.” Marcy wriggled her fingers.

“You’re not coming with us?” Scott raised an eyebrow.

Marcy said, “I’ve got a busload of middle-school students coming by for a field trip.”

“Better you than me,” Scott said.

“You’d be great with kids. Just wait until you have little nieces and nephews running around.”

Scott put both hands over his ears. “That’s my baby sister you’re talking about.”

Marcy laughed.

The three of them left the building together. Carl stopped to kiss Marcy’s cheek before she branched off in the direction of the parking lot. “Have a good breakfast.”

Without speaking, Scott and Carl fell into lockstep. Scott didn’t have to ask. He knew they were having breakfast at the Lighthouse Restaurant just across the pier from the base. The familiar call of seagulls whinged overhead. The salty air carried on it a hint of coconut. Morning sun glistened glassy blue off the waves.

He paused on the pier to take a deep breath of home and Carl stopped, seeming to understand that Scott needed a moment. It was good to be back.

They walked into the restaurant, greeted by the clatter of dishes and the hum of voices. Most everyone in the place was Coast Guard of one fashion or the other—active duty, reservists, auxiliary or family members of Coasties. People waved and called out to them.

The hostess knew Carl by name and led them to his regular booth that looked out over the water.

On the wall behind them was a ten-year-old photograph of Carl with Scott’s father, Ben. They wore their navy blue operational dress uniforms and had their arms slung over each other’s shoulders. Looking like brothers, they grinned for the camera.

The picture had been snapped just after they’d completed a successful search-and-rescue mission for missing teens who had taken out a sailboat without permission and got caught in a squall.

It was the last photo ever taken of Scott’s dad. Two weeks later, he was dead, killed in a drug interdiction operation. Psychologists might have said Scott had gone into the same line of work as his father as a way to avenge his death. They would have been half-right.

“How you been?” Carl asked.

The question was more perfunctory than fact finding. He and Carl stayed in touch through email, corresponding at least once a week. “Good, good.”

“Dating?”

Scott shook his head and immediately thought of Jackie, but he had no idea why.

Six months without sex. That’s why.

Their waitress came over. “The usual?” she asked Carl.

Carl nodded.

The young woman turned her eyes on Scott, smiled coyly. “And what will you have?”

He thought about flirting with her but he wasn’t really in the mood. He couldn’t stop thinking about Jackie Birch and the disdainful look she’d given him. Scott loved a challenge. He preferred to do the chasing instead of being chased.

“Scrambled eggs, four slices of bacon cooked crisp and a fruit bowl.” He placed his order.

“Anything else?” She licked her lips.

“Cup of coffee.”

The girl looked deflated, picked up their menus and wandered off.

“I can see why you’re not dating,” Carl said. “She was interested.”

“I know.”

Carl watched the departing waitress. “She’s cute.”

“Too young.”

“She’s over eighteen.”

Scott shrugged.

“What’s up? A year ago you would have been hitting banter shots like tennis balls.”

“I don’t know.” He paused. “I guess I’m looking for something a bit more demanding.”

“Picking up a young waitress is too easy?”

“Something like that.”

Jackie kept prowling the back of his mind as he remembered the look on her face telling him to buzz off. He’d wanted to convince her that he was a man worth knowing. Why was that? The intensity of his attraction to a woman that should not have attracted him niggled.

Carl drummed his fingers on the Formica tabletop. For the most part, he was a self-possessed guy. Scott knew his friend. He had something on his mind. “What’s up, Carl?”

A somber expression crossed the older man’s face. He pressed his lips together, blew out a breath. “Juan DeCristo has resurfaced.”

Scott tensed, folded his hands into fists against his thighs. DeCristo was the drug lord responsible for his father’s death. It had been ten years, and while the pain had ebbed, it never completely went away.

And the need for revenge? Would he ever stop feeling it?

He’d been in college when it had happened. Messing around instead of taking his academics seriously. He had wanted to enlist in the Coast Guard as soon as he graduated from high school. Ninety percent of the Coast Guard were enlisted. But his dad argued he would have more opportunity if he went to college. So he’d gone and majored in girls and good times. Then his dad had been killed and that had changed everything forever.

Scott had gotten serious about his studies. He’d changed his major to criminal justice and graduated with top honors from the University of Florida. The next day he joined the Coast Guard. They’d welcomed him like the prodigal son. He’d risen up through the ranks, working in various positions from San Diego to New Hampshire where he’d met Amber. Ironically, she’d left him just two weeks before he’d gotten the desk job in D.C.

“DeCristo is still alive?” He had to force the words through his constricted throat.

“Unfortunately. He—”

The waitress returned with their breakfast.

Carl paused, thanked her. He waited until she walked out of earshot before he resumed his story. “DeCristo was in a South American prison for a while, but his interactions there seemed to have only made him stronger. He met people. Curried favor. He’s got powerful connections.”

Scott picked up his fork, but he’d lost his appetite. He knew how the story went. He worked the coastal borders between California and Mexico. Understood all too well the uphill battle of preventing illegal drugs from reaching American soil.

“We’ve had an influx of high-grade cocaine coming into the Keys. Users aren’t accustomed to such a pure product and there have been a half dozen overdose deaths.”

Scott inhaled a slow hiss of breath.

“With government cutbacks, we’ve been in a staffing crunch. Add to that our patrol boat operational gap and we’ve got big trouble.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s rumors that DeCristo has gotten his hands on the latest stealth technology.”

That stunned Scott. This was the first he was hearing about it. Then again, D.C. was something of an ivory tower. He needed to get out on the seas more often, check on the local sonar. “But how?”

“Spies? A government mole? Hell, he could have gotten in from Russia. You’re in on high-level security. You know there are leaks. Money talks and it’s estimated DeCristo is worth over a billion dollars.”

Scott pushed eggs around on his plate. “How substantial are these rumors?”

“Substantial enough that I’m bringing this to you.”

“Details.” Scott pushed his plate away, steepled his fingers, leaned in closer. “What have you heard?”

“We arrested a tourist last week who had two grams of the high-grade coke on his boat. He was looking for a plea deal and claimed to have gotten the stash from a young woman working for DeCristo.”

“How credible is the guy?”

Carl shrugged. “Typical small-time drug dealer, but his story is just outlandish and detailed enough to have credibility.”

“What do you mean?”

“He says that the woman told him DeCristo is using a stealth drone submarine to transport the drugs and he’s using her and other young American women to help him.”

“How does the operation work?”

“Supposedly, DeCristo is dropping the submarine into the water off Cuba. It’s got a navigational camera that can get it through the open water, but it needs help maneuvering through obstacles in the mangrove channels. According to the source—which I admit is not terribly reliable—these young women go out in the estuaries at an appointed time, usually in the early morning or just after sunset, in skiffs with homing beacons on them and they guide the drone into shore. We haven’t picked up a damn thing on our radio, but if it is a stealth submarine, we wouldn’t.”

If what Carl was saying was true …

Scott’s gut tightened. It was possible. A savvy drug lord with the right connections might indeed be able to get his hands on stealth technology and make his own drone. And if he was hiring young American women to guide his drone in, no one would be the wiser. Key West was an open port just waiting to be abused.

A rushing noise built in Scott’s ears, low and insistent. The hairs on his forearm lifted.

Jackie Birch.

Part of him said, no way, but another part of him, the suspicious part that had a degree in criminal justice and had worked drug interdiction on the high seas knew better. Anyone was capable of being a drug mule. From junior high school kids to grandmothers.

Jackie Birch.

It could explain why she’d been so unfriendly. Why she was in the estuary alone at dawn. Could she be a courier for DeCristo?

Disgust hardened a knot in his stomach. How could he have been so stupid? So led around by his dick?

Six months without sex, that was how.

He felt like a damned fool. Your father’s murderer is turning the Key West mangrove channels into a devil’s playground and he’s using gullible young women to do it.

Except Jackie hadn’t seemed the least bit gullible. She struck him as focused and very capable. A woman who knew exactly what she was doing. His stomach soured. The eggs smelled gelatinous.

“We need to seriously look into this,” he told Carl.

“I was hoping you’d say that, but I don’t have a budget for supposition. I have no proof beyond this small-time dealer who’s looking for a plea bargain. It could all be bullshit.”

“But you feel it’s got a ring of truth to it?”

“Considering DeCristo’s connections? Yeah, I think it’s not only plausible, but possible.”

“Let me do some digging.”

“But you’re on vacation.”

“You know there’s no such thing as a Coastie on vacation.”

“Your sister is getting married. You’ve got tuxedo fittings and rehearsal dinners—”

“Next week. That’s all next week.”

Carl shook his head. “I told you because you have pull in Washington and I thought that maybe you could get us a bigger budget for interdiction.”

“In order to do that I’ve got to have something stronger to go on than a rumor. I’ll put my ear to the ground,” he said. “You just leave this to me.”

3

I will ensure that my superiors rest easy with the knowledge that I am on the helm, no matter what the conditions.

—Surfman’s Creed

WATER.

It stirred Jackie Birchard’s soul in a way nothing else did. She’d been born in March, a Pisces. Sign of the fish. Not that she believed in anything as unscientific as astrology. Her father would never have stood for it if she had exhibited a budding interest in horoscopes.

She sat cross-legged on the dumpy old sofa that came with the apartment she rented, her notebook computer nestled in her lap while she monitored the readout from her equipment submersed in the estuary. The conditions were perfect. She was determined to prove that her hunch was right.

Up until a year ago, Starksia starcki, aka the Key blenny, could be found in only one location in the world. Just South of Big Pine Key. But then suddenly, the Key blenny had started disappearing from that area.

Dr. Jack Birchard had been of the mind the Key blenny was on the road to complete extinction and he attributed it to a number of cumulative environmental factors in that region. Even though he cared deeply about the ecology, her father was also the most unsentimental man on the face of the earth. Stoically, he moved on to other more salvageable creatures, leaving the Key blenny to its fate.

This was when the crack in their relationship—that had been there from the day she was born—expanded into an unbridgeable fissure. She couldn’t forgive him for writing off the Key blenny.

Particularly, when he looked her in the eye and said, “It’s just one species of fish. We have to focus on the bigger picture. Let it go, daughter.”

And she’d made the mistake of bringing up an old emotional argument that had no place in the discussion. She raised her chin, met his challenging stare with a razor-sharp glare of her own. “Just like you did with Mother?”

He didn’t fight with her. He never fought. Just issued edicts and expected them to be obeyed. If you were rebellious enough to disagree with him, he froze you out.

His eyes turned to glaciers. “You’re never to mention her name again. Do you hear me?”

Okay, she shouldn’t have brought up her mother. Ancient history. Water under the bridge. It wasn’t as if they knew what had happened to her, although if Jackie had been truly interested, she could have called her half brother, Boone. But it had been easier to let things lie.

“You’re wrong,” she said, dropping the whole issue of her mother. It would always remain a sore spot between them. “About the Key blenny.”

“Wrong?” He arched a skeptical brow, sent her a glower that made her wish for an overcoat. He adjusted his glasses, narrowed his eyes.

“The fish isn’t extinct.”

“You have empirical data to support this assertion?”

“No, not yet—”

He dismissed her with a curt wave of his hand. “The Key blenny is a lost cause and our time is too valuable. Let’s not bawl over spilled milk.”

“They’re not dead,” she insisted. “I’ve tracked the current and the minute changes in temperature and I think they’ve simply migrated to Key West.” She’d pointed to the ocean map on the wall of his research yacht. “I believe they’re here.”

He burst out laughing. “Starksia starcki has never migrated. They are not an adaptable subspecies, which is why they’re virtually extinct.”

Jackie gritted her teeth. Her father’s arrogant belief that he knew best in matters of the sea grated on her nerves. Impossible to believe that a prestigious scientist, the oceanographer second only to Jacques Cousteau, could be so irrationally stubborn. But that was her dad. He was brilliant, yes, but his ego was the size of the sun.

“Desperate circumstances call for desperate measures and the Key blenny has risen to the challenge,” she said.

He shook his head violently. “There’s no coral in that area. Starksia starcki is a reef dweller.”

“They’ve adapted in that regard as well and they’re using the mangrove mangles for their food source.”

“Doesn’t happen.”

“I think it is happening.”

“Based on what?”

She explained her theory.

He made a face. “Pseudo science. I thought I taught you better than that. You’re allowing romanticism to sway your critical thinking.”

She’d tried to defend her position in a calm, rational manner but he kept cutting her off. That’s when Jackie knew that if she wanted to save the Key blenny, she was going to have to do it on her own. So she’d packed her things, left MIT, where her father taught, and transferred to the University of California where she was welcomed with open arms.

From a political standpoint, snagging Jack Birchard’s disenfranchised daughter as a doctoral candidate was a colorful feather in the university’s cap. They embraced her theory on the Key blenny, loaned her equipment for her independent study and even gave her a monthly stipend. She felt giddily liberated and wished she’d left her father’s direct sphere of influence a long time ago. No more kowtowing to his diktat. She was free to explore the sea on her own. A bright future awaited her.

Now, all she had to do was prove her theory.

The hardest part was going to be keeping people away from her instruments. She hadn’t fully realized that this was going to be a major issue until Scott Everly had shown up.

One minute she’d been totally isolated in the estuary, just her and nature. The next minute there had been the handsome man in the kayak. If he could appear out of nowhere, so could others.

Disgruntled, she settled the computer on the coffee table and got up to walk out onto the balcony. Sunset came quickly in the Keys and she wanted to catch it before it was gone. By dawn, she’d be back on the water. Not because she needed to go out there again so soon, but simply because she worried about Everly returning to muck with her equipment.

She entertained the idea that he might not be the simple kayaker he seemed. He could be spying on her. A competitor bent on stealing her research. Hell, her father could have sent him.

That thought was unsettling, but it was the sort of stunt her father might pull. Jack Birchard could say one thing and then do the exact opposite. The interest that the University of California had shown her project would be just the thing to make him change his mind. Except, his hubris would never allow him to admit he was wrong.

You ‘re letting your imagination run away with you. Everly isn’t after your research. He was just a good old boy out in his kayak.