Future Under Fire (Operation: Hot Spot Book 4) Read online

  Future Under Fire

  Operation: Hot Spot

  Trish McCallan

  About Future Under Fire

  Sarah Gillespie is in Hell.

  Two years of living under the thumb of a sociopathic killer will do that to a woman. But her sacrifices are worth it, if they save the lives of the two people she loves most in the world—her brother, Sean, and Navy SEAL Brett Taggart. But when her world explodes, exposing all her lies and hard choices, the consequences are horrific. And the resulting fallout sweeps up the two men she’s sacrificed everything to protect.

  Brett (Tag) Taggart’s last two years have been hell.

  The woman he’d expected to spend his life with ditches him to return to her hinky ex—a fellow special operator who raises one red flag after another. The teammates he depends on to watch his six turn on him in their stampede to take sides in Sarah’s Navy SEAL love triangle. And the wedding of the woman he loves—to a f@cking psychopath—is marching closer every day. But when Sarah is kidnapped minutes before walking down the aisle, it’s all hands on deck to rescue her.

  The resulting disclosure of her secrets and lies leaves Tag reeling, unable to forgive or forget her choices. But when their positions are suddenly reversed and Sarah is taken, he’ll do anything—sacrifice everything—to get her back.

  And suddenly the world isn’t so black and white anymore.

  Copyright © 2020 Trish McCallan

  Cover Design: Frauke Spanuth, Croco Designs

  Photographer: Wander Aguiar

  Model: Travis S.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Published by Trish McCallan, Inc

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to the following people for their help in producing this book!

  Copy Editing: Barbara Bettis, Killion Publishing

  Proofing: David Steele,

  Formatting: David Steele

  Other Books by Trish McCallan

  Series: Operation: Hot Spot

  These are military romantic suspense. There are no cliff hangers and each book has a HEA. The books can be read and enjoyed in any order.

  Books in the series:

  Hearts Under Fire

  Trust Under Fire

  Loyalty Under Fire

  Future Under Fire (releases June 2020)

  Hero Under Fire (releases August 2020)

  Series: The Red-Hot SEALs

  This series is complete, and the entire series is for sale. These are military romantic suspense. The first three books end with plot cliffhangers, but the main romance for each book is resolved and each couple gets their HEA.

  To follow the plot and for full enjoyment, these books do need to be read in order.

  Book One- Forged in Fire

  Book Two- Forged in Ash

  Book Three- Forged in Smoke

  Book Four- Forged in Ember

  Series: Dark Falls, CO

  This is a multi-author series set in Lori Ryan’s Dark Falls CO world. Each book is a standalone and features a law enforcement hero or heroine. There are no cliffhangers and the books can be read in any order. My two contributions to this series are:

  Dark Legacy

  Dark Tidings

  Newsletter

  Are you interested in new release news, and information on sales and contests? Then sign up for Trish McCallan’s newsletter!

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Author’s Note

  Sneak Peek: Wicked Obsession by Patti O’Shea

  Sneak Peek: The Billionaire’s Navy SEAL by Lori Ryan

  About the Author

  Glossary

  Chapter One

  She’d turned him into a fucking stalker.

  Brett (Tag) Taggart grimaced as he swung by the boxy blue house and slowed his truck to a crawl. A bright red Nissan Sentra was parked neatly along the curb.

  She was home.

  He sped back up, scanning the yard as he drove past.

  She’d clustered her clay pots in the corners of the decorative white picket fence line, but instead of tall stalks of blue flowers—like there’d been two years ago—the tubs were overflowing with mounds of cheery yellow. The grass was just as green, just as lush, and longer than he’d ever let it grow. But it was the southern oak towering above the porch that really tweaked him. It stood half as tall and a third as wide as it had two years ago.

  He scowled, frustration piercing him as he turned the corner at the end of the block. He’d spent six months trying to convince her to cut that damn tree back. But she’d held fast against his arguments, clinging to what the oak had looked like while she’d been growing up. She’d had no trouble modernizing her childhood home’s kitchen or putting in a master bath, but even the suggestion of cutting back her tree to prevent it from snapping during a wind storm and crushing her house—or her, for fuck’s sake—had brought the evil eye and adamant objections.

  Apparently, Mitch was more persuasive than he, and not just when it came to trees. Oh no, the lying, cheating bastard had persuaded her to marry him too, while Tag hadn’t even been able to convince her to cut back that fucking oak.

  The knowledge burned like acid across his chest.

  What the fuck did she see in him?

  With a deep breath, Tag cut the question off. He was no closer to that answer today than he’d been on that morning two years ago when she’d dumped him and hustled back to Mitch.

  Easy bro…don’t let it get to you…over and done…long past time to let go and move on.

  And he had…let go and moved on, that was. Regardless of what his buddies on ST7 thought, he wasn’t carrying a torch for her. This trip was simply one last effort to force her eyes open, to make her see that the guy she was about to hitch herself to was bad news, as in pissant ugly bad news.

  This visit wasn’t about him, or her, or them. That fucking boat had sailed two years ago. It wasn’t a bid to take up where they’d left off before she’d suddenly gone back to Mitch. This trip was about trying to prevent a friend from making a mistake. A big mistake. One she might never recover from.

  No matter what kind of pitying, irritated or disgusted looks this visit provoked, he couldn’t let her walk down that aisle without one last attempt to make her see, really see, that the guy she was marrying was a goddamn sociopath.

  The next time he arrived at Sarah’s house, he parked his pickup along the curb and stared at the red brick path that marched up to the stairs leading to her front porch. It ha
d taken a full week of leave to jackhammer up the original concrete, haul the debris to the dump, and lay down the brick. Sarah had expressed her appreciation in the most creative of ways. They’d spent the weekend in bed, or on the couch, or counter, or table, or hell—even in the shower. They’d been exhausted come Monday morning. He smiled sourly. If memory served, she’d even called in sick.

  Lovesick, she’d called it.

  Yeah, right.

  He absently rubbed his aching chest and forced the memories aside. Happened a long, long time ago. A lifetime ago—or at least that’s how it felt these days.

  He cut the truck’s engine and shoved open the door. No sense in procrastinating. The sooner he got this done, the sooner he could hit the Bottoms Up Tavern and drown the memories.

  The handrail wobbled beneath his grip, and the stairs gave with an ominous craaaack and creeeak. He scowled. Sarah could break her neck on these damn things. Mitch needed to get his ass in gear and do some repair work before someone put a leg through one of the steps.

  The scowl gained force. The bastard was probably too busy hooking up with the various froggies who stalked the Bottoms Up. The BU was never short of SEAL groupies, and Mitch had apparently made it his life’s ambition to work his way through every single damn one of them.

  What the hell did Sarah see in the bastard? Why the fuck did she put up with that shit?

  Seriously, even Mooch would have been better than Mitch. While Mooch might eat you out of house and home, at least he didn’t trigger Tag’s there’s-something-rotten-in-the-banana-boat alarm.

  Mitch, on the other hand…Tag had picked up on something from day one. Some cold-ass vibe the fucker shed. Only not the normal special operator cold-ass attitude. Mitch’s vibe was less focused. More predatory. Opportunistic. Tag’s instincts had gone off like a Ka-Bar down a chalkboard. Even though he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what he’d picked up on, he’d known something ugly lurked beneath Mitch’s good ol’ boy façade. Something serpentine. Something cold and dead.

  It wasn’t often you found a rotten operator in the SEAL brotherhood, but he’d sure as hell found one in Mitch.

  Too bad no one else noticed it.

  But no, the teammates he counted on to watch his six thought he’d manufactured his distrust of Mitch to justify going after Sarah. Hell, even after that fucking operations fund fiasco, they were still inclined to trust Mitch, based off the seat he’d earned in the Black Hawk and the way he flashed that easy smile of his.

  Stupid pricks.

  He stopped in front of the bright blue door, squared his shoulders, and jammed his finger against the doorbell. Footsteps sounded inside. Tag stiffened, then forced himself to relax. A few minutes, that’s all. A few minutes to soldier through and then he could march on down whatever path his life took with a clear conscience.

  The door opened, revealing a tall, lean redhead.

  “Sarah,” he said as he soaked her in. The ember-bright hair. The freckles. The wide face and mouth. The hazel eyes that had turned a deep, dark, mysterious blue green.

  “Brett.” Her face went stiff. Frozen.

  Which was so damn …wrong.

  Sarah’s beauty lay in her expressiveness. The wide mouth that smiled or frowned with ease. The eyes that changed from green to blue depending on mood or clothing. The cheeks that bunched or smoothed, the forehead that wrinkled, the eyebrows that rose—every feature of Sarah’s face had broadcast her emotions as she charged through life without shields.

  She’d been completely open, without masks two years ago.

  Not so much now.

  Goddamn you, Mitch…

  “You shouldn’t be here.” Her voice was flat, a careful monotone.

  He locked down a flinch. That even, cautious tone was another departure from the free living, expressive spirit she’d been back then.

  “We need to talk,” he said, channeling that same flat monotone.

  “There’s nothing to talk about.” She backed up a pace, as though she were about to slam the door in his face.

  “Then you can listen.” He stuck his foot in the doorframe and locked down every ounce of emotion. “Look, I’m not here to get you back, okay? That ship sailed a long time ago. But you used to be a friend, and you’re about to make a big mistake. That’s something I can’t walk away from.”

  “This isn’t your business.” The skin around her eyes tightened.

  “I’m making it my business.” He forced the next words out, all too aware that the bearer of bad news was usually the one skewered and strung. “You don’t know what you’re getting into. Mitch isn’t the guy you think he is.”

  “I know exactly the kind of man he is,” she contradicted him, her voice even tighter than before.

  “Do you?” Tag asked grimly. “Then you know your loving fiancé is fishing at the BU and taking home a new catch every night?”

  Something slipped through her eyes. But it wasn’t pain. It was more calculating than that.

  “I don’t care.”

  Tag rocked back on his heels. She didn’t care? That didn’t sound like the Sarah he’d known.

  She must have seen the surprise on his face, because she leaned forward slightly, her voice dropping with intensity. “Look, nothing you say is going to change my mind. Nothing. Just go.”

  He shook his head, disoriented. Could she really have changed that much over the course of two years? The Sarah he’d loved would never put up with Mitch’s bullshit. Not if she’d known about it. The Sarah he’d loved had too much pride for that.

  With a lift of his eyebrows, he cocked his head, studying her. Every freckle stood out like a fleck of gold on her white face. He regrouped, frowning. There was something off here. Way off.

  “You realize he’s a thief?”

  At least that accusation seemed to rock her. Those bright eyebrows of hers drew together. She hadn’t reacted to the news Mitch was cheating. But the thief allegation deepened the calculating look in her eyes.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I caught him skimming from the operations fund.”

  She stood silent for a moment. “That’s why he hates you. You turned him in.” It wasn’t a question. “Why wasn’t he kicked off the teams?”

  Tag scowled. “Because he spun it and there was no proof.”

  The fucking bastard had pinned the theft on a local recruit and claimed he’d just discovered the missing money himself. Sure he had. Which was why he’d posted a lookout at the door and was stuffing a grand in his pocket when Tag pushed his way into the room.

  “When was this?” Sarah asked slowly, the crease in her forehead deepening.

  “Three rotations ago.” At least she appeared to be listening now.

  “This theft…you couldn’t prove it was him?”

  Tag frowned. “It was him.”

  She seemed to shake herself. “But you couldn’t prove it, so it doesn’t matter.”

  What the fuck?

  He pulled his foot out of the door and stepped back. “It doesn’t matter?” he repeated, his voice rising in disbelief. “What the hell happened to you?”

  “No—it doesn’t matter. Don’t come back here.” Her face was blank again, her voice unyielding, her hand steady as she closed the door in his face.

  For all of two seconds, he thought about knocking again. But it was damn clear that nothing he said was going to make a difference. Not when she’d given Mitch carte blanche.

  Still, the sense of wrongness—the sense that he was missing something—followed him down the stairs and over to his truck.

  Chapter Two

  Two days later, Sarah Gillespie stood frozen, staring sightlessly into the oval, free-standing mirror in the corner of the bridal suite at the Wedding Knot planning center. Although calling the room a suite was a stretch. Nothing about the cramped, out-of-date closet of a space elevated it to suite status.

  I’m not here to get you back.

  This was her wedding day, and ever
ything was wrong. So terribly wrong.

  That ship sailed a long time ago.

  The venue was cheap and tired. Her wedding dress was old and scratchy. Only not sentimental and treasured old, like her mother’s wedding dress. No, it was thrift store I-don’t-give-a-crap old. Sean, her brother, hadn’t showed up to walk her down the aisle. Her mind skittered away from that worry, from the possibilities of why he wasn’t here, by her side.

  And then there was the groom. He was worse than wrong.

  He was an abomination.

  I’m not here to get you back. That ship sailed a long time ago.

  She tried to breathe, but her lungs wouldn’t cooperate, refusing to draw breath past the concrete block sinking into her chest. Brett’s words had been spinning through her mind for the past forty-eight hours—cutting and shredding, leaving bloody swaths through the hope she’d survived on for the past two years.

  That hope had been propping her up, the belief that he’d be waiting for her when she broke free of this nightmare and could go to him again. She couldn’t continue this farce without trusting that what they’d shared two years ago had been so strong, so perfect, so fated, that Mitch couldn’t keep them apart forever.

  She couldn’t do this without him waiting for her. She couldn’t.