Carol Ericson - Delta Force Defender

Descending into the bowels of the city with the rest of the worker bees, she welcomed the warmth from the pressing crowd as she turned the corner for her train. She jostled for position among the crush of people, gritting her teeth against the screech of the train’s wheels slowing its progress.

As the lights approached from the tunnel, a man crowded her from behind. Martha tried to take a step back, but found herself pitching forward instead as someone’s elbow drove into her back.

The train screeched once more, and Martha felt herself teetering on the edge of the platform. She thrust her arms in front of her as if to break a fall...but the only thing breaking this fall was that train barreling toward her.

Chapter Two

Cam curled his arm around the waist of the woman floundering on the precipice of the platform and pulled her back against his chest. He jerked his head to the side, but the man who had been crowding Martha Drake from behind had wormed his way through the crowd, the black beanie on his head lost in a sea of commuters.

Martha’s back stiffened and she tried to turn in his arms, but he tightened his hold on her until the train came to a stop in front of them.

The doors whisked open, and Cam nudged her forward, whispering in her ear. “Go on.”

She squeezed into the train with a mass of other people, grabbed a pole and spun around, her eyebrows snapping over her nose. “Take your hand off me.”

Cam’s jaw dropped open and a rush of heat claimed his chest. He’d just saved the woman’s life, and this was the thanks he got?

He wrapped his fingers around the pole above her hand and twisted his lips. “You’re welcome.”

“I—I...” She shoved some wispy brown bangs out of her eyes, which blinked at him from behind a pair of glasses. “Yes, you’re the one who pulled me back. Thank you. But...”

Lifting his eyebrows, he asked, “Yes?”

“How do I know you’re not the one who was crowding me from behind in the first place?”

“I wasn’t. That guy took off.”

Martha’s eyes, a lighter brown than her hair, widened and her Adam’s apple bobbed in her delicate throat.

His statement had scared but not surprised her, and he dipped his head to study her face for his next question. “Any reason for somebody to push you into the path of an oncoming train?”

“No.” She pressed her lips together. “It was crowded. Everyone was moving forward. I don’t think that was an intentional push.”

“It’s always crowded. Commuters don’t generally fall onto the tracks.”

She shifted away from him, and the odor from the sweaty guy behind him immediately replaced the fresh scent that had clung to Martha, which had been the only thing making this tight squeeze bearable.

“Well, thank you.” She tilted her chin up, along with her nose, and dismissed him.

Looked like she’d perfected the art of dismissing obnoxious men, but Cam had a date with Miss Prissy-pants here, even if she didn’t know it.

He left her in peace for the remainder of the ride, although her sidelong glances at him didn’t go unnoticed, and the knuckles of her hand gripping the pole had turned a decided shade of white. He’d planted a seed of suspicion in fertile ground.

When the train jerked to a stop, forward and then backward, Martha peeled her hand from the pole, hitched her bag higher on her shoulder and scooted out of the car, with a brief nod in Cam’s direction.

He exited the train and followed Martha up the stairs and out into the night air, its frigidity no match for Ms. Drake’s.

Three blocks down from the station, she stopped in front of a crowded Georgetown bar, clutching her bag to her chest, and turned to face him.

He sauntered toward her, then wedged his shoulder against the corner of the building, crossing his arms.

“Why are you following me? I’m going to call the police.” She waved her cell phone at him.

“We need to talk, Martha Drake.”

She choked and pressed the phone to her heart. “Who are you? Are you the one who sent the skull and crossbones?”

Skull and crossbones? That was a new one. He filed it away for future reference.

He shrugged off the wall and straightened his spine. “I’m Sergeant Cam Sutton, US Army Delta Force, and you discovered some bogus emails that compromised my team leader, Major Rex Denver.”

Martha’s expressive face went through several gyrations, and then she settled on suspicion, which seemed to be one of her favorites. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

He pulled his wallet from his pocket and slipped out his military ID. He held it out to her between two fingers.

She wasted no time snatching it from him and holding it close to her face, peering at it through her glasses. After perusing it for at least a minute, she handed it back to him. “Bogus emails?”

“Major Denver never did any of those things in those emails—” he jabbed the corner of his ID card in the general direction of her nose “—and if you hadn’t turned them over to the Agency, Denver wouldn’t be in the trouble he is now.”

“If I hadn’t...” She stamped one booted foot. “What did you expect me to do with them?”

“We can’t keep talking out here. Let’s go inside.” He jerked his thumb toward the bar.

Her gaze bounced to the large picture window of the bar over his shoulder and back to his face. The crowd inside must’ve reassured her because she dipped her head once.

Cam circled around Martha and opened the door, holding it wide for her to pass through. As she did, he got another whiff of her fresh scent, which seemed to cling to her.

DC office workers, unwinding at the end of the workweek, packed every inch of the horseshoe bar. They seemed more interested in socializing and watching the football game on the TVs over the bar than quiet conversation, leaving a few open tables toward the back of the room, near the restrooms.

Cam placed his hand on the small of Martha’s back and steered her toward one of those tables. She’d twitched under his touch but didn’t shrug him off. He’d take that as a good sign.

When he pulled out her chair, her eyes beneath her arched eyebrows jumped to his face, and she mumbled, “Thank you.”

After he took his own seat across from her, he folded his arms and hunched over the table. “Why weren’t you surprised that somebody tried to push you onto the subway tracks?”

Her nostrils flared, and then she pursed her lips. “I told you. I thought it was an accident. I still think so.”

“Really?” He reached across the table so quickly she didn’t have time to pull back, and smoothed his thumb over the single line between her eyebrows. “Then why are you jumpier than a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs.”

Martha’s mouth hung open, and Cam didn’t know if it was because he’d presumed to touch her petal-soft skin, or because he’d laid on a thick Southern accent. That slack jaw made most people look stupid, but Martha couldn’t look stupid if she tried. It made her look—adorable.

“Cat?” Her soft voice trailed off.

“You know—long tails, rocking chairs going back and forth.” He hit the table with his flat hand, and she jumped. “Nervous, jittery. Don’t deny it.”

A cocktail waitress dipped next to their table and tossed a couple of napkins in front of them. “What can I get you?”

Cam plucked a plastic drink menu from a holder at the side of the table and tapped a picture of one of the featured bottles of beer. “I’ll have a bottle of this.”

“I can’t just point at a picture.” Martha snatched the menu from his hand and flipped it over, studied it for what seemed like ten minutes and then asked about twenty questions about the chardonnays. When she finally tucked the menu back in its holder, she said, “I’ll have a glass of the house chardonnay.”