Sylvie Kurtz - Pride Of A Hunter

“I’m as good as anyone on the team ever was,” she said, and couldn’t help the note of challenge in her voice. “I can do this.” For the first time in a long while, the stir of something waking deep inside Luci fluttered alive. She’d loved the team. She’d loved saving lives. She’d loved knowing her special skill could make a difference. Or destroy her world.

Dom’s smile canted up slowly, reaching all the way up to his eyes, making them glitter with humor that caused her to feel lighter. He slouched in that sexy way of his, compelling someone unaware of his lethal skill to believe they had nothing to fear from him. He deepened his drawl, letting its smoothness reverberate like a caress. “Then it’s a date, darlin’.”

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To Joyce—for the support and friendship.

A special thank-you to:

Mary Kennedy—for the forensic psychology help.

Chris Maddocks—for the sniper help.

Flying an eight-hour solo cross-country in a Piper Arrow with only the airplane’s crackling radio and a large bag of M&M’s for company, Sylvie Kurtz realized a pilot’s life wasn’t for her. The stories zooming in and out of her mind proved more entertaining than the flight itself. Not a quitter, she finished her pilot’s course and earned her commercial license and instrument rating.

Since then, she has traded in her wings for a keyboard where she lets her imagination soar to create fictional adventures that explore the power of love and the thrill of suspense. When not writing, she enjoys the outdoors with her husband and two children, quilt-making, photography and reading whatever catches her interest.

You can write to Sylvie at P.O. Box 702, Milford, NH 03055. And visit her Web site at www.sylviekurtz.com.

Lucinda Walden Taylor—All the sniper-turned-soccer-mom wanted was a quiet life for her and her son.

Dominic Skyralov—The Seeker knew Luci’s deepest secrets.

Cole Taylor—Luci’s husband; Dom’s best friend. He was dead, but the memory of his death festered guilt in both Luci and Dom.

Brendan Taylor—The son Cole never knew existed and Luci desperately wanted to protect from a life of violence.

Warren Swanson—His goal was to expunge the sins of the soiled.

Laynie McDaniels—She was the first to die for her sins.

Jill Walden Courville—Luci’s sister was Warren’s latest pigeon.

Jeff Courville—The geeky boy reminded Warren of himself.

Joe Bob Grigsby—The escaped felon chose to kill rather than surrender.

Amber Fitzgerald—The fitness instructor softened the prey.

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

In the hours between three and five in the morning, life slowed to a crawl. Her body’s need for sleep had Lucinda Walden fighting to keep her eyes open. She pulled her eye off-scope to blink out the fatigue, then resettled her right shoulder over the rubber butt pad of her rifle. Eye on-scope again, she panned left to right, across the door and windows of the two-story shack in the middle of nowhere in North Texas, checking for activity.

Her job was simple—be ready to kill, but avoid shooting at all cost. Discipline. Control. Restraint.

Sweltering heat, even so early on this August morning, had sweat streaming down her sides, sticking every stitch of camouflage clothing to her skin. Fog, graying everything in its path and rising in tongues off the pond beside the house, gave the run-down place the look of hell.

“Sierra One to TOC,” Luci whispered into the mic resting against her jaw to the Tactical Operations Center. The hostage taker couldn’t hear her, but he was so close in her scope that it seemed as if he should. “I have subject movement. White alpha three.” Back side of the house, first floor, third window. “White male, five foot ten, one hundred and sixty pounds, dark hair and beard. Bare torso, low-slung jeans. Two pistols stuffed down his pants. One rifle cruising for a target. He has the kid on his hip.” Their subject looked like a desperado in a really bad Western.

“Copy, Sierra One.”

Luci tried shutting her mind off to the bawling four-year-old the hostage taker had strapped to his waist like a lifesaver, but couldn’t keep the shine of his tears from invading. Don’t you worry, little one. We’ll get you out safe. That’s what this team does. We save lives.

Hostage negotiations boiled down to building rapport, calming fears and making consequences acceptable. But talking sometimes wasn’t the solution. This hostage taker wasn’t in the mood for rapport. The instinct to save his own sorry hide was putting two innocents at risk. And with three consecutive life sentences to serve, he had nothing left to lose.

The Special Operations Group was twenty-six hours into a situation with the escaped felon. He’d taken his ex-girlfriend and her four-year-old boy as live body armor to buy his freedom once the deputy marshals tasked with bringing him back to prison had cornered him.

Luci was five hours into her second six-hour shift with only snakes, spiders and scorpions for company as she lay in the tall grass on the hill overlooking the house.

And Joe Bob Grigsby, the piece of garbage who’d started the whole thing by flying his coop, had thrown the phone out the window half an hour ago and traded it for a shot of something that had him wired and his hostages blubbering in utter terror.

This couldn’t go on much longer. If Dom couldn’t talk this guy down, then no one could. Which would rev up the assault team. Cole had to be chomping at the bit to knock down the door and kick some butt.

Dom and Cole. The mule and the thoroughbred. Each excellent at his job. Each as opposite as black and white. Each the best of friends. One was her confidant, the other her lover. No, make that her brand-new husband—though no one else on the team knew. The thought of her elopement brought a small smile to her lips. She and Cole and Dom had all competed and bonded in the same training class and, although like tended to mix with like, their odd circle of friendship had endured.

Together, they worked magic.

She’d punched holes through thousands of targets, but because of Dom’s smooth-talking ways and Cole’s take-no-prisoners daring, she’d never had to make that split-second decision to plug a bullet through anyone’s brain stem and end a life. Knock on wood, so far, all of their operations had ended without a shot fired.

“TOC to all units, stand by to copy.” The voice of the Special Operations Group leader boomed through Luci’s earpiece. Something was up. A shot of adrenaline spiked through her veins, brightening the crown of sun spearing through the fog.