Susan Warren - Point Of No Return

She bit into it, letting the grease drip out onto the sidewalk, and familiarity soothed her ragged nerves as she focused on her next steps.

She hadn’t eaten since the airport in New York, about a thousand years ago.

A thousand years, four airplanes, and three hours in passport control. Thankfully, she still had some connections, the kind that could nab her a humanitarian-aid visa in twenty-four hours, which she picked up in Amsterdam. She owed pal and embassy officer in Russia David Curtiss again, for his quiet trust in her, as well as his string-pulling.

She refused to even allow Chet’s reaction to her trip into the no-fly zone to enter her thoughts. Have you learned nothing about acting on impulse?

Hey, impulse saved lives. Sometimes impulse was all a girl had.

Although impulse was exactly how she’d ended up getting her heart broken with Chet. Maybe he had a point.

She used to be some sort of army pilot—they said she could fly just about anything. Too bad she threw away her career. Now she’s waiting tables…

She heard the voice in her head and tried to shake it away, remembering now how she’d stood at the threshold of the sliding-glass door to the balcony of Gracie’s apartment two years ago listening to three know-it-all teenagers from the youth group Gracie worked with summing up her life. Or rather, the life of the “hot redhead who lives with Gracie.” She’d nearly crammed the serving plate full of cream-cheese roll-ups she’d been about to bring them down their throats.

She appreciated the fact those words hadn’t issued from the military type who’d come to Gracie’s birthday party dressed in a pair of jeans and a suit coat, the one who stood for ten minutes by the door, sizing up the room as if searching for terrorists, before wandering out to the balcony.

Mae still hadn’t gotten his name and hated that her gaze had lingered on him, taking in his dark blue eyes, curly, short dark hair and wide shoulders. He stuck one hand into his front jeans pocket—a casual pose—but every inch of him radiated a sort of coiled tension, as if at the slightest provocation, he might morph into Jason Bourne or Jack Bauer.

He stood apart from the teens, clearly listening and forming his own opinion as one of those dark eyebrows arched up.

Mae shouldered right into the group, ignored the openmouthed expressions of her accusers, and shoved the plate at the chief hanging judge, a pimply kid no more than seventeen with wide eyes peeking through a shank of unwashed hair. “Care for a cream-cheese roll-up? Gotta earn my tips, after all.”

He blanched, and with a shaky hand reached for the appetizer.

“Be glad you don’t pull back a nub, son,” the quiet man said from just behind him. Mae narrowed her eyes at his slight smirk, then turned on her heel, ready to bail.

So it was her new roommate’s birthday party. So what if one of Gracie’s best friends from Russia had shown up. Last time Mae had checked her status, she was jobless, her former squeeze—Vicktor—was engaged to said roommate, and now she had a bunch of teenagers laughing at her and her dismal life. And to make it worse, as she returned to Gracie’s squatty galley kitchen, yet another teenager from Gracie’s youth group streaked out and hit the plate, which flew from Mae’s grip.

“Clearly, you’re not a waitress.” She whirled and Special Ops from the balcony held up his hands in surrender. “Not a criticism. Just an observation.” He bent down and began to gather up the debris.

“No, I’m not,” she finally said, as he stood and handed her the plate. “I’m a pilot.”

“And according to my former partner David, a good one.”

And then he smiled.

Beautiful. Lethal. She actually felt her heart stop.

“Chet Stryker. Gracie’s cousin.”

And the Delta Force pal of one of her best friends, David Curtiss.

Oh, she knew how to pick ’em.

She smiled and stuck out her hand. “Mae Lund. Former pilot and current catastrophe.”

She meant it as a joke, but even as the words came out, they felt so raw, so fresh, that stupid tears raked her eyes.

She turned away before he could see.

But he had, because he touched her arm. “Don’t listen to those kids. They don’t know the facts like I do. You saved a friend from execution, even if you had to break a couple international laws to do it—that’s worth waiting tables, I think.”

She closed her eyes. Yes. Yes, it was.

He turned her, gently. “Hey, we all make choices we regret. Even if they’re the right ones.” He pushed her long red hair from her eyes, tucking it around her ear. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here. I promise to take good care of you.”

Such good care that a year later, knowing what it meant to her, he refused to give Mae a job flying for Stryker International.

Sometimes she just wished for a man who wasn’t quite so…protective.

Except it wasn’t as if Chet had come rushing to Tbilsi, was it? Apparently Chet had really meant it when he said he didn’t want her on his team. He didn’t even want to be associated with her.

It didn’t matter. She was so over Chet Stryker. Over him and his swagger and his overprotective urges and his devastating smile. O-ver.

She’d find Joshy on her own.

She wadded the greasy paper and sandwich into a ball and threw it into a trash can, no longer hungry.

Now that she was here, she’d start by checking in with the powers that be—namely, the American Embassy—and see if they might point her in the right direction.

She’d looked up the address online at a kiosk in Amsterdam and printed a map, and now headed in what she hoped was the right direction.

Funny, she’d expected less foot traffic, given that the residents of Georgia had been through a war not so long ago. Instead, street cafés and vendors selling ice cream and hot dogs festooned the sidewalks. Strollers scattered pigeons, and the occasional artist called out a price.

Normalcy. A country in crisis craved it, perhaps.

She understood. Whenever she’d come home from a mission, especially a rescue, she’d dive into her routine—yoga, health food, Bible study on base and weekly phone calls home.

She hadn’t had a real routine since she’d left the military. Which was why, perhaps, she was always living in crisis mode, pushing herself, never finding her default rhythm.

In a way, the foreign aromas made her feel more at home than anything had in the two years she’d spent in Seattle.

She turned onto George Balanchine Street and spotted the embassy set off from the road, wire fencing cordoning off Little America from the rest of the world. A guard station flanked a gate at the end of the rectangular fencing. A driveway beyond led to an enormous white building—austere in relation to the rich architecture of the Tbilisi streetscape. Of course, Americans had to be different, stand apart, resist blending in.

She hoped, however, just this once, her nephew hadn’t listened to her advice and had done exactly that—not blended in. It would be a thousand times easier to find him if he’d left a conspicuous trail.

And as for this runaway girl…well, Mae hoped she was worth it.

The light changed and she stepped out to cross.

Something grabbed at the canvas bag slung across her body, jerking her back.

On instinct, she whirled around to slam her fist on the hand holding her bag. Didn’t even think when she followed with a side kick to the shins.

She finished with a stiff arm chop to the neck.

The pickpocket didn’t run. Didn’t, in fact, even flinch. He just blocked her chop, his grip iron on her bag, dark eyes on hers, his voice just above a growl. “Calm down and stop hitting me.”

Then he released her bag. Mae tripped back, words stuck in her throat.