ALWAYS YOURS Read online

  Always Yours

  By

  Shiloh Walker

  Triskelion Publishing

  www.triskelionpublishing.com

  Published by Triskelion Publishing www.triskelionpublishing.com

  15508 W. Bell Rd. #101, PMB #502, Surprise, AZ 85374 U.S.A.

  First e-published by Triskelion Publishing

  First e-publishing January 2005

  ISBN 1-932866-71-X

  Copyright © Shiloh Walker 2003

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art by Triskelion Publishing

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters places,

  and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to

  persons living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Chapter One

  September

  If there was one thing about Max Delacourte that Kris would change…it was his hair.

  Something about hair that short on a man, well, she just didn’t like it as much. And she imagined, if he grew it out long enough, those wavy golden tresses would curl over her fingers just so.

  Leaning over the table, she smiled at him as he poured more wine into her glass and teased, “So…am I going to be invited to spend the night?”

  She quirked a brow. “You’re leaving on a plane in three hours, soldier. What good would it do?” she said with a smile.

  “Well, then I could take a raincheck,” he answered with a grin.

  “Where you flying off to this time?” she asked, biting back a sigh when he arched his straight brown brows at her. He never told her.

  He was never able to.

  “Sorry—terminal nosiness,” she said glibly, lifting one shoulder as she took her wineglass and sipped, licking a drop from her lip before she set it down. “You military boys can never tell us civilians much of anything.”

  He cocked his head, studying her. “You sound as if you’ve known a couple of military boys,” he murmured.

  She shrugged, and said softly, “Only one. A friend’s brother.” She pushed thoughts of him out of her head and focused on the man in front of her. “So…can you tell me when you have to leave? How long you’ll be gone?”

  He laughed. “Damn, you’re nosy. Leaving next week. Flying down to see my family before I head out. And no…I can’t say how long I’ll be gone,” he responded.

  She stuck her tongue out at him.

  His response to that was to lean over and catch it with his own, tangling his hand in her hair and kissing her hungrily.

  She sighed and leaned into him, thoughts of another military boy fading into the back of her mind.

  Later that night, Kris lay in bed, her sheets tangled around her body, soaked with sweat while her heart pounded in slow, torturous beats within her chest. Outside her window, the lights of New York City drowned out the stars overhead and the ever mad rush of life pulsed on.

  Within her dream, she was as far away from the glam and glitz of New York City and her nice little condo as she was likely to get. Kris stood in the corners of a primitive hut made of sticks and mud bricks, hay stuffed between the cracks. Man... People really live like this... It wasn't the important thing to be dwelling on. She knew that. But it was better than the alternative.

  There was death in the air tonight.

  Betrayal.

  Evil of the worst kind. The kind that knew it was evil and just plain didn't care. As she stood in the corner, her hands closed into fists so tight, her nails biting painful little circles into her flesh, Kris could see him moving through the hut. He wore army fatigues, some kind of heavy combat gear. She couldn’t see a damn thing to distinguish him, but she sensed he was a deadly bastard.

  All she could see was his pale colorless eyes.

  And they were soulless.

  His eyes passed over the corner she stood in and she shivered, feeling her heart stop in her chest.

  Who are you...what meaning do you have in my life...she wanted to ask him.

  But then she knew, because the man that passed in front of her this time was one she knew. And she knew him well, since he had been all of fifteen and she had been twenty-two and fresh out of college. An eager beaver junior editor, she had a job she had bullied her way into, using all her family’s connections and all her sass, then working to prove that she was more than her father’s daughter and that she could damn well succeed on her own, away from him.

  It was Dylan Kline, his face as familiar to her as her own, even under the grime of his face paint, and the fine coat of sweat. His mouth twisted with hate as he moved through her, towards the man that now stood behind them.

  Kris felt a ghostly chill race through her and she turned, staring at them, just in time to see somebody from outside the shack lift a gun. She screamed out Dylan’s name.

  But he wouldn't hear her. As the fun fired, Kris jerked out of her dream with a scream, and stumbled out of the bed, her eyes wide, her hair damp with sweat, and her thin camisole clinging to her.

  Nausea roiled in her belly and she fought to push the nasty dream out of her head.

  But it wasn’t going any place.

  And she knew why.

  It wasn’t a dream. It was fact. Or at least, it would be. If she couldn’t do something to stop it.

  It took an hour and half, and numerous phone calls.

  But she had come to accept one simple fact. She was not family.

  They were not going to get a fucking message to Dylan Kline for her, no can do, sorry ma’am.

  Well, that was okay, Kris thought with an evil smile. She knew who was family.

  ****

  Dylan was having sweet dreams.

  Very sweet dreams.

  There had been one time…only once, but it had been close enough for him to pretend there was something in Kris’s eyes beside aloofness.

  And now…he was dreaming of that time, at a picnic, Labor Day weekend, at Nikki’s cabin, when it started pouring down rain and they were caught under the trees by the lake, waiting for the rain to let up. Either that or make a dash for it.

  Her eyes had met his and lingered…just for a minute, before drifting down to his chest, wet from the rain, and he had been studying the front of her T-shirt. “I didn’t know rich girls wore T-shirts,” he drawled.

  “Well, I gave the maid a few days off and I haven’t done laundry, slick,” she said, lifting a brow at him before returning her gaze back to the rain and sighing, a movement that made that miraculous chest rise and fall, drawing his attention to her hard, pebbled little nipples.

  “Gasp…you know the ‘L’ word?”

  “Bite me,” she said, rolling her eyes.

  He surprised her when he crossed the grass and asked softly, “Can I? Where?”

  Her lids flickered and he watched as her tongue slid out, wetting her lips. “It’s a saying, babe. You know, a sarcastic one, basically telling you to—”

  The rest of her words were muffled against his mouth as he lowered his head and pressed his lips against her petal soft mouth, very curious to see how she would taste. Damn, he’d been dying for a taste for years. And the heat and the sun and a couple of beers, watching her all day was enough to weaken his resolve.

  And that was where the dream differed from reality. In his bed, Dylan rolled onto his back, his hand resting on his belly, while in his dream, his hands came in framed her face, holding her still. In reality, her lips had parted under his for a second, one sweet, brief second…and then the moment had been ruined as thunder cracked and the wind started to whip around them.

  But in his dream…he backed her up against the tree and he never even questioned how it somehow became a bed. Or how her jean shorts and damp shirt wer
e replaced by black silk. Clichéd, maybe, but there was something about a long, slim woman wearing black silk.

  Just as he was peeling the black silk off of her…her lips parted—ringing erupted from them.

  His eyes flew open on a vicious curse and Dylan jackknifed out of bed, wide-awake and hornier than hell. He grabbed the pager and stared at the unknown number. Unknown, no emergency code, so he tossed the pager down and rolled over, going back to sleep.

  And it had actually been a sweet dream, almost—it almost felt real. One day, he’d love to have that kiss followed by something more than his dreams.

  ****

  Kris was pulling her hair by sunrise. He hadn’t called back. She didn’t give a flying fuck if he didn’t know the number. And did he have the decency to actually have a voicemail option?

  Of course not.

  The urgency in her gut grew—she had to talk him. Soon. Reaching for the phone, she called Nikki again, and prayed she wouldn’t get her head ripped off.

  ****

  Dylan growled into the phone this time as Nikki said in lieu of greeting, “You know, the reason you carry a pager, is so when somebody pages you, you can call them back.”

  “No, really?”

  “Smart ass,” she said. “Somebody called you this morning. She’s waiting for you to call her back. I’d appreciate it if you’d call her so she’d leave me alone.”

  “I don’t return calls I don’t know,” he said dryly. “My big sister told me never to talk to strangers.”

  “It’s not a stranger. It’s Kris Evress,” Nikki said shortly. “And she sounds pretty...urgent. Call her. Got the number?”

  “Yeah.”

  He punched in the number from memory and when her soft, husky voice came on the line, it was like a punch to the solar plexus.

  “So what has you calling my sister to track me down?”

  “Dylan,” she said, and there was something odd in her voice, that sounded like relief.

  “You wanted to talk me,” he said.

  “I have to talk to you,” she said.

  Her voice was shaking. Dylan frowned, sitting up straighter, frowning. “Kris, what’s up? You don’t sound good,” he said quietly.

  “Listen, this is going to sound absolutely crazy, but… shit. Dylan, are you going out on a job or whatever in the hell you guys call it soon?”

  “A job,” he repeated levelly, a grin tugging at his mouth.

  “Yeah, a job, a mission, an op, whatever the term is,” she snapped.

  He could almost see her, too. She’d be pushing her hand through her hair that tumbled deep red hair, her green eyes snapping with irritation. “Why are you asking?”

  For the longest moment she said nothing. And then—“Because whatever it is, you can’t go,” she said in a rush. “I know this sounds insane, but I have dreams, crazy, insane dreams that sometimes make no sense, and last night I had one and you were in a hut in some primitive place, like a jungle or something. There’s a man in the corner, and then I see you and—”

  “Kris, sweetie,” Dylan interrupted. “Why in the hell would you be having a dream about me?”

  “It wasn’t a dream, Dylan,” she said softly. “Right before I woke up, somebody shot you. There’s people, too many of them and hardly any of them are on your team. Gunshots and shouting and—”

  Her voice was getting higher and sounding panicked. “Okay, okay, Kris. Listen, take a deep breath. Let’s say this is real—”

  “Damn it, it is real. Or it will be. My parents were supposed to get on a plane to France two years ago and I had a dream a week before. I threw such a fucking fit that they cancelled their plans. Well that plane crashed outside Paris and half the passengers died, you jackass,” Kris shouted in his ear.

  Dylan winced, pulling the phone away from his ear.

  “And you need to ask Nikki why she cancelled her plans to take the family to Carlsbad last summer, slick,” she railed.

  “Okay. Okay,” Dylan said. “I hear you. Maybe there is something going on then. Listen to me, I need to know everything about the dream, everything you can think of, okay?”

  “Is there something coming up? Something in a jungle?”

  He thought of the op coming up in Brazil and sighed. “Rich girl, I can’t tell you that.”

  “I take it that means yes,” she said softly. “Dylan, you can’t go.”

  “Just tell me about the dream, Kris. Okay?”

  ****

  She hung up the phone nearly an hour later, feeling drained and shaken. And totally useless. Because he was still going.

  And she wondered if she’d ever see him again.

  Damn it.

  Covering her face with her hands, Kris leaned forward, bracing her hands on her knees and prayed.

  Damn it.

  Oh, God. Please, keep him safe.

  Dylan, damn his stubborn hide, was a damn near permanent fixture in her life and had been for the past eight years of her life.

  Ever since she had stumbled upon the manuscript his sister had written and she had done everything but walk on hot coals to get Nicole Kline to write for Barnes and McNeel.

  That sulky teenager, more man than boy, had grown into a man that had could set her heart to flaming even just hearing his voice.

  If he had the nerve to let anything happen to him…

  Kris breathed out a sigh.

  She had to stop thinking about him like this.

  She actually had a man in her life again. A good one. One that made her heart quiver when he kissed her.

  So what if it didn’t outright stop?

  But that had only happened once.

  That rainy day when Dylan had kissed her. Kris had waited for years for him to do it again, and had even thought about trying it herself.

  But time passed.

  Years actually. And she just never…did.

  She never forgot it though. Pressing her lips together, she remembered the taste of him, that hot, unique male taste—oh, damn.

  It was sad.

  She couldn’t remember how Max tasted. And he had just kissed her last night.

  That was pretty pitiful.

  ****

  Dylan was pretty damned certain that if he got out of this mess he’d drop to his knees and kiss Kris’s feet.

  They had lived through the ambush only because he had been edgy enough because of her weird phone call and he had turned at the last second, thinking for some odd reason he had heard her voice. That was when he had seen the signal flash between two of the hidden guerillas.

  His desperate “Drop!” had saved most of the team.

  The word most was bitter, but hell, at least they still had a team. Only two of their number lay dead on the field behind them and of the ten remaining, none of them had any serious injuries.

  Big problem now—they were trapped.

  Cornered.

  They had walked into a trap, and the guilt ran gut deep, because he had been warned. They may not make it back home.

  Behind him, he heard swears, a whispered prayer. That would be Nick Antonelli, Dylan thought, and he could see the Italian American reaching up to cross himself.

  The others were silent. Jerry Sears was thinking furiously, trying to figure a way out of this mess. Dom was whistling tunelessly under his breath, the way he did when he was thinking, and thinking hard.

  Dylan was just thankful that Max Blessett had stayed behind with the chopper. Max, with his new wife and baby, needed to stay alive.

  At first he thought he was hearing things, when he heard Max’s voice come out of the darkness. Then he started swearing silently, certain whoever had had sold them out had revealed Max’s position as well. Certain he had been captured and their one possible hope for escape was gone.

  That was when he realized.

  It was Max.

  Max had sold them out.

  Through the blur that followed, when a bullet took out Nick Antonelli, Max stood there, expressionless.
<
br />   When Dylan had dived for the bastard who had shot his best friend, Max hadn’t shown a sign of remorse in those friendly, easy blue eyes. When Dally Conroy raised his weapon to take out the bastard, Max had grinned.

  “You sonovabitch, it was you,” Dally whispered, shaking his head, his pale green eyes narrowed and angry. “It was you.”

  “Yeah, that little voice of yours led ya astray this time, didn’t it?” Max smirked. “It had me a little worried for a while. You’ve had too many lucky hits there, but not this time. Your luck has run out, cowboy.”

  And as Dylan laid there, trying to drag himself to Nick, Max had turned around and walked away from the gun in his face, not even turning when somebody shot Dally in the back from behind.

  Those laughing brilliant green eyes went forever dull and a scream started to build in Dylan’s throat.

  Chapter Two

  January

  Every muscle in his body hurt—his legs and lower back were on fire. “Son of a fucking bitch,” he swore, sweating, as he shifted his body and pulled himself up to the rails until he could swing his legs and hips into the wheel chair. His dark blonde hair was straggly, longer than it had been in years, and hanging in damp curls that clung to his unshaven face. The hollows and planes of it were planed down all skin and bone, giving him a hawkish look.

  “You’re pushing too hard, kid,” Jerry Sears said from across the room, one shoulder propped against the door jamb.

  Dylan ignored him as he rolled the chair in the direction of the counter. Snagging a water bottle, he emptied half of it before pointedly staring out the window. His breath came in ragged gasps and his chest burned while the muscles in his legs quivered and that only made the impotent anger rise.

  He’d once been able to run for miles, swim endlessly, lift nearly double his own body weight. Months ago only, mere weeks, really.

  And now, he could barely do the physical therapy exercises that had been ordered by a platoon of doctors.