Explosive Alliance

RACE AGAINST TIME

The last thing Krista Curry expected to find in a soccer stadium was a time bomb. When she alerts explosives expert Cash Dixon, she becomes a local hero. But the attention could expose her real name—and the infamous past she fought to escape. Cash promises Krista protection from the bomber’s retaliation. Yet she hesitates to trust him as she sees his suspicion about her grow with every question she dodges. She can’t expect Cash to continue to safeguard her unless she tells him the truth. Now Cash must decide if she’s an innocent woman or guilty accomplice. But the clock is ticking down—and the real bomber is still on the loose…

First Responders: Brave men and women alert and ready for danger and love.

He looked like a warrior, ready to do battle.

He downplayed the threat from the SUV he’d just chased off, his voice calm. But his body language said differently.

“If it’s the intruder from last night, he’s more of a danger.”

“How so?” Krista kept the mounting panic from her voice.

“Takes someone without fear to return right after the police were called. He doesn’t care who gets in his way.”

This guy was persistent. Breaking in. Attacking her. Perhaps killing her if Cash hadn’t arrived.

Panic threatened again but she fought it. Cash was here. Strong, capable Cash. The man she’d been fighting every step of the way.

“Thanks for being here.”

“It’s what I do.”

“You can’t possibly do this for everyone. So why me?”

He shrugged, but held her gaze, and she felt a change in him. Not the spark of attraction that clearly existed between them. Something softer. Something that made her forget the bomber.

“I can’t put my finger on it, but I know you need me.” His voice was low and husky.

The word trustworthy came to mind. A man of honor. Could she really believe he was everything he seemed to be…even if he discovered who she really was?

SUSAN SLEEMAN is a bestselling author of inspirational and clean-read romantic suspense books and mysteries. Awards include RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Book for Thread of Suspicion; No Way Out and The Christmas Witness were finalists for the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence. She’s had the pleasure of living in nine states and currently lives in Oregon. To learn more about Susan visit her website at susansleeman.com.

Explosive

Alliance

Susan Sleeman

www.millsandboon.co.uk

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

—Philippians 4:7

For the many law enforcement bomb squads

and military disposal technicians who risk their lives on a daily basis to rid our world of dangerous explosives. It takes a special person to do this job, and I hope I honor them in the way I have portrayed bomb tech Cash Dixon.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Epigraph

Dedication

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

Dear Reader

Extract

Copyright

ONE

Murderer!

The word hung in the soggy air.

Krista Curry could feel it. Taste it. Smell it.

She hunched forward, hiding her face and holding her breath, waiting for someone in the crowd to recognize her. To shout out the horrific title she’d been branded with after her husband, Toby, was murdered four years ago.

She shifted on the hard stadium chair. Risked a quick glance around Providence Park’s open-air stadium. Rain flooded from dusky skies, the seats glistening, the players soaked as they slogged over a field shadowed with whispery swatches of fog.

“Watch the net.” Her grandfather’s shout mingled with the crowd’s cheers for the Portland Timbers. His cheeks were rosy from the cold, the pure joy of the sport widening his smile that was often marred from battling cancer.

Krista’s heart creased with concern for him. She didn’t know if he’d beat stage three cancer or how many more joyful days he’d have. She’d do anything for him. Including risking recognition and someone calling her out in public so he could attend the soccer match.

Oh, Opa. Her precious Opa.

She loved everything about him, including his insistence that she use the informal German name for grandfather. He was the one man she could count on. The man who’d helped her survive the loss of her mother. Who’d stood by her when her father had gone to prison for murder. Who’d believed in her when she’d been accused of killing Toby.

She couldn’t lose him to cancer. She just couldn’t.

“Did you see that save, Liebchen?” he asked excitedly, using his pet name that meant sweetheart. He placed a hand on her knee. She jumped, immediately regretting her startled response when concern wiped away his joy.

He eyed her for a long, uncomfortable moment. “What is going on in that mind that has you wound as tight as a spring?”

“Nothing that’s worth taking you away from your game.”

He watched her for another second before turning back to the match. The Timbers scored a goal. He whooped loudly. He suddenly clutched his neck and coughed, cleared his throat and coughed harder. He gasped for air, his chest heaving with the effort.

She grabbed his water only to discover she’d kicked the cup over. She swirled the container, grateful to find a small amount of liquid still in the bottom. He quickly gulped it down, then cleared his throat hard.

“Better?” she asked.

He sighed out a long breath. “Better.”

She took the cup. “If I go fill this, will you be okay by yourself?”

“I am not one of the preschoolers in your class, you know.” His feisty attitude returned, along with his fierce sense of independence. The same independence she’d fought since she’d come back to Portland weeks ago to care for him. The chemo treatments left him more helpless than he’d admit, and he continued to make decisions that weren’t always in his best interest. Coming to the match was a perfect example. Now he needed water to stay hydrated and silence his cough.

“I’ll be right back.” She slipped around his feet and avoided making eye contact with anyone. She put one foot in front of the other on the slick concrete. Down the stairs. Quickly toward the Mezzanine Terrace. Praying for anonymity.

Feeling eyes on her, she raised her head. Inch by inch, she scanned the area ahead. A uniformed deputy leaned against the railing, his focus on her.

No. Oh, no. Did he recognize her? Did he know about Toby’s murder—about the accusations? That even though the police had never brought formal charges, she hadn’t been fully cleared?

Or maybe he’d simply noticed her jumpy behavior and suspected she was up to something. The last thing she needed or wanted was for a cop to start questioning her.

He caught her studying him and smiled. A sizzling, I’m-all-that kind of smile. A clear look of interest burned in his eyes. He didn’t know who she was. This was a simple case of a man interested in a woman. In her. It was there in his eyes. There in his body turned toward her. Anticipation saturated his expression and he didn’t try to hide it. Her heart gave a kick. Warning bells followed, telling her to look away, but she couldn’t manage it.

She suddenly realized she was staring and dropped her gaze to the walkway to take the last few steps without falling.

She heard him chuckle before he said, “Evening, ma’am.”

His lazy, Southern drawl took her by surprise, bringing her eyes back up. She caught a quick look at his name tag—Deputy Cash Dixon—before the heat of a blush crept up her face.

“You look a bit flustered,” he went on. “Anything I can help you with?”

Ugh! He knew why she was flustered. He was teasing her.

She held up the empty cup and stepped past him.

Another chuckle followed her into the concourse, but she tuned him out and retrieved the water. On the return trip, she felt his focus on her again but refused to let him bait her into looking his way and hurried up the stairs. As she neared her row, the man seated to her left got up and moved into the aisle, leaving his backpack behind.

“Your pack,” she called out and pointed at it, but he didn’t look up.

She stepped in front of him to get his attention.

His head jerked up, his steely-gray eyes dark with anger meeting hers. He shoved his hands into his sweatshirt pocket, then blinked in surprise.

“Sorry to bother you,” she said, trying not to wilt under his continued study. “But you left your backpack.”

His eyes lingered for long, tense moments before he brushed by her and jogged down the stairs.

“So much for trying to be a good citizen,” she mumbled and stepped past Opa. “Did you see that guy who just left?”

Opa shook his head, but kept his attention on the game. “He blocked my view for a few seconds, but I didn’t actually look at him. Why?”

“He left his backpack. When I told him about it, he got mad.”

“Odd,” Opa said absently, his focus still pinned on the field.

Krista handed the water to Opa and looked at the pack a few seats away. That unsettled feeling returned.

Stop it, Krista. What did she think was in the pack, a bomb?

Ha! The guy was rude, maybe a bit creepy, but that didn’t make him some lunatic leaving a bomb behind. He’d likely had too much to drink, needed to use the restroom and would be right back. That’s why he didn’t take her concern seriously.

She ignored the fact that there weren’t any empty cups by his seat and forced her attention on to the game. Not that she knew anything about football, as Opa called it, other than it involved a ball with two nets and Opa loved it. She tried to get into the game, but the backpack kept nagging at her, and she continued to check her watch. The man had been gone for fifteen minutes. Far too long for a trip to the bathroom or snack bar when long lines weren’t likely due to tonight’s low attendance.

Her gaze slid back to the pack.

Should she check it out? With all the craziness going on in the world today, could she afford not to check it out?

She glanced down the stairs to confirm the guy wasn’t returning, then slid over to the pack. Once a vivid blue, it was now worn and dingy gray. She checked for the owner one last time, then pulled the zipper and spread it open.

A cell phone lay on a stack of red blocks. Next to it, large neon-green numbers on a timer counted down from twenty-seven minutes fifty seconds. It was strapped to the bricks resembling modeling clay with wires leading to the stack.

Timer. Bricks. Wires.

“Bo—” she started to shout, then realized what yelling “bomb” would do to nearby spectators.

A bomb! It’s really a bomb. What should she do?

She and Opa didn’t have cell phones, so she couldn’t call 911. So then what?

Think, Krista, think.

The numerals kept flashing their countdown—taunting her.

Twenty-five minutes ten seconds. Nine. Eight.

Panic crawled up her spine.

No, no, no!

Why had she waited so long to look? How should she handle this?

Deputy Cash Dixon, the name barreled into her brain. She had to alert him.

She started to rise. Caught sight of Opa. In his fragile state, if she took him with her, it would take a long time to climb down the stairs. Precious minutes would be wasted before the bomb squad could be notified. She had no choice. She’d have to leave him sitting in his seat.

Here. Near a bomb.

She couldn’t do that to her Opa.

You have to or all of these people could die. Go! Now!

She’d bring the deputy up here, leave this situation in his hands and guide Opa to the exit. She had enough time. If she hurried.

Her stomach threatening to revolt, she gently closed the flaps on the pack from prying eyes and jumped to her feet.

“I’ll be right back, Opa.” She forced the words over a lump in her throat.

“Okay.” He didn’t look up.

“I love you.” She hoped it wouldn’t be the last time she ever said these words to him.

His perceptive gaze met hers. “What’s wrong, Liebchen?”

“Nothing.” She offered him a wobbly smile, then jogged down the stairs to discover Cash Dixon now leaned against the restaurant wall, that casual pose still in place. Her confidence in him evaporated.

Could he handle this? This man who seemed to excel in flirting? Was he just a pretty face, or was he cool and calm under pressure? Steady? Trustworthy?

Because he needed to be. Desperately needed to be, if he was going to stop this bomb from exploding and bringing the building down around them.

TWO

Rent-a-cop duty.

Could Cash sink any lower on the boredom scale? He didn’t usually go in for security duty, but his buddy’s wife was having a baby and his buddy needed someone to cover at the last minute. Ninety minutes into the job, he was regretting his decision to help.

He glanced at his solid titanium watch he’d worn on countless Delta Force missions.

Now that was an exciting job.

There was nothing more thrilling than serving on the army’s elite tier-one Special Ops team. Fast-roping down to free a hostage. Night jumps and rock climbs to raid insurgent groups in Afghanistan. Diving into dark, murky waters.

Man, he missed it. Missed it all. The team. The camaraderie. Working with guys who really got him. His life hadn’t been the same since a friendly bomb had gone astray, taking out his whole team. Why he’d survived, he had no idea, even after eighteen months.

Stop, he warned himself. Standing here brooding wouldn’t help him figure it out. He needed to keep busy.

He searched the crowd, looking for someone whose chops he could bust. He spotted the woman who’d brushed past him a few minutes ago to retrieve a cup of water charging down the steps.

Good. Just the distraction he was looking for. A particularly beautiful one at that. He loved the way she’d blushed when he’d flirted with her. Wasn’t often these days that he ran into a woman exhibiting such innocence.

She hit the landing and ran toward him, skidding to a stop in front of him. Eyes the color of his army dress blues were dark with worry, sending a curl of apprehension into his gut.

“I need your help.” She panted to catch her breath. “There’s a...” She paused to look around, then drew him away from a man standing nearby.

She leaned close to Cash’s ear. He caught a faint whiff of vanilla and another appealing spice he couldn’t identify.

“There’s a bomb,” she whispered, her breath warm on his skin.

He pulled back. “Don’t even kid about that, ma’am.”

“I’m not kidding.” Full lips drew down in a scowl as her gaze continued to dart around.

“What’s your name, ma’am?”

“Krista Curry.”

“Well, Krista, why don’t you tell me what you saw?” It was very unlikely she’d actually seen a bomb, but whatever she’d witnessed had clearly upset her and he needed to take it seriously.

“It’s by my seat,” she said. “A guy got up and left his backpack. There’s a cell phone inside with a timer attached to a bunch of red bricks. It’s counting down. It had twenty-five minutes on it. Now it must be closer to twenty.” She grabbed his arm in a viselike grip. “Please, we can’t waste any time.”

Something in her desperate plea made him believe her enough to agree to check out the so-called device. “Show me.”

She led him toward the aisle and gestured at the upper section. “See the older man seated in the second row from the top? That’s my grandfather. The backpack is six seats to his left. By that big girder.”

He looked at the upper section, saw a gray-haired man sitting at the aisle, intent on the game.

“Wait. That woman.” Krista wiggled her finger at a stick-thin woman climbing over a seat. “Looks like she’s spotted the backpack. She’s going to open it just like I did. She might... Oh, no.”

He saw the woman, but he couldn’t see the backpack. Krista grabbed his arm again. “We need to get up there before she does something stupid.”

The woman fumbled around at her feet. She looked up, her gaze wild and unfocused.

“Bomb!” she screamed and charged for the aisle. “There’s a bomb in that backpack. Only fifteen minutes on the timer. Run! Everybody run!” She catapulted over the old man’s legs, nearly lost her balance but recovered to run down the steps, waving her arms and inciting the crowd. “Bomb! There’s a bomb! Go!”

People fled toward the exits in a stampede. Cash had to restore order before they trampled each other. At least attendance was down due to the rain, and he had a chance of calming them down.

“C’mon, people!” He held up his hands. “This is someone’s bad idea of a joke, but just to be safe, let’s clear the area in an orderly fashion.”

“It’s no joke—I saw it,” the woman shouted, her eyes so terrified Cash figured she wasn’t making it up, but the device could still be a dummy left to cause a riot.

“I’ve got to get to Opa!” Krista darted toward the steps.

Cash ran after her and jerked her into an empty aisle moments before the fleeing mob reached them. “You can’t go up there. They’ll trample you.”

She tried to wrench free. “But my grandfather needs me. I can’t leave him alone.”

The last thing Cash wanted was for another person to lose their life on his watch so he tightened his hold while he reported the situation over his radio. He ordered the security team to cease use of their radios from this point forward. He’d take no chance of the radio signal setting off the bomb if it was real. He’d make one more call to the team leader for the First Response Squad—the tactical team Cash served on. The six-person squad was created to deal with emergency situations just like this one and would be the first to respond. Once he notified them, he’d go radio silent, too.

“Let. Me. Go!” Krista’s volume escalated with each word.

“I can’t.”

“Please.” Her eyes darted around as if she might lose it any second. “I have to help him. I have to.”

She jerked harder. Cash let go of his radio to catch her chin, forcing her to make eye contact. “Calm down, Krista. If you promise to stay right here, I’ll take care of your gramps.”

She stopped thrashing and eyed him suspiciously. “Really? You’ll get him out of here?”

After I get a look at that bomb and, if it’s legit, disarm it if I can. Thankfully, he was on duty tonight. His buddy Neil was a great guy, but he wasn’t a bomb expert. Cash had years of experience disarming explosives in the military and another year as the FRS bomb tech.

He looked around for another officer to hand Krista off to but found no one. “I’ll go, but you have to stay here. Right here on this spot. No moving at all. Promise?”

She nodded unreservedly.

He hoped she was sincere and wasn’t playing him. “I mean it. If I look back down here and see you’ve moved at all, I won’t follow through.”

“You’d leave him?”

No, but you don’t need to know that. “If you force me to.”

“I won’t move. I promise. Just go. Now! Hurry!”

Cash released her arm and surveyed the chaos as he formed a quick game plan. With crazed people flooding down the aisle, he’d have to climb over seats to reach the top, then hope the crowd had thinned enough, allowing him to shoot across the aisle to the bomb.

He started over the seats. One by one. Up. Higher. Toward the bomb.

“Be careful, Deputy,” Krista called out.

He felt his stride falter. Not for long. The briefest of moments, really, but long enough for the memory of his fallen teammates to come rushing back.

Stow it, man. Or these people could pay the price for your distraction. Keep calm. In control. Step by step. Work through it.

He could do this. He had to do this. If the bomb was real, it was up to him—him alone—to disarm the device. With fifteen minutes on the timer, neither his squad nor the Metropolitan Explosives Disposal Unit could arrive on time.

If he even had the fifteen minutes to get this done.

More likely he had less.

Putting a cell phone on the bomb said the bomber planned to detonate via a phone call and the timer was likely a fallback. A simple ring of the phone and the bomb could go off in a split second, killing everyone in the blast radius.

He upped his speed, reaching the top tier. He looked for a break in the crowd. A cold bead of sweat dampening his forehead, he shot across the aisle, found the backpack and gently opened it. The sight that greeted him sent his heart plummeting.

He shone his flashlight into the pack, following the detonator wire from the timer now at twelve minutes to demolition blocks stacked neatly inside.

He let out a low whistle, and a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach followed.

There was nothing fake about this bomb. Nothing at all.

THREE

“No-o-o-o!” Raw fear uncoiled in Krista’s stomach. “Don’t mess with it. Opa first. Please!” Her words came from deep in her gut, but there was no chance Cash could hear her over the crowd.

Was he trying to be a hero? Trying to disarm the bomb himself instead of waiting for a trained technician?

Of course he was. He was a hotheaded cop like the ones who’d railroaded her toward a murder rap. And she’d trusted him. Stupidly. She was the worst kind of granddaughter. She’d left Opa a stone’s throw from a bomb, then trusted the wrong person again.

You’re a fool, Krista.

She was about to charge up there, but Cash turned and headed in Opa’s direction. He squatted in front of him. They talked, Opa responding with his usual animated gesturing. Cash patted Opa’s hand then stood and looked away. Krista waited for Opa to get up, but he sat there watching Cash walk toward the bomb.

What?

“No! What’re you doing?” she screamed.

He took a tool from his pocket and bent over the bomb. He was going to try to disarm it and leave Opa all alone.

Fear skittered down Krista’s spine. She couldn’t stand there any longer and leave her grandfather in extreme peril. She took off, following the trail Cash had left behind, pushing through people like a snowplow. She wouldn’t stop. No matter what. She was going up to Opa’s seat even if the crowd trampled her to death.

* * *

Adrenaline raced through Cash’s veins, leaving him light-headed for a moment. He took in a calming breath. Blew it out and replayed his radio conversation with Jake, the FRS leader. The team had an ETA of ten minutes, but once they arrived, they still would have to fight through the crowd streaming out of the stadium.