Operation Mountain Recovery Read online

  “Maybe your father couldn’t be helped,” Brady said, then looked as if he regretted saying it.

  “And maybe I can’t be, either.”

  She sensed him move, then felt the gentle touch of a finger under her chin, tilting her head back.

  “I don’t believe that,” he said quietly but firmly.

  Ashley looked at him, thinking it amazing that a man in his job could have such warm, kind eyes. She remembered the first time she’d looked into them, as he’d pulled her from the car in the moment before it had slid down the mountain. She remembered thinking then that those eyes promised she would be safe, that somehow he would get her out of this.

  And he had. At no small risk to himself.

  She couldn’t let him risk himself even more.

  * * *

  Be sure to check out the rest of the books in this miniseries.

  Cutter’s Code: A clever and mysterious canine helps a group of secret operatives crack the case

  * * *

  If you’re on Twitter, tell us what you think of Harlequin Romantic Suspense! #harlequinromsuspense

  Dear Reader,

  I usually use this space to tell you something about the story, how it came to be or what inspired it, and I will. But as I write this now, my state is in the middle of an extended lockdown for reasons, sadly, the whole world knows. The thing I wanted to make note of, however, is the good news that so many animal shelters are emptying out as people turn to pets to help ease the isolation they feel. I hope every one of them realizes this is what’s been missing in their lives, something that can be provided only by our precious animal friends. And may each of them be the kind of person who will continue to love and care for the creature who has helped them after the crisis is over.

  As you can guess from the title, Operation Mountain Recovery is set in...the mountains. I love mountains. I don’t necessarily need to live amid them, but I will always want to be where I can see them, as I am now. Perhaps it comes from being born in flat, flat Iowa—although I was there for only the first six months of my life. When my wonderful editor expressed a wish for a certain type of story, I sat on my deck for a while, looking toward the snow-covered Cascades, and thought. And now you have the result. I hope you enjoy it.

  Happy reading!

  Justine

  OPERATION MOUNTAIN RECOVERY

  Justine Davis

  Justine Davis lives on Puget Sound in Washington State, watching big ships and the occasional submarine go by and sharing the neighborhood with assorted wildlife, including a pair of bald eagles, deer, a bear or two, and a tailless raccoon. In the few hours when she’s not planning, plotting or writing her next book, her favorite things are photography, knitting her way through a huge yarn stash and driving her restored 1967 Corvette roadster—top down, of course.

  Connect with Justine on her website, justinedavis.com, at Twitter.com/justine_d_davis or on Facebook at Facebook.com/justinedaredavis.

  Books by Justine Davis

  Harlequin Romantic Suspense

  Cutter’s Code

  Operation Midnight

  Operation Reunion

  Operation Blind Date

  Operation Unleashed

  Operation Power Play

  Operation Homecoming

  Operation Soldier Next Door

  Operation Alpha

  Operation Notorious

  Operation Hero’s Watch

  Operation Second Chance

  Operation Mountain Recovery

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com, or justinedavis.com, for more titles.

  Black Beauty wasn’t a typical rescue. A vet bargained with a pet store to sell any unwanted puppies. I stopped at the store, just to look. The black ball of fluff, with white on her chest, her toes and the tip of her tail, an Australian shepherd/black Lab, captured my heart. As a puppy, she liked riding in the stroller while my nephew toddled alongside. Black Beauty was supposed to reach only forty pounds but grew to seventy-five pounds. On our walks, people often commented, “Nice guard dog.”

  She was a marshmallow. And smart. When I hid her pills in food, she’d eat the meat, cheese and even peanut butter and spit the pill out, unless it was chunky peanut butter. If I did something wrong, she’d ignore me. She’d bring her rag bone to play tug-of-war as her way of saying all’s forgiven. She was my unofficial therapy dog. Seventeen and a half years she graced my life. She’s been gone almost as long.

  Someone asked, “When you reach heaven, what words do you want to hear first?” I should want “Welcome, child,” or “Well done, good and faithful servant.” But the first thing I want to hear is “She’s waited so long for you. She’s right here.” I still miss her, every day.

  ~Judy

  This is the latest in a series of dedications from readers who have shared the pain of the loss of a beloved dog. For more information, visit my website at www.justinedavis.com or Facebook at Facebook.com/justinedaredavis.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Excerpt from Escape with the Navy SEAL by Regan Black

  Chapter 1

  “Are you sure you don’t mind not going somewhere sunny and warm?”

  Quinn Foxworth gave his wife a glance and a smile, keeping his attention on the mountain road. “You’re here,” he said. “That’s all the sunny and warm I need.”

  Hayley felt the burst of pleasure she always felt when her husband of one year to the day made one of those simple declarations. “We’ve got two weeks. It’s January. Maybe we’ll get snowed in.”

  “I can but hope,” Quinn said. “I am a bit nervous, though.”

  Hayley blinked. “Nervous? You’re a year too late for that, aren’t you?”

  Quinn grinned at her. “Not about us. Never about us. Him.” He jerked his head toward the back seat, where their dog, Cutter, was snoozing.

  Hayley glanced that way. Some people might think it odd that they had brought their dog with them on their first-anniversary trip. But those people didn’t know Cutter. He looked so innocent, lying there with his dark head on his front paws. People tended to focus on his coloring, black head and shoulders transitioning to russet brown over his back and plumed tail. But they soon learned that behind those pretty looks was an uncanny canine brain.

  “He was pretty insistent that we were not to leave him behind, wasn’t he?”

  “A little too insistent for my peace of mind.”

  “I’d like to ask what trouble could he get us into a hundred miles from home, but that’s tempting f
ate.”

  “And this is Cutter.”

  At the sound of his name, the dog lifted one eyelid to look at them sleepily, then closed it again.

  “Indeed it is,” she said with a grin. As she said it, she sensed the slightest of slips, and instantly the SUV’s speed slowed. She was glad Quinn had spent yesterday afternoon changing over to snow tires in preparation for this trip. “Ice?”

  “Just a patch. All it might take on this road, though.”

  She might have been worried if anyone other than Quinn was driving, for the road did wind around the side of a mountain, with a precipitous drop-off on the other side. Alex Galanis had warned them it could get tricky in winter when he’d insisted they use his cabin up here. Hayley knew Quinn normally wouldn’t accept for personal benefit such an offer from someone the Foxworth Foundation had helped, but when the entire Northwest team had united to insist they go, he’d given in.

  She looked to her left. Coming back this way, on the outer edge of the road, would be an adventure, though. And if—

  Cutter was suddenly fully awake and on his feet. His ears were up and focused ahead. She looked but saw nothing moving, nothing but empty road until it turned out of sight to follow the contour of the mountain. But then a low rumbling and an all-too-familiar sound issued from the dog’s throat. Neither growl nor whine, it was somewhere in between the two—and was a signal they’d learned not to ignore.

  “Uh-oh,” Quinn muttered.

  “Yes. But what, where?”

  Cutter was still staring forward. “Ahead, I gather, since he’s not battering my eardrum to turn anywhere,” Quinn said. They’d learned this as well, that the uncannily clever Cutter was quite adept at getting them to go where he wanted them to go, simply by deafening them until they made the right choice.

  The distinctive sound of the studs on their snow tires was quieter at this lower speed. Quinn obviously was taking Cutter’s warning seriously. There was something up ahead, and it wouldn’t do to go barreling around that curve without knowing what.

  “Maybe it’s a herd of deer,” Hayley suggested.

  “You mean a normal dog reaction?” Quinn asked dryly.

  “We can always hope.”

  They exchanged knowing grins, because with their dog, it was very rarely that simple.

  At first, when they slowly rounded that curve, it didn’t look serious. All Hayley saw in those first seconds was a single, marked sheriff’s SUV pulled to the side of the road. Eagle County Sheriff, she noted. But in the next second, three things happened. Cutter’s low rumble turned into a loud barking, and Hayley spotted the ominously damaged guardrail and a man in uniform at the back of the vehicle, lifting out a coiled rope.

  “And here we are,” Quinn murmured. Someone or something had obviously gone over the side. “Looks like he’s going after them.”

  The deputy looked over at them but quickly went back to fastening his rope to the push bars at the front of his unit. Quinn was right—he was going to go over the edge, risking his own safety.

  Quinn glanced at her. She smiled back at him. Her husband was who and what he was, and driving past something like this wasn’t in his playbook, even if Cutter hadn’t been on his feet and barking insistently.

  Quinn pulled over until they were just a few feet from the marked unit, nose to nose. The man in the sheriff’s uniform—not the tailored spit and polish of the city but rugged, heavy-duty gear, with boots that looked as if you could climb a rock face in them—looked up again as Quinn got out. Hayley noted he was as tall as her husband and nearly as muscled. He moved with that same kind of powerful grace that spoke of fitness and confidence. His dark hair was a little ragged around the edges for a cop, and she wondered if perhaps they were short of barbers here in the mountains.

  Quinn didn’t waste time on formalities. “Got a winch,” he said, jerking a thumb toward the front of the SUV.

  The man glanced toward their vehicle just as Hayley slid out herself. The name patch on his uniform said B. Crenshaw. His eyes were blue like Quinn’s, too, she noticed, but a darker shade. She smiled inwardly at herself and how she compared every man to her husband these days. And the best any of them could ever do was to, as this man did, come close.

  She saw him look at the winch on their front bumper. Then he looked at Quinn, assessingly. Quinn was silent, probably because he’d be doing the same thing if their positions were reversed. Whatever the man saw convinced him, because a moment later he nodded sharply.

  Quinn turned around without a word and came to unfasten the winch cable. Hayley knew it was rated at nine thousand pounds, so they should be fine, although since it was designed for pulling, not lifting, she wasn’t sure it would be able to pull a car up that steep a slope. But it would get them safely down to it, and that’s what counted now.

  “Crowbar?” Quinn asked the deputy.

  “Got one. But two might not hurt.”

  Quinn nodded, and Hayley ran to the back of the SUV and grabbed theirs from the tool bin. Cutter looked over the back seat at her, silent now.

  “We’ll fix it, boy,” she said, and the dog gave a low whine that sounded approving; she’d given up trying not to read humanity into his communications. She grabbed up the chocks next to the bin and brought them, too. She ran back to the man she loved more than life, in no small part because this was who he was.

  “Always thinking. One of the many reasons I love you,” Quinn said as he took two of them and slid them in front of the back tires while Hayley put the others to the front.

  “On the com,” Quinn said to her. “And get Cutter out of the car, just in case.”

  She nodded, picked up her own Foxworth phone and pushed the red button that turned on the walkie-talkie function as he did the same. With a push from the SUV’s base system, they should be in full, live communication.

  As she got the tense but calm dog out of the car, she told herself Quinn had done much, much worse than this, but still her pulse picked up as the two men vanished over the side.

  * * *

  Brady Crenshaw had been a deputy in this mountain country he loved and where he had grown up for nearly ten years now. And this was not the craziest thing he’d done. Some might think so, trusting a man he’d never seen before, and before he’d even spoken to him. But he’d learned to trust his gut on some things, and a man with such nerve and knowledge in his steady gaze was the kind of man you wanted on your team. Even if you were doing something like going down the side of a very steep mountain.

  A glance at size of the winch, mounted on a special front bumper designed for it, told him the man understood the physics of this. A glance at his eyes told Brady he’d seen much worse.

  The cable had loops near the end, enabling them to slip a foot in before starting down. Brady pulled on his leather gloves and stepped into the lower loop. The man from the SUV held the remote that controlled the winch in his left hand, stepped into the other loop on the other side of the cable and, once they were set, started unwinding it slowly. The winch motor did it without hesitation, their combined weight nothing compared to what it was designed to do—pull the full weight of a vehicle the size of the SUV it was attached to. He wouldn’t be surprised if this guy was smart enough to have it powered by its own battery instead of using the vehicle’s; he had the look of a man who thought of just about everything. The kind who would be a help rather than a hindrance when dealing with the chaos Brady’s beloved mountains could throw at you.

  And a man who obviously loved the woman with him, telling her to stay clear in case the worst happened and the car they were trying to get to went down hard and fast and took theirs with it.

  He swore silently at his first clear look at the car below. It was perched dangerously on a snow-covered ledge and looked ready to slide the rest of the way—an almost certainly fatal hundred feet straight down—at the slightest breath of encouragemen
t. The guardrail had likely slowed the descent, but that made the current situation no less precarious.

  “Well, this’ll be interesting,” his new, temporary partner murmured.

  “As long as it doesn’t turn into a thrill ride,” Brady said with a wry grimace, but he gave the man a nod in acknowledgment of his cool. He’d sounded not rattled at all, but just what he’d said—interested.

  In the next instant, Brady saw movement in the car below. So somebody who took this sleigh ride was still alive.

  “Don’t move!” he yelled downward, and the figure froze. But the car shifted, just slightly, the front end now tilting slightly downward.

  “It’ll go that way if it goes,” the man just above him on the cable said.

  “Agreed. I don’t think we can risk trying to get it hooked onto the frame, though. Could dislodge everything.”

  “Bumper, then. Front or back?”

  Brady looked back at the precariously perched car. “Front, I think. If we use the back, it’ll hit with both weight and momentum. Bumper might not hold. Front might not hold, either, but may give us a couple of seconds more.”

  “Agreed,” the man said, echoing him. Then he looked from the vehicle to the shadowy figure inside it. Looked at Brady again. “Your scene, your call.”

  Brady nodded. “Hook it while I check the doors. Then I’ll see if I can get the driver out.”

  He dropped off the cable just above the vehicle and did it slowly and with exquisite care. The last thing he wanted was to send the thing sliding the rest of the way by dislodging whatever was holding it under the snow. His new partner edged just as carefully toward the front of the car and lowered himself very slowly.

  Some part of his mind noted he could see the left front tire, because the wheel was oddly angled, but he was more focused on how the passenger side of the car was badly bent. The question was had that tweaked the frame so much the driver’s door wouldn’t open? It looked only slightly bent from here, but that might be enough. And trying to yank free a jammed door would likely send the thing down the mountain.