Running Off Radar

  Running Off Radar

  Covert operator Maji Rios's best friend was right: she was an idiot to break up with Professor Rose diStephano, even for the best reasons. When Rose offers her a week of R&R in Sitka, Alaska, she's ready to let Rose decide if a relationship is worth the danger. But her plans to win Rose back are interrupted when work intrudes and duty calls Maji to help a SEAL team stop a Russian mobster from harvesting gold from the bottom of Sitka Sound.

  Rose knows Maji pushed her away to protect her. And she may forgive her, depending on how their week in Sitka goes. But when Maji is called into action on vacation, Rose realizes their love puts Maji in danger, too. Is that a choice she can live with?

  Running Off Radar

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  Running Off Radar

  © 2018 By MB Austin. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13:978-1-63555-151-8

  This Electronic Book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, NY 12185

  First Edition: July 2018

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editor: Ruth Sternglantz

  Production Design: Susan Ramundo

  Cover Design By Tammy Seidick

  By the Author

  Strictly Need to Know

  Running Off Radar

  Acknowledgments

  I first visited Sitka to help run a conference co-hosted by the Sitka Tribe of Alaska. The event was successful, the April weather gentle, and the food (including herring eggs, salmon heads, fry bread, and dinner at Ludvig’s) memorable. But it was the way the tribal staff welcomed us and shared their sense of place that made me sad to leave and eager to return. Gunalchéesh.

  That trip planted the seed for this work of fiction in my mind, and I felt compelled to return in order to get a host of details right. Almost all the places in this story are real, and I encourage you to visit them, especially with a guide from Tribal Tours. All of the characters are fictional, but I hope they feel real enough that you might find yourself looking for them while in Sitka.

  And because publishing really is a team effort:

  To the wonderful crew at Bold Strokes Books for all the work that makes each novel the best it can be,

  To a host of volunteers who provided beta reader feedback, technical and military advice, language and culture guidance, and research assistance,

  To each and every person who read Strictly Need to Know and responded with an action (verbal feedback, a formal review, recommending it to a friend or book club, getting your local library to stock it, asking for the next installment, feeding me…),

  To Basha for always believing in and supporting me,

  Thank you. You lift me up.

  Dedication

  For Basha

  Always yes.

  Chapter One

  Rose diStephano tried not to pace. The waiting area at N1 in the Seattle-Tacoma airport was crowded with travelers headed for Sitka, Alaska. Like her, some of them must also be attending the conference on traditional foods and cultural preservation. She scanned the terminal as the gate agent announced over the PA that boarding would begin with people who needed assistance, and those traveling with small children. No one was taking toddlers to southeast Alaska on a Tuesday in April. But an elderly man with papery skin and a halo of wispy white hair was boarding, pushed by an airport attendant. And a tiny, wizened woman with burnished skin and a walker was being assisted toward the gate. The sturdy middle-aged man by her side spoke to her softly in a language Rose couldn’t even guess at. Would Maji, with her polyglot’s ear for languages, recognize it?

  Was the incomparable, inscrutable Maji Rios still coming? Rose sighed and looked at her watch for the thousandth time since getting off her flight from California at Sea-Tac to find no familiar face meeting her there. Well, Maji had said she might not make it, even while confirming in a brief voicemail three weeks ago that she had booked her flight. Maybe she’d only accepted Rose’s invitation out of guilt. Maybe she didn’t want to date, to even try out being a couple. To explore whatever this time together might lead to. Maybe Maji didn’t love her back and just wanted closure—from a comfortable distance.

  The jangle of her phone broke into Rose’s brooding. Maji? She tried not to be disappointed to see Bubbles’s smiling face on the screen instead. Without preamble, Rose asked, “Is she there?”

  “No, I was hoping she was with you. Her phone’s still off,” Bubbles said. Maji’s closest friend had stayed in touch with Rose since befriending her the previous summer, on Long Island. Bubbles had emailed Rose an ultrasound of the baby she and her husband Rey were expecting in the fall. And called, sobbing, when she’d miscarried. Maji wasn’t there for her to tell.

  “Do you want me to tell her?” Rose asked. “Assuming she actually shows up.”

  “No, I’ll do it,” Bubbles replied. “And she was really pumped about the trip last time I saw her. You know she wouldn’t blow you off, right? If she isn’t calling, then she can’t.”

  Where on earth could Maji be that she couldn’t at least leave Rose a message? Although Rose understood that as a Select Reserve in the US Army Maji could be called up anytime, surely she would have told Rose if that happened. Or at least told her best friend and had her deliver the bad news. “Just how long has she been gone?”

  Bubbles’s delayed response made Rose’s chest constrict. “Bubbles. Just tell me.”

  “Almost three weeks. That’s longer than normal.”

  Normal? How often did this happen? “But didn’t she at least tell you where she was going? Or for how long?”

  “Rose, she can’t. You get that, right?”

  Rose sighed. “Not really. But I guess I’ll know when she shows up, or doesn’t. I’m not used to playing Schrödinger’s cat.” Realizing she’d subconsciously invoked a dead-or-alive scenario, she shuddered. “Sorry—scratch that. I’m just…unsettled.”

  “Look, Rose. She may be an idiot, but if she said she’d make it, she will do her best to. If she can’t, try not to take it personally. Promise?”

  “It’s too late for that, sweetie. Gotta go.” Rose disconnected and sighed again, watching the line of passengers in first class and the back of the plane file down the gangway. She got in line and shuffled her carry-on and shoulder bag with laptop, papers, and other academic paraphernalia along behind them. She thought with regret of the rolling suitcase already loaded on the plane. Certainly she’d overpacked; but going from the near-summer weather of California’s central coast to chilly rain put some fear into her. So she’d followed the conference organizers’ tips and found a breathable raincoat with zip-out liner and hood, tall rain boots with lug soles, and warm layers to wear from the conference center out into the muskeg, forests, and tideflats. No way would she miss learning about the local Tlingit foods by being unprepared to go outdoors.

  “Passengers Huang, Rios, and Carlsbeck, report to gate N1 for boarding. Last call for Sitka passengers Huang, Rios, and Carlsbeck.”

  Rose took one last look around the terminal and handed her e-ticket to the gate agent. “Have a good t
rip,” he said with a perfunctory smile.

  As the flight attendant walked the aisle, reminding last-minute texters to turn off their phones and premature nappers to put their seat backs up, Rose wondered if inviting Maji on this trip had been a mistake. Maji had been painfully clear with her last July, stoically insisting that a relationship would only hurt Rose. We’d make plans with your family or your friends, and you’d have to lie to them when I didn’t show up. I’m not going to put you through that. She’d been right about getting stood up hurting. But damn it anyway, what gave her the right to unilaterally decide what was best for both of them?

  Last July Rose couldn’t argue with the burdens Maji shouldered. Very scary people really had wanted to kill them, or at least kidnap her and force her cousin Angelo to do their bidding. It was a disorienting time, so far from Rose’s everyday reality distanced from her Mafia relations. As Ang’s teammate and closest friend, Maji had kept her promise to protect Rose from harm but had not been able to keep the physical and emotional distance she promised herself. To Rose that was not a failure to be held against her. Extraordinary though she might be, Maji was human. And if there were things about herself or her work that she couldn’t share with Rose, then so be it.

  But Maji held herself to a standard Rose couldn’t fully grasp. She clearly felt responsible for Angelo’s death, despite doing more than anyone could ask to prevent his murder. And then when the danger was over and Rose had wanted to discuss the future, Maji had given her that speech about how they couldn’t have one together. Maybe you could do it. But I don’t think I could live with watching you get hurt, over and over. And blaming myself for that. Rose knew there was love under those words, but it was buried under the rubble of Maji’s fear. Rose had held out hope that by now Maji had dug her way out, but perhaps today was just the same message delivered in a new way.

  Should Rose even have invited Maji on this trip? She hadn’t planned to. She wouldn’t even have driven up to UC Berkeley to see Maji’s mother speak, without Bubbles’s nagging. But when Rose had seen Maji, looking fully recovered from the previous summer’s injuries in her Paragon Security uniform, all the stored-up resentment fell away. They had joked and flirted, and even talked seriously over tea in the student union. Their shared grief was clear, but not as potent as the attraction still there just under the surface. Rose would have abandoned her classes for a week to accompany Maji on the remainder of her mother’s tour, had Maji only asked. But of course she didn’t. Rose had been surprised to find herself inviting Maji to join her in Sitka. And then dangerously elated when Maji had not said no.

  But Maji had hedged then, and now she was incommunicado. Not only had she not returned Rose’s phone messages, but she didn’t even call Bubbles to say she wouldn’t make it. Trying not to take it personally was easier said than done. She wanted to give Maji the benefit of the doubt. Maybe something had come up. Maybe Maji would appear in Sitka, late but with a good story. Or maybe she wouldn’t show at all and Rose would have to finally let go. By any standard, her attempts so far to move on seemed half-hearted. She hadn’t asked anyone out, telling herself she was too busy settling in to a new town, a new college. Rose could have driven up to San Jose or even San Francisco if she’d wanted a casual liaison away from the small town watchfulness of San Ignacio. But that wasn’t her style. Maji was the only stranger she had ever invited home. And though she was less physically wary for her safety than she had once been, thanks to last summer’s self-defense camp and two semesters with the college jujitsu club, she just didn’t want to. She was making friends at the college—and that was enough. Besides, when she had said yes to a few dates, the one nice-enough man and two perfectly attractive women she’d spent a few hours with simply paled in contrast to her memories of Maji. Until she was free of those, it wasn’t fair to date anyone else.

  Rose closed her eyes as the plane rumbled forward, lifting off the tarmac and circling over Puget Sound. If this was how she felt after being stood up for a trip she didn’t need company on, maybe Maji was right. Maybe a future together would be too painful.

  * * *

  Maji watched the Seattle skyline recede, and the trees and water grow small. She sighed, feeling the sweat on her T-shirt cool as her heart rate dropped back to normal after the sprint from the security office to the gate. Maji resisted unzipping her jacket to cool down, as it was the only thing between the other passengers and her ripe body odor. She wasn’t sure which day it was when she’d caught that three-minute shower, but it hadn’t freshened her clothes up any. Reaching Sea-Tac on the right day was a huge relief, but waiting for her properly boxed, fully unloaded sidearm to clear security so she could board the flight had nearly snapped her last frayed nerve.

  Would Rose politely but firmly tell her to piss off? She ought to. Fucking self-fulfilling prophecies. Anxiety over Rose’s reaction to seeing her warred with exhaustion as Maji struggled to stay awake long enough to get up when the fasten seat belt sign finally went out.

  The first class section’s flight attendant caught her eye and smiled. Just before the free-to-wander announcement started over the PA, she replaced Maji’s empty complimentary water bottle with a fresh one. “Can I get you anything else?”

  Maji shook off her stupor enough to nod. Words were hard to form. Sentences? No way.

  A full horizon of navy blue dress filled Maji’s view, and the nameplate now uncomfortably close to Maji’s face read Tina. When she pulled back a bit, Maji noticed the immaculate makeup, with lashes unrealistically long and dark around startlingly blue eyes. Contacts. “A snack box? Beverage?” Tina asked. The lashes blinked, the blue eyes sparkling. Flirty.

  Maji pulled out a credit card and handed it over. “Food please,” she said. “And water. Lots.”

  That was enough like sentences to give her hope. Time to find Rose. As soon as Tina turned toward the galley, Maji unbuckled herself, rose stiffly, and pulled back the curtain separating first class from the normal people.

  “Which snack?” the attendant called after her.

  “Both,” Maji said without breaking stride. She spotted Rose in 13C, eyes closed with her head tilted against the headrest. Crouching in the aisle, she took a minute to drink in Rose’s features. It was worth nearly four thousand miles of trucks, boats, and planes to see that face again. Please don’t send me home. Not yet. Maji touched Rose’s hand.

  Rose startled and looked up. When she looked down and saw Maji, she smiled broadly, grasping her hand. “You made it! I didn’t see you get on.”

  “Had to run for it. Got bumped to first class. You want to trade?” Smooth, Rios.

  “No. I’m fine.” Rose traced Maji’s cheek and jaw lightly with her fingertips. “You’re sunburned.”

  “Yeah. I…yeah. And I lost my phone—sorry.”

  “You didn’t get my messages, then?”

  “One, right before…um. Did you leave another? Change your mind?” Maji felt tears threaten. Breathe, Rios.

  “No,” Rose said, looking unsure how much she wanted to say. “I just wanted to line up lodgings. When I didn’t hear back, I took a single at the dorm.”

  Maji knew the local college was hosting the conference in conjunction with the Sitka Tribe. It was probably good that Rose had a place of her own in case their reunion went badly. But she was hoping, well…She swallowed. “Hannah lined up a suite at a hotel, in case you needed security. She didn’t mention that?”

  At Rose’s puzzled shake of the head, Maji plunged on. “It’s big enough to share even if you want space to yourself. Or I could take the dorm if…” She couldn’t assume that Rose would fall into bed with her just because she’d invited her along on a work trip. Not getting between Rose and her career was important too. “Um, unless you need to be in the dorms to get everything you want from the conference.”

  Rose blushed, but smiled at her warmly. “No, I don’t need to. Let’s settle into the hotel and see how things go.”

  Those big brown eyes full of li
ght and warmth held Maji, even as she felt her calves start to cramp. “Yeah,” she agreed, wincing as she unfolded herself back to standing.

  Rose reached out for her. “Are you all right?”

  Well, she hadn’t eaten a hot meal in days, had only caught short naps for the last two, had no idea what time her body thought it was—and she stank. But she’d made the damn plane, and Rose was holding her hand, looking at her with…damn. “Sure. I just need a shower, food, and sleep. You want a snack box?”

  “No, thanks,” Rose replied. “I’ll see you in Alaska.” Maji looked down at their joined hands and nodded. She didn’t want to walk away. But Rose released her hold, reassuring her with a smile. “Go.”

  Maji inhaled both snack boxes, drained all the water bottles lined up on her tray table, and promptly fell asleep. She startled awake at a sudden drop, along with the captain’s voice over the intercom as the plane shook and shifted in the air. “Yes, folks, we’re encountering a bit of turbulence. Please stay in your seats and keep your seat belts fastened. We should be on the ground in twenty or thirty minutes.”

  Depending on what? She could roll with uncertainty in a lot of situations, but flying wasn’t one of them. To distract herself from thoughts of crashing, Maji looked out the window. The sight of small islands in a slate-blue ocean, snowcapped mountains, and an endless swath of evergreen forest took her breath. “Wow.”

  “First time flying in?” the man across the aisle asked, a proud smile on his face. Able to focus again after a few hours of sleep, Maji sized him up quickly. The sandy hair and boyish good looks made him appear thirtysomething, but the creases around his eyes put him over forty. And the buzzed sides of his head would have suggested military to her, even without the American flag patch on the flight jacket he wore over a uniform.