Page 36 of Delta Force Defender

Approximately seventeen ice ages later, when Caradine had died inside so many times she’d come back, haunted herself, and died again while still being hugged against her will, Mariah finally released her.

“I’m not going to hug you,” Trooper Kate Holiday announced, standing behind Mariah. She looked faintly appalled at the very notion, which made Caradine like her more than she wanted to, given that Kate was a law enforcement officer and Caradine preferred to avoid the police in all their various forms. “Though it is nice to see you survived a Molotov cocktail in one piece.”

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Caradine protested.

But then she was being borne backward on a tide of enthusiasm. None of it hers.

And the next thing she knew, she was sitting on one of Isaac’s couches, glaring balefully at this pack of women, who were acting like she was one of them.

“Welcome home,” Kate said with a smirk, as if she could read Caradine’s mind.

“I knew you were going to come back,” Everly said staunchly.

Caradine glowered at her. “You literally just said you thought I was dead.”

Everly waved a hand. “At first, sure. Don’t do that again.”

“I didn’t blow up my own café.”

“No,” Everly said, her gaze uncomfortably direct, “but you did go on the run without telling anyone you were okay.” She smiled faintly. “I can actually tell you from personal experience that people who care about you don’t love it when you do something like that.”

“I can cosign that,” Mariah said.

“When I went on the run, I was trying to get away from people who should have cared about me but didn’t,” Kate said in her mild cop’s way. “My take on this involves less hugging.”

“I don’t want to be in this club,” Caradine said, making a face. “And I didn’t want to be found, either. I was running to get away from people, not find them.”

“It sure is a hardship when you can’t throw people out of your restaurant, isn’t it?” Mariah asked, laughing. “You have to sit and talk to them.”

Caradine didn’t actuallysaythat they couldn’tmakeher talk. Not out loud. But she was pretty sure her body language conveyed the same message.

“I have a very important question to ask you, Caradine,” Everly said after a moment. “Blue and I are getting married this summer, as I’m sure you know.”

“I don’t know,” Caradine said desperately. “I don’t know anything about anyone. Deliberately.”

That wasn’t true. Everly treated her like a friend, and sometimes Caradine forgot to police her boundaries the way she should have. This was her own fault.

Everly only rolled her eyes, because she’d appeared to find Caradine entertaining from their first meeting—no matter how rude Caradine was. It made Caradine like her, when she shouldn’t have allowed herself to like anyone.

“We’re doing it here.” Everly sighed. “I mean, nothere, obviously. In Grizzly Harbor. And you make the best food.”

“I don’t see how those two things are related,” Caradine muttered.

“We want you to do it,” Everly said, with exaggerated patience. “If you can stop acting like the Wicked Witch of the West for three seconds.”

“Doit?” Caradine echoed, as if she had no idea what Everly meant.

Mariah laughed. Kate looked amused.

“The food, Caradine,” Everly said. With less exaggeration and a whole lot less patience. “Blue and I want you to cook the food for our wedding. Whatever you want, as usual. That’s part of the draw.”

Caradine opened her mouth to say something suitably cranky and was horrified to find that her throat was tight. She had the terrible suspicion that if she tried to form words, she would sound squeaky and thick, and everyone in this room would know that she was capable of crying, after all.

Or worse, that she cared.

She waited a beat. She cleared her throat.

She firmly ignored that horrible, aching thing inside of her that wished she really were Caradine Scott. A curmudgeonly café owner but, deep down, the friend these women seemed to think she was.

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