Page 70 of Delta Force Defender

“I like your sister’s friend already,” the man in the doorway said.

“It’s not just you and me anymore, Jules,” Lindsay threw out there. “And, to be honest, I care a lot more about my daughter than your restaurant.”

Her man made a low noise. “Lindsay.”

“That goes for you, too,” Lindsay snapped at him.

He didn’t look particularly bothered by that. “It’s nice to meet you, Julia,” he said in a friendly sort of tone, nodding at Caradine. “I didn’t think that was going to happen in this lifetime. I’m Koa.”

“Please,” Caradine replied, still feeling dizzy and a little bit sick. She rubbed at her heart, hoping that would stop it kicking at her. “Call me Caradine. Julia was a very foolish girl who died a long time ago.”

“While Lindsay has no intention of dying,” Lindsay said wildly, her daughter against her chest. “Under any circumstances, using any name.”

“Why don’t you come inside,” Koa said, with another look at Lindsay that made her flush but didn’t make her back down. “After all, you’re allohana, more or less. My house is yours.”

But he kept his eyes trained on Isaac, who grinned. Disarmingly. The two men moved inside the house together, warily, but Caradine waited for her sister.

Lindsay was breathing heavily. She caught Caradine’s look over the top of her little girl’s head, and Caradine couldn’t have said what she saw on her sister’s face. Grief. Panic. Resolve.

Caradine could hardly speak. “Lindsay...”

“I met him on the Big Island,” Lindsay said, soundingdefiant and sad at once. “I told him I would never marry him, because I could never stay with him. He took that as a challenge.”

“Linds. I don’t—”

“And I didn’t see the harm. Wives leave husbands all the time. I thought being married was an even better cover, to be honest, though I knew you’d freak out if I told you.”

“Definefreak out.”

Lindsay shook her head. “But then I got pregnant. It was a mistake. Because I could never voluntarily bring a baby into this... this disaster.” She coughed to clear her throat. “What kind of person would do that to an innocent child?”

Their eyes met. And neither one of them mentioned their own mother. But then, they didn’t have to. Donna was the kind of ghost who lingered, even in the Hawaiian sun.

“I know I should have done the smart thing,” Lindsay said in a small, anguished voice. “But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.”

“Lindsay,” Caradine whispered. “She’sperfect.”

Lindsay looked down at her little girl, who buried her head in the crook of Lindsay’s neck. There was no mistaking the proud, loving, worried smile on her sister’s face. There was no mistaking the anguish and the determination.

“She’s two,” Lindsay said quietly. “Her name is Luana.”

Caradine made a noise. A sigh, maybe. A sob. She couldn’t tell. “That’s beautiful.She’sbeautiful.”

“Her name means ‘happiness,’” Lindsay said. And her gaze was ferocious when she raised it to Caradine’s. “And I might look like Mom, but I’m not her. There is nothing I won’t do to protect my child. Absolutely nothing.”

Nineteen

Isaac determined within a single sweep of the house that Koa was exactly what he appeared to be at first glance. A man who was willing to do whatever it took to protect his family, including letting an armed stranger look through his home to make sure it was safe.

But even if he was a better actor than he seemed, he was outnumbered. Isaac called in the rest of the team and tried to look friendly as Koa took in the information that said team had been out there all along.

“Not sure I would have invited you in if I’d known you came in a set,” the other man said after a moment.

“Don’t worry.” Isaac tried to sound soothing. “They’re all housebroken.”

Meanwhile, Caradine and her sister were talking to each other warily out on the lanai. Through the screen, Isaac watched Lindsay put her daughter down to toddle around on her own feet. While she did, the two women stood next to each other. They both crossed their arms inthe same way. They had the same nose. The same stubborn chin.

It was strange to think of Caradine as something other than singular.

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