The Commander. Kay David

man, but in this instance, the waiting would be easier than the thinking anyway. He had to make his mind as empty as the sea beneath him to get through this. If he couldn’t, the next few hours would be his last.

      The minutes ticked by slowly. After a while, he lowered his arm to hide the light and pressed his watch to read the dial—l:00 a.m. Despite his best efforts to the contrary, a surge of disappointment—so strong it felt more like grief—washed over him. He and Lena would have been in Cancun by now, the wedding ceremony long behind them, the I do’s said and sealed with a kiss. They would be settling into the villa on the beach. He’d reserved the last one on the Point, where no one ever came. He’d wanted the privacy, the intimacy of it. When he’d told Lena about the special house, she’d smiled in that secret way of hers and said one word. “Perfect.”

      He wondered what one word she had for him right now. It wasn’t perfect, he was sure.

      A tiny beam broke the darkness, unexpectedly radiant against the inky night before it winked out. Andres’s heart bucked as if someone had punched him, and he fumbled the flashlight he’d been holding, dropping it to the deck. With a curse, he fell to his knees and patted the wooden planks. His fingers found the flashlight and he jumped up and flicked it once, then again. He thought he heard a splash, but he wasn’t sure.

      He started the countdown in his mind. They’d agreed on every thirty seconds. One thousand one, he began silently, one thousand two…

      The numbers echoed in his mind, each digit accompanied by the same mantra. Forgive me, Lena. I didn’t have a choice…. Forgive me….

      He’d been completely unprepared for the phone call he’d gotten early that morning. Mateo’s voice, coming over the tinny line, was the last one Andres had expected to hear only a few hours before his wedding. His best friend, Mateo Aznar had helped the eighteen-year-old Andres escape Cuba twenty-four years before and had served since as the sole source of information Andres had on the island. A former cop but now working for the Justice Department, Andres passed the intelligence on, most of it centering on one organization—the Red Tide. A drug cartel that purported to be freedom fighters, they had no good intentions.

      “You’ve got to come,” Mateo had gasped. “They’ve found out about everything. The radio, the lines, everything. If you can’t get me out, they’ll kill me.”

      Andres’s breath had stopped. “But how did they—?”

      “I have my suspicions.”

      “The same as mine?”

      They hadn’t wanted to say the name—in Cuba, there were ears everywhere. Andres wasn’t sure Destin was any better.

      “Sí,” Mateo had replied. “I’m certain it’s him.”

      “Do you have any proof?”

      “I’ve got records of the payments. I think it’s good enough together with what you know of his ‘friends.”’

      They’d gone on to what was needed, talking in a code they’d already developed. Within hours, Andres had been on a plane to Miami, then at the dock, renting the boat. He loved Lena desperately and the decision had torn him apart. But it was the only one he could make. When this was all over, he’d go back to her. He’d tell her what he could and pray she’d understand. Deep down, he knew she wouldn’t, but to get through the night, he had to believe in the lie.

      One thousand twenty-nine, one thousand thirty… Holding the flashlight above his head, Andres switched it on once more. His eyes searched the water. He’d anchored well offshore, but Mateo should have been visible by now. A movement to the right caught Andres’s eye. Was it him? His palms pressing into the railing, Andres peered over the side of the boat.

      If he hadn’t been so focused, he might have seen them.

      As it was, when the white-hot flash of the spotlight blinded him, Andres was astonished. The huge cutter loomed as suddenly as if the boat had been dropped from above. When his vision returned, shocked and in a panic, he shot his gaze back to the water. Twenty yards off the bow of his own vessel, he spotted Mateo, floundering in the waves. Before he could cry out, the larger boat angled between the two men.

      “Put your hands up and prepare to be boarded. Drop any weapons now!” The warning was given in Spanish, through a bullhorn from the deck of the ship.

      “¿Comprende?”

      Instead of answering, Andres screamed into the night. “Hurry, Mateo, hurry! You can make it! Swim faster! I’ll come get you!”

      The water was choppy and rough, but Andres’s and Mateo’s eyes connected over the waves. In that instant, that split second, Andres knew he’d done the right thing. Leaving Lena at the altar, giving up the only woman he’d ever loved…How could he have lived with himself otherwise? He revved the engine then maneuvered the tiny boat around the cutter and headed toward his friend.

      He reached Mateo just as an onslaught of bullets peppered the water. A searing pain streaked down Andres’s arm as he took a direct hit, but the wound was nothing compared to the agony he felt as Mateo screamed and began to flail about in the now crimson waves.

      “Goddammit, no! No!” Andres gunned the boat and cut past the spot, turning the craft as tightly as he dared to fly back once more. He searched the waves with desperate eyes, placing himself between the huge ship and where Mateo had been, but there was nothing to see.

      Mateo was gone.

      Andres screamed a useless curse and wasted a few more dangerous moments searching the water. With no other choice, he spun the boat around and disappeared into the darkness. Gunfire followed his wake, but it couldn’t reach him. His craft was fast and small, and the cutter didn’t have a chance.

      He made it to Miami a few hours later. He’d sacrificed love for loyalty, a wife for a friend.

      Now he had neither. It’d take him a lifetime to forget.

      And forever to forgive.

      CHAPTER ONE

      Destin, Florida

      Two years later

      LENA MCKINNEY stepped onto the red-carpeted aisle of the flower-filled church, the solemn strains of the “Wedding March” drifting above the crowded pews.

      All the guests were watching her and she knew what they were thinking—little Lena McKinney was finally getting married…after all this time! Her tomboy years were behind her, and now she was a woman. From beneath her lacy veil she smiled with silent satisfaction, then all at once, the realization hit her.

      Other than the veil, she wore nothing. She was completely naked.

      A wave of humiliation swamped her as she dropped her bouquet and tried to cover herself. Her actions were pointless, though. Everyone had already seen. Everyone already knew.

      With a startled exclamation, Lena woke up and pushed herself out of the tangled sheets of her bed. She glanced at the clock on the nightstand, her heart still pounding from the dream—5:00 a.m. What in the hell was she doing? She had to get up in another hour, and now she’d never go back to sleep. She never did after the dream.

      She collapsed against her pillows, muttering a curse then immediately chastising herself. Her poor mother was probably turning over in her grave. That’s what came from eating, breathing and drinking your work, Lena thought guiltily. She was starting to sound like the testosterone-charged cops she worked with 24/7.

      No excuse, her mother’s ghost said with a hopeless sigh. You’re supposed to be a lady, try acting like one for a change.

      Lena stared at the stained ceiling above her bed. At least her mother hadn’t been alive to see the Disaster, which was how Lena always thought of the aborted wedding.

      The beautiful sanctuary, the silken gown, the wonderful music…every detail coordinated down to her bouquet of white freesias and apricot roses.