Holiday Under Wraps

Book 6: Secure One

by Katie Mettner

Genres: Police Procedurals; Police & Law Enforcement Romance; Romantic Suspense

Synopsis

He’ll do anything to protect her

But this Christmas there will be nowhere left to run…

It takes everything former army officer Lucas Porter has to cope with PTSD—and his new life as a security technician. But he plunges back into danger to help the one woman he never forgot. Now he and former military specialist Delilah Hartman are only seconds ahead of trained killers as they battle a brutal Minnesota blizzard. And keeping her safe means Lucas must resist the reignited passion between them. But will exposing the truth give them a life together—or become an inescapable trap?

From Harlequin Intrigue: Seek thrills. Solve crimes. Justice served.

Discover more action-packed stories in the Secure One series. All books are stand-alone with uplifting endings but were published in the following order:

Book 1: Going Rogue in Red Rye County
Book 2: The Perfect Witness
Book 3: The Red River Slayer
Book 4: The Silent Setup
Book 5: The Masquerading Twin
Book 6: Holiday Under Wraps

Release date: December 24, 2024

Publisher: Harlequin

Print pages: 224

Sample

Chapter One

“Hey, there, Lilah,” a voice said.

She smiled as she turned to him. “Luca. Where have you been?”

“Reloading our water and campfire supply. Did you find anything?”

“Sea glass,” Delilah said, holding her hand out to show him a broken piece of pottery. It was worn smooth from tumbling around in the lake for years.

“Your favorite,” he said, taking her hand and pulling her into a dance pose as he rocked her back and forth on the sand. “What will you do with all that sea glass, Lilah?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered, gazing into his eyes. “Maybe I’ll make art from it to always remember the summer we turned twenty-eight.”

“I hope you won’t need the sea glass to remember.” Luca lowered his magical lips to hers and kissed her like a man in love. While they had never said the words, they didn’t need to. Their bodies did the talking. “I hope to be by your side the summer we turn sixty-eight.” He spun her around in a wide arc until they toppled to the sand, where they stayed, laughing as Lake Superior lapped over them and the sun shone down to dry them.

“Luca, you’re the kind of guy my daddy would have wanted me to bring home. I know it.”

“You think so? I thought your daddy was strict about everything, including his little girl dating.”

“Oh, he’d hate that I left the church and went to war, but he’d have loved you.”

“Since he’s been dead for twenty years, I guess I’ll have to take your word for it.”

“I’ve been thinking, Luca.”

“Uh-oh. It’s never good when a woman opens with that line.”

Delilah rolled up onto her arm to look him in the eye. “You won’t think it’s good, but I made a phone call yesterday while picking up groceries.”

“Who did you call?” His words dripped with defensive dread.

“The VA hospital in Minneapolis. It turns out they have a program there that helps veterans with PTSD.”

“I don’t need a shrink!” His growled exclamation should have made her pull back, but she was past that fear. Delilah knew he’d never hurt her, but he might hurt himself. She couldn’t let that happen.

“It’s not just a shrink, Luca. It’s talking to other people in your situation and developing ways to channel your anxiety so you can live in the world as it is now.”

“My PTSD isn’t any worse than yours, Lilah.” His words were soft this time, and he caressed her face as though she would drop the conversation and fall into bed with him. In the past, she might have, but with his episodes escalating, she couldn’t put off the hard stuff any longer.

“But it is, Luca, and it’s okay to admit that. We had different experiences that did different things to our minds. I can’t wake up to find you in the middle of Lake Superior again. Not when I know there are people who can help you.”

“Will you go, too?”

“If you want me to,” she agreed, even though it was a lie. “I’ll do anything if it means you get help before it’s too late.”

“How long do I have to be there?”

“I can’t answer that question, Luca. That’s up to you and the doctors to decide, but from what I understand, it’s usually one to three months.”

He gathered handfuls of the warm September sand as he stared at the cloudless Wisconsin sky. “I don’t want our time here to end, Lilah. When I’m here, I can forget what happened over there. When I’m holding you, I can forget about the men who—”

What was that music? It was familiar, and Delilah Hartman was supposed to remember what to do when she heard it. Her eyes popped open and she grabbed her glasses, slipping them on to stare at the phone screen.

You’ve been found.

Technically, that’s not what the screen said, but she knew that’s what it meant. Her gaze flicked to the time at the top of the phone. It was 2:37 a.m. Not a great time of day to tuck tail and run, but she didn’t know

if she had five minutes or five hours until someone started breaking down her door, so she couldn’t worry about anything other than getting out undetected.

She slid out from under the covers and stayed low below the level of the windows. Her go bag was packed and easily accessible, something she made sure of every night before bed. Her only decision was how to exit the apartment. It was the start of December, cold, and the recent snow was going to make footprints easy to follow. She could walk out the front door as though everything was fine and it was any other early Wednesday morning, climb in her car and drive away, or opt for escape via the balcony. She’d rented this apartment for the balcony. Beyond it was a forest as far as the eye could see, giving her a place to disappear as soon as she made the tree line. This escape would be the eighth in six years. It was a habit she didn’t like, and as she tied on a pair of boots, slid into her winter gear and slung the go bag around her shoulders, the truth settled low in her gut. She couldn’t do this alone any longer, but the only man who could help her lived somewhere in the middle of northern Minnesota. The one thing she knew for sure was that she wasn’t a Christmas present he’d be happy about unwrapping.

Then again, maybe he would be.

Delilah wondered how Lucas would feel about her popping back into his life unexpectedly after disappearing six years ago. He was probably angry that she’d dropped him off at the VA Medical Center and never returned. That wasn’t by choice. If he wasn’t angry with her, that would quickly change if she brought a passel of bad guys along with her, so she had to be thoughtful about her approach. None of that mattered if she didn’t successfully escape from 679 North Bradley Street in one piece.

Her fingers found the scar on her chin and traced it while she rechecked the app. They had just broken the code and accessed her information, so there was no way they’d be here this quickly. She had time to walk down the stairs, get in her car and drive away. She’d abandon the car at the airport and hop on a plane. When she did, Lavena Hanson would cease to exist. The same way all those other names had over the years. Whether she liked it or not, it was time to be Delilah Hartman again if she ever wanted to live a normal life. Not that she could even define what a normal life was anymore. Normal ended the day she signed up for the army. What a lousy life decision that turned out to be. Not that she had many options. After her father died, her mother struggled to make ends meet, much less pay for college. Enlisting was a way to get her education paid for and come out with real-world work experience. Delilah couldn’t argue with that. She’d gotten the necessary experience, but she couldn’t use it if she wanted to stay alive. Not exactly what she’d had in mind as a fresh-faced army recruit.

Crouched low, she snuck out of the bedroom into the sparse main room of the apartment. The one-bedroom upper had been the perfect place for her when she’d found it nearly five months ago, but she knew better than to do anything but live in it like a hotel room. A stopover on the road of life. She’d been disappointed the first time she’d had to leave a place she’d made her home and promised

herself she’d steer clear of using that word again. She patted the fridge on her way by, which held her only decorations for the holidays. Magnets in the shape of Christmas ornaments covered the front of it in holiday cheer. They’d remain there now for someone else to enjoy.

Delilah had her hand on the doorknob when she heard a commotion in the hallway. “Hey, man, you don’t belong here,” came her neighbor’s muffled voice through the front door. She peered through the peephole, and her insides congealed with fear at the scene in the hallway. There was a man dressed in black with a gun, and behind him was the man who fueled her nightmares. He’d come again, and by the looks of the knife in his hand, he meant business this time.

She heard the pop-pop and was running for the balcony before she even registered that her neighbor had just been shot. Don’t die. Don’t die. She hummed to herself as she silently cut the screen and slithered down the rope tied to the balcony post for this very purpose. She hit the ground quietly, flipped her night vision goggles down, a throwback to her military days, and searched the grounds for signs of life.

Movement to her left caught her eye. The dude was in black head to toe but had his back to her as he faced the front of the building. Slowly, she turned her head to the right and saw another guy dressed the same at the opposite end of the building. Unfortunately, they were wearing night vision goggles, too, which meant she wasn’t undetectable. She pulled her pistol from her holster and steeled herself. She had to make a run for it, but she had to do it right if she didn’t want to be caught in the crossfire. She also didn’t want more innocent people to die here tonight. Her bullets had to find their marks for multiple reasons, the least of which was this snow was going to make it easy to track her. Shooting on the run was always hard, but she had no choice. A part of her brain registered that this was the first time they’d sent more than two guys. Maybe that meant something, maybe it didn’t, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it if she wanted to stay alive. Her concentration could be nowhere but on getting to the trees.

A deep, steadying breath in and she ran, her movement catching their attention, as expected. The guy to her left turned first, and the pop of her gun had him on the ground before he got off a round. Unfortunately, the guy on her right heard the shot and swung his gun in an arc toward her. By the time his buddy hit the ground, she was already firing. Dude number two crumpled, and she turned tail, slid through the trees and ran like the hounds of hell were on her heels.

---

DEATH. NOT AN easy word to wrap a person’s head around, especially when no one can escape it. At the same time, very few people live like they know that. Lucas Porter wasn’t one of those people. He had intimate knowledge of how swiftly death came and held no illusions that he had any control over it. Lucas agreed with the idea that when it’s your time, it’s your time, but he didn’t agree with the old saying

that someone cheated death. No. No one ever cheats death. It simply wasn’t their day to die. He’d seen it on the battlefield so many times. Days when three men rode side by side, an IED exploded and two died, but one was unscathed just inches away. That soldier didn’t cheat death. He had something left to do before death took him. And it took everyone.

Lucas saw death enough times that he made the conscious decision to live every day like he was dying. He wasn’t afraid of death, knowing it was inevitable, so he also made every effort not to leave anything unresolved in life. Unresolved situations only hurt the living, and Lucas never wanted to put that on anyone’s shoulders. He carried some of those situations and feelings that could never be resolved as anyone does, but those memories were motivation not to create more.

He could accept those unresolved situations as casualties of the war he had been forced to fight. He went into the army thinking he could make a career, make a difference, right some wrongs—how wrong he’d been. He was sold a pack of lies, shipped off to a foreign land and given no choice but to fight for his life by taking someone else’s way too many times. He understood it had to be done to protect his country, but he didn’t have to like how it had to be done.

“Time to work, Haven,” Lucas said, unsnapping the dog’s seat belt from the SUV. “Get dressed.” The German shepherd patiently waited while Lucas slipped the military-style harness over his head, fastened the buckles and then double-checked the patches to make sure they were easy to read. Six words stared back at him. PTSD Service Dog. Do Not Distract.

That was Haven’s job. When they were at Secure One, the dog didn’t need his harness to announce why he was there. He was an extension of Lucas, and everyone knew why. When on assignment, not a soul on the team cared about the real reason Haven stood beside Lucas. They knew he would defend any team member. Haven may have been the runt of the litter, but dressed in a black harness with his ears at attention, Lucas hadn’t met anyone who would take him on.

Was he ashamed of having PTSD? No. He knew it wasn’t his fault that he had it, but that didn’t mean he liked announcing to the world why Haven was always with him. Despite the acceptance of PTSD throughout the country, it still carried a stigma that was difficult to see on public faces when they read the patches. He couldn’t count the times he’d been told to “get over it,” “just forget about it, you’re home now,” “just think happy thoughts” and “it will go away with time.” Lucas wished even one of those things were true, but they weren’t and it had taken a lot of therapy for him to trust in his coping mechanisms.

Truthfully, PTSD was a shared experience at Secure One, which Lucas had come to appreciate quickly. The team was great at pulling someone back who was falling too deeply into the past. Haven was trained to key in on Lucas and keep him steady, but he never ignored signs of anxiety from any team member. ...