Quick & Snowy

Retired SEAL and now special operative, Barnes Wark just wants to finish his current job—find the long-lost McAllister sister—then escape to solitude in his beachside cottage. He’s not one for fuss, people or holiday cheer.
But for the last four months, every lead has been a dead end, and he’s getting pissed.
Hiding away in a seaside village in beautiful Portugal, he finally finds who he’s been searching for.
Unfortunately, she’s not leaving without a fight and that pisses him off even more.
Dr. Brier Scofield allows herself one indulgence in life and that’s one three-week vacation every year. With no family, she’s dedicated her life to curing the disease that killed her mother.
So when a handsome, but frustrating, stranger shows up and says she has family waiting for her in the snowy mountains, she doesn’t know what to think.
Going from no family to a ton seems daunting and something this quiet, introvert isn’t ready for.
Barnes doesn’t care if she’s ready or not, he has a job to do—and that job is her.
In more ways than one.

“You’re welcome to tickle my nuts and sniff my ass crack, but I’m not removing my leg.” Barnes Wark leaned forward over the rolling belt in airport security and squinted at the name tag on the baby-faced TSA agent.

Oden.

He resisted the urge to sneer at the name since he too had an unusual name that often garnered some quirked eyebrows.

He felt half an ounce of sympathy for the kid.

But it wasn’t enough sympathy to save him from Barnes’s impatience.

The barely legal kid’s Adam’s apple jogged, and his brown eyes shifted from Barnes to his supervisor, who was standing in the corner.

“Don’t look at her. Look at me,” Barnes continued. “I’m the person you’re dealing with right now. You saw my prosthetic after I took off my shoes and thought, Hey, let’s make the cripple remove his leg. I’ve never seen that before.”

The kid’s face was turning the shade of an overripe tomato. He shook his head as if Barnes hadn’t just dived into his sick subconscious and read his mind.

Barnes ignored the man’s silent but colorful denial. “I’m going to give you a second chance to speak to me like a human being with the same rights as every other person in here. So tell me again exactly what I need to remove.”

The kid’s eyes found Barnes’s once more. He swallowed again and nodded. “Belt, shoes, all electronics, all liquids and anything metal. But I don’t need you to remove your prosthetic, sir. A pat-down will be necessary, though.”

Barnes nodded and did as he was instructed, then waited for another TSA agent to wave him through the metal detector.

Of course, it beeped.

He always forgot his dog tags. They were an extension of who he was—just like his leg.

Stepping back through, he lifted his tags out from under his black T-shirt and tossed them in with his belt and wallet.

The moment they were off, he felt exposed.

Vulnerable.

A piece of himself was missing. He needed them back. He needed them back to feel whole. To feel like himself.

Calmly, with a hard swallow, he stepped back through the detector.

It beeped again. He rolled his eyes.

It would beep until the day he died.

He’d been through this scenario hundreds of times. But once in a while, he encountered a wet-behind-the-ears greenhorn who had either skipped the page on amputees in the TSA training handbook or had some overwhelming curiosity that made them break protocol and tell Barnes he needed to remove his prosthetic and put it through the security scanner.

He never indulged them.

Sure, he didn’t give two shits that his left leg was made of titanium. He’d come to terms with that part long ago. He’d rather be bionic and still alive than not alive at all. But he did give two shits, probably more than just two, about being made a spectacle or having his rights violated.

It was one thing to have people stare at his prosthetic, or even his stump when he went to the pool. That no longer bothered him. It was another thing to be told he had to remove his leg to satisfy some sick fuck’s curiosity.

He was waved over to the side, where two male TSA agents approached him.

He didn’t say a word. Just spread his legs and let them do their thing.

They wouldn’t find anything.

He was one of the good guys.

Or at least he tried to be.

The TSA agent who was sliding his hands up Barnes’s thigh was busy explaining what he was doing and why. Barnes tuned him out. The other agent had Barnes’s passport. He glanced into the bin of Barnes’s stuff, and his brows lifted. He’d obviously seen the dog tags.

Barnes waited.

Three …

Two …

One …

“Thank you for your service, sir,” the man said, suddenly standing a little straighter.

Barnes grunted and nodded.

“My father served as well. We appreciate everything you’ve done to keep our country safe.”

Nodding at the man, Barnes accepted back his passport. If only this thirtysomething guy with the wedding band and baby spit-up on his collar knew the kinds of things Barnes had done to keep him and his family safe.

It would give the average person nightmares.

Fuck, from time to time it still gave Barnes nightmares.

“Thank you for your cooperation,” the other man said, standing back up.

Barnes grunted, then continued on to gather his stuff.

He was almost home.

One more flight, Chicago to Portland, and then he could hunker down until the new year.

With his dog tags securely back in place, he finished putting on his belt and shoes, slung his rucksack over his back and headed toward his gate.

His sister had suggested that he spend Christmas with her family in Maine. His nieces and nephew were dying to see their uncle Barney, but he just didn’t have it in him to do the big family Christmas thing.

He wasn’t ready to go back to Maine.

Not yet.

The memories were still too raw. Too painful.