Excerpt of Awaken to Danger by Catherine Mann

Where was she, and where the hell were her clothes?

Flat on her back in a strange bed, Nikki Price stared up
at the ceiling fan moving slower than the spinning
ceiling. Click, click, click. Blades cycled overhead in
the dim light, swaying the chain with a tiny wood pull
dangling from the end.

"Ohmigod, ohmigod. Oh. My. God." What had she done last
night?

She tried to look around but her eyeballs seemed stuck,
all swollen and gritty in their sockets, her head too
heavy to lift off the fabric-softener-fresh pillow, sheets
equally as soft against her bare skin. All over bare.
Goose bumps prickled over her completely naked body.

"Not right," she whispered to herself, her quiet voice
bouncing around the quieter room sporting a hotel-generic
decor. "Not right, not right."

Her bedroom fan pull sported a miniature soccer ball with
tiny flowers painted on the white patches, a gift from her
brother last Christmas. "Okay, I'm not totally losing it
if I'm noticing silly details like overhead fixtures,
right?"

No one answered. Thank God.

Still, nothing was familiar in the dim bedroom, only a
hint of early sunrise streaking through the blinds. Voices
swelled outside the walls. Her stomach clenched.

Okay, almost definitely a hotel.

She inched her fingers under the covers across the
mattress, farther, farther again. Empty. She searched her
mind for clues before she would have to turn her head and
confront whoever might be in the room with her.

Panic stilled her more than even the nauseating ache
stabbing through her skull. She hadn't drunk much the
night before. Had she? She scrolled through the evening,
getting ready to go to Beachcombers Bar and Grill for the
live music — and a neutral place to break things off with
Gary. But she couldn't recall much of anything after
asking for a second amaretto sour. She wasn't an angel,
but she'd never expected to wake up in a strange bed.

Of course she hadn't expected to do a lot of the reckless
things she'd done over the past seven months since Carson
Hunt tromped her heart. Truly tromped. Not the sort of
temporary hurt that came from having a crush go south or
getting dumped by a guy she'd just met. No. He'd deep down
damaged her soul so much that even thinking about him
still made it difficult to breathe. The ache of betrayal
by her first real love might never go away.

Although these days she was more mad than hurt.

Could she have been mad enough last night to do something
beyond reckless? Something totally stupid.Apparently she
had since here she was. She'd thought she was ready to
break up with the latest loser she'd been dating in hopes
of filling that empty spot left by Carson. Finally she
would move on with her life.

Okay, so she dated Air Force pilots — like Carson. From
the base where Carson was stationed. And most of them
happened to be tall and blond like, well, Carson. It had
only taken her seven months to make the connection —
hello? — but once she had, she'd resolved to set her life
right again and end things with her latest Carson
substitute, Gary Owens.

No wonder she'd frozen up when any of those dates so much
as kissed her. She wasn't interested in them. Which made
her feel even worse. No guy — even a loser — deserved to
be used as a replacement for another man.

Her stomach rebelled. So why was she naked in a hotel
room? Apparently she'd gotten over her kissing aversion.

She swallowed down fear along with a prayer that whoever
she'd been with had used a condom. From here on out, she
would stop being such a loser. She risked a deeper breath,
inhaling the scent of laundry detergent. Masculine
cologne — ohmigod.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Breathe in…cologne and an air of something else, an
unfamiliar smell she couldn't quite identify, but her body
shivered in disgust all the same. Somebody was in the room
with her. Still asleep? Or in the bathroom?

Please, please, please at least let it be Gary, even if
they'd never slept together before. He hadn't been at the
bar last night for those few minutes and couple of drinks
she could remember, but he'd been the one to set up the
meeting by sending her an e-mail asking her for a date.

Bracing herself for the worst anyway, she arched her
aching body, her head pounding as she rolled onto her side
under the cotton sheets. Fresh pain pounded as her cheek
met the pillow, but she stifled the urge to moan. The room
appeared as empty as the bed. She gulped in gasping
breaths, her heart now hammering harder than her head,
relief making her darn near dizzy. At least if he was in
the bathroom, she would have a second to collect herself.

Palms flattened to the mattress, she angled up, cool
morning air prickling along her skin. Winters in South
Carolina were all the chillier for the humidity. Cold and
damp, like the ancient tombs her junior high students were
currently studying in honors history class — and ohmigod,
she was going to be late for work.

"Hello?" Her voice crackled up her parched throat. "Uhm, I
would really appreciate it if you wrapped a towel around
yourself before coming out."

She didn't risk guessing a name.

Nikki waited, but still no sounds from the shower or
anywhere else. She squinted to look through the dim
morning light across the room. The tiny bathroom seemed
abandoned. Relief rode a shuddering exhale racking through
her.

She would worry later about the rest when she swiped the
fog from her head. She wasn't off scot-free thanks to
those unaccounted for hours, but she didn't have to
confront the awful awkwardness — and horror — of facing
some guy she couldn't even remember picking up.

New leaf turnover time.

Hell, she would turn over a whole flipping tree. She was
done feeling sorry for herself just because
Carson "Ultimate Loser" Hunt had drop-kicked her heart in
one unforgettable night. She would take control of her
life and her emotions.

Pressing the heel of her hand to her melon-heavy head, she
swung her feet to the floor. Thud. Her toes struck
something solid rather than carpet. She toppled forward,
her heart double-timing to marathon pace.

Arms flailing she grabbed for the end table, slammed to
her knees, her teeth jarring together. Pain sliced through
her head. She squinted in the faint light….

And stared straight into the unblinking eyes of the dead
man on the floor.

Major Carson "Scorch" Hunt was dead tired and he hadn't
even eaten breakfast yet.

Of course he hadn't fallen into bed until two in the
morning due to an emergency on the flight line and he was
back at his desk by dawn, hoping for a more peaceful day.
No such luck.

Now thanks to a phone call from the security police, peace
was on hold for far longer than the sausage-and-egg
croissant he'd picked up at a fast-food joint. On his way
out the office door again, he jammed his arms back into
his leather flight jacket that had never made it onto the
brass anchor peg before his phone rang.

A lieutenant from his squadron was dead.

Damn it. His fisted hand snagged inside the sleeve. He
punched it through.

He'd braced himself for the possibility of losing someone
in battle, but not at home. Worse yet, the young pilot was
Carson's responsibility as second in charge, since the
commander was deployed to the Middle East with the other
half of the squadron.

Shrugging the jacket over his shoulders, he bolted down
the hall, through the glass door and out into the parking
lot. Early-morning traffic clogged the base streets,
adhering to the so-damn-slow speed limits. Screw it. The
VOQ — visiting officer's quarters — was only about a mile
away. On foot would be faster, taking him there in under
five minutes. He sprinted through the web of parked cars,
tucked through the creeping traffic, ignored the honks.

The phone call from base security police hadn't said more
than Lieutenant Gary Owens was found dead in the VOQ with
a woman.

Owens had an apartment downtown, but sometimes guys
checked into one of the rooms for the night if they were
par-tying nearby and too drunk to drive home — or if they
lucked into unexpected plans for the night. With a woman.

Boots pounding pavement, Carson tried to block thoughts of
exactly which woman Owens had been dating for the past
month. Of course stemming thoughts of Nikki Price had been
damn near impossible for a long time. For over two years,
actually, since a pool party at a squadron member's
apartment when he'd realized his crew member's daughter
had grown up. Really grown up. Smart, sexy, twelve years
his junior and the daughter of a man he respected and
admired. Not to mention Carson wasn't in a place to offer
any woman a secure, stable happily-ever-after.

And still he had weakened and betrayed his friend by
sleeping with Nikki. Once. A mistake he couldn't repeat
even though his pulse rate jackhammered through him at the
mere possibility Nikki could be in trouble.

Carson left the road for a shortcut across the lawn, past
pine trees and bare-limbed oaks. He had no claim to Nikki,
and yet here he was, running like hell for her as much as
the dead lieutenant. Her boyfriend.

He couldn't stomach thinking about her with Owens. But who
else could be in that room? And if the guy had been
cheating on Nikki with another woman then somebody
deserved an ass kicking.

Except damn, damn, damn it all, Owens was already dead, a
screwed-up kid who'd just gotten his life back on track.
Carson had been so sure he'd helped the baby pilot, but
had he intervened soon enough?

Think. Focus. If Nikki was inside that brick building,
then she needed him, even if he was the last person she
would want to see.

Each huffing bootstep drawing him closer, Carson trained
his eyes on the security cop cars — at least a dozen —
encircling the three-story building along with an
ambulance. Looked like everyone who wasn't guarding the
gates had been called. Police in camo and blue berets
secured the scene. An SP — security police officer —
guarding the front entry held up a hand.

Before the military cop could speak, Carson nodded. "I'm
Lieutenant Owens's commander."

The SP nodded and saluted. "I'll radio ahead and let them
know you're on your way, sir. Down that hall and around
the corner."

"Thank you, Sergeant." Carson slowed his feet, if not his
pulse that still slugged from dread more than the mile
sprint.

He cleared the front desk and strode down the narrow
carpeted hallway, taking the corner on a sharp pivot. The
corridor hummed with organized pandemonium, more cops and
base medical personnel, a couple of agents from the Air
Force OSI — Office of Special Investigation.

His eyes scanned past to home in on one person.

A woman sat huddled in a chair outside a VOQ room, blanket
wrapped around her while her teeth chattered, security
cops on either side. He didn't need to see a face to
recognize her. Nikki Price.

Hell.