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  TAKE COVER

  A Novella in the Echo Platoon Series

  MARLISS MELTON

  A NOTICE TO THE READER/LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY:

  This book is a work of fiction and is a product of the author’s imagination or is used fictitiously. Names, characters, and incidents in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone, living or dead, bearing the same name or names. All incidents are pure invention from the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or businesses or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Marliss Melton

  Smashwords Edition

  All rights reserved.

  James-York Press

  Williamsburg, Virginia

  Edited by Sydney J. Baily

  Cover Design by Dar Dixon

  Print Layout by BB eBooks

  DEDICATION

  This one is for you, Mike. You’re one hero I will never forget.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Other Books by Marliss Melton

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  An author has hit her stride when her readers join her in crafting a story. I am so blessed to have loyal fans who not only proofread my work but to help me come up with the words! Janie Hawkins, I loved having you back in my life. Please stay in it!

  For all the members of my Special Reconnaissance Team who helped this time around—Hooyah! (If you are a huge fan and want to be a member, contact me on Facebook)

  Still, even with so much help, I would be so, so bad without my best friend and editor,

  Sydney J. Baily, to guide me.

  God bless all y’all, as we say here in Virginia!

  Chapter One

  Piped-in Spanish guitar music masked the sound of LT Mitchell Thoreau’s footsteps as he crossed the tiled foyer of Hotel Leonardo, steps ahead of his two teammates. Having come straight from Barcelona International Airport, the three Navy SEALs intended to enjoy their vacation to its fullest. One look at the lovely lady working behind the reception counter, and Mitch lengthened his stride to get to her first. Being on vacation lent him confidence he didn’t usually have with women.

  “Hola,” he said, putting his Spanish to good use and summoning what he hoped approximated a confident grin. “Tenemos una reservación.”

  The hotel employee looked up with a friendly smile. Amber brown eyes widened as they skimmed over him and then peered past him to encompass his approaching friends.

  “Welcome to Barcelona,” she said in flawless English.

  “You sound American.” Mitch’s gaze slid to her name tag—Katrina Ferrer. Her neat breasts, straining the fabric of a white button-up blouse, were perfect.

  “My mother was from Kansas.” She shrugged at the unlikelihood that her mother would be from a landlocked state nearly 5,000 miles away. “I think she took a hot-air balloon to get here. My father is Catalan, though, and I’ve lived here my whole life.”

  “So you speak English, Spanish, and Catalan,” Mitch deduced just as Austin and Chuck stepped up beside him.

  “Yes, I do.” She sent all three of them a dazzling smile. “What name is your reservation under?”

  “Thoreau.” He’d inherited the name from his ancestor, Henry David Thoreau. However, since she’d probably never heard of the American novelist and philosopher, Mitch spelled his last name as she lifted slim hands to the keyboard. No wedding ring, he noticed.

  “Good of you to visit Barcelona, given the state of things,” she said, glancing up to gauge his reaction.

  Mitch hummed in acknowledgement. Their week-long trip to Spain had been planned about a year earlier—well before Catalonia’s push for independence had become a real issue. “Our flight was nonrefundable. We just came from the airport,” he added.

  “Thank you for coming all the same,” Katrina insisted. “You could have stayed home.”

  “But then I would never have met you.” It sounded like a pick-up line, but he was being perfectly honest.

  Her fingers froze for one second—the only indication that she’d heard him. Then she clicked her mouse while staring at the screen. “Here you are. Just one room for the three of you?” She arched an eyebrow at him inquiringly.

  At that moment, Mitch so wished he had a room to himself. Since he and his teammates were used to bunking in the same place and didn’t plan to sleep much anyway, sharing a room had seemed like the smartest way to conserve money. “Unfortunately,” he said, and he had to stop himself from waggling his eyebrows at her.

  Her cheeks had taken on a pinkish hue. “And you’re here for only two nights?”

  “Our plans are flexible,” he replied. For the chance to spend more time with her, he’d happily remain in Barcelona all week, though the plan was to continue to Seville and then to Madrid, spending three days in each of the cities.

  Austin Collins put his elbows on the counter. “Are all the girls in Barcelona as pretty as you?” he asked her.

  Mitch winced at the twenty-year-old’s lack of subtlety.

  Katrina merely smiled. “Of course.” She glanced at Chuck Suzuki, as if expecting him to chime in, but Chuck rarely spoke, and when he did, he used metaphors—hence his call sign, Haiku.

  Katrina laid a sheet in front of Mitch. “Here are our hotel policies. Let me get your signature on the credit card, and then you’ll be all set.”

  He signed the slip with his boldest and best signature. “How do you feel about the Civil Guards?” he asked, putting the pen down.

  Since arriving at the airport, he’d felt like the strong presence of the national police force smacked of foreign occupation—except that, of course, Catalonia was still a province of Spain. La Guardia Civil were everywhere, impossible not to notice in their blue ball caps and armed with assault rifles. He’d seen the clashes on the news between them and the citizens of Barcelona and wondered if Spain was going to turn into another Northern Ireland.

  Tension tightened Katrina’s sun-kissed face. “You understand what’s going on?” she countered.

  “Of course.” The world was watching. Barcelona, the seat of Catalonia’s government, had passed a vote declaring Catalonia an independent republic. In recent history, up to the point of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship in 1939, Catalans had ruled themselves. They enjoyed their own culture, their own language, and their cry for autonomy was being heard across the globe. Yet Spain could not afford to release them. Secession would cripple her economy as half the nation’s wealth flowed from and through Catalonia’s thriving ports.

  “Things feel pretty tense out there,” Mitch prompted, giving voice to his first impression, and wondering how she felt about it.

  “It’s not so bad.” She shrugged again. “Madrid likes to pretend she controls us now, but we will have our way eventually—through peaceful resistance.”

  “Uh-huh.” Mitch wasn’t sure he believed her. Glancing around the quiet hotel lobby, he could only imagine how the unrest had affected the tourism industry.

  “We are peace-loving people,” Katrina added. “We don’t believe in violence. If we did, we would have an army.” She gestured outside as if that settled the matter.

  “The will of the people
should not be ignored.” Haiku had finally spoken up.

  Katrina’s eyebrows pulled together as she considered him. “Well, that’s true,” she agreed. “But violence is not the answer.”

  Mitch could only hope she was right. His commander, Captain Montgomery, had given the three of them strict orders to carry their passports on their persons, and stay the hell out of trouble—good advice, since Austin loved to fight. The young SEAL’s penchant for using his fists, paired with his love of the Flintstones, had given him his code name, Bam-Bam.

  “Here are your three room keys.”

  As Katrina detailed some of the hotel’s amenities, Mitch admired the way her lips moved when she talked. The golden hoops dangling from her earlobes drew his attention to the highlights in her incredibly long, honey-colored hair. He’d always liked long hair on a woman, and hers looked infinitely touchable.

  “What do you plan to see while you’re here?” She had asked all three of them, but she looked to Mitch for an answer.

  “Um.” With her eyes on him, it took a second to recall the sites he’d researched. “La Sagrada Familia,” he said, referring to the architect Antoni Gaudí’s immense cathedral, still under construction a hundred years after his death. “The Gothic Quarter,” he added, “and the Olympic Park.”

  She plucked several brochures from a stand on the counter and held them out. “Take these with you, then. They have coupons and general information. The one on top gives you a discount on one of the city bus tours. I highly recommend you do that. There’s no better way to see the city. You can get off and on wherever you like.”

  Mitch took the opportunity to brush her fingers. Her gaze predictably jumped to his.

  “You forgot to mention—” she paused to clear her throat—“Las Ramblas, which is a very famous street only one block from here.”

  If Las Ramblas hadn’t been famous enough, the ISIS attack involving a van and several unfortunate pedestrians had placed it on the world’s stage the past summer. That incident must have shaken her to the core having occurred so near the hotel.

  “The most joyful street in the world,” he said, seeking to obliterate the tragedy with a timeless literary allusion.

  Her eyes flared in recognition. “You know Federico García Lorca?” she exclaimed, apparently delighted to hear the revolutionary poet quoted.

  He shrugged in acknowledgment. “I’m a sucker for literature.”

  “Me, too.” She studied him for a second. “I’m sorry to stare, but you have the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen.”

  Was she trying to flirt back? If so, it was working. Her frankness was far more seductive than the usual eyelash fluttering or lip pouting he’d learned to expect from women.

  “I get that a lot,” he admitted. This time, though, his face heated, and he had to look away first.

  “Well,” she said, as an awkward pause fell between them.

  Austin snorted in amusement, and Katrina fell back on her role as hotel employee.

  “I hope you have a wonderful stay,” she added brightly. “Can I get you any help with your luggage?” Seeing them with one large duffel bag apiece, she added, “No, I guess not.”

  “We travel light,” Mitch explained.

  Restricted by Spanish law from bringing their own firearms into the country, they probably carried more hand-held weapons in their bags than changes of clothing.

  “Excellent. Be sure to let me know if I can do anything for you—if you need directions to places or suggestions for eating out. I’m sure I can help.”

  Mitch elbowed Austin to keep the kid from saying something inappropriate. “We will. Thank you, Katrina.”

  “Thank you, Katrina,” Austin and Chuck chorused as they all turned and trooped to the elevator.

  As the door closed softly behind them, taking Katrina out of view, Haiku murmured obliquely, “In the cherry blossoms’ shade, there is no such thing as a stranger.”

  Chapter Two

  Katrina suffered a momentary letdown as the trio of riveting American men disappeared into the elevator. Holy smokes. Not to stereotype guests in general, but most Americans didn’t look or act like those three. For one thing, they didn’t have an ounce of extra body fat among them. Lean and muscular, they could have modeled athletic wear. And despite having come straight from the airport after an all-night flight, they looked ready to paint the town.

  Mitchell Thoreau was especially bright eyed. “Stop it,” she scolded herself, embarrassed by her comment to him. So his eyes were as blue as the Kansas sky that had astounded her every time her mother took her back to the States. And so what that he could quote Lorca? That didn’t mean he was the man of her dreams. God knew when it came to men, her judgment wasn’t the best anyway.

  “Stop what?” Her father had apparently overheard her as he pushed through the door leading from the lower level into the reception area.

  “Nothing. Good morning, Pare,” Katrina switched from English to Catalan, the language her father and brothers preferred. “Our three new guests just checked in,” she informed him, relieving his worry that they might not show up. The vote for independence had taken quite a toll on their livelihood.

  When her father didn’t answer, Katrina turned to face him. Older than her mother had been by fifteen years, Felipe Ferrer had gone completely gray since his young wife’s unexpected death five years earlier. Excess weight padded his previously trim mid-section. That morning, his preoccupied expression made him look especially haggard.

  Guessing the reason for it, she cocked a hip against the counter and sighed. The Ferrer family had owned and operated Hotel Leonardo for three generations. Lately, her half-brothers, Martí and Jordi, had been so wrapped up in the political situation, they’d been slacking on their duties and forcing Katrina and her father to cover for them.

  “Let me guess,” she said as the phone began to ring. “Martí is making you cover his shift this morning.”

  “Yes.” Without another word, Felipe reached out to answer the telephone.

  Katrina’s resentment toward her brothers heated to a simmer. Did they have to be so concerned with the fate of Catalonia that they failed to look after their family? Their father, who had been widowed twice, was turning into a sad, old man. And what did they do? They ignored him to head up the Liberation Front, a group comprised of the same separatists who had goaded the Civil Guards in the last violent clash last month.

  Katrina wished she could convince her brothers that their tactics were all wrong. Violence would only tighten Madrid’s hold over Barcelona, fueling the fires on both sides until civil war became inevitable.

  “I’m going to go talk to them.”

  Stuck on the phone with a client, her father shook his head frantically but couldn’t stop her. Through the heavy door marked Employees Only and down to their basement quarters, Katrina hurried, whipping up her indignation as she went. At the same time, she cautioned herself to keep a level head. Martí and Jordi were older than she by a decade. What’s more, Martí had a flash temper, and she would do well to watch her words if she hoped to persuade him that his obligation to family came first.

  “I like that saying about the cherry tree,” Austin said as he tossed his duffel bag into the armoire in the corner of the room. “That Katrina chick is gorgeous.”

  “The metaphor was about hospitality, Bam-Bam,” Mitch retorted, using Austin’s code name to convey how young he was and how much he still had to learn. “Besides, she’s too old for you,” he added, claiming the luggage rack next to the bureau and leaving that for Chuck.

  Chuck rose predictably to Austin’s defense. “Everyone is the age of their heart,” he insisted.

  “Then she’s still too old for him.” Mitch unzipped his bag, hunting for his overnight kit and a fresh change of clothes. As the officer, he got first dibs on the shower. “You two want to plan where we’re going first?” Finding what he needed, he headed for the bathroom.

  “I say we hit up a bar,” he heard Austin
say.

  “Oh, that’s right, you’re legal in this country.” Mitch couldn’t resist one last jibe. He slipped into the bathroom, dodging the dirty T-shirt Austin lobbed at him.

  Seconds later, Mitch studied his naked reflection in the mirror wondering if Katrina had found him at all attractive. She’d made that comment about his eyes, but then lots of people did. Set in a face that was perfectly ordinary, his eyes were more of a liability than an asset in the places he and his teammates visited. He often had to wear brown contact lenses, or at least a dark pair of sunglasses to conceal them and a hat over his light-brown hair.

  Apart from his startling eyes, not much set him apart from his superbly fit teammates. He was one inch taller than the average guy, and prone to keep quiet and let others talk. People tended not to notice him—at least when he hung around his swashbuckling, testosterone-driven teammates.

  On top of that, he didn’t have a specialty yet. After it was discovered he was a jack-of-all trades, he’d been sent to three different SEAL qualification courses, enabling him to step in as explosives expert, sniper, or medic. His competence made him popular, but only among his peers.

  With women? Not so much. Women looked right through him. Part of that was his fault. He’d had priorities like finishing his education and making the Teams. When he became a SEAL, his teammates outshone him, rendering him nearly invisible. The only good news was, they were getting married, one by one, eliminating the competition.

  My turn next, Mitch thought, and his mind went instantly to Katrina Ferrer. Why couldn’t she be the one?

  She lives in a different country, smart one.

  Shaking his head at his ridiculous inner dialogue, Mitch turned and twisted on the shower faucet. Katrina Ferrer wasn’t going to get involved with a guest who was planning to leave in two short days.

  Storming out of the stairwell into their basement apartment, Katrina drew up short at the sound of Martí’s voice raised in passionate defiance. Who was he talking to like that? Curious to find out, she hurried down the corridor and was amazed to hear other voices—several of them—murmuring in concurrence of what Martí was saying.