On the Line (Special Ops) by Capri Montgomery Read Free Book Online

admitted.
     
    Micah growled. “Alex, try to raise Preston. If you can’t get him go through the files and get his contact. I don’t care what time it is there, just get me somebody.”
     
    Since Micah had vanished on them that one time they hadn’t taken any chances. The check in times came more frequent than they had before. None of them wanted to sit back and think the worst outcome of the situation so they put revised procedures in place. Jet knew they all respected and loved Preston. None of them were willing to sit back and wait for the second check in, not if Natalia’s gut feeling painted Victoria as a potential stalker, a shopping obsessed woman or something worse.
     
    The “I don’t know what,” part of Natalia’s statement had been the tipping point. She was an excellent judge of character and they all knew that. She had painted the last woman who tried to get Preston’s attention as a “gold digging hussy,” and she had been right. A little background check and Micah had found two ex-husbands who had gone bankrupt in their divorce—as in she cleaned them out and then divorced them and took what was left—after only three years of marriage to each man. There was no way any of them were letting Preston walk into that trap. Actually they shouldn’t have been worried because they all knew the man wasn’t even thinking of getting married, but a few minutes of fun with a woman like that could strap him with child support for the rest of his natural days. They hadn’t seen the threat, but Natalia had.
     
    She had seen something else too, something they all suspected, but never really said anything about. She had seen how bad Carissa was for Alex. The fact that he hadn’t stopped calling her the package was a clue to them that he wasn’t happy enough in the relationship for commitment, that he was trying to keep his distance, but Natalia had noticed something more. When he came back from an event his family was throwing and he nearly locked himself in his office and wouldn’t talk to them she had been the only one he let in. She told him then, just as she had told them, Carissa wasn’t the woman for him. “A good woman,” she had said, “one who loves him would defend him to his family, not take their side and imply that he could make a bigger name for himself if he created his own company.” Alex was happy where he was. They all knew that, but for some reason his family and Carissa saw bigger dollar signs for him, something more prestigious. “What do you want, Alex?” She had asked him when he finally did return to one of their night outs. He had told her he wanted somebody who could appreciate him for who he was, what he did, and not try to change him—to not think so little of him, but to respect him. “Then wait for the right woman to come in your life who embodies all those things. Respect her, cherish her, support her, and demand the same from her. If she loves you; if she’s right for you, she’ll give you all those things without asking you if you want her to.”
     
    They all agreed with her, although none of them knew exactly how to say what she said. She was good for Alex. If Natalia and Micah weren’t together maybe those two would have been perfect as more than friends. Jet shook the thought from his mind. They were good as friends, and thinking anything more than that would be wrong. Alex needed his own special woman, not one that was already taken. Given Alex and Natalia’s tight friendship Jet didn’t think Alex would ever try to overstep the bounds of friendship with her. Not to mention that it would break a serious code of trust and honor; he wouldn’t do that, and neither would she. She was deeply in love with Micah, even if it did take him too many years to see it.
     
    “I’ll see what I can map out from his last location.”
     
    “Do you think you can find anything?”
     
    Natalia smiled big. “If I borrow a couple military satellites I can,” she