Without a Trace Read online

  Without a Trace

  Velvet Vaughn

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2020 VELVET VAUGHN LLC

  ISBN: 978-1-7338636-6-7

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Visit Velvet's website at: www.velvetvaughn.com and her Facebook Fanpage HERE.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to the people of Australia.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to sincerely thank the members of my Velvet Vaughn Street Team who help spread the word: Cindi R., Debbie M., Gary A., Karen D., Karen J., Lisa B., Tammy T., Lisa B., Sharon W., Paulyn A and Shelley C. I’m so thankful for all of you and truly appreciate your support. I would also like to thank my social media guru, Kristy O.

  I also want to sincerely thank my fans. You are the reason I do this and I’m so thankful for each and every one of you. A special thanks to all who reach out to me—I love hearing from you!

  And as always, a huge thank you to my mom. I couldn’t do this without you!

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  Notes

  About the Author

  Prologue

  “Come on, Hollister, quit slacking. Give me ten more push-ups.”

  Wyatt Hollister gritted his teeth, his arms shaking from exertion as he slowly lowered his body to the mat. Usually fifty push-ups weren’t a problem. Hell, he could’ve ripped off a hundred without breaking a sweat. That was BTB. Before the bomb.

  A couple of weeks ago, cowardly tangos targeted the COBRA Securities compound and unleashed holy hell in the form of an explosive device that demolished the airport hangar Wyatt had just exited. The concussion from the blast was strong enough to catapult him through the air like a circus stuntman shot from a cannon. Only in his unwitting role of human cannonball, he wasn’t afforded a cushy inflated pad or horizontal net for a landing. No, at the end of his descent, he’d been met by the rock-hard, unforgiving, liberally scattered with tiny pebbles of concrete of the parking lot.

  He wasn’t complaining about his various injuries. He was alive to feel them. Chet Rudd, their lead pilot, and the rest of the airport crew had all perished in the explosion. It’d been their day off, but Wyatt had felt something was off in the company jet the last time he flew the plane. Though he was an agent, he was also a licensed pilot and liked to take to the air as often as possible. He’d called in the crew to check the engine and they’d been inside doing their jobs when a helicopter circled overhead and dropped the missile. The only positive was that they’d felt no pain. They’d died instantly. He’d mourn them for the rest of his life.

  No, it wasn’t discomfort from his wounds that had him cursing like a sailor under his breath. It was the beautiful blond taskmaster subjecting him to a grueling, torturous workout she called rehab. If not for the fact that she was a woman and, well, he loved her, he’d seriously think about wiping that smirk from her pretty pink lips. With his lips.

  Dr. Amelia Howell, said taskmaster, had patched him back together and made it her mission to see that he fully recovered. He was thankful…he was. But there was only so much a battered body could take. She’d found his limit. If she didn’t ease up on him, he was going to do something really embarrassing, like curl into a fetal position and blubber like a baby.

  Through sheer grit and determination, he cranked out all ten reps but collapsed to the ground, his arms refusing to hold him a second longer.

  “Excellent, Wyatt. Now get up. Let’s head to the treadmill.”

  “Leave me here to die in peace, woman.” He winced at his choice of words, remembering the women and men who had died.

  Smack.

  Wyatt’s head jerked up. “Did you just smack my bum?”

  “I sure did. Now get your sweet booty up and moving.”

  Instead, he rolled to his back and pinned her with a glare. “I quit.”

  Amelia fisted her hands on her hips. “You can’t quit. Quitting isn’t an option. I won’t let you.”

  God, she was so beautiful, with her creamy, flawless skin, her flaxen hair fastened into a ponytail that swished back and forth with her movements, hypnotizing him, and her Caribbean blue eyes that mesmerized him. What would she do if he swept her legs out from under her so that she fell into his arms? Then he could finally do what he’d wanted for so long: taste those lush lips. It was all he could think about. He’d fantasized about it—dreamed about it for so long, he didn’t know how much longer he could hold out. Even when she was torturing him with her evil exercises, he wanted her. He plotted ways to get her to stop, most involving them rolling around intertwined on the mat, all naked and sweaty. He’d never tell her, but he actually looked forward to their rehab sessions. He had her all to himself.

  “Now, Hollister. I don’t have all day.”

  “All right, all right,” he grumbled, pushing to his feet and trudging to the treadmill while mopping sweat from his face with a towel. “But I get to pick the movie tonight.”

  “Oh, no you don’t. It’s my turn and I’m feeling like a good old-fashioned tear-jerker. Maybe The Notebook or PS I Love You, or A Walk to Remember.”

  “Hell to the no,” he argued. “No chick flicks. Ever. It’s in the contract.”

  “We’ll see,” she grinned as she punched a button and the belt started moving. He had no choice but to walk or be hurtled through the air again, this time backwards. No thank you.

  He didn’t care what they watched. It could be one of the sappy rom coms she liked to tease him with or heck, the television test pattern. As long as Amelia was curled up beside him, all was right with the world.

  Chapter One

  Wyatt Hollister was a man who knew how to kiss a woman. Amelia’s lips tingled from his erotic assault. Soft and gentle one minute, firm and demanding the next. Just when she thought she might melt into a puddle of need, he switched course and she reveled in the feel of his talented lips as they ghosted across her cheek and settled in to nibble her neck. Chill bumps broke out along her arms. His tongue darted out, causing her to shiver. She reached for him—

  The plane lurched, jarring Dr. Amelia Howell from her naughty dream, and she straightened in her seat, surreptitiously wiping her chin to make sure she hadn’t drooled in her slumber. She glanced around the interior of Doctors International’s corporate jet as it winged its way to Santigo, a small, landlocked nation in the middle of South America. Two additional physicians and two registered nurses were making the trip with her. Once they landed, they would be split up, e
ach heading to a different hospital set up in remote parts of the rainforest that covered most of the country to tend to the villages and tribes that lacked even the most basic medical care.

  Amelia had wanted to participate in the humanitarian cause for years but work as an emergency room doctor was as physically demanding as it was emotionally draining. She’d achieved her goal of becoming an ER doctor, a job she thought she’d stay with for years. But she was ready for a change. She’d resigned her post to accept a full-time job as the official physician of COBRA Securities, a world-renowned security company headed by cofounders Logan Bradley and Luke Colton. Luke and Logan had been floating the possibility of her becoming their primary physician for years and finally made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. They were even building a facility to her specifications and paying her a generous salary. When she woke up in the mornings, she had to pinch herself to make sure it wasn’t a dream. It was the perfect job.

  One of the doctors she worked with at the hospital was skeptical of her career move. He predicted she’d be bored within a week, going from the fast-paced, hectic energy of the emergency room to a low-key, private setting. But the men and women who worked for COBRA Securities did important, often dangerous work and they were always getting themselves hurt, sometimes shot. She wouldn’t be bored.

  She’d listed her house in town and it sold after two days on the market. She’d packed up her essentials before she left for Santigo. A moving company would handle the rest. Most of her belongings would be placed in storage until she could build a house on a piece of property she purchased in the family section of the compound near her college roommate, Maggie Addison McQueen. Her commute to work would be a short golf cart ride away. She couldn’t wait.

  She loved everyone involved with the company, especially Maggie and her husband Carter, along with Maggie’s older brothers Noah and Ethan. And Wyatt.

  Amelia shook her head hard to dislodge the random thought. What was she doing dreaming of Wyatt anyway? He was her patient. Her friend. So maybe she’d secretly harbored a thing for the sexy blond Australian for a while now. They’d spent quite a bit of time together recently after he’d been seriously injured in a bomb blast that destroyed the airport hangar that housed the company jet and killed all its occupants, including the entire airport crew. And he was a bonafide hero. He’d singlehandedly saved dozens of lives from certain death when he’d taken out the pilot of the helicopter after it circled back around to bomb the jet fuel tank located close to the compound that housed COBRA Securities and their families. That Wyatt had been severely concussed and suffering from multiple injuries and double vision was forgotten when he crawled to his vehicle, retrieved his sniper rifle and squeezed off the fatal shot that saved so many lives. How he managed to accomplish the feat in his condition was a mystery and just another reason in a long, long list of them that had Amelia dreaming of him almost every night.

  As it happened, she’d been at the compound that fateful day. She’d never been as terrified as when he’d been rushed to her after the explosion. She thought he was dead. For a moment, she blanked. Completely blanked. She couldn’t remember any of her years of training or all the hours she’d spent in emergency medicine. All she could think about was that he couldn’t die.

  His pain-filled groan when two of his coworkers placed him on the table in the room she’d commandeered inside the workout facility was the prod she needed to snap her out of her shock. She went to work on him and then made it her personal mission to rehabilitate him back to health. At first, she’d been gentle, knowing he was in pain. But as the injuries healed, her tactics turned stringent. She became his taskmaster.

  Still, she wasn’t an all work and no play gal, so they spent evenings watching movies and binging seasons of various shows on Netflix. She was surprised that they had the same taste in shows. They both loved mystery/thrillers and comedies. While she enjoyed romantic comedies, too, she didn’t subject him to any chick flicks, which worked out for her, too since she couldn’t watch a couple fall in love without picturing her and Wyatt in those roles.

  It was impossible not to fall for him, she rationalized. Most women did. Not only was he handsome and sweet and kind, but he was strong and virile and so damn sexy. And that accent. It weakened her knees.

  “Hey there, beautiful, can I buy you a drink?”

  Having just been fantasizing about Wyatt, it took a moment for Amelia’s brain to register the person speaking to her wasn’t him. She almost groaned but forced a smile at Donald Bainbridge, the grandson of Dr. Luther Bainbridge, founder of Doctors International. Dr. Bainbridge established the worldwide charity forty years ago after a trip to Guatemala where he witnessed firsthand the need for medical care for the disadvantaged and less fortunate citizens. People were dying and he wanted to do something to help. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Doctors International now operated in over sixty-five countries around the world.

  Having stepped back from running the day-to-day operations, Luther now served as honorary president while his son, Dr. Warren Bainbridge, oversaw operations with the help of his son, Dr. Warren Bainbridge Junior, Donald’s older brother. From what Amelia deduced, Donald was the black sheep of the family, even though Luther introduced him at the orientation session as a valuable employee fostering goodwill with the countries they served. He looked more like a hedonistic playboy with his golden hair, fake tan and laidback, cavalier attitude. She couldn’t picture him doing any actual work. His clothes were expensive and wrinkle-free, and his nails were buffed and clean. She’d noted that his palms were callus free and his grip was weak when she had to shake his hand at the banquet following the first day of training. He’d raked his gaze suggestively over her body and then winked at her. She’d loathed him on the spot.

  Still, as annoying as Donald was, his older brother Warren Junior was far worse. Every time she spotted him, he was staring at her. He didn’t even try to hide the fact that he was watching her every move. It totally creeped her out.

  The orientation program in Atlanta had been three days of lectures on protocol and procedures. She knew that it wasn’t safe to venture out into the jungle on her own and that many of the tribes and natives weren’t as open to medical care, especially from foreigners and most especially from a woman. Each participant was provided with a messenger bag filled with an instruction booklet on the procedures they’d just learned, notebooks, emergency supplies and a water purification kit. Before she left home, she’d acquired the shots recommended by the Center for Disease Control and the World Health Organization for hepatitis A, hepatitis B, typhoid, cholera, yellow fever and rabies. Malaria contracted from a mosquito bite was a concern, but there was no currently licensed malaria vaccine on the market.

  She’d also had a Nexplanon implant in her upper arm to prevent unwanted pregnancy if the worst happened and she was attacked. The tiny, thin rod was about the size of a matchstick and it would release hormones into her body, preventing her from becoming pregnant with a ninety-nine percent effective rate. It wouldn’t work against sexually transmitted diseases, but it was much easier to endure the implant than having to worry about forgetting to take pills. The implant was good for up to five years, and she could have it removed at any time.

  As she sat in the room listening to different people speak, she felt Warren Junior’s eyes on her. Each time she caught him, he didn’t bother to turn away. It was as if he wanted her to know he was staring. She came close to getting on a plane and heading home after last night when someone knocked on her hotel room door at eleven pm. She’d just fallen asleep when the pounding woke her up. After grabbing the robe the hotel provided, she checked the peep-hole, shocked to see Warren Junior standing there. She debated what to do. If she ignored him, she was afraid he wouldn’t give up and would return later that night. She decided to face the problem head on. Leaving the chain on, she opened the door.

  “It’s late. Did you need something?”

  “Yes,” Warren replied.r />
  When he just stared at her unblinking, she asked, “Okay, what?”

  “You.”

  Shocked at his bold declaration, it took her a moment to recover.

  “Aren’t you going to open the door and invite me in?”

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Bainbridge, I’m engaged.” She didn’t feel the least bit guilty about the fib.

  His eyes narrowed to slits, as if he knew she was lying. “You don’t wear a ring.”

  “I left it at home with my fiancé. I didn’t want to lose it on the trip. Goodnight.”

  She closed the door, her heart hammering in her chest. She almost expected him to knock again but after a few minutes, footsteps sounded and he walked away. She prayed he didn’t make the trip to Santigo. She didn’t want to have to spend the entire trip dodging his advances.

  The next morning, she packed her belongings and headed to the lobby to catch the bus to the airport. She turned down the hallway leading to the elevator and stopped abruptly when she spotted Warren Junior and Donald arguing in hushed tones. Both looked like they wanted to throttle the other. They were so engrossed in their conversation, they didn’t see her back slowly away and detour to the stairs. Neither man boarded the bus and she thought she’d been home free until Donald climbed on board the plane at the last minute. If one of the brothers had to make the trip, he was the lesser of two evils.

  At the blank look on Donald’s face, she realized she’d neglected to answer his question. Could he buy her a drink? Was he trying to be funny since the drinks on the flight were free? If so, he failed. Miserably. She lifted her cup of ginger ale. “I’m all set. Thanks.”

  He leaned closer and she warred with wanting to gag from the overpowering scent of his spicy aftershave to socking him in the nose for invading her personal space. She shifted closer to the window.