“I would love to help.”
“Thank you. I’m having to rely on the kindness of you all. I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t found Q when I did.”
Ellis squeezed her shoulder. “I, for one, am very glad you found him.”
“Same,” Remi said. “I can’t imagine having to live that way.”
Looking back, she wasn’t sure how she’d survived. Living with Q was hard but so much easier than life had been before she escaped. Now, her most pressing concerns were how to spend her time and not worrying about making someone so mad that she ended up in the dirt.
She could survive this life. She could figure out how to live in Q’s world, but going back was impossible. She could never go back to how she’d been living before. Q would come home, and they would learn how to live together. Maybe he wouldn’t want to stay with her. Maybe he would think she was too much of a problem, but at least she was free.
17
Qand his team had spent the last two days going over everything, combing through all the intelligence they’d received, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. They still weren’t sure who had tipped their target off, but he was tired of it all. They were getting nowhere, and he wanted to go home and see Flora.
Since they were in Brazil and not a war zone, they weren’t going out into the streets to ferret out leads. They’d come here to do one thing and one thing only. Chasing down their target would have to be left up to the Brazilian military.
Rider stood and stretched. “We haven’t figured anything out.”
Trip leaned back in his chair and groaned. “No, we haven’t. I think it’s time we leave and let other agencies figure out what happened.”
“Good idea,” Bud said.
Q stood and began gathering his things, tossing the trash into the can and moving the tables back to their original place.
“Well, Q is ready to go,” Rider said.
He turned to them and threw up his hands. “We’re wasting our time here. Something happened, and they aren’t telling us the full story. We need to leave.”
Bud and Hop began packing up their stuff, and the rest of the team followed. In less than an hour, they were ready to go. Rider had called in their decision to leave, and the plane was getting ready. Their contact with the military came by, and they looked unhappy that they were leaving.
“We haven’t found anything at the site. We still have people combing through, looking for evidence. There are a few bodies, but we don’t think it’s our guy.”
Q wanted to tell the guy they had a problem in their own ranks. Someone had tipped off the target because they didn’t want him caught. That was the best explanation. Now they would have to wait and see if he went through with his plans to take out the shipping port, or if that too had been a ruse.
Rider nodded. “I don’t think it’s your guy either. We aren’t solving anything sitting here.”
The man glanced around then nodded. “Thank you for coming down. I wish the final result would have been different.”
“Same.”
They were headed home. That was the best news he’d gotten since they’d left California a week ago. He wanted news from Flora. He hadn’t known her long, but he felt things for her.
Once on the airplane, Trip came over and sat next to him. “You happy to be headed home to Flora?”
“God, yes. I don’t know if we’re in a relationship or if she even wants that. She doesn’t know much about the real world, and I wouldn’t blame her for wanting to experience life. I’m not much, and there’s so much out there.”
“Not much? Where’s that doubt coming from?”
“Dude, I’m just a SEAL geek who doesn’t do much outside of my job. When I retire, I want to live out in the wilderness. Maybenot around here, but somewhere. I’d be happy with a wide porch around my house and some chairs to watch the sunrise and sunset. She may want to live in the middle of Manhattan or Los Angeles. That would kill me.”
“You don’t know what she wants. Talk to her and stop worrying. She grew up in the middle of nowhere and might be tired of having so much going on around her. The city can be exhausting.”
Q nodded. “It can be. I hope she’s still there when I get back.”
“Trust me, dude, she’ll be there. The way she was looking at you the last time we were over, she’ll be there.”
He narrowed his eyes and stared at Trip. “What do you mean?”
