This was, without a doubt, a complete disaster; a total clusterfuck of a waste of their time.
And the first thing Rio needed to do was bring the admiral up to speed.
* * *
Still no contact.
Thomas had extracted from the pod before dawn—before Tasha was awake. He’d written her a very brief sticky note, left on the bathroom door—Back soon.
He’d left unspoken the end of his sentence, which went something like:hopefully with a team of SEALs and FBI agents who will rescue you from the small army of hostiles who are still out here searching for you, and who will also please please PLEASE God rescue me, please sweet Jesus, from having to continue with part eleventy-nine of last’s night’s endless and terrifying conversation.
Although, after she’d gone to bed, while he was lying on the sofa and not-sleeping, he’d come up with his opening salvo, should part eleventy-nine take place:What about Ted? Remember Ted? Your soon-to-be fiancé with whom you share an apartment, a bedroom, a bed...? How does Ted factor into“I want this, to be locked in here with you, Thomas, forever”...?
So, good. He was ready, because part eleventy-nine was sure as shit coming at him at warp speed as soon as he walked through the door, cheerfully calling, “Honey, I’m home!”
Rescue—both physical and emotional—wasn’t coming soon, because there still had been abso-fucking-lutely zero contact.
Although Thomas had heard a jet overhead, slightly before dawn. He’d spotted it, too—an F-15 fighter. It had made at least two circles, but not directly overhead. And up way too high for the pilot to be actively searching for anyone, let alone them.
Thomas was starting to believe that whatever was happening out in the world was a total clusterfuck, because this was day four, and in what universe did Admiral Francisconotmanage to send a full team in a guns-bristling warship out to the extraction point to rescue Tasha by day four?
Only dark and scary ones, for sure.
So either the U.S. had had—or was in the middle of having—a 9/11-level attack, or the admiral had, as Tash had initially feared, been among the first casualties.
The very words Thomas had told her when she’d wondered aloud about nuclear war echoed in his head, and he reminded himself again that, at least in this remote part of the Northeast, the electrical gridwasstill up and running.
Of course, the CONUS grid was a disparate patchwork of systems. Major US cities across the country could well be charred and smoking.
And okay, thoughts like that weren’t going to help him.
Unless he and Tasha were among the very last men and women left alive.
That grim fact would make all of his personal conflicts vanish pretty damn fast.
Except, there was still a motley platoon of men out here in the woods, searching for someone or something. Occam’s Razor said it had to be Tasha and Thomas, even though reasoning and logic couldn’t explain why they were being hunted after they’d so obviously been left alive and let go.
Reasoning and logicdidpoint out that the still-present army of hunters indicated that something less than full nuclear annihilation had occurred. Surely in the event of that enormous a disaster, the leader of this ragtag group would have better things to do—like establishing his warlord status in the new world arena by looting all of the toilet paper from the local Ralph’s or Piggly Wiggly or whatever local grocery chain lived out here in backwoods New England. Everyone knew that in an apocalyptic world, hoarded toilet paper was a king-maker.
Therefore, it was highly unlikely that Thomas could simply throw up his hands and surrender to Tash’s debate points from last night due to reasoning based onNo one else is alive here in the Thunderdome, he might as well accept his fate and start repopulating the human race with a brilliant, gorgeous, funny-as-hell woman who adored him.
The phraseaccept his fateechoed as he headed back to the sex-pod—shit, ever since Tasha had called it that, he had to work to think of it as anything else. And that meant when he was with Tasha—which was every damn second he wasn’t out here attempting to facilitate their rescue—he was hard-core policing every stupid thing that came out of his mouth.Don’t say sex-pod, don’t say sex-pod...
Wouldn’t it be nice to just give up and give in?
Yeah, thanks so much for that gem of bad advice, brain. Glad I wasn’t listening to you when I went through BUD/S or I wouldn’t be a SEAL. I would’ve “given in” to the exhaustion and I’d’ve rung out.
But he’d wanted to be a SEAL with a fiery passion. He’d burned to become a SEAL. Similarly to the way he wanted this, to the way he wantedher—
What?Thomas shut that shit down fast. The idea ofwantingTasha in that way was just too damn unsettling.
Except...
What if, like she’d said, hehadmet her for the first time, just last week in Werewulf’s, while sitting at the bar, watching the same movie and laughing. Their age difference now wasn’tthatbig a thing. Yeah, she was young, and he’d catch hell from his teammates for dating a woman twelve years younger—but only because he’d giventhemhell in the past for doing the same. Although, Tash—a college grad—was actually older than most of the women that his teammates dated, since they went on the theory that college-age women would be on board for an easygoing relationship with fewer strings.
And it wasn’treallythe age difference that was problematic. It was that Thomashadn’tmet Tasha last week at ’Wulf’s. He’d met her back when she was freaking five. He’d babysat her, for Christ’s sake.
But then she’d gotten older and started babysitting kids like Joanna McCoy, and he’d often still hung out with her, because he’d liked spending time with her. He definitely came to her rescue whenever she’d needed him—but she’d rarely needed him, because even when she was twelve or thirteen, she was going on thirty in a lot of ways.
