“We were doing recon outside Kandahar. There had been reports of insurgents in the area but command didn’t know for sure and no one on the ground was talking.” His smile turned to a smirk and she watched him slip into his memories. “It was supposed to be easy.”
Mike snorted and beside her, Travis huffed out his breath on a choked laugh. “They’re all easy, right?”
Liam tipped his head in acknowledgment. “Yeah, except this one actually should have been. In, take a quick look around, and back out again. Couple of hours. No big deal.” His smirk deepened, etching lines on either side of his mouth, and she wondered what it would feel like to smooth them with her thumb.
Pushing the thought away as if it might bite her because absolutely no good could come of that kind of thinking, she took a sip of coffee. She sat back in her chair, putting as much distance between them as she could.
“We ditched the Humvee just outside the village. Jefferson had one job: stay with the vehicle and be ready when we got back. Jake, Smithfield, the translator, and I took off for the village to try to get the info we needed.”
“You ran into trouble in the village? Ambush?” asked Mike, setting his mug on the table and looking interested.
“Hell no. That was the easy part. The villagers were great. They didn’t want any trouble. They were as eager to roust the insurgents as we were.”
There was nodding around the table and Andy wondered for about the hundredth time what it was like to see what they’d seen on the other side of the planet. Before the farm, she thought she’d lived a pretty diverse cosmopolitan life. Nothing about her past had been sheltered or small. But while she was off feeling like she owned the world, she’d had no idea what guys like Jake were going through.
“We were back in half the time I thought it would take us,” said Liam, his expression softening at the memory. “When we got back to the Humvee, Jefferson was asleep in the driver’s seat and there was a herd of goats deconstructing the vehicle.”
“Why?” asked Travis after the laughter died down around the table.
Even Jake broke a smile. That alone was enough to make her cut Liam a lot of slack.
“We’d been humping it for three straight days. Jefferson was beat like the rest of us. I guess he figured it was a safe enough place to catch some sleep. He used brush to camouflage the Humvee and did such a good job, he attracted a herd of grazing goats. They started on the brush and kept going. By the time we got there, they’d pretty much destroyed the canvas cover and the seals around the door armor. I had a bitch of a time explaining the damage to HQ,” said Liam.
He laughed, a deep, rich sound at odds with the arrogant badass she’d gotten used to. He kept surprising her; she wasn’t sure she liked it.
“That wasn’t the best part,” said Jake, his quiet voice cutting through the laughter.
Andy waited for him to elaborate but instead of speaking, he pinned his gaze on Liam as if the other man held the key to something he wanted. Which might be the case.
“No, it wasn’t,” said Liam, his smile turning the blue of his eyes from ice to something much warmer. “The best part was the village woman who chewed Jefferson a new one for messing with her goats.”
“Seriously?” asked Mike.
“Jefferson slept through the fucking goats—sorry,” he said, catching himself and shooting her a sheepish smile.
“No apology necessary. It’s Millie you have to worry about,” she said, enjoying the way he seemed to squirm at the mention of the older woman’s name. She had a feeling Liam rarely lost control or said anything he didn’t mean to say.
“I’ve heard that word before,” said Millie, setting a beautiful golden-yellow Bundt cake on the center of the table.
Travis jumped to his feet, hurrying to grab bowls of lemon curd and cream from the counter. His forehead creased as he glanced at the older woman. She might have heard the curse word before, but the few times the guys lost their place and slipped in front of her, she’d read them the riot act. Andy had no idea why but Millie had a weird kind of soft spot where Liam was concerned. At least she wasn’t the only one who noticed it.
“That doesn’t make it okay for me to say it in front of you. I apologize.” Liam looked solemn and surprisingly repentant.
Andy wasn’t ready to assume he was genuinely sorry, but from the expression on Millie’s face, she was willing to forgive the man anything.Honestly.
“Finish your story,” said Millie, cutting thick slices of cake.
Andy caught a whiff of the buttery lemon goodness and lost track for a moment of anything but the promise of cake.
“Jefferson slept through the goats trying to eat the vehicle,” said Liam, cleaning up his language from before. “But he woke up when he heard us approach. By that point we weren’t really trying to be quiet.”
“Smithfield was laughing like a hyena,” said Jake.
“He wasn’t going to be the one who had to explain the damage,” said Liam, hitting the younger man with a smile.
“Truth,” said Jake, stabbing a bite of cake and mock saluting Liam with his fork.
It felt so good to see him start to relax and engage. Andy took the downhill section of the emotional rollercoaster and thought good things about the Viking.
