Hal blinked. “Terminal? I thought you were taking some time to figure things out, not totally leaving the Marine Corps. Oh boy. Does Chris know?”
Joe swept Raine into a big hug.
As if Hal had summoned him, Jane’s uncle called. She saw the caller ID and winced. “He does now.” Before she could think twice about it, she picked up the call and held it out to Raine. “Raine? I think this is for you.”
Raine managed to crawl out of Joe’s embrace to grab the phone. “Yeah?” She winced at the shout that answered.
Hal and Joe shared a commiserating shrug then vanished from the room like ghosts.
Jane would have done the same, because she could hear her uncle screaming at her cousin through the phone despite it not being on speaker.
“Oh no you don’t.” Raine grabbed Jane’s collar. “You threw me to the wolves.”
“Technically, wolf.”
Raine tucked the phone against her chest to muffle her uncle’s roaring. “You put me in this mess. You’re in it with me.”
“Hey, I was nearly killed the other day. I don’t need this kind of stress in my life.”
Raine tugged the phone back to her ear and released Jane. “You’ll be nearly killed again if you leave me with this psycho.” She put the phone on speaker in time for Jane to hear their uncle loud and clear.
“Psycho?Psycho?” Uncle Chris shouted. Explosions and screaming sounded in the background. “You want a psycho? I’ll give you a psycho!”
Jane settled into what promised to be a royal butt-chewing. But hey, at least it wasn’t at her expense.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The call went as expected.Uncle Chris demanded answers Raine refused to give, citing “It’s my life and my decisions. Butt out.”
That went over like a shark in a kiddie pool.
Raine seemed dispirited, not willing to fight back the way she normally would. Jane took over while her cousin stood in front of the fridge, staring blankly at its interior.
“She’s having some issues right now,” Jane told her uncle.
“I know that,” he snapped. “Talk some sense into her. She’s the best in her field right now. The Corp needs her. Hell, she can ask for whatever she wants if she reenlists. Despite what the military says it can and can’t do, they’ll move mountains to keep her. Raine’s fast-tracking to bigger and better things.”
“She needs time.” Jane added quietly, “And I think she needs to evaluate if this is the best thing for her.”
“Exactly.”
“I meant her staying in. She needs a break at least.”
“Fine. If she needs it, she—” He paused to yell away from the phone, “Hondo, you can’t keep blowing crap up. I wanted a peek into that building, and now we’re out of luck.”
She heard Hondo over the rumble. “There’s one more. I think. Malcolm is…” Something exploded. “Uh, I’ll go talk to him. Malcolm, bro, I think that’s an IED. Go left.” A pause. “Your other left!”
Uncle Chris growled, “Jane, I have to go before one of these idiots kills himself or the rest of the squad. Help Raine out, okay? Before she does something she can’t undo.”
He disconnected.
Jane turned to her cousin, who sat at the kitchen island with a dispirited attitude, slurping down a strawberry yogurt.
“I thought you were staying here while on leave, thinking about things. You went back to close down shop? Getting out for good? Have you given yourself a chance to think about it?”
Raine’s hair stuck up all over. Her jeans had stains, and rips showed through her tee beneath her camo jacket. What the heck had she been up to the past two weeks?
Jane asked in a softer voice, “So you just decided to rip off the Band-Aid and make it permanent?”
