* * *
West
The barista meets my gaze across the crowded shop and mouths “I’m sorry.” Yeah, darlin’. So am I. Replaying the date in my head, I try to figure out where I went wrong. Pushing for dinner? Cam’s an army explosives specialist—or was. A dinner invite shouldn’t have sent her scurrying. We’ve spent almost every damn night talking, gaming, and flirting since I discovered VetNet sixweeksago.
A splash of coffee mars the table next to my macchiato. The broken mug? She wouldn’t look me in the eyesafterthat.
“Do what I do. Hold tight and pretend it’s a plan.” One of her favoriteDoctor Whoquotes. Well, I had a plan. Get her to agree to dinner. For weeks now, she’s driven me half-crazy with her irreverent mouth and her uncanny ability to predict right when we’re going to be ambushed by a horde ofaliens.
The week we binge-watchedFireflytogether while conquering Mass Effect did me in. I had to meet her. Had to know if I’d feel a spark. Now, I’m on fire, and she’s gone. Despite her insistence that we stick to gaming, I can’t walk away, so I pull out myphone.
Cam, whatever I did, I’m sorry. Pleasecallme.
My macchiato’s lukewarm now, so I carry the tray to the counter and then unload it with a little more force than strictly necessary. A few hours on the heavy bag will erase the memory of the morning, right? And put out these flames? Yeah, even I don’tbelievethat.
* * *
“Holyshit.”
The man leaning against the corner of Lakeview Krav Maga wears an expression somewhere between boredom and irritation, but at my curse, he breaks into a widesmile.
“About fucking time, Sampson. You’ve heard of this thing called ‘work’?” He pushes off the wall, then claps me on the back hard enough to make me cough. “Your website said you were teaching the morning advanced session. I’ve been out here for twohours.”
“Yeah, well the Saturday morning sessions are on hold indefinitely. What the hell are you doing here, Rye?” I’m wound tight enough to snap without warning, and given the look in Ryker’s grey eyes, this isn’t asocialcall.
“There somewhere private wecantalk?”
Ryker McCabe, the only man to bust out of Hell Mountain—the system of caves east of Fallujah where the most valuable POWs were hidden and tortured—has more in common with a piece of granite than a man, but he saved my life twice in a matter of hours, so I overlook the fact that the last time we saw each other, I told him to fuck off. Jerking my thumb towards the dojo door, I mutter, “Myoffice.”
He’s too big to comfortably settle into the guest chair—six-foot-eight, at least two-fifty, and solid muscle under his scars. Insurgents tortured him within an inch of his life for two years, and there’s not a patch of skin unmarked except the left side of his face. Fuckers wanted him to remember he’d been a good looking guy once. He leans against my closed door, and I slide a hip onto my desk. “You’d better not be here on a recruitingmission.”
“West, you’re the best damn infiltration specialist I’ve ever seen. Coop’s got great reflexes, but he doesn’t have your instincts, and Inara’s too valuable as a sharpshooter. That leaves me.” He gestures towards the scarred side of his face. “My undercover days endedinHell.”
“What aboutLandow?”
“Dead.” Ryker stares down at his polished Doc Martins. “Goddamn fucking drunk driver cut him down outside of HQ three days before we were supposed to head to the Sudan. Weneedyou.”
“There are dozens of former SEALs,Rangers—“
“None of them have your skills. Two missions a month—tops. Base rate is five large, just for getting on the plane. Hazard pay for anything in a war zone.” Ryker rubs his meaty palm over his bald head. His right eye droops—nerve damage—and the mangled lid makes him look perpetually sad. “At least come meettheteam.”
“No.” The word catches in my throat. Five thousand dollars for a couple days’ work is hard to turn down, and as I look away from Ryker’s hard stare, I catch sight of the loan paperwork sitting on the corner of my desk. I left that life eight years ago, and I still wake in a cold sweat more nights than not, the scent of blood in my nose, my team’s screams in my ears, and the image of the broken body of an innocent Afghan grandmother burned into the inside of myeyelids.
“West?” Ryker’s voice drops. “You’d be saving innocentlives.”
Shaking my head to banish the memories, I clear my throat. “I’ll make some calls. I’ve got a couple of buddies who’d be good atK&R.”
Ryker grunts what might be another curse, then yanks my door open. As he crosses the threshold, he pauses but doesn’t turn around. “You change your mind, you know where tofindme.”
3
Cam
Alone in the office,I turn up the music. P!nk never fails to raise my spirits, but today, Pandora favors lovesongs.
“Get over it,” I mutter as I load up one of Oversight’s modules. “You don’t have time for this sappy bullshit. You don’t even like him in that way.” Jabbing my phone screen—and completely ignoring the text message waiting there—I switch the music to an instrumental dance station. Pandora should really have a “bad date”setting.
“Come on, baby,” I whisper to my code. “Let’s see if you can cheermeup.”
