Her pack went to the window, and she took the aisle seat. Lyons made to sit in the row across from her, but she shook her head.
“If you don’t mind,” she said, “I’d like Skye to sit there.”
Without a word, he tossed his ruck into the seat behind her, placing it like she had by the window, and dropped into the spot next to theaisle. Collins refused to allow the team to be separated from their gear. It was too large to fit in the tiny racks overhead or underfoot. It was fine with her because that meant each of them had their own private spot. The men of Angel Fire hopped on board, and excitement lit their faces with their eagerness to see what lay beyond the security of the base.
The security team had been doubled, perhaps a little more than double. No doubt some of them were a part of Angel Fire’s security detail, but she was fairly certain convoys didn’t travel with that many men.
By the time the bus had been boarded, every seat had been taken, except the one beside her. Forest sat far forward, in the first seat behind the driver. Smiley sat in the bench seat across from him. The two roadies sat behind Smiley. The next several rows were packed with armed security forces, and then the band members stretched out, one to a bench, like her and her team.
“Where the hell is she?” Forest grumbled as he peeked out the small window.
Ash stood at the base of the stairs, his guitar case gripped in his hand. “Here she comes,” he called out. “I told you she’d make it.”
“Goddamn woman,” Forest cursed. “She was never late until she met you, lover boy. You pamper her too much.”
“Like hell,” Ash said with a grin. “She does whatever she wants.”
“Because you let her,” Forest countered.
Ash stepped aboard, thrusting the case in front of him as he worked his way down the small aisle. Behind him, Skye followed, her long brown hair wet and hanging to the small of her back. Tia would have to speak with Skye about putting her hair up while out and about. In this country, women didn’t go out with their heads uncovered. On base was one thing, and in the field, Tia had her Kevlar helmet, but while they traveled the roads of their hostcountry, all women wore scarves and covered out of respect. Good thing she had plenty.
Ash stopped at the empty seat beside Tia and looked around while trying to figure out where to put his guitar case.
“Leave it in the aisle,” Lyons suggested. “No one is going to be up and about.”
Ash set his guitar on the floor between the seats and slid beside the window. Skye settled in beside him, leaning into his embrace as he wrapped an arm over her shoulders. Such an easy intimacy graced the couple, and not for the first time, a twinge of jealousy hitched in Tia’s chest. She was supposed to have that. Scott hadn’t been one for public displays of affection. He barely held her hand in public. Skye and Ash snuggled deep into each other’s embrace, gliding fingertips along skin and pressing lips against forehead and cheek. Tia glanced away before anyone noted the scowl on her face.
Lyons leaned forward and placed his hands on the back of her seat. His fingertips pressed into her shoulders.An accidental touch? Or more?She would need to talk to him about being discreet. Warren had already raised an eyebrow.
“You excited?” Lyons asked. His breath whispered against her ear, sending an electric shiver skating down her spine.
“For?”
He shifted his hand forward, placing it fully on her shoulder where he kneaded her sore muscles. Her muscles were always sore. If she wasn’t humping a ruck, she was at the gym, lifting to sustain the musculature to carry and sometimes run with seventy pounds on her back.
But the answer to his question was a definite no. She wasn’t ready for any of it.
NINETEEN
Baby
RYKER
Hot as shit,Ryker sweated in his desert fatigues. As a child, all the cool kids had sat at the back of the bus. Now, it was a place to shove his team, letting the band lounge up front. Angel Fire along with their security team settled in, joking over past exploits, reminding Ryker how very much an outsider he was with the tight-knit group.
An intimate familiarity developed within the members of a band. He missed it but not the drama that came with it. He’d been in high school when he made his play for the stars. His crew had had a good run, playing at school and church events and even a few parties but too young to play at local clubs. Alcohol and drugs hadn’t been an issue. As a minister’s son, he had run with a relatively benign crowd, not that they didn’t chase girls or drink. The cracks in their group had developed over who took the spotlight and girls. Girls were always problematic. Those issues had brought his bandmates to blows more than a time or two.
Like many diehard fans, he’d followed the epic rise of Angel Fire as they blasted the roof off the charts. He’d also sat with many fans, worried about Angel Fire’s future a few years back when Ash ranafoul of drugs and alcohol. Bash had been a driving force during that fiasco. Word had it, the band nearly hadn’t survived that period of their history. It was right after they’d hit it big, and Bash had been two seconds from walking out. Instead, he’d kidnapped Ash and dropped him into rehab. That story was years old and firmly in the past, and there appeared to be no animosity between the two now.
With a roar of the diesel engine, the bus rolled beyond the gates, following a convoy of military support vehicles and troop carriers. They exited the main gate and headed down the road leading away from Bagram and into the Parwan Province. The infrastructure of the country showed the ravages of decades of war. Soviet era military equipment of all kinds, including tanks and other armored vehicles, lined the desert floor, both beside the road and in rusting hulks off in the distance. Most of it was completely destroyed, not even worthy of salvage.
The convoy traveled slowly at first, crawling past the gates of the airbase, but then they picked up speed. Speed, in this case, meant a sedate thirty miles per hour. The lead vehicle kept an eye out for unexploded ordinance littering the road as well as roadside bombs placed since the last convoy had been through. Insurgents were everywhere, and constant vigilance was essential.
The drone of the engine rattled throughout the floorboards. If he had fillings, they’d vibrate right out. He turned his attention to Tia, noting how she’d pulled away when he massaged her shoulders. There had been no reason for her to do so. He’d done that before sleeping with her, and a simple shoulder massage wouldn’t and shouldn’t draw attention to them as a couple.
Were they a couple? Hard to say. Hell, from her stiff posture and refusal to look at him, he wasn’t sure what they were. Maybe he’d been her one-and-done fling after the whole Scott fiasco. No way was that going to fly. Not that there would be many opportunities over the next couple of weeks to slip away, but he had every intention of finding more downtime with Tia, time where theycould shed all of their clothes and he could fully explore the secrets of her body.
He grabbed the corner of her seat and shifted forward to join her conversation with Skye.
