Alex sighed and reached up, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I don’t remember that becoming my name.”
Billy chuckled. “Yep, that’s definitely your name now. Or I s’ppose we could call you ‘Army Boy’ if you’d rather?”
Herb shrugged. “Army Alex has a better sound to it.”
“Fuck all of you,” Alex said with a sigh, his lips twitching.
“Now that everyone knows each other,” Jon said, his voice switching to boss-mode, “we need to put our heads together and get a move on. We can’t afford to burn any more time.”
The atmosphere in the room grew somber and Lance gave Lynn’s hand a squeeze. He hadn’t specifically asked her to stay cooped up in Jenna’s apartment all day, so much as he had asked her not to isolate herself unnecessarily. She had a car, a full tank of gas, a fully charged phone and the cord she needed to keep it that way, as well as at least one offensive weapon. In addition to her apparently respectable defensive training. He needed to believe that would be enough, because six men—former Marines or not—against however many cartel bastards was not going to be an easy fight.
He watched Jon lean down to drop a kiss on Jenna’s head, too far away to hear any words they exchanged, and saw the guys get up to shuffle toward the kitchen for war-talk.
Lynn pressed a hand to his chest, drawing his attention. “Do what you need to do. I know this part isn’t about me. I’ll be fine.”
His heart constricted at the idea of leaving and having no one in place to watch her back. He released her hand to cup her face, pulling her closer so he could talk at a whisper. “If you get into trouble, any kind of trouble, all you need is an open water source. Jon will hear you from anywhere if you call for him intentionally. Understand?” He hated that he didn’t have his own variation of that obnoxiously useful trick, but it was what it was.
Lynn blinked, visibly startled at the revelation, before her expression softened into calm and reassuring. “Weird, but okay. If that gives you peace of mind, then I promise.”
Lance grunted and pressed his lips to hers in a lingering, too-short kiss. Then, because he had nothing else to offer her by way of his own reassurance, he pulled the tags he’d worn almost every day for seventeen years off his neck and draped the chain around hers. He didn’t actuallyhaveto keep wearing them, and it was a piece of him she could keep while he was away.
Her hand immediately lifted to curl around the metal. “Come back to me, boyfriend.”
Lance dipped his head in a nod, rubbed his thumb along her cheek one more time, and forced himself to follow the rest of the guys across the hall and into the kitchen. He’d never had such a hard time switching gears to focus on jumping into the fray. Most of the time he’d been eager for it, but even when he hadn’t, he knew how to compartmentalize and which parts of his brain to switch off and on.
The things Lynn had him feeling were entirely new, wholly different, and utterly uncontainable.
For nearly an hour, Jenna’s kitchen was crowded with intimidating men in some variation of tactical gear, go-bags at their feet, all quietly discussing a strategy aimed toward ripping the infection of a cartel out of the state Lynnette wasn’t sure all of them even called home. Which, to her mind, only emphasized the brotherhood she’d always seen between servicemen. Men who’d served together, specifically, tended to share a bond fewcould match. She’d seen it when her father met up with his old friends.
Her fingers clutched at the tags hanging around her neck. They felt more momentous than any ordinary piece of jewelry could have, and she found herself wanting to weep.
Lance kissed her one more time before the group of them headed out, taking Jon’s truck and the sturdy-looking Jeep that apparently belonged to Alex. She remembered having seen it parked down from Jenna’s apartment, but other than being unfamiliar, she hadn’t thought much of it.
Once the men were gone, the apartment fell into a brief lull of weighted, emotional silence.
Wind pushed at the plastic taped over the hole that was Jenna’s kitchen window.
Jenna sighed. “Do you want some hot chocolate?”
Lynnette let out a choked laugh. “Yeah, sure.” She rarely indulged in the drink, but it felt like a nice balm in the moment.
Together, the women ambled into the kitchen. Lynnette kept Jenna company while Jenna pulled out some cream and a pan in order to prepare the treat. Jenna moved carefully, favoring her still healing ankle, but she didn’t complain. Not about the pain, anyway.
“I wish I had my ovens,” Jenna said after putting the cream away, the amount she wanted already heating on the stovetop. “I want to bake so badly right now.”
Lynnette smiled. “Still no word on that, huh?”
“I mean, I’m pretty sure Drew was holding it up just to be a dick. That doesn’t mean the department can immediately return it to me now,” Jenna said with a sigh. She was quiet for several long seconds, occasionally stirring the cream as it heated, before finally removing the steaming pan from the burner. With a half-step turn, she poured the hot liquid into the waiting mug. “Did I tell you that the same day I was abducted, Deputy Dennisonalso informed me there had been some kind of break-in at the bakery?”
Lynnette’s eyes widened. “What?” She had to assume Dennison was the name of the one Lance had described as being ‘given some rope’, but she definitely knew nothing of the news her friend had just dropped.
Jenna bobbed her head and set about stirring the steaming drink. “I don’t even know if the story is true. But my bakery has been left sitting neglected, unprotected, for days and now might have been robbed, all on their watch, and it pisses me off.”
“Can’t say I don’t understand.” Lynnette accepted the mug when it was passed to her and took a moment to breathe in the chocolatey aroma. “Have you talked to Lilia about it?”
Jenna nodded again and moved to haul herself up onto the nearest bar seat. “Basically, while they may be out of line, if I overstep in my attempts to reclaim my property, I risk negating my own defense. I make myself look bad. So, I have to wait, at least until she can pressure someone enough to get that part sorted.”
Lynnette scowled. “That’s infuriating.” She sipped at her drink before turning to lean forward, resting her elbows on the peninsula between them. “When’s your window getting fixed?”
