War Games_Valiant Knox

by Jess Anastasi

  Of course she was.

  No way could he trust her judgment, and he couldn’t understand how she’d made CAFF and been entrusted with overseeing all the fighter pilots on the ship. Had anyone ever stopped to question if Bren could have handled the battle differently from the decks of the Knox so that Shen hadn’t ended up ejecting behind enemy lines?

  No one had questioned her.

  If Bren was the one who needed to go to the site, he sure as hell wasn’t sending Harlow, who wouldn’t know he needed to be on guard in case she made any other poor choices.

  “All right. You and the others continue on to the village. I’ll take Bren, myself.” He came to a stop so he could explain the development in their plan to the rest of the team.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Seb muttered under his breath.

  He cut Seb a hard look. Maybe the guy wasn’t directly under his command, but he didn’t appreciate anyone questioning him at the best of times, least of all when he had a loose cannon to deal with and a secondary mission complicating this already complex and risky assignment.

  Seb held up both hands. “Forget I said anything.”

  The fighter pilot moved off to stand with his CAFF, while the others took the momentary halt to grab a drink.

  “As you all know, Lieutenants Rayne and Brenner accompanied us with their own objective in mind. The jet of the missing fighter pilot, Sub-Officer Shen, went down not too far from here. I’m going to take Brenner to check the wreckage, but I want the rest of you to stay on point. Continue to the village. Brenner and I will catch up with you in a day or so.”

  His men nodded without a question or comment between them. Just the way he liked it. Just the way he expected things to run. They secured their drink canisters while Seb and Bren bid each other good-bye, exchanging promises to be careful.

  The group of four set off down the road, leaving him alone with Bren.

  Shit, he hadn’t given this aspect of the detour any thought whatsoever.

  Over the years, they’d maintained a polite but hostile distance. But whether it was the fact they’d been forced to interact, or something else altogether, in the past few days, the barriers had started crashing down around him, bringing up things that were better left in the past. Making old wounds ache again. Taking him back to a time he preferred not to remember.

  The last thing he wanted to do was discuss Jordie, but despite his better judgment, his curiosity had been churning for the last hour over what she’d said in the alleyway. I know what really happened. I know what you did.

  The question of just what the hell Jordie had told her was smoldering like a chemical burn, burning deeper with each passing moment.

  He had no doubt the guy had painted him as the villain of the story, but even that was a stretch. Reading between the lines, it seemed Bren believed him entirely responsible for what had gone down, when the truth was he’d only tried to salvage what was left of a completely fucked-up mission, doing everything in his power to keep Brenner and himself alive until they’d made it to safety.

  Maybe he was better off not knowing. Did it really matter what she believed happened? He’d been there, he’d lived through it. He had the truth. But for some damned, moronic reason, he was starting to care what she thought of him.

  He grabbed his canteen from the side of his pack and took a quick drink before looking over at Bren.

  Right. They were alone. No team to act as a buffer. He was willing to put what had happened in the village behind him and act like an adult.

  “How’s your ankle?” he asked as a safe way to begin the conversation.

  Except apparently it wasn’t, because she aimed a scowl in his direction.

  “It’s fine. It won’t slow us down, if that’s why you’re asking.”

  “It wasn’t.” Seemed like she was about as impressed at being alone with him as he was.

  “Why are we doing this?” She crossed her arms, hostility in every line of her body.

  “I thought you wanted to check out the wreckage—”

  “Don’t play dumb, when we both know you’re not.” She took several short angry strides toward him. “When I tried to suggest we detour to the downed jet because it wasn’t that far out of our way, you refused to hear a word of it. Then, you spend two minutes talking to Seb, and suddenly you’re all for it.”

  What could he say? She’d called him on it and they both knew it. He wasn’t proud to admit it, but he hadn’t performed his best on this mission. At this point, silence was probably his best defense.

  “Is it because I’m a woman? I thought we left that kind of sexism behind in the twenty-first century.”

  Hell, she might as well have sucker punched him. He never had been and never would be some sexist Neanderthal.

  “It is not because you’re a woman,” he returned heatedly, even though he was trying not to let this dissolve into an argument.

  “Then what is it?” she shot back, every word a demand.

  Was it to late to return to his silence-is-the-best-defense plan? The last thing he wanted was to get into this with her.

  “It’s because of Jordie, isn’t it? What you said back in the village. That I’m just like him.”

  God dammit. Why had he opened his stupid mouth? If he wanted someone to blame for things deteriorating, he could easily put all this on his own shoulders. He’d let his temper get the better off him and shot off his mouth. Now, the floodgates were open, and he wasn’t ready for the deluge.

  “We’re wasting daylight,” he said instead of answering. “You want to see the crash site or not?”

  “Fine.” She adjusted her pack, seeming to get a handle on her emotions a lot quicker than him. “But FYI, whatever happened with you and my brother, maybe you could try remembering that I’m not him.”

  The words struck him like a blow to the face. Bren didn’t notice, brushing by him to scramble over a fence and head into the overgrown field beyond.

  Things were way more complicated than her words made it seem… Or so he told himself.

  …

  After spending nearly an hour walking through fields that obviously hadn’t been tended for years, they came across a farmhouse and large barn. The buildings were sturdy and weathered, not looking too worse for wear, but had definitely been abandoned.

  “This must be the Pruitt farm,” Bren said as they strode along the overgrown driveway. It was the first thing she’d said to him since they’d set off. “The man I spoke to said the wreckage had come down in the back forty, near the river.”

  He nodded, a door creaking in the light breeze when they passed the barn. Beyond the structure, they went over another fence, back into knee-high grass. Lucky there weren’t any snakes on Ilari, otherwise he would have had a huge issue with the fact that he couldn’t see where he was putting his feet.

  “The man also said there were a lot of CSS in the area,” she said as though they hadn’t spent the last few minutes walking in silence.

  And great, this just kept getting better and better. Though he supposed she hadn’t told him about the CSS before now because she’d been worried it would give him another reason not to do this.

  He started paying more attention as they got to the far side of the field where the fence ran along a small rise. At the top, the crashed ship came into view, along with the river beyond it, and half a dozen CS soldiers hanging around the vicinity. They didn’t seem to be doing anything other than guarding what was left of the jet.

  They hunkered down in the grass behind the fence, and Bren took out a scope.

  “Well, on the bright side, there are less soldiers than I expected.”

  “Still more than I’d like to be dealing with.” He ran a gaze over the area, calculating how far each soldier stood from the wreckage and what weapons they visibly carried that he could pick out at this distance. “Are you sure you need access to the jet’s computer data? There’s no other way to work out where Shen might have ejected?”

/>   “Not with the same amount of accuracy, no.” She lowered the scope and looked over at him. “So, what’s the plan?”

  Both his eyebrows hiked up before he could get a handle on his surprise. “You’re actually asking me that?”

  Indignation flashed across her features. “You’re the one with the most ground experience, so of course it makes sense for me to utilize that knowledge. I have no idea what I did to make you think I’m so incompetent, but clearly I managed to get this far in my career without any major screw ups.”

  Well, hell. One thing he could say about Theresa Brenner was that she didn’t pull any punches. Yet again, she’d called him on how things were.

  “I don’t think you’re incompetent.” The response was automatic, but not even he fully believed it, so he had no idea why he thought she would.

  “Really? Could have fooled me.” She returned her attention to the scope, effectively giving him the cold shoulder. “What’s your call?”

  He surveyed the field again and flicked through a few plans in his mind.

  “Our best option is to wait until nightfall and go in with the cover of darkness.”

  “Sounds good.” She pushed back on her stomach for a few feet then got up so the crest of the hill would keep her covered. Adjusting her pack, she stared at him expectantly. “Are you coming?”

  “Where?” Had he lost a few brain cells in the past days? Surely, he usually operated smarter than this.

  “Back to the farmhouse. There are still a few hours of daylight left, and I don’t plan on spending them sitting around in an open field where the CSS can stumble across us.”

  “Right,” he muttered, repeating her backward slide before getting up to stay out of sight.

  She didn’t say anything else to him, though her expression was edged in exasperation as she turned away and started marching back toward the farmhouse. And it wasn’t the fun, joke-between-friends kind of exasperation. It was the how-much-longer-do-I-have-to-put-up-with-this-idiot kind.

  Her words were stuck on a repeating loop—first her remark about the fact that she wasn’t her brother, and secondly her accusation about him thinking she was incompetent. The two statements were like acid in his brain, washing away his preconceived notions of her with all the finesse of a fire, leaving nothing but scorched earth in its wake.

  And it was like a film lifted from his vision.

  He hadn’t realized it, but every time he’d looked at her, he’d seen Jordie, even though they didn’t look the same. Sure, there were some similarities. Jordie had blond hair as well, but he’d worn it clipped close to his skull and the blue of his eyes had been a bit muddier.

  Still, he hadn’t been able to look at her without seeing her brother; it’d brought up feelings of guilt and anger he’d spent years working to forget.

  Her words had been as effective as a blade cutting through all the bullshit, although he still couldn’t bring himself to trust her. Nothing would probably come of her impulsive decision, but there was a calculated risk with everything they did while behind enemy lines.

  So, while he wasn’t ready to completely change his opinion of her—because there was no denying some things were in a person’s DNA—maybe he could give her a small break. Start seeing her as her own person, own soldier, instead of just being Jordie Brenner’s little sister.

  Chapter Nine

  Bren had tried really hard not to notice, but McAllister had been quiet since they’d left the small rise overlooking the crash site. Not that he’d exactly been chatty before now, but this silence had been different. More weighted, somehow.

  Or maybe it was just her imagination.

  But ever since that little blowout in the alley, things hadn’t been the same between them, and probably never would be again. There was an undeniable tension. They’d crossed a line—or more like torn it to shreds—and couldn’t go back. Mentioning Jordie had been a tipping point that had spilled long unspoken sentiments between them into a mess.

  Honestly, she was actually relieved to have it all out in the open, even though it’d created this invisible tie between them. Yet perhaps those ties—the ones that kept Jordie around like a ghost hovering in the background—had always been there, only she’d never noticed them before.

  Whatever the case, it was all out, and she hadn’t wanted to hold back any longer. She had no qualms about telling McAllister exactly how it was, whether he liked it or not.

  The man was hard to read. He was so locked down, so in control and calm most of the time. It was impossible to know what he was thinking. Like why the hell he’d suddenly agreed with checking out the wreckage, but then insisted the two of them go off on their own while the rest of the team continued to the next village.

  Operationally, it was a logical decision. But personal history added to the mix made it a minefield. McAllister was playing the professional-soldier-all-the-way card and not letting a little thing like emotional entanglement—of the bad kind—get in the way of his mission.

  Or, he thought he needed to keep an extra eye on her because of whatever had gone down between him and Jordie all those years ago. At least without the rest of the team around, they didn’t have to keep up the façade. They could loathe each other and snipe all they wanted.

  As they approached the farmhouse, she turned her attention to what she should have been concentrating on—their surrounds to make sure no CS soldier snuck up on them.

  She couldn’t ever remember being this distracted on a mission, and if she wasn’t careful, she was going to end up making a mistake that put the rest of the team in danger—which would confirm McAllister’s poor opinion of her. That brush with the hunter’s trap had been enough, though that could have happened to anyone.

  Still, she had to separate the tangled mess of emotions that being around McAllister caused.

  The colonel certainly didn’t seem to be having the same issue, though, she doubted anything would ever knock him off-kilter. So far, he’d proven to be a rock—steady, solid, and quietly self-assured. She could see why men followed him into danger. He was the type of soldier a person could trust to see them home safely.

  It struck her how none of these qualities ran with what Jordie had told her about McAllister.

  Any wonder she was so conflicted. With each passing hour they spent together, everything she’d believed about him was erased, to be replaced with a completely different view. Found herself needing to remember it was the wrong time and place to be questioning exactly what her feelings were changing into.

  They approached the farmhouse from the side, this time passing on the opposite side of the barn. Besides a sad air of neglect, one of the buildings would be a good place to camp out until nightfall. All of the windows were still intact, and the doors solid. From the dust and leaves on the porch, it didn’t seem like anyone had been there in a long time. She was careful not to disturb the leaf litter or leave any footsteps as she crossed to the door.

  It was unlocked and swung inward on noisy hinges. The interior was dim, and McAllister had his flashlight out before her.

  Despite it seeming abandoned, they proceeded quietly, splitting up to search the entire house just to be sure. A few random pieces of furniture remained, but anything of real value had been stripped out, probably by the CSS who were always stealing what they called “donations” from the poor population.

  They both finished their search in the kitchen.

  “Find anything?” McAllister asked as he shrugged out of his pack and set it on the dusty table.

  “Nothing of interest.” She dropped her pack by the back door and went over to check the pantry, even though she knew there wouldn’t be a single thing in there…well, apart from some cobwebs and a spider that went skittering into the corner when the light hit it. “Looks like it’s MREs for dinner.”

  “You were expecting something different?” McAllister actually smiled fleetingly as he pulled a few things out of his pack.

  “Would have been nice,�
� she muttered, resigned to getting her own packets of dehydrated food out of her bag.

  “Maybe if you’d eaten that breakfast I ordered instead of just drinking juice.”

  She glanced up at him. There hadn’t been any heat in the words, just casual observation. He’d noticed how much she’d eaten? She found the notion…endearing? No, that was stupid. The only reason he’d noticed was that she was currently under his charge, and he was a decent kind of CO who cared about how the people he was leading fared.

  “I wasn’t hungry, but I’ll remember that for next time.”

  He’d finished finding a couple of protein bars, an MRE, and had his water in hand, motioning to the back door. “I’m going to eat outside.”

  She used her foot to shove her pack out of the way and then grabbed up her canteen as well.

  Outside, they found a quaint back garden. Once upon a time, when it’d been tended and loved, she could easily imagine it would have been beautiful. An old cast-iron chair and table sat in the far corner, beneath a large weeping tree and next to a dried up pond. The chairs and table were rusted, but sturdy. McAllister righted them and dusted them off before waving for her to sit.

  As she set out her sad excuse for a meal, he dropped down opposite her, casting a quick glance around the garden, then ripping open one of the protein bars.

  The whole thing struck her as intimate. Which was ridiculous.

  Okay, she couldn’t keep denying the man was attractive.

  What would she have thought of McAllister if she’d met him under different circumstances?

  She subtly raised her eyes to study him across the table. He was looking out across the field, sitting forward with one forearm braced against the table, his square features in profile. He rubbed the back of his neck, making his biceps flex, drawing her gaze down to the wide breadth of his shoulders, the strong column of his neck, where his shirt opened a little at the top, leaving her wondering what she would find if she unclasped a few fasteners.

  She flushed hot and snapped her gaze down to her food. Even though he’d never have any idea she’d just blatantly checked him out, embarrassment still swelled, and she had to close her eyes.