On the Way Home

by Skye Warren

So I made myself scarce and returned to my seat.

  “Everything okay?” James asked.

  “She had an EpiPen. Seemed okay, but…”

  But what the hell did I know? She’d definitely get checked out by a doctor on the ground. My time in the army had taught me that human life was both incredibly strong and infinitely fragile. I had seen a man move a Humvee to get his friend out from under it. They both lived. And I had seen a guy die in a bar fight during shore leave. A single punch to the head, landed wrong on the concrete floor—lights out. I had learned not to take anything for granted, even the relative safety of American soil.

  The rest of the flight continued without incident. The departure took a little longer than usual as they first escorted the woman off the plane. She was long gone with paramedics by the time I walked through the gangway.

  Della was still there, speaking with another stewardess off to the side. I hoisted my bag on my shoulder and kept walking.

  “Talk to her,” James muttered from beside me.

  “Not a chance. I have Chelsea waiting for me, remember?” And based on my rapid pulse and dry eyes, the time away had messed me up more than I’d thought. I was in no condition to be around a woman, neither the one I’d just met nor the one I’d left behind.

  James snorted. “I didn’t say take her into the bathroom for a quickie. Just talk to her.”

  I shook my head, at both the man’s way of speaking and his suggestion.

  So, I’d felt a little attraction for someone. No big deal. As James had said in his own way, we were away a long time. It was normal to look. But if I went over to speak to her, it wouldn’t be as a passenger on her plane. It would be as a man interested in a woman.

  I just kept walking.

  * * *

  James swept Rachel up in a bear hug and gave her a searing kiss. I turned my head away out of respect, though I saw plenty of people stopping to stare. They looked pretty great, I had to admit. Great enough that I felt the absence of someone in my own arms acutely, like a knife in my side. Despite some of the crude things he said, I knew James was head over heels for this girl.

  Rachel had a hug for me too. “You been staying out of trouble?”

  “Pretty much.” Aside from the two gunshot wounds that had been patched up in the field. James had sewed up one of them.

  “This guy’s a hero.” James grinned. “He even saved someone’s life on the plane ride over.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Don’t listen to a word he says.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. I don’t.” But Rachel was looking at her boyfriend with pure affection.

  It didn’t go unnoticed by James, who pulled her in for a longer kiss. “Let’s get out of here,” he murmured, low enough to be for her ears only. I shifted on my feet, feeling like an intruder. The terminal was bustling with people meeting loved ones. Emotion all around, battering me like little pricks, more painful than stitches in the jungle.

  I felt Rachel look at me, heard her soft whisper. Not the contents, but I could guess where this was going.

  “Hey, man, you need a ride?” James delivered the offer casually, but we all knew what was at stake. The last time we’d met in the airport, Rachel had been standing beside Chelsea.

  Wasn’t gonna happen. That wasn’t disappointment sinking in my gut, was it? Guess I really had thought she’d show up. I’d sent her my itinerary, just in case. What a shmuck.

  “I’m sure she’s on her way,” I said, lying through my teeth. “Don’t wait up for me.”

  Rachel looked worried. “You sure?”

  James mostly looked impatient—no doubt to take Rachel home and get busy. And why not? The guy deserved his R & R. No point in holding them up just because I was having woman troubles.

  “Don’t worry about me,” I said.

  “I’m a little worried,” James said. “But not because of Chelsea.”

  I knew what he meant. He meant he didn’t like Chelsea. He also meant I was a walking target if anyone found out about the memory stick in my bag. No way was I gonna check in luggage with that little piece of intel. But no one knew I had that list, and I would keep it that way.

  “Well, don’t be,” I said. “Seriously, you guys are chilling in a cold-ass airport just to hang out with me? I must look better than I thought.”

  “Fuck you,” James said with his usual friendly nature, but in his eyes I saw the warning. The data on that stick could make a lot of powerful men nervous. The kind of men who asked questions with their guns and made inquiries with C4 explosives.

  It had been risky to even keep the damn thing. When I’d told my commander about it, he’d quietly told me to lose it. But the potential reward was too rich to pass up. This was national-security stuff. This was domestic security stuff, the kind of thing that kept children safe and off the streets. All of that compared to my life. I had figured out a long time ago how little it was worth.

  So I had defied a direct order. And I would have to identify a high-ranking official, someone I could be sure wouldn’t turn around and sell the information, someone with enough of a fire under them to actually pursue the list through the proper channels.

  “I’ll call you,” I said in concession. I definitely wanted James’s help on this. That was the reason I’d told him about it. Best friends. Blood brothers. I could count on him to have my back.

  He nodded. “In that case…”

  “Yeah, yeah, get out of here.”

  I didn’t have to tell them twice. After another hug from Rachel, they disappeared into the crowd.

  Damn. After searching baggage claim and the pickup circle outside, I had to admit Chelsea wasn’t coming. The area was sticky and hot with the exhaust of all the idling cars. Everywhere I looked there were happy, tearful reunions. Bags going into cars. Kisses across the seat before the car pulled away.

  No Chelsea.

  I tried calling again. Voice mail. After the beep, I said, “Hey, Chels, it’s me. I’m at the airport. I got your message, but I… I was hoping you could come pick me up. We could talk… or not. Call me?”

  Shmuck.

  I crossed the little intersection to where a sign indicated cabs would stop. Unfortunately there were no yellow cars lined up. Nothing at all. It seemed weird in such a busy airport, but maybe a bunch of planes had just arrived. Or maybe I was in the wrong place.

  But traipsing all over the airport at this moment felt suddenly… impossible. Whatever survival mechanism that sustained me through the mission had subsided, leaving me tired and broken. My legs felt like jelly, way too wobbly to support my overlarge frame. I sat—or collapsed—on a bench and dumped my duffel bag beside me. Hopefully a cab would pull up.

  My eyes fell shut. I’d definitely found sleep in the middle of worse situations. It wouldn’t be appropriate here, of course, but I didn’t care about that anymore. It was beyond me to care.

  Sleep didn’t come.

  I heard the soft squeal of breaks in front of me. Instead of a yellow car, it was an older model black truck. The window rolled down, revealing the flight attendant from the plane. Della.

  She raised her eyebrows. “Hop in, soldier.”

  Scrubbing a hand over my face, I looked left and right. Everything was just as I’d thought. People meeting loved ones. No sign of Chelsea.

  “What?” I said, mostly stalling.

  “I said get in. I’ll take you home.”

  I shifted on the seat, wishing my brain wasn’t filled with cotton. Was she hitting on me? I mean, clearly she was trying to pick me up, but was she also trying to pick me up? She was gorgeous, and I hadn’t even looked in a mirror in days. Mostly because I wouldn’t like what I saw. There was no reason to think she was interested in me that way.

  As if to confirm it, she added, “Look, I can take you wherever you need to go. I don’t feel comfortable leaving you here when you look like roadkill.”

  Right. So she wasn’t interested in me that way.

  Even so, if she were a man and I wer
e a woman, the situation would not be entirely safe. But in this case, I was a giant fresh out of combat, and Della was a tiny little thing. Even if she did drive a big truck, I doubted she would turn out to be a serial killer. Stranger things had happened, but considering the sadistic assholes I’d just tangled with, it was a risk I could take.

  My phone screen was still blank. No returned called. No texts.

  I let out a breath. “Do you know where the cabs line up? I saw the sign for here, but…”

  “They moved that to Terminal C. It got too crowded around here so they split it up. You would’ve had to follow the signs from the gate.”

  And I hadn’t done that. I’d gone with James to the car pickup area, expecting Chelsea to be here. Hoping she’d be here, the same way she’d been here the last time I’d come back from overseas. That was probably stupid, but this last undercover thing had been rougher than I’d expected, rougher than I could have expected.

  The final weeks of army training were supposed to be tough. The training for spec ops was supposed to be tougher. But nothing had prepared me for the sight of kids being used. Nothing prepared me for not being able to do a damn thing to help them. Instead I had to gather evidence, to shoot the shit with the scum of the earth and laugh about it. So yeah, I’d played the fool here, and the pretty stewardess got to witness it.

  “I’ll chip in for gas,” I said.

  She smiled. “You don’t have to do that.”

  I pulled open the door, tossed my duffel bag to the backseat and climbed in. “I have a girlfriend.”

  It wasn’t the smoothest delivery. Nor was it strictly true, considering I’d been dumped. But I needed to talk to Chelsea before I really knew what was going on. I needed closure. And I wouldn’t take the chance of leading Della on that something could happen. She deserved better than some strung-out army grunt on the rebound.

  Grimacing, I chanced a look.

  She raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. “In that case, I’ll let you chip in for gas.”

  Chapter Three

  Della

  He was silent for the first five miles we drove. Once he told me what part of town he lived in, he’d shut down. It might have been insulting, the way he barely spoke to me, how he refused to make a move. Even if he did have a girlfriend waiting for him.

  What was I going to do about her?

  His eyes were closed. Was he sleeping? But no, I could feel his presence vibrating through the air in my truck. It had been like that in the airplane too, his vitality like waves that could lap at my cheeks. His large body swayed gently with the motion of the truck. That relaxed pose was a facade, something that would fool a lesser fighter into thinking he was unaware.

  But I had plenty of experience with men’s bodies. I knew how they looked when stalking their prey. I knew how they looked at the height of climax. This man had been through hell and back, and I knew that look too.

  Cuts marred his tanned cheek and neck. Something had made a gauge at the back of his neck, leaving a scab still puffy with irritation. Heavy shadows marred his eyes, almost as heavy as a bruise, dark slashes beneath his golden lashes.

  Kind eyes. I had learned to recognize those too.

  A bright sign for a drive-up fast food place passed us by, and I exited the freeway.

  “Where are we going?” he asked, his voice husky with exhaustion.

  “Figured you could use some lunch. You look hungry.” More than hungry. He looked like he needed… everything. Food. Sleep. Even air itself. If I’d met him a different way, I would have wanted to give him those things, to care for him. To protect him.

  Which was funny, considering.

  He shook his head. “I’m okay.”

  “Come on. It won’t bite.” I maneuvered the truck beneath the small overhang carport and rolled down the window. “When’s the last time you ate, anyway? I know they didn’t serve lunch on the plane.”

  “I had coffee…” He scrubbed his face with a hand. “A few hours ago.”

  “Proving my point, soldier. A big boy like you needs nourishment.”

  He gave me a strange look, as if he couldn’t figure out if I was flirting with him. Maybe when he figured that out, he could tell me, because even I wasn’t sure. What I did know was that I couldn’t fight him. Despite the obvious toll his trip had taken, he was alert. His fists were huge, his muscles clearly defined beneath the army-green shirt he wore. No, the only weapon I had against him was sexuality.

  What else was new?

  “I’ll take a burger,” he conceded. “And whatever’s the biggest soda they have.”

  Yeah, he’d probably take an IV injection of caffeine if they had one. He was battling sleep big-time. But he needed rest. Caffeine wouldn’t be good for him. It wouldn’t be good for my purposes either.

  I leaned out the window and ordered three burgers and an extra-large lemonade. He raised his eyebrows at the change in his order, but he didn’t complain. Naturally submissive. I could tell these things, often after speaking with someone for a minute. That wasn’t conceit talking. In my old job I only had a minute to figure a guy out. That skill helped in my new job too.

  Girlfriend or not, he wasn’t immune to me. He thought I was looking at the menu, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw his gaze, hungry and a little desperate, on my body. The blue airline uniform was stiff and unappealing, but he made me feel like I was dressed in silk. Not even the cheap, gaudy kind, but something luxurious.

  His voice was gruff when he spoke. “So… how’d a nice girl like you end up in this dirty business?”

  Surprise forced all the air from my lungs. “What?” I managed to get out.

  He nodded toward the badge still stuck to my chest, the one with gold airplane wings and the name Della. “Charging fifty bucks to check in a bag. Holding us hostage during layovers. It’s practically highway robbery.”

  “Oh.” The air suddenly liquefied again, rushing into my lungs like a waterfall.

  His brows drew together. Was that concern? God, it had been so long since anyone had worried about me. No, it had never happened.

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “Bad joke.”

  “Don’t apologize.” I tried to smile. “You’re right. They’re pretty evil about it. But I have to admit, they’ve taken good care of me.” The pay sucked, but the health benefits were stellar. No risk of getting raped or killed, for example. That definitely improved my well-being.

  “That’s good.” The sleepiness had drained from his eyes, leaving only a piercing intensity that seemed to see right through me.

  I shifted in my seat and looked away. Point one for soldier boy.

  “Did you always want to fly?” he asked softly.

  A knot formed in my throat, and I swallowed around it. Point two. I may not come out the winner in this match. But then, that was the point, wasn’t it? Dmitri thought I was going to die on the mission he’d given me. Maybe so, but I’d go down fighting.

  “Yeah,” I said, just as quietly. “I always wanted to get away. No one can touch you in the sky, right?”

  He caught the steel in my voice. His eyes sharpened into blades; they cut me open. I bled onto the steering wheel, all over the console beside me. All the while thinking touch me, touch me, touch me. A lifetime of bartering with my body had left me broken inside, unable to tell the difference between lust and affection. Or maybe I could always tell the difference. That was why it hurt so damn much.

  A knock on the window startled me. I let out a small shriek, then blushed, embarrassed. Warmth covered my hand, and I looked down to see his larger hand over mine. Comforting me.

  Drawing in a breath, I pulled away. There would be time enough for that. He’d touch me plenty more places before we were through. Every one outside my body, but nowhere inside me. I wouldn’t let him touch me there. I paid for the food and rolled my window up. The business of brown paper wrapping and straws were the distraction I needed to pull myself together.

  * * *

  We g
ot back on the road quickly. I watched with some fascination as he scarfed down the burgers, the sight of his throat swallowing strangely compelling. Or maybe not so strangely. I knew my tastes in men ran to the perverse. But I was used to dealing with smaller men, ones with slender hands and hips. The kind I could lock between my legs until he convinced me to let him go.

  Clint would be nothing like that. He had enough power in his pinky finger to level me. And the thought of all that power being wiped away… My stomach turned over.

  But it wasn’t a guarantee he would die. He could defend himself—better than I ever could. And I was well-accustomed to do-or-die situations.

  As in, I did what Dmitri said or my sister died.

  “You want one?” Clint held up a foil-wrapped burger.

  Shaking my head, I put the truck in gear. “No, thanks.”

  “Are you sure? A big girl like you needs nourishment.” His low voice was teasing, and despite myself, I smiled. We both knew he outweighed me by a hundred pounds, but the low tenor of his voice when he called me a big girl told me he wasn’t talking about my size. He was talking about sex. But playfully. Without the hint of coercion I was used to. Damn.

  And did he have to be so cute? I didn’t want to find him adorable. I didn’t want to like him at all. This would be so much easier if he were a sleazeball like Dmitri.

  My phone buzzed in my purse, and I pulled it out.

  Well?

  One word and my heart plummeted. Dmitri. He wanted to know if I’d gotten the man named Clint Adams, the one who’d been sitting in seat 34B. Uh, yeah, I had him, but Dmitri had neglected to mention that man would be in combat gear. Clearly he was in one of the military branches, which made him extra dangerous. It also meant he served his country, and I had a lot of respect for that.

  Enough respect to let my sister die?

  I texted back one-handed at a red light. Working on it.

  Because I didn’t have this all worked out. In a few minutes we’d arrive at his house, where his girlfriend would no doubt be. Not a very good girlfriend, I thought with some disgust, since she hadn’t bothered to come pick him up. But I could hardly be jealous, considering. At least she wasn’t going to get him killed.