by Grady, D. R.
Nothing would harm these precious people. “How’s my girl?” She flapped one of Macy’s curly blonde pigtails and this action delighted her niece, who promptly giggled. The sound pierced through to Janine’s very soul.
She would die for this little girl. But she wouldn’t have Macy’s death or destruction on her conscience. Her eyes slid to Ryan. Or his. Resolve firmed Janine’s spine. She would find the answers, because she wasn’t sitting back to watch someone hurt these kids, or any of the others. If they so much as touched one of the children, she’d rip them apart from the seams.
Greg glided up to their hostess and Janine watched him pass along a bubbling casserole dish. She cocked her head. “Your brother is here,” she told KC.
“I saw him. He brought tortilla casserole.”
“Sounds good.”
“Yeah. I’m just glad he came. I thought I might have to go roust him out of his cabin.”
“Looks like he’s here and fairly willing.” Hopefully he enjoyed himself. Janine wondered if the Morrisons would accept him if they knew he brought the potential for death and destruction down on their little community.
Just like her. Janine suppressed a shiver as some of her resolve leaked out.
“Hello,” Greg said when he joined them a moment later.
Janine blinked away her emotions, not intending to reveal her fears to him, or her family.
“Hello.” She smiled at him. He looked at ease, except for a slight tightness in the way he held himself. Like he planned to make the best of the situation, but was geared up to bolt the minute the opportunity arose. He did stroke a finger across Macy’s soft cheek. She grinned at him, but started getting squirmy.
“It gets easier.” She remembered needing that same reassurance.
“Really?” He didn’t pretend to not understand what she referred to.
“What gets easier?” KC asked while Macy launched from Janine’s arms to hers.
KC deftly caught her daughter as Janine answered. “Living through a Morrison Family party.”
“How’s it hard?” KC frowned and bounced Macy.
“When you’re not used to a huge crush of people like this, it’s overwhelming.” Janine glanced at Greg, who nodded.
“I wasn’t used to a huge crush of people.”
“Max eased you in. You’ve thrown Greg into this.”
KC nodded. “You could be right. Anymore, the family is so huge you almost can’t ease anyone into it.”
Janine turned back to Greg. “It will get better. They don’t try to be overwhelming.”
“I suppose it just happens that way,” Greg answered. His nostrils flared.
“Do you need some air?”
“Hmm?” He didn’t appear to comprehend. A panic attack? From a former secret operative? Janine thought about the things this man had seen and done, but what undid him was a simple family gathering? Okay, that was a little bizarre.
She took his arm and yanked him toward an open window. A fresh breeze fluttered the curtains and Greg relaxed. The tension was still there in his shoulders, but he seemed to be breathing normally now.
Who would have imagined a former legend could be so intimidated by family?
Janine glanced around the room. This wasn’t a typical family gathering though. There were so many bodies crammed into the room, the kids didn’t have space to run or roam.
She slanted a glance at Greg. And realized that although a member of his team, she knew next to nothing about him. She knew more about Michael Lamont than she did Greg Gilmore. After working to save his life, she had somehow meshed them into one in her mind. She probably needed to learn to separate them.
A door that would take them to the patio was right behind her cousin Leo and still gripping Greg’s arm, Janine lead him there. Maybe they could talk outside. Questions about their situation tumbled in her head, but right now maybe some insights from his past might help them discover the future.
Please.
Greg was grateful for the firm, but gentle hand that first guided him to the open window then to the patio beyond. He tried to concentrate on breathing, but that hand kept interrupting his efforts. He couldn’t seem to suck enough oxygen into his lungs. Air wasn’t circulating to his brain. That left him feeling dizzy and out of control. He didn’t appreciate out of control.
Yet he could still feel the warmth of Janine’s hand through the thin cotton of his shirt. He enjoyed the sensation. Not a touchy feely person, he couldn’t say her hand on his arm alarmed him. As she slid through the door, he realized she helped him forget about his breathing issues. At least momentarily.
Janine strolled over to a corner of the patio and sank gracefully into one of the loungers. He dropped into the other, grateful to be outside. This was much better.
“That’s Ben and Treeny’s home.” She used a hand to indicate the house directly beside them.
He made a response, but had no idea what it was. Whatever he said must have been suitable because she didn’t scream and flee.
Instead Janine turned those mystical amber eyes on him. “It occurs to me I know very little about you.”
Greg blinked. Where had that come from? “Oh?” he managed to utter. What did she want to know? What could he tell her?
“Yes. I was a member of your team, but I have no idea how you came to be in the military. Why you entered. Why you were selected to be a secret operative. That sort of thing.”
Great. He had managed to team up with a chatty woman. Greg stilled on the lounger until he made friends with all of the shadows. He saw nothing that alarmed him. That, unfortunately, meant he could talk.
“Why do you want to know these things?”
She sighed. “We don’t have any answers right now. But maybe something from your past will help us.”
That made sense. Maybe it would. “Does it really matter how I was selected to go into the business?”
“I don’t know.”
Why did women like talking so much? He sucked in a deep breath, thankful for the breeze that blew across his face. It wasn’t the magic tropical kind, but it worked. “I entered the secret operative world through a back door.”
“Really?” Janine subtly shifted in her lounger, so her body leaned toward him. Like she was interested in what he had to say. He resisted the urge to meld further into the shadows. What if the rest of her family came outside and started flinging questions at him?
His throat threatened to stop working so Greg had to swallow and clear it before he could operate it correctly. He could tell her this much. Maybe it would help. Maybe it wouldn’t. Talking like this at least kept them outside on the patio and out of the overly crowded, hot, noisy room.
“Yeah. I ended up being in the wrong place at the right time. Had knowledge the military needed and they sent me back for more.”
“You were a painter?”
“Yeah, I worked at painting, but I also worked in a wharf warehouse they thought might be used for arms dealing and drugs.”
She nodded. “And you couldn’t be traced back to the authorities.”
“Right. I’d never been interested in the military, and I wasn’t about to change my mind.”
“But they snatched you up, anyway.”
“I played the part of the dumb warehouse worker perfectly. I overheard lots of good information because no one thought I was smart enough to put the pieces together.”
“Only you were.”
He wasn’t so certain about that. “I guess.”
“When the whole thing fell apart around their ears, they didn’t think to come back and question you?”
“There wasn’t anything left of them to come back.”
Janine took that news with the aplomb he usually associated with admirals and generals. Most other military personnel tended to flinch, even minimally. Of course, he doubted it was easy to ruffle Janine. He admired her aplomb if not her chattiness.
“The mission went bad?”
“Yeah.” He coul
dn’t tell her about all the blood that had flowed the night of his first assignment. All the screams and the roar of the fire that shouldn’t have been. The carnage he had to jump over to flee the building after he obtained the information he’d been sent to retrieve.
He still wondered about that night. Had he been the only traitor in the midst? Or had someone else sold out too? Because his plan had been simple and should have been straight forward and easy. He never expected the bodies littering the floor, all the blood streaming through the cracks into the ocean.
Swimming hadn’t been an option that night because the slaughter had brought sharks in numbers he hadn’t wanted to contend with. The fire that erupted soon after he broke into the warehouse office had been another shock. Who set it? Because he hadn’t.
He’d gone in intending to grab the information he needed and then quietly leave. Such a good plan. Only it hadn’t proceeded that way.
He had exited the office through a ceiling tile at the same time a barrage of bullets shattered the glass door of the office. Seconds later and he would have contributed to the blood dripping through the cracks. Greg still didn’t have a clear memory of how he had fled the building.
Shifting images of rafters and twisted, hot metal taunted him some nights to this day. He remembered making the decision to crawl up, rather than down. He rose with the smoke, trying not to call attention to himself by coughing, even though the roar of the fire would have likely covered the sound. He had counted on the dense smoke concealing his exit.
Then he jumped to the next roof. And the next, and the next to escape the war zone the warehouse had become. He vaguely remembered finding a hidey hole on one of the nearby roofs and passed out. Tropical rain woke him late the next afternoon. Refreshed him, actually. The torrential rains helped to clear the smoke from his clothing and body.
Deep, gasping breaths had helped to clear his airways. The rain soaked his information, but he still managed to deliver it. He had been offered high praise, an impressive sum of money for a nineteen year old, and another job.
“Why did you take the next job?” Janine’s quiet voice pierced through his memories.
“I don’t know.”
“Was it the thrill?”
“No.” He had to think about the why. “Maybe I’d seen enough in the short time I worked at that warehouse to know that innocent lives were being ripped apart by those men’s choices. And I hated it.”
Janine nodded. Her movements didn’t call attention to herself. Like she also knew movement drew fire. She was easy to associate with. He didn’t have to worry about ducking enemy fire with her next to him.
“That’s why I remained in the military,” she murmured, her eyes on the horizon.
“Why?”
“Justice. I hadn’t seen much while a child, but I did as an adult, and I liked that I could help draw some justice for the innocent.”
“I’ve never thought about it. They just offered me the next job, with a hefty sum of money and I took it.”
“They didn’t train you?”
“Not at first.”
He could feel Janine’s surprise, even though he couldn’t read it in her body. He liked that she could keep secrets. His life might depend on it. Probably had in his past life as Michael Lamont.
“Why didn’t they train you?” Disbelief threaded through her voice.
“Those first assignments were all warehouse rat stuff.”
“You just went undercover to learn information?”
“Yeah.”
“When did the assignments start requiring special training?”
He had to really think about that. “Probably a year or so later.”
“Did you mainly work with arms dealers?”
“Yeah. And terrorists. I didn’t have much work on the drug front, just the stuff along the wharf there.”
Janine sighed and it was as if he could feel that exhalation in his own lungs. “Terrorists and arms always seem to go hand in hand,” she murmured.
“Unfortunately.” He stared out at the still sunny evening, trying to figure out why he had accepted each job. Youth maybe? Did he like the thrill of going undercover? The James Bond mystery of the situation? The excellent money?
Justice was as good an answer as any.
“Your last job, did those terrorists deal in arms?” Janine’s question floated softly on the breeze, but it seemed to explode and shatter around him.
“Yeah. I interrupted their latest deal.”
She sighed again but didn’t say anything. He understood.
“Ben’s SEAL team took out the middle man.”
“But what of the guys on the other side?” Janine turned her head abruptly to stare at him, her amber eyes intense and bright. “You nailed the terrorists on this end, Ben’s team nailed the middle guy, but what if the guys supplying the arms...” Janine cocked her head at him, her eyes assessing.
“Could be our problem?” Shrugging would draw attention, so Greg didn’t shrug, but his brain churned.
“How likely are they to know you’re alive? Do they have those kinds of resources?”
“O’Riley might know.”
“Hey, guys, supper is served, come and help yourselves,” KC said as she plopped down beside him. Greg had to clear his mind from the possibilities swirling past.
Sure enough, by questioning him about his past, Janine might very well have incited the very incident in his mind that now lead to the danger they faced. How possible was it that the arms dealers who had lost out on their deal that night had figured out he was still alive? They would definitely want revenge.
The dealers wouldn’t think twice about making sure he was dead the next time. And they would take out everyone who stood in their way.
Greg’s eyes slid first to Janine, then to KC. Denial ripped through him. It didn’t change the facts though.
Janine was grateful for KC’s timely interruption. She and Greg could continue their conversation later, after the thoughts tumbling through her brain made sense. At least her questions had prompted something in Greg’s mind. Maybe this was the right path to the answers they sought. That would be helpful.
For now, they could fill their plates and enjoy the evening. At least until Rich O’Riley showed up. If their luck held out, maybe their insights would trigger further ideas from him.
Greg stood and Janine followed, admiring the smooth movement of his hips. KC leaned close and Janine bent to catch what she whispered. “I didn’t interrupt anything did I?” Her voice was quiet, so Greg wouldn’t overhear them.
“No.” Janine didn’t elaborate, but figured she could reassure KC. Her friend hadn’t interrupted. She and Greg had been lost in their own alarming thoughts when KC stepped onto the patio.
“Good, I was afraid I had.” KC’s eyes portrayed her remorse. Janine squeezed her arm.
“No, you’re fine.”
“Okay. I suggest you two hurry or all the good stuff will be gone.”
“Thanks,” Greg said dryly from somewhere over her shoulder. He managed to snag a chunk of pineapple off KC’s plate and his gesture heartened Janine for some reason. Maybe his playfulness and KC’s subsequent squawk of protest reminded her of the Morrisons interactions. It proved Greg could fit in.
She hoped he wanted to. But she did doubt whether he chose to. It might all depend on whether the effort was worth the fuss in his opinion.
“Yeah, hurry.” KC flapped a hand at them. Ryan zoomed through the doorway, skirted around her and Greg’s legs and honed in on his mother. KC braced and when he landed with a soft thud against her chair she bent to kiss him.
“Where’s your dad?”
“He’s coming.”
“I’m here,” Max said as he rounded the corner. Janine saw he balanced two plates and her heart pounded a bit at the possessive way he kissed his wife before seating Ryan and setting him up with his plate. Max hadn’t fathered Ryan, but the little boy was his.
Slanting a glance at the man
who had sired Ryan, Janine wasn’t surprised at the emotionless expression on his face. Greg didn’t give his feelings away. She would probably never know what the interaction between Max and Ryan meant to Greg. He had given the little boy up because she was sure he had no choice.
Did that decision bother him?
Janine couldn’t imagine giving up her son. She wouldn’t be capable of handling the situation. How could a parent? But Greg had.
The man had to have so many ghosts haunting him she wondered how he slept at night. But maybe he didn’t mind the specters. Even as she thought it, he merged with a shadow cast by the shifting sun. If you didn’t know he was there, you couldn’t pick him out of the crowd.
He didn’t exactly hide, so much as did nothing to draw attention to himself. How had KC thought him just an endless drifter? There was nothing in his persona that gave off that impression. At least to her. Instead, Janine saw a well trained, utterly dangerous man with skills she could only guess at.
Perhaps KC had seen exactly what Greg wanted her to see. Janine wasn’t sure yet what he wanted to convey to her, his former team mate. For that matter, what did she want to communicate to him?
That was the billion dollar question. Her stomach growled, so instead she turned on her heel and filed into the house, searching for the line. Right now she would concentrate on supper, later she could play the guessing game.
Perhaps, if they were lucky, they’d resolve a few things when Admiral O’Riley showed. She could pretend to introduce Greg, and they would all act like Greg and O’Riley didn’t know each other. Then they could formulate a plan. Janine figured they needed answers first. That meant they needed someone skilled at research and information gathering. Greg might even do some of his own ground work in that area. For all she knew, he might be as adept with computers as any of them.
She sighed. There was so much she still didn’t know about this man.
“Where do you start?” Greg murmured behind her.
“At the end of the line.” She gestured to her Aunt Emma who stood at the end of the long food line.
“Is it possible to get through the line without passing out from starvation?”