by Leah Braemel
“I can give you no more than two hours’ warning so be ready to leave whenever I call. Oh and, McPherson? If you’re not at the airport, the plane will take off without you.” Cooper cut the connection before Troy could respond.
Troy laid the receiver in its cradle and fingered the psychiatrist’s report. Would knowing Garcia was no longer a threat, that Scott’s partner Devon King had been avenged, help Scott heal? Or would it drag him back into the morass of pain and doubt? Either way, he wanted to be in on the op.
“I’ll get him for you, buddy,” Troy whispered.
His inbox notifier dinged. Almost absently he checked his inbox and found a note from John Lake, Hauberk’s IT manager, requesting a meeting with all department heads in an hour. Wonderful. Just how he wanted to spend the rest of the day. Trapped in a fucking meeting talking computer crap.
Chapter Two
Sandy closed her apartment door behind her and leaned against it with a sigh. Her purse fell with a thump at her feet. She set her laptop case down with a little more care. It wasn’t hers, after all. “Hey, Jazz? You home?”
Jazz didn’t answer but an orange tabby padded out of her roommate’s bedroom to wind around her ankles. Its purr strengthened when she bent to scratch behind its ears. “Hey there, Xander. Did you miss me?”
As if in answer, the cat jumped up on her desk, meowing at the bag of treats Jazz had left there. “You miss them more than me, huh? Those things will make you fat, you know?”
Xander blinked and nudged the bag until it toppled onto the floor.
“Yeah, you don’t care, do you? Must be nice not to have to worry about your weight.”
She kicked her heels into the closet, taking a certain satisfaction in the thump they made. With a sigh, she bent to pick them up and place them together. They’d cost her over four hundred dollars, far too much for her budget, but they’d looked so good in the store and even better on, she hadn’t been able to resist. Her mother would be horrified to learn she’d spent that much on a pair of shoes. But then her mother didn’t have to meet and greet millionaires and some of the country’s movers and shakers on a day-to-day basis. Women—and occasionally men—who would judge her by what she wore on her feet. Her now-aching feet.
She headed into her bedroom, stripped off her clothes, and pulled on her favorite pair of fuzzy plaid pajama pants and matching top. So it wasn’t the most glamorous outfit she owned, but it was comfortable. Besides, it wasn’t as if anyone would see her.
She’d just settled onto the couch and turned on the television when someone thumped at the door. After unfurling herself with a groan, she peeked through the spy hole.
On the other side of the door, a stunning redhead juggled a pizza box, her purse and her keys.
Recognizing her roommate, Sandy unlocked the door and opened it. “Hey, Jazz.”
“Thanks. Couldn’t hold all this and work the keys.”
Sandy opened the door wider to let her roommate in. The scent of cheese and pepperoni quickly filled the apartment. “What are you doing back so soon? I thought you had a date tonight.”
“I did. My date turned out to be a snoozefest so I ditched him.” She dumped the pizza on the tiny table by the front window before heading into her bedroom.
“Any luck on the job hunt?” Sandy grabbed a plate from the cupboard, flipped open the box and slid two slices onto the plate.
“No.” Jazz’s voice was muffled as if she were pulling a top over her head. “I thought I had a nibble but it turned out they were looking for someone who knew video editing software.”
“Rats. I was really hoping you’d find something.”
“So was I. I’m so frickin’ tired of working at that call center. Do you have any idea of how nuts people can get?” Jazz padded back, wearing a slinky black silk chemise and a pair of pink boyshorts. She piled three slices onto her plate and then curled up on the couch beside Sandy.
When they’d finished their pizza, Jazz grabbed the remote and muted the sound. “I’m bored sitting here. Let’s go down to Rusty’s and see who’s hanging around.”
“I don’t know. I just got comfortable. Going out means I’d have to get dressed again—” The phone rang. A quick check of the caller ID had her groaning as she answered. “Hi, Mom.”
“Oh, Sandy honey, I’m so glad you’re home for once. I wanted to make sure you’re coming home for your sister’s anniversary party next weekend.”
“Uh, gee, Mom, I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it. Things have been pretty busy lately.” Fat chance she was going to fly all the way back to Minnesota to spend forty-eight hours listening to how wonderful her boring brother-in-law was. He was a former prison guard who had been fired and become a salesman. Of cardboard, for criminy’s sake. When he wasn’t talking about his experiences in the jail, he waxed poetic on corrugation. Talk about yawnsville.
“You work too hard. You should find yourself a nice man and settle down. Are you seeing anyone, dear? You could bring him along. We’d love to meet him.”
Usually her mother waited until later in the conversation to get to the “who are you dating” questions.
“Mom, considering your history of interfering, I’m not talking about my dating life.” She rolled her eyes at Jazz while wondering how many more times she’d have this conversation before her mother got a clue that she had no intention of getting married. Ever.
“If you come back for Jennifer’s party, you can meet Ernie’s cousin, Donald. He’s a very nice young man who lives a little ways outside of St. Charles. You could move back here and we could see each other every day. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
Nice? “Um, I like living in D.C., Mom.” I like having a life that doesn’t revolve around dishes and babies and diapers.
Her mother ignored her. “Donald sells used farm equipment so he’s got a steady job. Not like that awful boy you brought home last time.”
She’d brought home Tank specifically to shock her mother. His tattoos and piercings had accomplished that the minute he’d walked in the door. That he’d had a respectable job as a paramedic hadn’t mattered one whit to her mother. “He sounds a lot like Glen and I’m not going through that again.”
“Oh honey, Glen wasn’t so bad, I still don’t know what your problem with him was or why you broke off your engagement.”
Sandy gritted her teeth to stop herself from launching in a rant at her mother.
“Donald is a perfectly lovely young man. You should see how he worries about his mother. Gives her a part of his paycheck every week like clockwork.” Her mother lowered her voice. “Now, Donald’s a little bit shorter than you are, I think. So it’s best if you don’t wear heels when you meet him and it should be fine.”
Just shoot me now. “Mom, he doesn’t sound like my type.”
Her mother sighed. “Dear, you’re nearly thirty. You can’t afford to be picky. It’s time you settled down. Got married and had babies. Like your sister and Cathy and Patti.” She named Sandy’s brothers’ wives. “Seriously, dear, this isn’t something you can put off until you’re my age.”
Sandy thumped her head against the back of the couch. “Mom, I’m only twenty-eight. I’ve got lots of time.” As in the rest of my life.
“Sandra Elizabeth, when I was your age, I’d already been married ten years and had Eddie and Dwayne and was about to give birth to Frank. You’ve only got a few years left if you want to have a family without having to resort to medical intervention. And I want to be young enough to enjoy my grandbabies. I’m not getting any younger either, you know.”
God, sometimes she swore her mother had gotten stuck in the fifties. “Mom, you’re not even sixty yet. You’ve got lots of time to enjoy your grandchildren.” She hurried to cut her mother off before she could launch into a recitation of this neighbor or that friend and their health problems. “Was there anything else? Because I’m on my way out.” Please don’t let there be anything else, please please please.
“Oh, you�
��ve got a date? I suppose I shouldn’t keep you then.” Her mother’s interest was palpable. “Is it someone you might be serious about?”
“No, Mom, it’s not a date. I’m going out with Jazz.” Rats. She should have just said yes, it was a guy she’d picked up at a bar. Another one with lots of tattoos and piercings. No, that wouldn’t be enough to discourage her mother’s grandbaby obsession. “I really need to go. I’ll call you later, all right?”
“Oh.” From her mother’s hopeful tone, she hadn’t completely accepted that a date with what’s-his-face was out of the question. “So we’ll see you home for Jennifer’s party?”
“No, Mom, I think you should plan that I’m not going to be there.” If she had to get herself arrested to keep herself in D.C., she’d do it. Not giving her mother a chance to launch on another topic, she said good-bye and hung up the phone. She glanced up to find Jazz shrugging on her coat while Xander attacked the pizza she’d abandoned.
“Go get changed. I’ll wait.”
She flipped through her various outfits, carefully choosing a top and skirt that matched her mood. Pity it was winter or she’d wear something baring her belly. Her mother would be horrified with her choice of skirt, her father scandalized that she’d had her belly button pierced. Whatever.
Maybe it was time to get her nipples pierced.
Chapter Three
The hubbub of the other patrons blended with the mellow jazz playing in the background. Troy sipped his Guinness as Scott’s current partner, Andy Walters, thanked the waitress for the Coke he’d ordered.
Once the waitress left them, Andy lowered his voice so any other Hauberk operatives who frequented the bar couldn’t listen in on their conversation. “So are you putting Scott back in the field as a bodyguard?”
“Not yet.”
Andy swirled the ice cubes in his glass. The halogen over the table spotlighted the edge of his tattoo peeking out beneath his sleeve but left his face in shadows. “Look, I know I don’t get to read those reports from his shrink but I’ve worked with him a couple times now and I’d let him cover my back in a high-pressure situation any day. You keep him out of the field much longer and he’s gonna walk. He’ll find some other way to get back into the action. Even if it means quitting Hauberk and going to work for the competition.”
The doc had felt it possible that if Scott were partnered with the right person or given the right assignments he might be fine. Andy might be the right person, but assignments were tricky. Too many times an assignment an agent thought was routine blew up into a major showdown. He trusted Andy’s judgment a lot more than he did a shrink who sat in an office all day, never seeing what it was like in the field. But he also trusted the sick feeling in his gut that Scott was still hiding something. Besides, putting him back in the field meant sending him overseas. Somewhere Troy couldn’t see for himself how Scott was coping.
Before Troy could answer, the agent’s gaze fastened on the bar door, his eyes widening. He blew a low whistle, drowned out by a wolf whistle by some drunk at the bar. “Whoa, momma, if she came into the office dressed like that, every agent near or far would find a reason to come in and you’d never get any work done.”
It took Troy the stereotypical double look to verify that she was Sandy. Instead of her hair being tucked neatly into the French braid she’d worn earlier, it hung loose, brushing her shoulders in a tousled just-got-fucked look that had every man in the place eyeing her speculatively. If they weren’t, they were either gay or blind.
Her winter coat hung open, revealing a silky fire-engine red number that was unbuttoned damned near to her navel, displaying cleavage that a man would pay good money to bury his face—or his cock—in. And her skirt? If he’d seen it in a drawer or hanging in a store, he’d have sworn it was a wide belt, nothing more. Her well-toned legs stretched a mile, ending in a set of sparkly stilettos that matched her blouse. Why the bloody hell hadn’t he ever noticed she had such a fantastic set of legs?
His position allowed him a long, unhindered look as she walked by. The view from behind was just as spectacular as from the front. Bloody fucking hell, she strutted the length of the room with the grace and ease of a New York runway model. She followed her companion to the far end of the bar where they hitched themselves up onto barstools. Sandy draped her faux fur jacket over one leg, leaving a long expanse of bare thigh exposed to the drunken masses.
“Huh,” Andy grunted. “I swear I know her.”
“Of course you do. It’s Sandy.”
Andy shook his head in disgust. “Not Sandy. Her friend. What do you think I am, an idjit?”
Troy glanced at Sandy’s companion. She had her back to him, giving him a sneak peek of a tramp stamp—a set of bat wings?—above her leather skirt. Her flame-colored hair with its half-dozen black streaks didn’t match her skin tone, leading him to make a mental bet that the collar wouldn’t match the cuffs.
The friend glanced over the bar, her gaze passing over them, lingering for a second, assessing them as if they were salmon in the fish market. She didn’t look older than Sandy, but she had a harder look about her. The word “jaded” popped into his mind, though perhaps that described him better.
“Have at her, mate.”
Andy grimaced when his cell phone warbled. He answered the phone without checking the caller ID. Troy didn’t need to hear the other side of the conversation to learn that Andy’s chance at getting to know Sandy’s friend had been ruled out.
“I gotta go. Husband of one of the women from the Safe and Sound program just showed up at her door.”
“Watch your back,” he warned as Andy slid from the booth, his expression grim.
“I always do.”
As Andy went out the door, Scott walked in. Shit. Hiding out at the bar hadn’t worked. Scott stayed in the doorway, scanning the bar until he saw Troy. He beelined straight for the booth and sat on the bench Andy had vacated.
“I haven’t changed my mind, if that’s what you’re hoping.”
Andy’s warning replayed. Had he pushed Scott too far by keeping him on restricted duty?
“I didn’t think you would. So I’ve decided it’s time for me to look for a new job.”
Shit. Walters was right. “Where will you go? Have anywhere in mind?”
“I haven’t a clue. But I can’t work with people who will continue to think I’m unbalanced. That I can’t be trusted to keep my shit together.”
“That’s not what we think.” Or maybe it was. Every time he’d come home from work the first few months after Scott had moved in, he’d had to steel himself against the fear he’d open the door to find Scott had hung himself or eaten his gun.
“Yeah, you do. Otherwise you’d have given me a non-bullshit assignment after reading the doc’s report.”
Troy tugged at his collar, then, remembering Sandy’s earlier comment, forced his hand back to the table. “So I’m concerned about you. I’m concerned about all my agents. Shoot me for being cautious and keeping you out of the field until I’m sure she’s right.”
They both leaned back when the waitress appeared to take Scott’s order. Once she’d left, Scott resumed his attack.
“So you’re saying if it wasn’t me, if it was someone like Russell or Snider or Goffin, you’d keep them out of the field because your gut holds more sway than a psychiatric report?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“Bull. Shit.” Scott leaned over the table. “I’m ready to get back to work, Troy. Sitting around in the office doing background checks on the Internet or on my ass in the car teaching a rookie how to stakeout some douchebag cheating on his wife is driving me to a whole new level of batshit crazy. If you won’t give me an active assignment, then I walk. I’ll find some other company who will put me back out in the field. I’ll fucking move back to fucking Alaska if that’s what it takes.”
Christ. Scott hated Alaska and all it represented. Troy pinched the bridge of his nose. “All right. How about I ask Chad
if he can use you? You can plead your case with him.”
Scott narrowed his eyes, suspicious. “And you wouldn’t try to interfere if he wants to put me out in the field?”
“No.” Fuck it all. “You’re my friend, and yeah, maybe I’ve let our friendship influence my decision.” He broke off, glad for the interruption when the waitress placed Scott’s ale in front of him. “You’re the only friend I’ve got, damn it. I thought I’d lost you in Colombia. But that’s not why I’m keeping you out of the field.”
“Yeah, it is.” Scott raised his mug and then carefully placed it back upon the coaster. “Look, I haven’t had a chance to say thanks for letting me bunk with you and putting up with my shit all these months.” He shrugged. “Thanks.”
“Least I could do, mate,” Troy said quietly. “You’ve been there for me when I needed help.”
“But I knew when to walk away and let you stand on your own two feet. I’m okay, Troy. I’m ready for this.”
The sound of Sandy’s laughter wound its way through the rest of the babble, catching Troy’s attention.
Scott glanced over his shoulder at her. “You like her, don’t you?”
Troy gave a half-hearted shrug. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Yeah, it does.”
“It doesn’t matter because she’s not my type.”
“Because she’s got that whole wholesome Midwest thing going on? Come on, I know you. I’ll bet you’ve got a hard-on for all that soft blonde hair and blue-eyed sweetness.” Instead of the sorrow and pain that had filled his expression most of this year, Troy saw interest in Scott’s eyes. Maybe he was getting better.
“The keyword there is wholesome. She’s too damned innocent for my tastes, and you know it.”
Scott laughed, a sound Troy hadn't heard from his friend in far too long. Probably because he finally got to turn the spotlight off him and on to Troy. “You know what they say about the quiet ones. They’re usually the kinkiest. I’ll bet she’d surprise you.”
“I’ll bet she’s looking for Mr. Right who will hand her a wedding ring and follow it up with a white picket fence and two point five babies instead of getting involved with a fucked-up bastard like me.”