The Woman Left Behind: A Novel

by Linda Howard

  “I need coffee,” she mumbled. “Before anything else, I need coffee.” There had been coffee served on the plane, but the pick-me-up had already let her down.

  Seven masculine grins came her way. Then Levi slung his bag over his shoulder and said, “I’m heading over to check on things before I go home,” meaning he was going to headquarters to see if the analysts had come up with anything interesting on Graeme Burger, and strode away.

  Looking around for a coffee shop was more important than watching him walk away. Besides, Jina figured she’d see him walking away a lot in the future, so there was no point in letting herself yearn.

  “Yeah, let’s find some coffee,” Trapper said. She hadn’t meant for it to be a group thing, but somehow she found herself borne along anyway and that was okay because now she was a real part of the team. However they kicked back and rehashed things, she wanted to be included—though she wouldn’t have chosen a coffee shop in a busy airport, but what did she know? They were the experienced ones. She’d stay a short while, get enough caffeine in her to get safely home, then she’d take a much-needed nap before getting up, showering, and packing for her flight home that night. After two trans-Atlantic flights in about forty-eight hours, getting on a plane again so soon didn’t appeal at all, but going home did.

  They found a place and kind of took it over, dragging tables and chairs to their corner and ordering not just coffee but food, too. “Eat,” Boom advised, when she said she just wanted coffee. “You need the energy. Food will get you through.”

  So she ate, and he was right, she did feel better afterward. To her surprise they didn’t rehash; instead they unwound, talking sports and Thanksgiving. They did take a few shots at her for packing like an amateur, but she was one, so she shrugged it off.

  Then Jelly smiled the innocent smile that always meant he was up to something and said, “Hey, Babe, this is a landmark day for you.”

  Instantly wary, she drew back and scowled. “No, it isn’t.” She didn’t know what he was up to, but considering this was Jelly it couldn’t be anything good.

  “Sure it is,” Crutch put in. “You’ve finished your inaugural mission. Only happens once in a lifetime.”

  Uh-oh. Jelly and Crutch together was a disaster in the making. Whatever they’d concocted, Boom wasn’t in on it, because he was giving them a questioning look. Snake, Voodoo, and Trapper were harder to read, though she thought Voodoo had a slight smirk on his face. “The whole thing was boring,” she said, trying to head off whatever they had in mind. “Nothing worth celebrating.”

  “Boring is good,” Jelly said. “We all like boring. Go in, do the job, come home in time for Thanksgiving. Doesn’t get any better than that.”

  “Yeah, speaking of Thanksgiving, I need to go home so I can pack—”

  Crutch shook his head. “That isn’t what you need.”

  “Is to. I haven’t seen my mom in—”

  “What you need,” Jelly interrupted, “is a tattoo.” The last three words had a dramatic flourish.

  “As a commemoration,” Crutch added.

  Her mouth fell open and her eyes got huge. “No. I do not need a tattoo. Strictly speaking, no one needs a tattoo. I don’t like pain. I’m afraid of needles. A tattoo isn’t happening.” She’d have been less dismayed if they’d wanted to shave her head—she needed a haircut, and anyway hair grew back. A tattoo was permanent. A tattoo hurt. “Let’s just get me drunk again instead.”

  An unholy light had entered Trapper’s eyes, and he slowly wagged his head back and forth. “Getting drunk is nothing. Drunk goes away. You can’t look at it and remember the occasion.”

  “I don’t want to remember the occasion. I was bored. Who commemorates boredom?”

  “Your first mission,” Boom said in a wondering tone. “It’s something special.”

  Boom, too?? Feeling betrayed, she glared at him. “I’m telling on you.”

  He tilted his head as though considering what Terisa might have to say, then shrugged. “There’s home, and then there’s team. You need a tattoo.”

  “Do you have a commemorative tattoo?” she shot back.

  They blew right past that; they all had various tattoos, which they began describing to her, but when she tried to pin them down on which ones had been “commemorative,” they ignored her. They were relentless. Before she knew it they were exiting the airport and she was being herded to Jelly’s truck despite her protestations that she had to get her car—“We’ll bring you back,” Snake promised, grinning. She was so telling on him, too.

  The only way to get out of being tattooed was to get nasty with them, and she wasn’t prepared to do that because they weren’t being malicious. This was being part of a rough-and-tumble team, and the way to handle it was to go along then get back at them later. “Three conditions!” she yelled. Some people making their way to their own cars stopped and looked her way, maybe thinking she was in trouble. Her guys stopped and waited, their expressions laughing and expectant.

  “One!” she said emphatically, holding up one finger.

  “One,” they echoed.

  “The tattoo artist has to be a woman.”

  They all looked at one another, shrugged.

  “Okay.”

  “No problem.”

  “Two!” She held up a second finger.

  “Two!” They bellowed the number.

  “I get to pick the design, with no input from any of you.”

  “Aw, Babe.”

  “Don’t you trust us?”

  “We want to be involved.”

  “You can be involved by listening to me scream,” she retorted. “This goes my way or it doesn’t go at all, and I’ll start screaming and fighting right here and your butts will all end up in jail, because who do you think the cops will listen to?”

  Voodoo scratched his jaw. “We could take the cops,” he pointed out.

  “Yeah, but the publicity would suck.” She had to stand her ground on this point in particular, or she could end up with something like a giant purple octopus inked across her back, with tentacles wrapping around her arms and legs. Trust them, she didn’t.

  “All right,” Snake said, looking disappointed. “You get to pick the design.”

  She moved on immediately after that concession, not giving them time to argue about it. “Three!” She held up three fingers.

  “Three!”

  “None of you get to watch.”

  “What!”

  “That takes all the fun out of it!”

  “How will we know you actually get one, then?” That was Voodoo, trying to throw a monkey wrench into the situation.

  “Trust, gentlemen. Trust.” She folded her arms. “Those are my conditions. Take ’em or leave ’em.”

  “Ah, hell.” Trapper looked aggrieved. “She called us gentlemen.”

  “And she used the T word.” Jelly heaved a disappointed sigh.

  “Y’all ate my tacos and my cake,” she pointed out.

  “All right, all right.” Amid much grumbling, they dispersed to their vehicles, though Jelly still insisted she ride with him. Evidently they didn’t trust her enough to let her drive on her own, and she couldn’t say they were wrong because she could see herself bolting.

  Evidently she was getting a tattoo.

  Fourteen

  Levi’s phone signaled an incoming text and he glanced at the screen. What he read had him swearing and turning the truck around, never mind that he was almost at team headquarters. What the fuck were they up to? “Taking Babe to get a tattoo” wasn’t something he wanted to read. For one, he was sure that if she wanted a tattoo, she’d already have gotten one. Two, she had looked completely wiped out, and in no shape to resist being swept along on a crazy idea. This had Jelly and Crutch written all over it, but it seemed as if all the others had joined in, even Boom, though Boom at least had the sense to let him know what was going on.

  If she wanted one, fine, that was her business. But knowing what he knew about t
he two jokesters on the team—he quickly thumbed in a reply to Boom’s text asking two important things: is she willing, and where the hell are you?

  His phone rang. Boom. “Hey, Ace, I think she’s seized control. She laid down the conditions under which she agreed. The guys are having fun, and she’s going along with it. I’m watching, I won’t let them go out of bounds.”

  “Thank God,” he muttered. “Where are you?”

  “Almost at Hilda’s War Ink. That was one of her conditions, that she have a woman tattoo artist.” He laughed. “You can tell she’s new at this.”

  “Where the hell is Hilda’s War Ink?”

  Boom gave him the address.

  Levi calculated distance and time. “Look, I’ll be there in thirty. Don’t let them get crazy.”

  “We’re good. Babe has this.”

  She would, too, Levi thought. He was getting alarmed for nothing, and he couldn’t be seen as protecting her. He should probably turn around and go back to headquarters, but—on second thought, he wanted to see this.

  “Hilda’s War Ink” was an unadorned storefront with the name on a sign and tattoos blinking in neon in the window. The number of vehicles parked in front probably made passersby think the place was doing a booming business. He found a parking spot down the street and headed in.

  The front room was small and filled to overflowing with his team. There were three chairs, which meant the others were either sitting on the floor or leaning against the wall. From behind a drawn curtain came the buzz of a tattoo gun. “Hey, Ace,” Jelly said with a wide grin. “Guess what?”

  “I guess you’ve been up to some shit,” he said equably and joined the wall leaners. “I was feeling left out.”

  There was a rumble of laughter, and from behind the curtain Babe called out, “No one is allowed behind the curtain! That’s one of the rules. Ouch!”

  “And I’m backing her up,” came another female voice from behind the curtain. “Hold still, honey. Man, this is so pretty.”

  Crutch groaned. “Ah hell, you’re getting a pretty tattoo?”

  “What did you think I’d get?” she shot back.

  “Something that makes a statement. Pretty doesn’t make a statement.”

  “Not your tattoo, so butt out.”

  Levi grinned. He should have known she’d handle it. She hadn’t taken any shit from any of them since day one. His personal opinion and involvement aside, the guys seemed to enjoy having her around. She was good at her job. Wanting to get in her pants was his problem, and he’d keep it that way.

  “Tell us what you’re getting,” he called. “Describe it.”

  “None of your business. This is my tattoo, and mine alone.” There was a quick intake of breath that signaled another stab of pain. Having a couple of tats himself, he knew how that went.

  “How big is it?” Trapper asked. “A tiny little tat doesn’t count.”

  “When it’s my tat, I decide what counts. You don’t get any input, remember?”

  The back-and-forth went on, with Babe giving as good as she got, though her comments were interspersed with gasps and ouches and a few breaths sucked between clenched teeth.

  “You’re doing good,” Hilda said encouragingly. “You’re not bleeding much at all, and that’s good for the longevity of the ink.”

  “Yay, me.” She sounded disgruntled with the whole process now.

  Levi crossed his arms and tried not to think about her with her shirt off—or maybe she was getting the tat on her hip and her pants were off. He thought how he’d like to be holding her hand and teasing her. Couldn’t happen, and he had to stop this. The last thing he wanted was to get a boner right now. Instead he focused on whether or not she’d been able to get any useful intel with the drone, then whether or not he could try to wrangle a flight out to his own parents’ home in Arizona, and damn if the desert heat wouldn’t feel welcome. He always waited until the last minute in case anything came up, but given that they’d just got back from a mission—uneventful as it had been—something really big would have to happen for them to be called up. The team that was the most rested would go.

  “Ouch!”

  The disgruntled sound made them all laugh. Even Voodoo was smiling, and that was saying something.

  “Not too much longer,” the unseen Hilda said in a soothing voice.

  Several of the guys checked the time. “About an hour,” Crutch said. “Has to be small.”

  “About quarter sized,” Hilda reported cheerfully. “But more ornate than you’re thinking.”

  “Tiny,” Trapper grumbled.

  “My choice, remember,” Babe growled. Her raspy voice went all the way to Levi’s groin and he shifted uncomfortably, rubbed his eyes. Maybe this wouldn’t take much longer; he was rooting for a very small tat, so they could all leave. They were all winding down. As he had the thought, Boom rolled his shoulders and stretched.

  “Tiny’s good,” he rumbled. “The sooner this is finished, the soon we can all go home and get some sleep.”

  “That was my original idea,” Babe said. She was sounding more and more grumpy. “But no, the two wiseasses out there had to come up with the tattoo idea and the rest of you thought, yeah, let’s get me inked and keep us all from getting some sleep. Now I’m the one in pain and bleeding, and all of you can damn well sit your asses there until this is finished!”

  They sat. The “almost finished” still took longer than they’d anticipated. Then they listened to Hilda telling Babe how to care for the new ink, what to put on it, how long to baby it, things some of the guys had never heard before—either that or they’d been too drunk to either pay attention or remember. Levi had a couple of ink jobs himself; one he’d been sober while getting, the other he hadn’t. He liked the drunk one best. Maybe one day he and Babe could compare their ink—

  Shit.

  Couldn’t happen, at least not in the foreseeable future. He kept tripping himself up. Normally his self-control was better than this. He’d let himself kiss her, and that was his fault, not hers. Since then he’d relived every moment of how she’d tasted, how she’d responded, the sounds she made as she came. He wanted that again, every moment of it, but he wanted it with them both naked and his dick deep inside her. He wanted her, smart mouth and all.

  Double shit

  He had to stop thinking about her. He was the team leader, and the cooperation and unity of the team was on his shoulders. This was on him, and he had to step up. Babe was now part of that team and would be for the foreseeable future. Letting sex and what he wanted even enter the equation was letting the team down, and he had to stop himself cold. Right now.

  “I’d like to hang around for the finish, but I still need to get some work done,” he said abruptly. They would know what he meant, but Hilda wouldn’t. “Nothing else going on today, guys, and I mean it.” He gave both Jelly and Crutch the evil eye. “Boom.”

  “Got it.” With those two words Boom acknowledged he was on top of things, and Levi escaped out into the morning cold.

  He was gone.

  Jina felt Levi’s absence as if a fire had gone out. Just knowing he was there had been both warmth and irritant, making her restless deep inside. How twisted was it that having him close made her feel both alive and furious? She wanted to ignore him, turn the page, focus forward, but just hearing his voice hit her hard.

  Acknowledging that her own thinking was convoluted made her even angrier. She wanted things to be clear-cut, and they weren’t.

  Why had he even showed up today? He’d been on his way to headquarters. He—

  He’d come to protect her.

  The knowledge shot through her, and she forgot all about the sharp stinging sensation of the ink gun.

  She could have used him to nix the idea at the airport, but now that she was here she was okay with the cool little tat she was getting. Rapport with the team was important, important enough for her to go along with this and rag at them for it. Levi knew that, too, but he’d still s
topped what he was doing to come here and give her backup if she needed it, if the guys had been railroading her—not that Hilda would have done the tat if she’d thought there was anything like coercion going on, but none of them had known that when they chose this shop.

  For all his dislike of having her on his team, time and again Levi had stepped up: when she’d fallen off the climbing rope and he’d caught her, when he’d intervened with the boot issue, when he’d babied her through the parachute training—and, yeah, now that she had some distance from it, she could see how he’d done more to help her than he’d had to do. Maybe he’d have done the same with a male trainee, but she kind of doubted it. One tandem jump, maybe, but not three. He’d safeguarded her from outside forces while she was getting drunk. He’d gone out of his way today to be here if she needed him.

  Her heart squeezed and quick tears flooded her eyes.

  She might be in love with the son of a bitch.

  The thought was devastating.

  She didn’t want to love him. Lusting for him was okay. Lust was temporary, maybe acted on, likely ignored. Love under these circumstances was a recipe for a lot of pain. Maybe she could fight this nonsense down or it would go away on its own, because if you didn’t feed something it died, right? She wanted this feeling to die. She didn’t want to care what he did or where he was. She didn’t want to get blindsided out of the blue by moments like this. The sick feeling in her stomach said that wasn’t likely to happen, or at least not any time soon.

  The good thing was she was lying on her stomach, so Hilda couldn’t see the tears. Even if she had, she’d probably seen a lot of tears in the eyes of those under her ink gun.

  Hilda finished with the immediate aftercare and bandage, and Jina sat up. The stinging in the middle of her back had already mostly stopped. Focusing forward, Jina put Levi away in the back of her mind and instead kind of savored the realization that she, Jina Modell, had a tattoo. She’s always been so vanilla, stuck in the middle, nothing unusual or outstanding, that getting a tattoo made her feel daring even if it hadn’t been her idea. Besides, her little tattoo was cool, different, and pretty; she’d hit the trifecta with it.