Last Man Standing

by Cindy Gerard

  With this crew, no game—be it poker, pool, or a push-up competition—ever got played without a bet.

  Wyatt, a mellow, slow-talking, Georgia boy, just smiled. “You’re going down, Doctorman. It’s just a matter of time.”

  Unperturbed, Luke called, “Three ball, corner pocket.” He eyeballed the angle, and took his shot.

  Wyatt snorted when Luke missed.

  “You’re off your stride, Colter.” Sam Lang watched the table action with interest, arms folded over his chest, legs wide.

  “He didn’t get much sleep last night.” Valentina walked up to Luke’s side and handed him a bottle of beer.

  “The baby kept kicking me in the back.” He laid a hand lovingly on his wife’s swelling abdomen, then bent down and whispered against her round stomach. “Hey, little guy. Daddy’s gonna win you a horsey.”

  Val relieved him of the fedora. “Little girl,” she corrected, setting the hat at a jaunty angle on top of her own head.

  “You changed your mind and found out the baby’s sex?” Stephanie asked, sitting on the arm of the nearby sofa.

  “No, we still don’t want to know. But you know Luke. There has to be a bet on the outcome.”

  “If I win,” Luke said, watching Wyatt line up his shot, “she’s going to buy me a fifty-four-inch flat screen. If Val wins, I’m going to buy her a Diaper Genie. What?” he asked, acting clueless when eyes rolled in collective disbelief. “She wants a Diaper Genie, don’t you, baby?” He grinned at his wife.

  Val patted him on the cheek. “Absolutely,” she agreed, playing along.

  Even six months pregnant, Valentina was astoundingly beautiful. The internationally famous model wore her pregnancy well, just as she wore her celebrity well. The fee she’d earned from a recent spread in Vogue, showcasing Val in all her pregnant glory, was earmarked for Save the Children, Sierra Leone.

  “Val looks like a goddess,” Abbie Lang groused good-naturedly as she and her two boys joined Stephanie on the sofa. “All I get are swollen ankles.”

  Stephanie lifted little Bryan, her brother’s namesake, onto her lap and kissed the top of his head, while Abbie corralled Thomas, who had just woken up from his nap and was firing on all cylinders.

  “You look beautiful,” Sam assured her, taking Thomas off her hands.

  “For a blimp.” Abbie was due in two weeks. She sighed heavily. “I’ll be so happy when I can see my feet again.”

  Stephanie smiled down at Bryan. “So what do you want Mommy to bring home from the hospital?”

  “A puppy,” the three year old said.

  Abbie made a face. “Reed taught him to say that.”

  Bryan wriggled off Stephanie’s lap and ran up to B.J. when she walked into the room, carrying baby Selena.

  “Can I hold her?” Bryan asked.

  “Let’s both hold her.” B.J., who had blossomed with motherhood, sat down in an oversize wing chair. “Come sit beside me, sweetheart.”

  “She’s so little.” Bryan looked awestruck when B.J. placed the sleeping baby in his arms. “Does she cry a lot? Daddy says babies cry all the time and that I’d better get used to it.”

  “Babies cry when they’re hungry, or when they’re tired, or when they need their diapers changed.”

  B.J.’s explanation seemed to satisfy Bryan, who had apparently grown tired of talking about babies. He carefully handed Selena back to her mother, then slipped off the chair in search of more interesting stuff.

  “You’re a natural at this.” Stephanie admired both B.J.’s relaxed ease and the beautiful child. Little Selena had coal-black hair just like her daddy that lay in tiny little corkscrews very reminiscent of B.J.’s curly blond hair.

  “You wouldn’t have said that if you’d seen me the first week we brought her home.”

  Reed breezed in through the door just then, brushing snow from his hair and bringing a cool breeze with him. Crystal raced in after him, laughing and stuffing a handful of snow down his shirt. He grabbed her around the waist, lifted her off her feet, and kissed her. “You are really pressing your luck here, Tinkerbelle.

  “Whoa,” he added as the rest of the snow crew piled inside after him. “You can’t swing a dead cat around here without running into a pregnant woman or a tadpole.” He touched a curled finger to little Selena’s cheek, his eyes going soft before he addressed the room at large. “Do you people not know how to contain this?”

  Tink slipped out of her jacket, then quietly cleared her throat. “Maybe we’d better have a little talk, Johnny.”

  He glanced at his wife. “About where babies come from? Tink, darlin’, I read the book.”

  “You read a book?” Doc asked with a startled look.

  “Shut up, Colter. And I’m not the one pollinating the flowers around here.”

  “Um . . . yeah, actually you are. You did,” Crystal amended, her green eyes watchful and waiting.

  Distracted as Sophie and Wyatt’s little girl latched on to his leg, Johnny picked her up, then laughed when her pudgy little hand started pulling his earlobe. “Lookie there. Even the little girls find me irresistible.”

  He was the last one to realize that all the adults in the room had gone quiet. When he finally tuned in, his confused gaze swept the room. “What did I miss?”

  Everyone turned their eyes to Crystal. They were all smiling.

  He whipped his head toward his wife. And suddenly he got it.

  “Wait a minute. Rewind.”

  He handed Mariah off to her mother. “You said I did something. I did what?”

  “You pollinated your flower,” Crystal said, then watched his expression go from confused to stunned to helpless disbelief.

  “I . . . seriously?”

  She nodded.

  He dragged a hand over his head. “How . . . how did that happen?”

  Tink laughed. “I thought you said you read the book.”

  He searched his wife’s green eyes. “A baby? Seriously, Tink?” he asked again, his voice soft and tender. His eyes were questioning and hopeful. “We’re going to have a baby?”

  She nodded, a huge smile lighting her face.

  Joy, disbelief, panic, and love raced through Johnny’s eyes. Then he dropped to his knees in front of his wife, and carefully positioned his big rough hands, fingers splayed wide, over her flat abdomen. Awestruck, he looked up at her. “There’s a baby in there.”

  She touched a hand to his cheek, the love shining in her eyes as blinding as the sunlight refracting through the window. “Yup.”

  He drew her hips against his face and kissed her there, reverent, happy, and clearly a little afraid.

  Gabe was the first to break the happy silence that had Stephanie and the rest of the women near tears. “Please, God, let it be a girl. The world can’t handle another Johnny Duane Reed.”

  “And let her look like her mother,” Sam added, giving Crystal a congratulatory peck on the cheek as Johnny rose shakily to his feet.

  “You should sit down,” Johnny told her, ignoring them. Serious as a judge, he took Crystal’s hands in his and led her to the nearest empty chair. Full-out panic had set in. “And you should not have been outside in the snow. What if . . . what if, oh, God—I can’t even say it. Juliana. You’re a doctor. Tell her she has to be more careful. And Nate. You’re her boss. Put her on the D.L. right now.”

  “Guys,” Crystal appealed to the men, cutting Johnny off before he could start construction on a protective cage. “Help me out here, would you?”

  As one, the men converged. Nate, Luke, Wyatt, and Rafe attacked Reed’s left flank; Gabe, Sam, and Joe honed in on his right. Reed was tough and he was wiry, but he was no match for the collective muscle of his BOI teammates. They bodily picked him up and headed across the room.

  Robert held the double doors open wide as they marched outside, and on the count of three, heaved him into a snowdrift.

  Reed was swearing a blue streak and promising some really creative payback when the whop, whop, whop of a he
licopter drowned him out.

  All eyes turned to the small Bell chopper as it descended, then set down gracefully on the lawn.

  Joe was the first one to recognize the pilot.

  “It’s Brown,” he said, as Stephanie joined him by the terrace door.

  “What the hell is he up to now?” Rafe asked as Mike shouldered open the cockpit door and stepped out into the snow.

  “Oh, my God,” Stephanie cried, covering her mouth with her hands when she saw who climbed out behind him.

  She felt her mother’s arm around her shoulders. “Go ahead, honey. Go to him.”

  Tears blurred her eyes as she met Ann’s gentle smile. “You did this?”

  “Your father and I did, yes. Someone had to. We couldn’t bear the look in your eyes when you talked about him.”

  She hugged her mother hard, then ran outside to where Joe was already waiting as Suah Korama walked hesitantly toward them.

  “So,” Joe said, only his eyes relaying what he dared not say for fear of embarrassing the boy, who was a man, who had come so far on blind faith. “I guess you missed me.”

  Suah reached out, shook Joe’s extended hand, and delivered his signature line. “Like a wart.” A ghost of a smile touched his lips and Stephanie simply melted.

  She folded the boy in her arms, while the man she loved looked on, smiling.

  “Welcome, Suah. Welcome home.”

  The house was quiet and mostly dark when Stephanie headed toward the great room, looking for Joe. The party had broken up over an hour ago. Some of the guys and their wives were upstairs in the spare bedrooms; the overflow had booked rooms in a nearby hotel. Tomorrow morning, they’d be back for breakfast before everyone headed their separate ways.

  Suah was sound asleep in Bryan’s old room, exhausted from the long flight. Most likely, he was also having second thoughts about coming. Most certainly, he was overwhelmed by the personalities and the sheer volume of people who were now going to be a part of his new, very different life.

  Her heart had fractured a hundred times since he’d stepped off that helicopter. At the way his eyes had widened at the abundance of food, the opulence of her parents’ home. At the idea of a room that was all his own. With a bed. And clean sheets.

  She’d tried to see it all through his eyes, but realized there was no way she ever could. She realized also that they were all going to be making compromises to make this work. Suah was a resilient kid. He’d adjust. They all would. Most important, he now had a chance at a life, not merely an existence.

  She saw Joe the moment she walked into the family room. He stood with his back to her in front of the fireplace, where a mellow fire spread warmth through the room. His focus was above the white marble mantel, on the life-size oil portrait of Staff Sergeant Bryan Tompkins in full dress blues. Forever young. Forever brave.

  Forever gone.

  “You okay?” Stephanie slipped up beside him.

  He drew her against him, pressed a kiss to the top of her head. And said nothing.

  “He’d be so proud, Joe.” She touched his jaw and urged him to look at her. “He’d be so proud of you.”

  He swallowed hard. “I still remember the first day I met him. A real smart-ass.”

  She smiled. “He had his moments.”

  “He did,” Joe agreed. “He absolutely did.”

  And now, Bryan finally had his justice. And peace. All of them did.

  “So much for a quiet farewell breakfast.” Stephanie grinned as Joe found a spot near the window so he could grab a moment with her.

  “You know Doc. No BOI gathering is complete without a rip-roaring, wild west poker game.”

  A war whoop came from the poker table. Crystal had just cleaned house on Doc and Primetime was rubbing it in with unbridled glee. Jenna high-fived Crystal over the stack of chips.

  “Hoisted by my own petard,” Luke grumbled as Crystal raked in her winnings.

  “If that’s something like smashed by your own tank, then yeah, you’ve been hoisted. And by an itty-bitty pregnant girl.” Reed kissed his wife smack on the mouth.

  This was his family, Joe thought. They laughed together, they loved together, they had each other’s backs.

  In a world where chaos threatened to take over, where darkness constantly opposed light, the Tompkinses’ home provided refuge. Peace. An atmosphere of hope and home and family.

  Ann and Robert’s words came back to him from that long-ago day when the team had first gathered here to mourn their fallen brother.

  “Remember, you’re Bry’s brothers . . . consider us your second family . . . so come home, boys. Anytime. When you need to recharge. When you need a soft place to land. Whenever you need to . . . just come home.”

  So here he was. Home with the family they had all become.

  “How do you think Suah’s doing?” He glanced across the room, where Ann and Robert were shepherding Suah through the buffet line.

  “He’s a little shell-shocked,” Stephanie said, “but he’s doing okay. I still can’t believe he’s here.”

  Joe couldn’t take his eyes off her face. She was so animated and happy and beautiful. The BOIs were his family, but Stephanie was his life.

  “Let’s have a baby,” he said abruptly.

  She did a double take, a startled smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “That’s . . . sudden.”

  He traced a fingertip down her cheek. “I see the way you look at those babies. You think I don’t know how much you want one of your own?”

  “I’m that transparent?”

  “A little, yeah,” he said, smiling softly. “You’re a lot of things, Steph. Beautiful. Smart. Kick-ass brave.” He turned her toward him, looping his arms around her waist. “But most of all, you’re mine. And I’m never going to be stupid enough to let you go.”

  “Together, we can survive anything,” she said.

  “Anything,” he agreed.

  In the arms of this woman he loved, he could do anything. Be anything. Conquer anything. Even his guilt over Bobby.

  He looked over Stephanie’s shoulder at Suah, saw the fear and the hope and the resilience squaring his narrow shoulders.

  Bobby was gone, and Bryan was gone.

  But for Joe, Stephanie, and Suah, life was just beginning.

  If you enjoyed this last book in the Black Ops, Inc. series, turn the page for excerpts from all the previous books!

  SHOW NO MERCY

  Gabriel Jones’s and Jenna McMillan’s story

  Buenos Aires

  11:15 p.m.

  “Tonight? Are you crazy?” Jenna shook her head at Gabe. “I’m not flying anywhere. And I’m sure not going home.”

  “For the last time, you need to back away from Maxim and get out of Argentina.”

  “Okay. Let’s get something straight. In the first place, you don’t tell me what to do. In the second place, I came here to do a job and I will do it. And in the third place, it’s not like I’m being threatened here or anything. I mean, that bomb wasn’t meant for me. You’re not talking, but I think it’s pretty safe to assume that Maxim was the target.”

  “Yeah, and you’re just itching to get caught in the crossfire if someone goes after him again, aren’t you? Damn it, Jenna. You’re being stupid about this.”

  She stopped. Turned on him. “No, I’m being professional. I walked away from a story because of you the last time I was here. I’m not walking away from this one.”

  He reeled slightly. Fatigue could have been the cause, but she knew the moment she saw his face that fatigue had nothing to do with his reaction.

  In that same moment she knew something else. This battle-hardened warrior, this professional soldier wasn’t as immune to death and destruction as he’d like everyone to think. He struggled with the same images she did. He saw the same charred bodies, the same bloodied corpses.

  He felt the same kind of horror. The only difference was she could afford the luxury of regret. He couldn’t, and there was nothing
she could say to make him know she understood.

  Key in hand, she eased around him toward the door to her room.

  “Wait!” His voice was sharp as he grabbed her wrist and kept her from inserting the key in the lock. “Let me check it first.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake. You know what?” She was tired. Of everything. Of him thinking he could tell her what to do, of him making it clear that he didn’t want or need anyone—specifically her—in his life. “You’ve lived too long on the ‘dark side,’” she said, putting a lot of theatrical woo-woo in the last two words. “I’m tired, I’m hungry, and all I want to do is eat, shower, write my story, and go to bed.”

  She jerked her hand away from his, shoved the key in the lock and pushed the door open—and came face-to-face with three gunmen.

  Before she could react, Gabe hit her from the side, tackling her to the ground as the blast of a gun echoed into the hallway.

  She waited for the pain, visualized her own blood, then realized that nothing hurt. Nothing but her hip where she’d landed on the floor with Gabe on top of her—again.

  She struggled to get up.

  “Stay down!” he ordered. “And roll! Get the hell away from the door!” he choked out through a hacking cough.

  “Wha—” Oh God.

  A horrible odor hit her olfactory senses then and she realized why he was choking. She gagged on a mouthful of air. Her eyes started burning. Her gut convulsed into dry heaves.

  Gabe gagged, too, as he half-dragged, half-pushed her back toward the elevator, where the air was blessedly fresh.

  Jenna lay facedown on the floor. She squinted toward the sound of Gabe’s tortured breathing, barely able to make him out through the tears. He’d rolled to his side facing her door, using his body as a shield between her and whatever or whoever might still be in that room. He’d wedged the hilt of his Butterfly firmly between his teeth and he’d drawn a pistol she hadn’t even been aware he’d been carrying. The barrel was trained on her open hotel room door.

  “Cell phone,” he gritted around the knife. “Pocket.”