“Mine weren’t like that,” Sofia wondered what that would be like. Melissa seemed so…normal. White blonde, sleek, and pleasant. It took an effort every time to remember that she was also a Unit operator with a long list of “mission accomplished” entries in her file. She’d also been awarded several unadvertised medals for valor, including a Distinguished Flying Cross—a very unlikely award for a Unit operator. Richie also had one of those in his file. Neither had any explanation on this side of the need-to-know security wall.
“Okay, okay,” Melissa snatched the Pringles can away from Carla. “My parents are totally sweet. Give me a freaking break!”
“Yep! Totally Canadian.” Carla gave Sofia a wicked grin for having elicited such a reaction out of their soft-spoken teammate.
“So, Sofia, was Duane totally awesome?” Melissa handed her the Pringles can as if passing the baton of the conversation.
Sofia opened her mouth and closed it again. Instead she took out some more chips.
“Come on,” Carla prompted. “It’s obvious you’ve had sex. He can’t stop watching you and when he does, he gets all sorts of slack-brained. That’s not like Duane at all. He’s always on point, like a hunting dog or something. Please tell me it was amazing.”
“Why should I tell you that?”
“Hey, we’re married women. We have to get our thrills somewhere.”
Melissa nodded in agreement.
Sofia wasn’t buying it. “You are both married to warriors from the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta.”
“We are,” they sighed happily in unison, making each other laugh.
“Doesn’t let you off the hook,” Carla continued while Melissa kept looking goofy happy. “Now give.”
“There’s good. There’s incredible. Then there’s better than that. Somewhere past that there is Duane Jenkins.”
Duane froze in the hallway outside the master suite. The heavy carpeting had masked his approach.
“Details. We want details.” Carla and Melissa in chorus.
The question was, did he really want to hear details?
Go in?
Beat a hasty, and very silent, retreat?
“Okay already!” Sofia protested.
The silence was deep, just the muted thrum of the engines and the slap of the waves on the hull as it sliced through them.
“There’s a lake I used to go to as a girl. It’s actually on the backside of the neighbor’s property. I’d go there whenever I needed to get away. Nana showed me how to get there. I never took anyone. No one. I don’t think even my little sister knows about it. It’s not easy to find and there’s only one decent path.”
“You took him there?”
“I took him there.”
Duane waited along with the two other women.
“Well?” Unsurprisingly, Carla had the least patience.
“It was like letting him see something inside me that no one ever has.”
Shit! Duane had completely missed that. It had been a pretty lake on a beautiful day in the company of a hot woman. He’d missed every goddamn clue. He wanted to smack himself.
“And…” Carla egging her on.
“I—”
“Hey, buddy!” Chad slapped him on the shoulder hard enough that the downward force was the only reason Duane didn’t jump out of his boots. He’d come up from behind without Duane hearing.
There was a squawk of female surprise from the master suite.
“What you listening to so intently, bro?” Chad asked cheerfully before Duane could stop him. Chad, of course, knew exactly what he was doing—being a total ass.
Carla vaulted off the bed and came to the door. The sad shake of her head before she slammed the door in his face told him how much shit he’d just stepped in.
“We need to rustle up some grub,” Chad yanked on Duane’s arm hard enough to almost tumble him to the carpet.
“You’re no help at all, you know that don’t you?”
“Fuckin’ A, Bubba. Don’t want to see my main man going down ’cause of some cute chickee. Damn cute. I’ll give you that much, bro. But you got it like a disease that seriously needs a cure.”
Duane considered going back and knocking. To apologize for eavesdropping or something, but he didn’t see any way that was going to go well with all three women together. Safer to follow Chad.
They found the thawing steaks. Duane put together a pasta sauce with jarred pesto, sundried tomatoes, and frozen vegetables. Chad showed his culinary finesse by getting Tater Tots in the oven and finding some ketchup.
The women finally emerged as the meal was getting close to done. Whatever had transpired earned him a scowl from Melissa, an eye roll with a cheeky smile from Carla, and a deeply unhappy blush with averted eyes from Sofia. The steaks were too close to done and he didn’t dare leave them in Chad’s care to chase after her as she scooted up the stairs.
When he and Chad delivered the finished dishes upstairs, Sofia was nowhere to be seen.
Carla took pity on him and pointed him toward the ladder at the stern of the boat that led up to the flying bridge.
He grabbed two plates, a couple of sodas, took a deep breath, and headed up. With both hands filled, he nearly lost their dinners overboard several times as Richie kept them racing ahead over the Caribbean Sea out of Panamanian waters, through Colombian, and on towards Caracas.
Once he reached the upper deck, he ran into another problem, specifically the table. And he ran into it hard. There were no external lights on the boat. And the interior lighting below, which was too dim to show through the tinted windows, didn’t help him either. He couldn’t see a damned thing except the stars and the phosphorescent sea churned into a bright green strip by their wake. His hands were full, which didn’t matter—his flashlight was down below anyway.
“Sofia?”
“I am considering not answering you,” Sofia could just make Duane out as a silhouette blocking her view of the startling green light in their wake.
“Really? What have you decided? I have food.” She could see him moving closer, bumping along the edge of the table in the direction of her voice. She’d used her flashlight to sit on the far side of the table, then shut it off to watch the night. Her inclination to assist Duane by turning it back on was minimal.
“I don’t know yet. Are you worth the trouble?”
“That’s a tough one,” he stepped past the end of the table and right by her. “I know someone you could ask. Would that help?”
“I think I’ve had enough advice for one day.” Carla and Melissa had certainly had plenty. She could no longer see Duane, which meant he could probably now see her, at least a little bit.
In moments, she heard two plates set on the table along with a rattle of silverware and then the solid thunk of a can of soda that must have been quite cold for him in his pockets. She reached a hand out and found it. Sure enough, the metal was cool on one side and cold on the other. A chair scraped back and she assumed that he was now sitting across from her.
“It’s amazing how little breeze there is up here. We’re running at about fifty knots. Almost sixty miles an hour.” As if that was anything she wanted to hear about.
She’d already figured out that the boat was designed to divert the air over the passengers’ heads. She’d confirmed that by raising her hand in the air while still standing. She’d been able to feel the edge of the world blowing past, so nearby.
It felt as if she was teetering on the edge and would soon be falling off.
But to where?
What lay beyond places on the chart marked “Here there be dragons?”
“It was quite peaceful up here.”
“Ouch!” But he made no move to stand and depart—at least not that she heard.
“Duane?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
Unsure what to say next, she reached out until she found her fork and plate. But eating steak in the dark was ridiculous, and mostly impossible. She fished o
ut her flashlight, flicked it to a red-lens night mode and turned it on at the dimmest setting. She set it down so that it lit their plates but little else. The meal looked delicious.
“Silent treatment, huh? Means I was right. I was going to suggest that you ask yourself, but then I thought that was a foolish answer fraught with unknown dangers.”
“Because I might advise myself not to speak to you?”
“Exactly!” He pointed his knife at her for a moment to confirm her point before cutting into his steak.
She did the same. It was awfully good. A man who could cook. “I liked cooking with you back in Oregon.”
“I enjoyed that too. A lot. I’m not nearly as good a cook as you, but it was fun.”
And he was clearing enjoying himself in not telling her who she should be talking to, but she refused to fall into his trap and ask.
She could just make out his hands cutting another piece of steak and raising the fork into the darkness.
“Fine!” Sofia threw her own cutlery down on the plate and crossed her arms. “Who should I be asking for this ever-so important advice?”
His soda disappeared into the darkness for a moment, then returned to the light. “Me, of course!”
“You?” She couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m supposed to ask you to advise me on whether or not I should be speaking with the likes of you?”
“Sure! Does the lady have any better suggestions?”
She didn’t. “Okay, do your worst.” She started eating again because the steak was too good to not keep eating as a demonstration of pique.
“Personally, if I were you, I’d never speak to me again.”
“Why not?” Not what she’d been expecting, but then Duane so rarely was.
“Well, setting aside the recent spate of rudeness and the fact that I’m a bit oblivious where you’re concerned, I think you’re just too damn good for a jerk like me. Trust me, Sofia, walk away while you still can.”
“Okay,” she agreed easily and kept eating.
“Good!” Duane didn’t seem to be daunted for a moment by his own advice or her acceptance of it. “I’m glad we got that settled.”
“I have a hypothetical question,” she waved a Tater Tot in his general direction.
“Fire away!”
“If I were to speak to you, what would you be saying to me?”
“That you’re the most incredible woman I’ve ever met and that the day you go back to The Activity will be the worst day of my life. Ever. Way worse than the day I told Dad to go fuck himself and joined the Army. If I was to actually say anything.”
“Just that?”
“Just that.”
Sofia was impressed that she’d been able to keep her tone as light as his, because she was having a terrible time breathing. All the air on the fly bridge had been sucked away by the racing air layer above them until she felt lightheaded, even faint.
“Sofia?” Duane’s tone was completely different. Soft, serious for the first time since his arrival.
“Yes?” Her attempt to keep her own voice airy and unconcerned caught in her throat.
“I meant every word of it,” his deep voice was barely louder that the boat’s.
“Which? The part where you tried to make my bones melt into a happy puddle,” and completely succeeded. “Or the part where you said I should never speak to you again?”
There was a long silence. Long enough for her to set down her silverware and push aside the mostly finished plate. She leaned forward, but still barely heard his reply when he spoke.
“Both.” It was soft and filled with a pain that he wasn’t explaining.
She turned off the flashlight, stepped carefully around the table. Her fingers found his shoulder, down his arm, to his hand. Tugging him lightly to his feet, she guided him to the plush sunbathing sofas that her earlier investigation had revealed. By the connection of their fingertips, she guided him onto the sofa with her.
He hesitated, but she pulled him down.
“Now I have some advice for you,” she whispered in his ear once they were lying in each other’s arms. “Show me more about the melting my bones into a happy puddle part.”
And, without a single word, he did.
She was glad no one came looking for them, because Duane was very, very thorough in making love to her by the light of the warm, tropical stars.
Chapter 19
“Still don’t have a plan,” Duane knew he sounded grumpy, but he couldn’t seem to fix that. He wasn’t even sure why.
This morning, he’d woken at first light in a beautiful woman’s arms. Beneath blankets scrounged from a locker, they’d watched the sunrise over the arid hills of Punta Gallinas, the northernmost tip of Colombia’s Guajira Peninsula. By the time they came down for breakfast, the boat had cleared the broad peninsula and was racing into Venezuelan waters.
“We’ll be in Caracas this afternoon, we should have a goddamn plan.” Nobody was arguing. He ignored the strange looks he was getting.
Sofia was way too good for a man like him. She should be with someone who believed in relationships and all that shit. He sure as hell never had. Never expected to. Even if he did, his mental image was some bar babe who would scream and cheat, but fuck like a porn star. Sofia was all class. A guy like him didn’t deserve that because he’d screw it up first chance he got.
He could feel himself screwing it up even now, but there was no stopping it.
“There is only one decent marina,” Sofia studied her laptop which was patched into the satellite uplink—now in her brilliant Activity-agent mode. “That is a starting place.”
“That isn’t a plan.” Why did she get to be so damned cool and collected? It didn’t matter. Why should he care? It wasn’t like either of them wanted a relationship. Maybe she could rise above—she was Sofia Forteza, wine heiress; of course she could. He knew exactly what his past counted for—Mr. Rich Playboy turned Unit operator. Not a goddamn decent thing in his future. She might be the best screw he’d ever had, but that’s all there was between them. He ignored the slice of pain at that last thought. He was Delta—he was used to pain. There was no way a guy like him could woo a woman like her. Keep sleeping with her as long as she let him then wave the hell goodbye? “That isn’t a plan.”
“Duane,” Kyle looked at him across the main dining table they’d all gathered around, except Melissa who was currently ten feet away at the helm keep them at full speed toward Caracas.
“Yeah?”
“Shut the fuck up.”
Duane clamped down hard on his tongue. Even in his current mood he wasn’t dumb enough to argue with Kyle when he used that tone.
It was a ridiculous situation. Mission orders were supposed to be given to Delta, not created by them. The moment they had those orders, by standard protocols, the team went into isolation—full communication lockdown. It was up to the team how to carry out the assigned mission and the lockdown made sure that no one would know what they were actually up to. It cut down on leaks—unintentional or nefarious. It also cut down on regular Army command channels second guessing Delta methodologies. Yet another reason Colonel Gibson reported directly to the three-star general in charge of Joint Special Operations Command with no one else in the loop.
“You were the one who suggested we make this up as we go along,” Sofia whispered to him.
He didn’t need reminding of that. There were far too many things being “made up” at the moment. The problem was he’d “made up” a relationship that Sofia absolutely didn’t deserve. He cared too much about her to saddle her with a guy like him. But the other thing he’d said last night was just as true. He’d die without her.
Chad cuffed him on the back of the head, harder than usual. Then spoke in a voice loud enough to be heard all the way to goddamn Atlanta. “Look asshole. You gotta separate the mission from the woman. Get your fucking head in the game.”
Duane had finally found the focus for his frustration.
His p
unch caught Chad hard enough on the chin to send him flying backwards out of his chair. He did a head-over-heels somersault across the cushioned settee and landed on his feet.
On his feet as well, Duane dodged under Chad’s grapple and rammed his shoulder into Chad’s gut, lifting him clear of the deck.
He was too furious to scream when Chad pummeled a fist against his kidneys, but he lost his hold.
Chad had him back against the edge of the door for two crashing punches to Duane’s gut and face. But he’d taken worse in hand-to-hand combat training. Didn’t hurt nearly as much as being shot three times in the back by the Colombian FARC rebel barely old enough to have breasts.
Using the door frame for leverage, Duane launched at Chad. Hard grapple. Too close for blows. They both sought leverage to grab an arm, a leg, anything. They bumped against the railing.
Then it hit them.
Suddenly they were airborne.
For a single eyeblink, he could see Carla standing at the aft rail of the upper deck, rubbing her shoulder.
Then he heard Chad’s, “Oh fuck!”
They’d completely cleared the lower deck. They barely had time to fold their arms and twist to the correct positions for a high-speed bailout before they slammed into the water at fifty-seven miles an hour.
The sea hit him harder than any explosive he’d ever set.
“Fix this. And fix this now!”
Sofia could only cringe in front of Kyle’s fury. It was a side of him she’d never seen, never even suspected to exist.
To have it suddenly aimed at her was too much. She got back up in his face.
“How in the name of all that’s holy am I supposed to do that?”
“Hell if I know. Just do it!” And he stalked away, ending the conversation.
Wild Justice (Delta Force Book 3) Page 20