Operation Alpha

by Justine Davis

  “It’s a trap,” Alan muttered.

  So he was smarter than he looked, Liam thought. “Just a demonstration,” he said. “I need a tough guy.”

  Alan smiled at that; Liam could see it in the mirror. But still Alan hesitated. Then somebody in the group muttered audibly, “Coward.” He felt more than saw Alan stiffen.

  “Come on,” he urged. “No repercussions.”

  He felt the moment when the boy decided, egged on by that derisive comment, heard the movement when he took that first step. And then he was charging, energized perhaps by the free rein given.

  At the last second Liam dodged, spun and swept his right foot into Alan’s path, carefully avoiding the knees, where he could do some real damage. The boy went down, hitting the soft mat with a thud that seemed to echo off the walls. And Liam had never taken his hands out of his pockets.

  The cheer that went up told him how weary the others were of this particular bully. But he also knew the dangers of provoking one and the likelihood Alan would take out his fury and embarrassment on the first smaller, weaker prey he could find. So Liam grinned and held out a hand to Alan.

  “Great job, Alan. Thanks for being a good sport about it. Oh, and for not taking my head off.”

  The implication that he could have if he’d wanted to seemed to mollify the boy. Liam watched him make the decision to play along. He let Liam give him the hand up.

  “If you can’t take out the best, what good are you?” Alan said.

  Bluster, Liam thought. But he only nodded. If he was really here to teach, it might be interesting to find out what was behind the bully facade. But right now he’d served a purpose. Every other kid in that gym was on Liam’s side now.

  * * *

  Liam almost had the mat rolled up for stowing under the bleachers along the side wall when he sensed the approach. Instead of looking behind him, he looked at Cutter, who was on his feet, tail wagging. Trusting the dog’s instincts, he finished the job before straightening up and turning around.

  Dylan.

  “Hey,” Liam said casually.

  The boy nodded. “That was great. I liked the sound of the Krav Maga stuff.”

  Liam smiled. “It’s effective. Designed for one purpose—street survival.”

  “Neutralize the threat, you said.”

  He nodded. “By whatever means necessary.”

  Dylan nodded. And as if it were a signal, Cutter walked up to him, tail still wagging, ears up. The boy’s smile widened. He reached out to stroke the dog’s head. The tail wagged faster.

  “I was watching him. He didn’t like Alan much.”

  “He’s a very good judge of people.”

  Dylan didn’t miss the implication, that Cutter clearly liked him as much as he’d disliked Alan. The boy looked pleased, which told Liam a lot.

  “You want to talk about which way you want to go?” Liam asked.

  Dylan shook his head. “I can’t. I shouldn’t even be here now. I have to get home. I’m stuck with watching my little brother, so I have to go get him.”

  “I hated that, being the built-in babysitter,” Liam said.

  Dylan’s gaze shot to his face. “Yeah. Sucks.”

  There was something else there, Liam thought. Something deeper than just not liking being a babysitter. He glanced at Cutter, who was leaning into the boy, giving him the full-on Cutter stamp of approval. The boy continued petting the dog, smiling in a way that, for the moment at least, seemed to erase the shadows.

  “You got some other time you could free up?” Liam asked. “I’m flexible.”

  He saw something else flash in the boy’s eyes. Surprise? Even eagerness?

  “Really? I mean, I have an hour-and-a-half break at eleven, between trig and English on Tuesday and Thursday.”

  Liam had already known this from Ria; it was part of the plan, and why he’d made the suggestion. It would give them time without other kids around.

  “All right. We’ll do your one-on-one session then. I’ll see if the gym’s available, or we’ll need to find someplace else.”

  “Thanks,” Dylan said. “A lot.”

  “No problem. We’ll take our time, until you decide what you want to pursue.”

  “How about we go straight to Krav Maga?”

  “If that’s what you want, I know a guy. I’ll hook you up. But you won’t be any good at it unless you can master the mental part first. It’s harder than you might think to really believe in no holds barred and no quarter given. It’s not the way most people think, if they’re not living in a war zone.”

  “Those guys are serious,” Dylan said.

  “They have to be. For them it’s survival. But for you, it’s all about control. Of the other guy, sure, but of you first. It has to be instinctive, second nature.”

  “Like you did with Alan?”

  Liam’s mouth quirked upward. “Nah. I was mainly focused on not really hurting him. Didn’t want to get sued by angry parents.”

  “You’d have everybody there on your side, testifying that he jumped you.”

  “They did seem to enjoy seeing him on his back,” Liam said with a grin.

  Dylan smiled, and it was the most genuine one Liam had seen from him, except for when he was looking at Cutter. Which he did again now.

  “Will you bring him?”

  “If you want.”

  “Yeah. He’s a great dog.”

  “See you tomorrow, then?”

  Dylan nodded, not even trying to hide his eagerness now. And when he left, even his steps seemed lighter.

  “Thanks, buddy,” Liam said softly to Cutter as he watched the boy go. “We’re in the door now, at least.”

  He reached out to scratch behind the dog’s right ear, in that spot he liked. The feathery tail began to wag again. And it was a moment before Liam realized it wasn’t simply the touch he was happy about. Someone was once more coming up behind him. And this one was a bigger threat than Alan had ever thought about being. To Liam, anyway.

  Ria.

  Chapter 9

  “You’re a natural.”

  Liam didn’t look at her. He also didn’t seem surprised that she’d been watching. She’d kept out of sight in the seating gallery up above, not wanting to interfere yet too curious to stay away.

  She was too curious in general when it came to Liam Burnett.

  “Questionable,” he said.

  “You are. I can tell when someone is getting through to them.”

  He picked up the light tan jacket that seemed to have a huge number of pockets and pulled it on. It wasn’t at all chilly in here, and he seemed to be giving the simple task way too much attention as he said, “Maybe.”

  “And I’m sorry.”

  That did it. He finally looked at her, clearly puzzled. “About what?”

  “I should have warned you about Alan.”

  “Oh.” He shrugged off her concern.

  “I didn’t expect him, of all people, to show up.” She grimaced. “And the thought of him with any martial arts skills is rather frightening.”

  Liam shook his head. “Could be the best thing to happen to him. The core of most of them is discipline. And the better you get, the less need you have to prove it.”

  There was a lot more to Liam than a cute face and that easy drawl. And the sandy-brown hair she still wanted to touch and those rich, golden-brown eyes that seemed to warm her when he looked at her.

  Oh, and that great bod, don’t forget that.

  That body did more than just warm her; it had her wondering things she shouldn’t be thinking about. He was here to help Dylan, that’s all. She could appreciate, though, couldn’t she? As long as she kept her silly thoughts to herself? After all, it had been a long time since a man
had distracted her so.

  “That would be nice,” she said hastily in an effort to divert her errant thoughts. “Alan’s on school probation already, which is the only thing that keeps him from being worse than what you saw.”

  “I wondered at first why he was here at Cove at all. But he’s smarter than he acts, isn’t he?”

  Ria’s gaze sharpened. “Yes, he is. Most people don’t see that, though. They only see the bluster.” And yet Liam had.

  “Well, he’s got plenty of that.”

  “It got him kicked out of public school. And I don’t know how long Dr. Halvorson will put up with it here.”

  He gestured around generally. “His folks must be well-off. To afford this, I mean.”

  “They are, although we have several scholarship programs. And a few students with benefactors, like Emily.”

  Liam looked back at her. “Emily?”

  “Yes. Didn’t you know? Foxworth is paying for her schooling.”

  A slow smile curved his mouth. She thought it delightful. As was the mouth. And there she went again, she scolded herself.

  “No, I didn’t know,” he said.

  “But you don’t sound surprised.”

  “Nope. It sounds like them.” His mouth quirked upward at one corner. “I’m a beneficiary of some of those Foxworth principles, after all.”

  She was too curious not to ask. “How did you even find out about them, to hack them? Emily said they work on word of mouth only.”

  “They helped the uncle of a buddy of mine, who got in trouble with the government for trespassing on government land. Didn’t matter that he’d done it to save a kid’s life. Anyway, Foxworth stepped in and made it go away. My buddy didn’t believe that’s what they did all the time, and for free. So he dared me to find out.”

  “And did you?”

  “Not that way,” he said as they stepped outside. He was going to regret that jacket, she thought. As sometimes happened here, they were having more summer weather now, in September, than they’d had during summer itself. “Their security was really good, so I didn’t get far.”

  “Then what happened?” she asked, genuinely interested, and a bit disarmed by how easily he was talking about it now.

  “Quinn stepped in. Well, Rafe first, actually. I know you haven’t met him, but believe me when I say he was enough to scare me straight in a big hurry.”

  “I would think Quinn could manage that.”

  “Probably. But having a sniper look at you with those long-distance eyes like you were his next target is not something you soon forget.”

  Ria blinked. “Sniper?”

  “Yep. And a legendary one.”

  Pride, humor and something more echoed in his voice. Friendship, clearly, but still more. She remembered when she thought she’d heard concern in his voice when the name had come up before. Was it something specific, or was this Rafe just a guy you generally worried about?

  It struck her then that Liam looked as if he felt about Rafe something like what she and Emily had felt about Dylan—that there was something wrong, something off, something that could erupt at any moment.

  And she supposed she was thinking about that to avoid dealing with the fact that Foxworth had a sniper.

  “Do you use his skills often?” She was aware her voice sounded rather faint.

  “Actually use them? No. But there are a lot of times when we’re damned glad he’s there.”

  She suppressed a shiver at the thought of what kind of cases those must be. And once more revised her assessment of Foxworth and what they did.

  “No need for him here,” she said, rather fervently.

  “Nah. Although it might do Alan good to just meet him,” he added with a grin. That grin that still had the effect of kicking her pulse up noticeably.

  “I think you handled him perfectly,” she said.

  “Guys who count solely on their size have weaknesses.”

  “To your sudden strike?” Ria asked, thinking of the way he’d done it, never even taking his hands out of his pockets.

  He shrugged, looking a little embarrassed. “That’s Quinn’s term. I just want it over, fast.”

  “It was. And yet you gave him a graceful way out, as if he’d been in on it.”

  “I don’t like bullies, enjoy taking them down, but I’ve found that humiliating them publically right off the bat can lead to an unpleasant aftermath. And too often it’s an innocent bystander who gets hurt.”

  She studied him for a moment. He seemed such an odd combination, of young, drawling cowboy and wise old sage.

  “That’s against the Foxworth creed, too? Innocent bystanders getting hurt?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Even with her high praise, I begin to think Emily understated.”

  They were at the parking lot now, and Liam stopped beside his big gray truck and turned to look at her. “There are no words for how proud I am to work for them, how much I love what we do.”

  She had seen troubled kids in her time as a teacher. Knew too well how easily they could take the wrong path, how one thing or person could make all the difference either way. And she could picture Liam, looking not much younger than he did now, in turmoil, scared and trying to hide it and being offered a way out.

  “I’m glad, of all places, you tried to hack Foxworth,” she said quietly.

  He simply stood there for a moment, looking at her. And when his next words came, they were totally unexpected.

  “I was thinking of trying out that new place for dinner. Join me?”

  She was probably gaping at him, she thought as she tried to find her voice.

  “We could talk about ways to get Dylan to open up, once I have him alone,” he added, speaking almost hastily, as if to make sure she knew this wasn’t a social thing or, worse, a date.

  Her heart properly chastised, her pulse dropping back to normal, she managed to say evenly enough, “All right. It would be good to have a strategy.”

  And it would be good if your imagination wouldn’t run away with you at every opportunity around this guy.

  The goal was to help Dylan, if possible. Why couldn’t she focus on that? At this point, the only thing she had going for her was that he was obviously as determined as she was—or should be—to keep this strictly business.

  She hoped he was better at that than she seemed to be at the moment.

  As it turned out, it wasn’t hard at all for her to remember this was, in essence, a strategy session. Liam so clearly was thinking of other things that it was an effort to not be insulted. After the third time his distraction became painfully apparent, she focused on the fish she’d ordered, wondering how something that had tasted so good when it arrived had suddenly lost its flavor.

  It was a good thing that hadn’t been a date, she thought as she headed home after an awkward good-bye. It hadn’t even been very productive as a planning session, since all they’d ended up agreeing on was to get Dylan talking and hope Liam could guide the conversation to what was bothering him. Which had already been the plan anyway.

  She spent the rest of her evening studiously going over her lesson plans for the next day. And scrupulously avoiding thinking about the fact that she’d just spent two hours with a very cute guy who unexpectedly fascinated her, and it had been about as romantic as washing her car.

  But in the last moments before she fell asleep, in that time when she was too sleepy to keep the leash on her mind, it strayed to the bottom line of the evening. Which was that she was being an idiot, heading down a one-way street the wrong way.

  It just figured that the first guy who had intrigued her in ages wasn’t the least bit interested in return.

  Chapter 10

  Liam stood to one side of the mat on the gym floor, watching D
ylan go through the moves he’d just shown him. The boy had a natural grace, and it wasn’t going to take much to get him started once he decided on a direction. The question was what it would take to get him to start talking. Liam didn’t want to make the kid pull back by pushing too hard.

  “Good job,” he called out, and Cutter accented the praise with a happy bark and a wag of his tail. The boy responded as much to the dog as to Liam, and smiled. “Let’s talk.”

  He saw the sudden wariness in the boy’s eyes. Since he had, as the team often told him, the worst poker face of any of them, he’d had to learn to accurately assess their tells. He’d gotten pretty good at it with everyone except Rafe. But he didn’t think anyone could read Rafe unless he wanted them to.

  “You’ve got speed, agility and some power. The field’s pretty much open to you. You just need to decide,” he said. The wariness faded at the words, a sort of proof that Ria and Emily were right—something was bothering the kid. And clearly Ria had been right about this approach, talking about anything but what they really wanted to know, just to get the boy going.

  The less Liam thought about last night, the better. It had been unnerving for him to sit across a table from Ria Connelly, barely tasting what food he managed to eat because he constantly had to yank his mind back to the matter at hand.

  “I did a little looking last night,” Dylan said as he left the mat and approached.

  “The joy of the internet,” Liam said with a grin.

  The boy relaxed a little. “Yeah.”

  Dylan sat down on the bottom bleacher. Cutter immediately shifted to sit next to the boy and plopped his chin on his knee, earning a warm smile. Liam knew the effect the dog had on people, especially those with a troubled mind. He’d grown up around dogs, lots of them since his parents raised them, but he’d never seen one who had Cutter’s knack for comforting people. He not only seemed to know when someone needed his particular brand of soothing but somehow delivered it in the appropriate dose. Dylan began stroking his fur, and Liam saw the change in him almost instantly.

  “Judo’s the classic,” Liam said, “but it comes with a lot of study if you want the whole package. It’s a philosophy as much as a sport. Karate’s another.”