Finally, they laughed as a group. Real laughter. They were still strangers to Macy, but somehow, just through two minutes of knowing them, they felt a lot less strange.
“So,” Tucker said, throwing the last log onto the fire. “Are you ever going to explain what the hell you’re doing here?”
They sat on blankets in the sand, the two couples on one side of the fire, the blackness of the ocean on the other. And for a while it was silence, everyone seemingly mesmerized by the sound of the waves, the crackle of the fire. Macy could understand; it had hit her particularly hard when she’d first arrived: the feeling of peace.
Jackson and Mira, coming all the way from the nation’s capital, must have felt similarly.
“Part of what she said is true,” Jackson said. “If I ever had a reason to come back here, we wanted to be sure it was as a couple. The other part, the reason, is for work.”
“A mission?” Tucker asked.
“Maybe not a mission, per se. But there’s something going on at Hilo Harbor. Smuggling. Something you guys know a bit about.”
Leaning against Tucker, Macy could feel his body shake with a chuckle as he said, “Someone’s trying to smuggle American fugitives through shipping containers?”
“Something like that,” Jackson said.
Tucker frowned. “And you need Macy to go, too?”
She pulled away from Tucker. “Who said I wanted to go?”
“Right,” Tucker said, laughing. “Who said we wanted to go?”
“I thought,” Jackson said, “that you might be interested in this particular mission. Given it has certain connections.”
Tucker’s gaze sharpened. “What connections? Is it something to do with Macy? I thought she’d been completely pardoned.”
Jackson smiled. “Of course. She’s completely safe. The key for that whole thing to work was to get the government on board. In return, I promised them I’d check something out.”
“Wait,” Macy said. “I thought it was—”
“They did,” Jackson said. He smiled at her and laid a hand on her arm. “You’re safe, truly. I just may have had a hand in making the right people get off their ass and do what should have been done years ago. I owed you that.”
Macy fell silent. She needed a moment for that. Jackson had been key in saving her ass the first time, when he’d stopped a corrupt mission commander sending in the team that was slated to kill her. That he’d intervened and saved her life again was almost too much to wrap her head around. “I thought it was an initiative from the new president.”
“Maybe to an extent,” Jackson said. “But I may have given him your name. Told him a few hard truths about exactly what fucked-up crap had been done to you in the name of the USA.”
Macy didn’t know how to feel about that. Just when she finally thought she’d found her feet, her world had been tipped on its end again. How was it possible that someone she barely knew cared enough to save her life? Twice?
Jackson shrugged. “It’s what we do. Plus, even if I didn’t owe you, I would have done it for Tucker. DARC Ops is more than just a security business. We’re family.” He looked over at Tucker. “Figure that out yet?”
Tucker grinned and raised his hand, saluting Jackson. A small gesture, but one that she could tell said everything. She supposed she should thank Jackson, too. For now all she could do was stare at him, still shocked that he’d done so much, that he’d pulled so many strings just to help her. Little, insignificant, fugitive Macy.
“As you know,” he said, “our situations were linked. They weren’t the same, of course. But we’re on the same side. We’re fighting the same people.”
“And we’ve just had a major victory,” Tucker said.
And that was the last anyone really said for a while. The rest of the time, before their guests returned to a hut down the beach, it was just the sound of waves, wind, and the silence in between.
36
Tucker
Tucker closed the mosquito netting around their bed before leaning back into his place alongside Macy. The moon, full and bright, had caught a break between clouds and was now pouring through the open window. Its pale blue lit up their bed and glistened on Macy’s bare, lotioned body. She looked perfect, so much so that he’d dared not touch her. He wanted to take in the moment, his eyes fully absorbing her before they closed finally for sleep.
“Seems like a compromise,” Tucker said, his head resting back on his pillow. “Doesn’t it?”
“Doesn’t what?”
“Staying in Hawaii, Hilo Harbor.”
“Staying together,” she said, yawning. “And staying working.”
“You too?”
“I think I’ll go, if they need me.”
“It might be good for you. Do a little work. Easy stuff.”
“You’re good for me. If my goal was to do what’s good for me, then I’d keep you here in this bed, in this net.”
“We can do that,” Tucker said. “Voluntarily, without the net. They don’t need us for another week.”
“Another week in paradise.”
“Well, the main island is nice, too.”
“Not as nice as our net.”
“We’ll bring it with us.”
“We’ll get in trouble.”
She was doing it again. Getting him started. Tucker reached for her, his hand grazing across her stomach as it crumpled with laughter.
Macy squirmed, fighting his hand away. “You’ll get in trouble, if you keep doing that.”
He had learned about her ticklishness. A weakness he tried not to over-exploit. He had his whole life ahead to learn more, her strengths and her weaknesses. The real Macy. And he was going to love every single second of it.
She curled into him. “It’ll be hard to get back to work, though. Real work.”
“I know.”
“Not only that, but I almost forgot what it’s like to do work that wasn’t directly responsible for my day-to-day survival.”
“You can start with the coconuts,” Tucker said “I’ll show you tomorrow. Climbing, splitting them open. There’s a trick to everything.”
“You’re right,” she said, taking a deep breath against his chest. “There’s a trick to everything.”
He leaned forward and kissed her smooth forehead. “I love you, Macy.”
Her eyes stayed closed, but a smiled drifted across her face. “Love you, too, Tucker. Always have.”
He pulled her close, closing his own eyes and let the feeling of her lying next to him just wash over him. She was here, safe in his arms, for good. It felt so good to know each other’s tricks. It felt so good to have what he’d wanted, to have Macy next to him while not feeling an urgency about doing something—or not doing something—to keep her there. Gone were the deadlines, the killers, the need for rescue. Gone, also, were the ulterior motives. Especially those between them. Instead they’d had a shared goal, a need to stay together. To be together. To finally, just be.
Thank you so much for reading Macy and Tucker’s story. Click here to be the first to know when the next DARC Ops books is published.
Also by Jamie Garrett
Marked By Desire
Books 1 - 5
Southern Heat
From the Ashes
Fighting the Flames
Dreamcatchers
Emily
Keila
Payton
Lainey
Sienna (coming soon!)
DARC Ops
Darkest Hour (0.5)
Dark Secret
Dark Web
Dark Heart
Dark Control
Dark Threat
Dark Lies
Riley Reid Mysteries
Books 1 - 3 (first book free!)
Acknowledgments
A huge thank you to you—all my readers, subscribers, and social media followers. Thank you for choosing to read my books!
Thank you to my ARC team, for all your support. You’re all amazi
ng!
Lisa, Adele, and all the badass babes. You make my day on a regular basis. Thank you!
A special thanks also to Anette King and Kristine Piiparinen, for all that you do. You are both incredible ladies.
Come and hang out with me, plus authors Lisa Ladew and Adele Huxley, along with the fabulous badass babes in our Facebook romance group, Books, Babes, and Badasses. We talk about anything and everything, and there’s plenty of yummy eye candy too. Stop by and say hello anytime! You can also subscribe to my newsletter, send me an email, find me on Facebook, or visit my website.
About the Author
Hi, I’m Jamie. I live with my husband, two beautiful children and three cats. I loves to read almost as much as I loves to write, and can’t imagine anything better than getting to be an author and writing every day. There is at least one cat draped over the keyboard at all times.
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Dark Lies (DARC Ops Book 6) Page 22