by Diana Gardin
“It’s just you, Jeremy.”
Jeremy Teague, or “Brains” as we call him in the field, thanks to his gadget-geared mind, leans against the wall facing me. He folds big, tattooed arms across his chest, so much like the rest of the men I work with. They’re big, they’re bossy, and they rock tattoos. It’s just their thing.
“You know, ‘it’s just you’ sounds like you don’t know I’m a badass, which we both know is complete bullshit.”
Rolling my eyes skyward, I hug myself and glance around. “The fight over in there?”
He studies me. “Yeah. Blacke’s got both guys by the collars, and that chick who works the bar with him poured a bucket of ice over all of them.” His lips pull into his signature grin. “She’s feisty, that one.”
As if on cue, the door opens and Bennett shoves the two men who were throwing punches before out the door. “I hope neither one of you are stupid enough to drive home.”
But their buddies, about six other frat-boy types, stream out of the door and grab hold of their respective friends, pulling them into the parking lot. I watch them go, my arms tightening around myself as I sidestep out of the way. Avoiding any of them touching me.
Jeremy’s gaze flicks toward Bennett. “Rowdy crowd.”
Bennett blows out a breath through lips unusually full for a man. “Gets that way in here lately. Especially on a Friday night. Comes with the territory.”
Bennett’s eyes land on me. “What are you doing out here?”
I force myself to lower my arms and straighten my shoulders. “Just getting some fresh air.”
Jeremy nods to back me up, knowing full well the reason I fled. “Bars aren’t really her thing.”
Bennett pushes back against the door, crossing his feet at the ankle and folding his thick arms. His eyes, dark in the shadows of the night, hold mine. My natural instinct is to look away, but maybe the darkness that cloaks us both keeps the impulse away. “What is your thing, then?”
Feeling my face heat, I shrug one shoulder and snap, “Not watching a bunch of Neanderthals get drunk and beat each other up.”
Pushing past him, I make my way back into the warm, now much calmer, atmosphere of The Oakes.
Both men follow me, and as I take my seat at the table Bennett stands before us. He reaches out to slap Ronin Shaw’s—or “Swagger” as we call him—palm and glances around the table at the rest of us.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of an NES team visit?”
Jacob Owen, our boss and probably the closest thing I have to a father, clasps his hands together on top of the table. He inclines his head toward an empty chair. “Sit for a minute.”
It’s evident to me that Bennett wants to refuse. His eyes narrow just the slightest bit and his biceps flex even though his arms don’t move. With an exaggerated sigh, Bennett glances toward the bar. The beautiful girl working it seems to have it all handled, and when he lifts a brow at her, she gives him a thumbs-up. Bennett turns a chair around backward and straddles it.
His whole I-don’t-give-a-shit attitude is probably attractive to a lot of women. To me, it just screams that he’s more trouble than he’s worth. But as my eyes travel down his muscled arms, corded with veins and tracing the lines of the tattoo sleeve on his left arm and across broad, hard shoulders, I can’t help but think he might have some qualities worth exploring.
If I were interested.
Which I’m not.
Bennett shakes his thick, dark blond hair out of his face as he focuses on Jacob. “What’s this all about?”
Jeremy and Dare stare him down hard, but Bennett acts like neither one of them are even at the table. It’s no secret they aren’t fans of his. I’m pretty sure it’s a guy thing, but I don’t know exactly why they don’t like Bennett. All the NES guys respect each other because of their military service and the brotherhood they’ve formed as a result of working for NES. They complete secretive, black ops missions together on a regular basis, and they also protect important people who pay well for discretion and for the guys’ willingness to lay their lives on the line for them.
It’s never easy for them to accept someone new to the group. They’ve welcomed me because I’m important to Jacob and I proved myself with my computer skills when Jeremy’s wife and son were taken.
But when it comes to Bennett, his background is something that some of the guys take real issue with. They don’t really know him, only Ronin does, but digging into peoples’ backgrounds is what NES does. We know that Bennett Blacke, although he served in the army and performed his Special Forces duties exceptionally well, he’s also served time in prison. The charges were aggravated assault. Bennett nearly beat a man to death.
But according to Ronin we should give him the benefit of the doubt. He insists that there were extenuating circumstances behind Bennett’s crime, and that he’s learned and grown from his time spent in prison.
Maybe Ronin’s right. I have no idea. All I know is that Jacob liked what he saw when Bennett helped the team rescue Olive Alexander, Ronin’s now-fiancée. And he wants to offer him a permanent spot with the NES Rescue Ops team.
I sit back in my chair, running my straw over the rim of my glass again and again as I wait for the fireworks to start.
“Bennett, we have a proposition for you.” Jacob’s voice is low, but it commands respect. He didn’t get to where he is in life by being anything less than a boss.
Bennett plasters a smirk on his face, leaning his elbows on the table. “Do tell.”
Ronin places a hand on Jacob’s shoulder, asking him silently if he can speak up. Jacob nods.
“Bennett, man…we all saw how you reacted when Olive’s life was on the line. I know that I personally will always be grateful for that. But the team saw something in you that night, too.”
Jeremy snorts, and I shoot him a glare over the table.
Jacob picks up where Ronin left off. “Come work on a mission with us. It can be on a trial basis, if that’s what will make you comfortable. What we can offer you is a unit of brothers who’ve been where you’ve been, who can have your back and allow you to exist in a world where your specific skills can be utilized instead of squashed.”
Bennett lifts a brow. “My skills? You mean the fact that I’m a chemist who knows how to blow shit up?”
Jacob’s lips tilt in a smile. “We could use your wheelhouse. We don’t have anyone like you on the team. And we do good work—exciting work—that’ll feed the adrenaline rush you’re missing in your life right now.”
A shadow crosses Bennett’s face. “I’ve had plenty of adrenaline. And I left that life behind when I landed behind bars. I can’t go back to the man I was back then.” He pushes back from the table and folds his arms. “I don’t want to go back.”
Ronin stands, placing a hand on Bennett’s shoulder. “Listen, man. No one is asking you to call up the beast of the past that tore you apart. We’re here to show you that you can have it all. You can have the rewarding career, the one you were damn good at, in the private sector. All while finding your place in a unit that will value your expertise and help you stay on the path you want to be on.”
Bennett’s glance flicks toward me, just for a moment, before his eyes land on Jeremy and Dare. “And every member of the team is on board with this? With giving me a trial run?”
He spits the words trial run like they leave a bitter taste in his mouth.
Clearly Bennett Blacke is a man who doesn’t like to work under anyone. He doesn’t trust the camaraderie that these men have formed. He’s a man out for himself and himself alone.
And when it comes to protecting yourself above all else? I can definitely relate.
No one speaks, but Grisham glances pointedly at Jeremy and Dare.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Without another word, Bennett turns around and walks away from our tables. I watch as he nods to the female bartender, and then he disappears through a swinging door heading for the back of the bar.
Jacob tilts his head t
oward me. “You’re up.”
Swirling my straw around the rim of my glass, I don’t meet his gaze. “Why do you even want him so bad? He obviously doesn’t want to have anything to do with us.”
Ronin speaks up. “He needs this, Sayward. Maybe he doesn’t know it yet, but he does. Working behind that bar is something he’s doing to pass the time. There’s so much more in him than that shit. Trust me.”
And I do trust these guys. Everything single one of them would lay their life on the line for me. So if they’re asking me to help convince Bennett to come on board, I can try my best to do that for them.
I rise from my seat and stride for the bar. Meeting the female bartender’s gaze, I detect a hint of heat in hers as she stares at me, leaning over the bar. “Need something, sweetheart?”
I place both hands on the bar and lean forward. “Give me a tequila shot. I’m trying to talk to a man, and I’m pretty much the worst when it comes to that. So why don’t you go ahead and make it a double?”
Never mind the fact that I’ve never had a shot of tequila in my life, much less a double. For this? I need liquid courage.
Both of her perfectly arched eyebrows lift, her exotic features twisting into a pretty grin. “Coming right up.”
She pulls the stopper out of a top-shelf bottle, and then sprays the contents into two waiting shot glasses. Then she pours a third. “Mind if I have one with you?”
A smile tugs at the corner of my lips. “I’d probably prefer it.”
With a flash of white teeth, she picks up her shot and hands me a wedge of lime.
“I’m guessing you’re not the kind of girl who wants to lick salt off another person,” she muses as she hands me the salt. “But maybe we’ll get you there.”
I lick the salt off the top of my hand and down the contents of the shot glass. The liquid is smooth rolling down my throat and I stick a lime wedge into my mouth and suck.
The girl behind the bar watches me, her eyes dark and full of something I can’t quite place.
I gesture toward her glass. “Your turn.”
Her eyes on me, we both pour and then lick the salt off the back of our hands and then we knock back our shots. I stick another lime wedge in my mouth, and to my extreme shock, she leans over the bar and takes the lime from my mouth with her own. Her tongue slides across my lips, and my entire body goes stiff.
“Atta girl,” she says with a smile as she wipes the back of her mouth. “Now go get him.”
Feeling a bit light-headed from the shots and from the graze of the bartender’s lips against my own, I head for the swinging door where Bennett disappeared. I don’t feel nearly as reluctant as I did a few moments ago.
Now I see why they call this stuff liquid courage.
3
Bennett
When I appear at the office door again, my fingers grip the top of the doorjamb hard enough to throb.
At this point in my life, I’ve been taking shit one step at a time. The only plans I had for the near future was helping Mickey get this bar straight and being there for him through the hell that is cancer. Working on another special ops team? I never thought I’d do it again. Everything shifted when Mickey announced, out of the blue, that he was taking one last trip out west before he died. He left the bar to me. His life’s work.
There was a time in my life, right before I went to prison, that I told myself it was all my training, all my military precision, all the knowledge I had of how to hurt a man, kill a man, that made me do what I did. Later, I figured out that it had more to do with the rage inside me that had built up over two tours, seeing things no man should ever have to see. That particular night, when everything in my entire world shifted, tilted, and changed forever, I snapped. I lost my shit. It happens to a lot of vets. I just never expected it to happen to me.
So now, maybe I’m scared. It’s true; I did feel something when I was on that rescue mission beside Ronin. It felt like I was back in my own skin again, doing shit that meant something. I was comfortable, in my element.
But going back to the man I was before is something I swore to myself I’d never do. Exposing myself to my PTSD triggers, no matter how in-control I feel now, is a door I don’t want to open.
Isn’t it?
I lift my head and stare at the desk, right at the place where Mickey used to sit. I can almost make out the shape of him sitting there, and I chuckle darkly to myself as I picture not only the knowing expression that’d be on his face, but also the wise old voice that would have come with it.
“What are you scared of?” Mickey’s voice would be low and laced with a demanding note that would make me talk.
I sigh, having the conversation with him in my head that I would have had aloud if he’d actually been here with me. Fuck if I know. I don’t even know if half those guys out there want me on the team. They know my past. They don’t trust me. And I can’t fault them for that.
I know exactly what Mickey would have said next. “You have a friend on the team, right? You know how this works, kid. Once military, always military. We’re all one and the same. One team member trusts you, the boss wants to hire you…the rest will come around. They’re like one mind when they work together the way those guys do. If they’re asking, they want you.”
Without Mickey, I don’t know where I would have ended up. Thinking about losing him, well…it still hurts.
I know the bar is in good hands. Kandie can run the place with one eye shut and her hands tied behind her back. This isn’t about the bar…it’s about me. It’s about whether or not I think it’s possible for me to step back into that life without losing myself to the darkness all over again.
Someone with a small voice clears her throat behind me. Whirling, I find myself drowning in hazel eyes, creamy bronze skin, and miles of black, thick hair streaked with hints of red.
Sayward rocks back and forth on her Converse sneakers, her gaze falling to the floor. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
Nodding, I move so she can slide past me. She hesitates, remaining where she stands, eyes cast down toward the floor. I can feel the heat from her body. She’s that close. I can tell she’s uncomfortable with my proximity though, because she doesn’t lift her eyes from the floor.
Taking a few steps back, I gesture into the office. “Come on in.”
When she looks up, her eyes lock onto mine and interest finds its way into my brain and straight down to my dick.
“You here to talk your company up?” I drop onto the edge of the desk and fold my arms.
Sayward leans against the doorway and I take a minute to drink her in. She has a tight little body, full of the kind of curves a man can get lost in, but it’s obvious she’s in shape. I wonder if she works out with the team at NES, even though she’s not active on assignments except for making decisions behind her computer screen. Her skin is this deep bronze and it’s set off by the long, thick black hair and her deep-set hazel eyes. Her beauty is so damn unassuming, though, because she doesn’t have a clue. Or she does and she’s never wanted to use it to her advantage.
“Listen,” she says matter-of-factly, and my eyes snap back to hers. “I don’t know why they sent me in here, but here’s the deal.”
When she talks to me, her eyes jump around from the features of my face, down to my body and back again, which makes my lips twitch. She’s so serious about what she’s saying, like she’s about to lay down the law.
Yeah, okay, beautiful. Let’s have it. My lip-twitch turns into a full-blown smirk. I can’t fucking help it.
She’s adorable.
“These guys, they’re good guys. Trust me, I know the difference between good people and bad people, and the team at NES? They’re good.”
At those words, I study her more carefully. What the hell does that mean? Somehow, the idea of someone like Sayward having to deal with bad people sits like a stone in my gut.
There’s something about her…something different from dealing with any other woman. I have
an immediate instinct to make sure no one messes with her.
Even though it seems like she does a damn good job of that on her own.
“We’ve looked you up,” she continues. “I won’t beat around the bush about it. Despite your past, Jacob wants to give you a chance. He liked what he saw when you worked on Olive’s rescue, and he’s not the easiest guy to impress.”
I school my features, wiping all expression from my face.
“So, if they’re all willing to give you a chance, why aren’t you willing to give them one?” She finishes in a rush of words, her face looking irritated as she pushes a chunk of her hair behind her ear. Her full lips purse, and my gaze drops there for a second before I answer.
“Don’t you mean ‘us’?” I watch as her expression becomes confused and flustered.
“What?”
“You said they’re willing to give me a chance. You’re with them, right? So shouldn’t you include yourself in that?” My comfortable smirk pulls at my mouth again.
It’s just way too much fun, messin’ with this woman.
Her gaze widens and then she blows out an exasperated breath. “I tried.” Her tone flat, she whirls around.
The sight of her back and the thought of her retreat does something strange to my stomach. It’s not a good feeling, and I don’t have time to evaluate it before my mouth is working faster than my brain.
“Wait.”
She pauses before she turns around again, her eyebrows lifted.
“I’ll come tell your boss I’m willing to give it a try. Trial basis. I still run this place, you know.”
I can’t explain why I’m saying yes. The idea of working at Night Eagle is exciting as hell, but it also scares me to death. It was one thing when I helped out my friend Ronin a few months ago. But the last time I really allowed that part of myself to come out to play—the black ops, bomb-loving, soldier side—more than one person ended up dead back in the desert. And one person ended up in the hospital fighting for his life when I returned home.
That kind of work…it brings out a darkness in me I never want to see again. Can I control it if I go back to work in this field?