by Angel Payne
He forgot the anger as he turned back to Mom. Her lips trembled as she lowered her hand. “But—but what if they couldn’t make it? What if they’ve been st-stopped? What if they got t-taken back and—”
“Taken back where?” Shay asked. Ghid impaled him with a silent version of don’t ask, dude. But it was too late. Mom’s tears thickened, ripping at his chest. And galvanizing his actions. “I’ll make sure they made it.” Though he couldn’t believe what he was promising, the words sprang from the depths of his heart, connected to the desperate little boy who tried to soothe her bruises with ice packs. The man he’d become could do something real for his mother’s hurt. “I’ll make sure every one of your boys gets on the plane. I promise.” When Zoe added her own anguished sob, he leaned and gave her a quick, hard kiss. “Ssshhh. I’ll be okay. My cover’s still solid. I’m the logical one for this, dancer.”
Ghid fired off an approving snort. “He’s right.”
Hell. The man was making it damn hard for Shay to decide which column to put him in, asshole or ally, which was likely how Ghid wanted it. “What’s your destination for the chopper?”
The fucker quirked up one side of his mouth. “I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you. Not that your corpse wouldn’t feel right at home at our rustic little backup camp.”
Shay sighed heavily. “Fine. Keep the twenty on your magic treehouse a state secret. Just tell me you can get Zoe safely back to Vegas from there.”
“We have plenty of resources. She’ll be safe.”
Who the hell is “we?” He didn’t bother pushing for the answer again. Ghid’s enigma act was firm on the shut-down right now.
There was another matter to deal, too. One ticked-off little dancer, now launching herself at him with new terror in her eyes. “Pendejo testarudo. No. No.”
Ghid clearly recognized a good moment to pull away when he saw one. “You ready to roll, Doc?” he asked Mom in a tone too intimate for Shay’s comfort. Despite every asshole move Dad had pulled, including death due to an exhausted liver, it had never occurred to think of Mom with someone else. Shit. The notion was reasonable, even justifiable. Just didn’t stop it from being weird.
Mom raised a brave smile. “I have to grab my backup drives and the source serums.”
“Shit,” Ghid returned. “Yeah. Good call.”
No more mortars hit the building, which was good and bad rolled together. Instead of the big blasts, gunfire rat-a-tatted nearby like Chinese fireworks, indicating whatever team had been sent for the party now had boots on the ground. Though the battle still raged at the other end of the building, adrenalin jacked Shay’s blood as he took advantage of the few seconds he had left with his tiny dancer.
His tiny dancer.
He’d have to let go of that concept as soon as this moment was over.
On that dismal note, he hauled her tightly against him. They simply stood for a long moment, absorbing each other’s energy, until he sifted fingers into her hair and tugged, lifting her face for one more selfish gaze.
“Damn,” he murmured, blown away as if beholding her beauty for the first time…forcing his mind around the miserable truth that it was the last. She finally lifted both arms, tangling her hands against his scalp too, forcing his mouth down to hers. She didn’t wait for him to do the invading this time. Her lips and tongue pulled and sucked on him with hot hunger. Her tearful mewl echoed through the deepest reaches of his being. Whatever part of his soul that hadn’t been branded by her yet was officially lost to the resistance now.
When he pulled away, her protesting whimper filled the air between them. She kept her hand in his hair, soaking him all over again with the midnight blue magic of her eyes, as she repeated her sweet little rasp from just an hour ago.
“This is crazy, right?”
Like that perfect moment from the medical room, he pushed their foreheads together and nodded.
“Shay?”
“Hmmm?”
“I’m scared.”
“Don’t be scared.”
“What if—”
“Ssshhh.”
He kissed her into silence not only for the words, but all the shitty things his mind filled in to the blank after them. Life in Special Forces was all about what ifs. Some sucked harder than others. He’d had to confront them every day he went out with the team, including the real possibility of his own death. But that knowledge had always existed in the game room of his mind, like an irreverent neon beer sign. Other than Tait, who fully understood the hazards of his job, he’d never had to worry about anyone missing him much.
In the space of twenty-four hours, the perfect woman in his arms had changed all that. Dammit.
Mom reappeared, bearing a small satchel filled with notebooks and rattling with computer flash drive sticks. In her other hand was a clear Lucite box loaded with a dozen tubes, all filled with dark gold liquid. Shay stared at them. He blinked, struck by a strange memory from those days when Mom and Homez were intense at work on their project in the garage. He saw Homez with one of the vials in his hand, holding it up so the afternoon light made the liquid glow like—
“Magic honey.”
The words fell out of him with the amazement from the memory. Mom stopped and blinked now, too. She didn’t look amazed. She looked stressed. To the power of ten. “Shay? Why did you say that?”
“Because I was the one who thought of it.”
“Why?” Her questions were demands now. “How?”
“During the summer, when you and Homez were working so hard, he used to let me watch him during the breaks you took to go get lemonade and shit.” He wondered if she would pinch his cheek again but she was clearly too upset about something, still beyond his comprehension, to wield the discipline. Hoping to yank free the sword he’d apparently jabbed into her, he went on, “It was only for a few minutes at a time, Mom. He never let me stay for very long. I was just a curious kid, and—”
“He never let you near it, did he?” She jerked free of Ghid’s hold, though Shay couldn’t tell if the guy had attempted to comfort or restrain her. “The magic honey…” She ran her gaze over him with eyes that were different than a mother adoring her son. This time, her attention was filled with…fear. And horror. “Tell me, Shay Raziel Bommer,” she insisted. I know Homer adored you, and I know you knew it. Did you ever talk him into letting you touch the serum…or taste it?”
As soon as she ignited the question, more years burned away between then and now. His recollections crashed on each other like the gunfire that grew closer, and clawed at him like Ghid’s impatient growl.
He grimaced as an image rose from that fuzzy fire.
“I—I didn’t know,” he murmured. “The note…it was from you, Mom…right?”
He should’ve cussed. Even one of her treacherous pinches would’ve been better than her motionless silence. “Wh-what note?” she finally asked. “Didn’t know about what?”
He took her hands. Needed to feel her reassurance. The consequences for this one felt much worse than getting grounded for two weeks. “It was the night after you disappeared,” he began. “Dad had hit the sauce all day, and was already passed out. Tait was watching TV. I went to my room. One of the vials was just there, in a gold holder on my nightstand, with a note.”
“Oh, my God,” she rasped, before squaring her shoulders in a you’re-a-mother-don’t-you-dare-fall-apart jerk. “Okay, tell me. Wh-what did the note say?”
He looked up and at her anguished face. Her lips shook harder than before. Desperate breaths worked in and out of her nose. Without a doubt, if he spoke again, he’d drive the damn sword in deeper. But had he come all this way, worked this hard to find her, to hide them both from the truth—even if that reality wasn’t a perfect movie plotline?
He hauled in a huge breath. “The note said…‘Magic honey for my Little B.’”
“Oh.” There was barely volume in it. “Oh…”
“Shit, Mom, I thought it was from you. I saw it as
a sign that everything would work out okay. There was a part of me that probably believed it was magic…that by drinking it, I’d instantly teleport to be with you or something.”
Their hands were still twined. Mom gripped him back so hard, she trembled from the effort. “He knew,” she whispered. “Somehow, he knew I’d signed with Cameron, so he went back to the house and put it there…for you to find.” Her head dropped forward between her shoulders. “Bastard!”
“Mom. Mom. Who’re you talking…”
His words drifted out beneath the weight of his shock—because of the agony in her tears. Mom peered at him like he’d been gunned down in front of her. “Homer. I had no idea he could be so cruel.”
“What?” Shay uttered. “Why?”
“You drank it.” Her voice was flat and grim. “The honey. Didn’t you, Shay?”
Hell.
This wasn’t like line-driving the baseball through the kitchen window. He couldn’t stick the flower vase in front of the hole and be assured it wouldn’t be discovered for another week. They were already out of time. He heard men bellowing orders over the gunfire, meaning it might already be too late to scoot his ass safely back down the hallway. But that didn’t mean he could shirk the responsibility of his reply, either.
“Yeah, Mom. I drank it.”
He felt nine years old all over again, confessing it. But even his nine year-old self, who could peg the woman’s reaction to a healthy list of shit, wouldn’t have predicted the impact of his admission on his Mom.
Who fell against him in a dead faint.
“Fuck!”
He and Ghid spat it in unison as the walls quaked again around them.
The military was here. The building had been breached.
Ghid snatched Mom’s satchel and the case of vials, and thrust them into Zoe’s hands. As if Mom weighed the same as those containers, he scooped her into both his arms. “This way,” he ordered Zoe with a jerk of his head toward the stairwell. “Now!”
Shay didn’t stop to ensure if Zoe followed. He prayed she was smart and simply did. He bolted the other direction, sticking close to the wall and praying that CENTCOMM had sent some guys with decent brains in their buckets—and reason in their trigger fingers. If he was lucky, he wouldn’t see them at all.
He didn’t get lucky.
“Freeze, dickwad! And get your ass on the floor right now, before I blast another hole in it!”
He complied without question. He knew better. Though it was torment to rein back his temper, especially when his face was “accidentally” grinded into the floor as they cuffed him, he accomplished the miracle by gritting his jaw and thinking of Zoe. He slid his eyes shut as they rolled him over and a boot pushed into the cavity between his ribs, crushing his hands beneath his body and all the air in his lungs.
But when the boot released, he still couldn’t breathe. The voice belonging to that foot, just as angry as the stomp it had delivered, ensured that fact with crushing precision.
“Hello, little brother.” Tait flung down a glare full of revulsion and hate. “Fancy meeting you here, asshole.”
Chapter Fourteen
Zoe shivered, curled her legs under her in the patio chair, and wrapped her purple pashmina tighter against her shoulders. It was early November in the high desert, meaning the temperature descended with the sun. Though a few violet streaks lingered in the sky beyond the peaks of Red Rock Canyon, nighttime was definitely on the prowl.
She took another sip of the Cabernet Brynn had brought to go with their lasagna and salad. As the wine slackened her limbs, she leaned back, trying to let it ease her mind and heart, as well. A bite of wind rustled through the juniper and willow trees then across the in-ground reflecting pool, a nice reminder of why she’d decided to rent a place in Canyon Gate and commute a little farther to work on the Strip. When a girl’s post-shift happy hour was at two in the morning, it was skies like this, blanketed with a thousand stars, that bested any cocktail for “taking the edge off the work day.”
But she’d never had edges this harsh.
The stars began to glitter more brightly, but tonight, she didn’t see any friends in them. Instead, they were heart-stabbing reminders of the gorgeous glints in Shay’s eyes. The mighty silhouettes of Turtleback Peak and Mount Wilson only made her think of every perfect ridge in his muscles, of how safe she’d felt in his massive embrace. And the wind, stronger now, sucked her breath away just like he had on so many occasions. The first moment their gazes had met. Every single time he’d kissed her. Every second he’d filled her body with his.
The wind died.
It was eerily quiet.
Just like his four days of silence.
All the better to hear the desperate questions on their ridiculous repeat loop in her head.
Where the hell was he?
Was he safe?
Was he alive?
If so—and she wouldn’t allow herself to believe anything else—then was he still playing his dangerous ruse with Stock? Or had he returned to his Spec Ops team, gone from the country on a completely new mission?
You knew it would probably go down like this. Even after you learned his truth, you knew the possibility of seeing him again was never as sure as splitting aces.
“Shut up,” she muttered, gulping more wine.
Four days. Why did it feel like four thousand? Yet in so many ways, it could’ve been yesterday…even a few hours ago. She could almost hear the deafening roar of the helicopter again, carrying her, Ghid and Melody Bommer away from the raid. She could smell the wildflowers in the meadow where they’d landed, near the ghost town in the middle of nowhere. She’d guessed they were at one of the long-forgotten mining camps that were scattered across northern Nevada. Though a tour wasn’t offered, it was clear Ghid and his gang had taken over the place as a remote outpost, probably in preparation for exactly what had happened at the base.
The setting had been remote and chilly, a perfect match for the instant plummet of her spirit. Logic dictated that the despair was due to her sudden adrenalin drop, but that concept was paltry satisfaction for a mind still coping with the surreal somersault her life had taken. In a little over a day, she’d gone from watching her friends chug margaritas at LAX to sitting in an old gold panning trough as Ghid and his team refueled a helicopter in a meadow…
Okay, maybe “surreal” wasn’t the right word.
Or maybe it was perfect.
Zoe glanced to the lavender bushes lining the yard, waiting for Morpheus or Glinda the Witch to emerge and confirm she’d really jumped into an alternate reality. She probably wouldn’t mind things so much then. Glinda rocked great shoes, but bending spoons in a kick-ass leather trench definitely appealed, too. Hell. What a dilemma.
No.
She knew what a dilemma really looked like. She was just fighting the memory—which, as her mind’s eye so lovingly helped demonstrate, only pulled the whole thing closer.
Much too close.
She twisted her scarf harder as the recollection hit with brutal clarity.
She saw every tormented crease of Melody Bommer’s face while Ghid relayed that Stock had been stopped from getting the airliner back off the ground. When Melody asked about the “guys,” who Zoe assumed to be the strange patients on the gurneys she’d seen in the hallway, Ghid’s features had succumbed to rare emotion. He had no answer for her, and was clearly ripped apart by it. By the time Melody’s tears surfaced, he’d become a human wall again, holding her while she sobbed out phrases about being helpless and pissed and confused, then pissed again.
Zoe had been unable to sit by and watch anymore. She couldn’t very well blurt that she’d fallen like a lead brick for the woman’s son after knowing him for a day, but she could help by taking over the tear-wiping duties. The action was a balm for her, too. Being closer to Melody helped her notice many wonderful traits the woman shared with her son—the brilliant amber eyes, the caramel highlights in the thick chocolate hair, the strongly-a
ngled face—and best of all, the similarities in their personalities. Even in her grief, Melody let out one-liners full of wicked sarcasm. Her protective side showed when she voiced concern about Zoe’s growling stomach. But best of all—and oddly, worst of all—her smile was exactly like Shay’s, easily formed and persistent in its strength.
When it had come time to say good-bye to Melody, she’d clung longer than she planned…and cried more than she wanted to.
And Shay’s silence had stretched on.
At least the troupe had finally been reunited yesterday. Stock and his goons had taken away everyone’s phones once they’d all become hostages, only now that everyone in the troupe was the media’s hot flavor of the month, a cell company sponsored a big “get reconnected” celebration for them on a yacht at The Lakes. The last thing Zoe had felt like was a party. She dialed in from her own new phone, kindly messengered over to her, and video-chatted with everyone until she couldn’t stop thinking about the moment she’d turned the device on, finding fifty texts and phone calls from Ava, about that many from Ryder, twice that many from Papi—and a grand total of zero from Shay. The ruse of cheer became too much. She excused herself, hanging up to indulge a self-pity bawl over the stupidity of falling so hard and fast for a man in one damn day.
It almost matched the dumb-ass move of picking up the phone when it rang with a new video call, even when she recognized the number as Brynn’s. She should have known that no matter how many margaritas Brynn had swigged, her friend would be instantly wise to her swollen eyes and cherry nose—explaining why she, Ellie, and Ryder were here for dinner tonight.
“Somebody’s glass is almost empty.”
Ry’s sing-song, a usual natural for making her giggle, cracked only a small smile tonight. With a resigned sigh, she lifted her glass for the cheeky boy to refill. Ryder sloshed more Cabernet in as he settled into the chair to her right. “Thanks,” she said, arching a brow at the large puddle of vino he’d managed to spill to her deck. “Good thing this is used brick.”