by Cat Johnson
“Um, did you happen to remember to bring your dress uniform with you for the ceremony?”
His mouth crooked up with a small smile. “Yes, my little worrier. I had my SUV packed with everything I’d need before I even left the country. Just in case we got back late and I had to rush to make it up here.”
“So organized,” she teased. “Like a boy scout.”
He drew his brows low. “No. Like a SEAL. Now come here and welcome me back properly.”
“Gladly.” She moved closer even as her mind spun with ideas. She was going to find a way to get those kids there for the wedding—for Thom—if it was the last thing she did.
CHAPTER 16
“You sure you’re okay with me being away so close to the wedding?” Thom asked.
“Little late to ask now, bro,” Brody said from the passenger seat.
Thom shushed him as Ginny answered, “Of course. I’m fine. Don’t worry. Having you in the next state is a nice change from the usual.”
“Not exactly the next state but yeah, it is a nice change. So we’ll be back tomorrow night. Okay?” They’d have to be back because the following morning was his wedding day. Thom tried not to panic about that.
“Yup. That’s fine.”
“I’ll stop by to see you when we get back and grab my uniform from your place but I’m going to sleep at my parents’ house tomorrow night since I shouldn’t see you before the ceremony.” It was kind of an outdated tradition, but he didn’t need to tempt any bad luck.
“Okay. But remember, I arranged for the photographer to be at the church at nine to take pictures. He’ll photograph us separately before the ceremony, then together after—” Ginny’s voice cut out and then faded completely.
Thom pulled the cell away from his ear and looked at the display. “Shit. No bars.”
“Yeah. I’m not surprised. We never had good signal driving here. Sorry.” At the wheel, Rocky met Thom’s gaze in the rearview mirror.
Thom sighed. “Not your fault.” He tossed the phone on the seat next to him and looked at the passing scenery, getting more wooded with every mile they traveled. “We almost there?”
Brody laughed. “Who needs kids when we have Thom in the backseat asking are we there yet?”
“Mm, hm,” Rocky agreed. “And the answer is yes, we’re almost there.”
That was a bit of an exaggeration since it was a solid hour before Rocky slowed and steered his pickup truck off the main road and onto a dirt one.
As they bounced along, hitting enough puddles and potholes to make Thom have to grab the front seats to hold on, he understood why Rocky had said they’d need his truck with the four-wheel drive.
“And where are we again?” Brody asked.
“The Poconos, southern boy.”
“Pennsylvania,” Thom clarified, figuring Alabama-born Brody wouldn’t know where the Poconos were either.
“And you’re from here?” Brody asked, glancing around at the deserted solitude around them.
“No. My family’s in Trenton.”
At Brody’s blank stare in response to Rocky’s answer, Thom clarified, “That’s in New Jersey.”
“Oh.”
Rocky shook his head at Brody. “Dude. I’m gonna buy you a map.”
“I have a map if I need one. On my phone.”
“Which doesn’t work up here,” Thom reminded.
“Looks like lover boy is having withdrawal already because he can’t talk to the future wife.” Brody laughed, glancing over his shoulder at Thom.
“Well, in my defense, if I’d known there was no signal up here I would have told her in advance.”
“Whipped already,” Rocky added and then said, “And we’re here.”
After another giant hole that listed the truck to one side, Rocky slowed to pull between two fence posts.
Thom leaned between the seats. “Where’s the cabin?”
When Brody and Thom exchanged glances, Rocky shook his head. “It’s another half a mile up the right-of-way. Don’t worry. It exists. I promise. We won’t be sleeping outside.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.” Brody snorted.
“Nope,” Thom agreed.
True to his word, Rocky steered the truck up to a log cabin that actually didn’t look too bad. The stovepipe coming out of the roof proved there was heat for the colder months. The front porch, complete with wooden Adirondack chairs, was just waiting for them to crack a beer and kick back.
After throwing the truck into park and cutting the engine, Rocky pulled out the keys and twisted in his seat. “Somebody grab the cooler. I’ll unlock the door and see about firing up the charcoal grill.”
Barbecued meat and beer. Thom couldn’t argue with Rocky’s priorities. “I’ll get it.”
A few minutes later Thom was taking advantage of that porch—and the chairs and the beer as the coals got hot enough to grill their steaks.
Stretching his legs out, he took a sip of cold brew and sighed.
There might be no electric or running water, but there was a helluva shooting range set up behind the cabin. He intended to take advantage of that shortly.
As far as bachelor parties went, Thom couldn’t have asked for anything better.
Sure, it was just the three of them, but he was fine with that. Low key. Less chance of them getting into trouble than if everyone were here. Things could get crazy when they were in a group.
Besides, expecting all of the guys in the platoon to request leave to come to New England early for his bachelor party as well as the wedding would have been asking too much. As it was he wasn’t sure if anyone else from the team would be able to make it to the wedding.
He had left Virginia close to a week ago and hadn’t talked to most of the guys since. Theirs would probably be one of the last minute RSVPs Ginny had said she was still getting in the mail.
Thom had given all the guys the address of the cabin and the dates of when he’d be there, along with an open invite. They knew they were welcome to come for any part of the time if they could make it, no advance notice necessary. So there was a chance this little party could get much larger. But if they couldn’t make it, that would be fine too. Having Brody and Rocky with him for a relaxing couple of days suited Thom just fine.
Rocky stood on the front porch of the cabin and gazed out over the woods surrounding them. “Twenty-four hours of nothing but peace and quiet.”
“And of shooting at shit with the guys.” Thom added.
“Yup. That too.” Rocky grinned.
Brody frowned at them both. “You do realize that pretty much describes our job. Right?”
“Yeah, but here nobody’s shooting back at us.” Thom laughed.
“And there are no instructors rating our performance,” Rocky added before he raised a beer bottle to his lips.
Thom headed for the cooler to grab himself another beer since his seemed to be almost empty, when he paused. “We doing any shooting today?”
“Eh, we got all day tomorrow. How about we make today all about eating and—more importantly—drinking and we play with the guns tomorrow?”
“When we might be too hung over to drink anymore anyway so we’ll be good and sober for target practice, you mean?” Brody asked.
“Yup.” Rocky nodded.
Brody laughed. “That sounds good, cause I’m fixin’ to be too drunk to handle a weapon tonight anyway.”
Thom smiled and reached his hand into the ice of the cooler. He thought he was pulling out a bottle of beer but emerged instead with a bottle of bourbon.
Thom cocked a brow at Rocky, who’d packed the cooler, as he held up the bottle of liquor. “You put any soda in here with this?”
“Ah, shit. That’s what I forgot.” Rocky’s grin didn’t make him look like he’d really forgotten.
Shaking his head, Thom reached back in for a beer. This was going to be one hell of a night.
CHAPTER 17
The hangover was fierce. Sharp and blinding above t
he neck and almost worse below where Thom’s stomach was doing flips that seemed to reach up into his throat.
He stumbled out to the front porch after making a trip out back to the outhouse. Thom found Brody already outside, gathering wood to start a fire.
“What are you doing?” Thom squinted against the glare of the morning sun.
“I’m fixin’ to start breakfast but we only brought one bag of charcoal.” Brody straightened from where he’d been bent over piling the sticks in the stone fire pit and looked toward Thom. “I think the better question is how are you doing?”
“I’ve been better.” He pressed a hand to his head, which only made Brody smile wider. As his brain started to function, he noticed a few key absences. “Where’s Rocky? And the truck?”
“City boy ran out for coffee. Didn’t believe I could brew it on the fire.”
“How far is he gonna have to go to find coffee around here?”
“Couldn’t be too far. I hear the truck now.” Brody cocked his head to the side.
How the fuck was Brody functioning and not hung over? Thom decided to figure that out later. After coffee.
He made his way gingerly down the few short steps to the ground as Rocky pulled up close to the cabin and cut the engine.
When he swung the door open and stepped down, Thom nearly wept with joy at the cardboard holder in his hand bearing three extra-large to-go cups.
Rocky strode forward, one cup held out in offering. “Good morning, sunshine. Coffee?”
“Oh, bless you. Yes.”
“Hung over?” Rocky laughed.
“Yes. Why aren’t you?” Thom frowned.
Rocky shrugged. “Maybe I can handle my alcohol better than you.”
Or maybe his two supposed friends had plied him with extra liquor. Even if they had, Thom couldn’t be angry as the hot coffee slid down his throat.
“There’s ibuprofen in my bag.” Rocky eyed him again. “You know, in case you need it.”
Hell yeah, he needed it. “Thanks.” Thom was about to go in search of relief when he heard the loud crack cut through the woods.
Rocky glanced in the direction of the unmistakable sound. “Somebody’s up and out shooting early.”
That single shot was followed by a burst of a dozen rounds of rapid fire.
“What the fuck? That’s no hunting rifle.” Thom eyed the woods.
“Who the hell is shooting a semi-automatic weapon up here?” Brody asked.
The sound began again, with more than one weapon being fired this time.
Thom frowned. “How close is the nearest neighbor?”
Rocky shook his head. “I don’t know. Last time I was here, there was an old farmer who owned all the acreage on either side of us. But I haven’t been here in a long time. He could’ve sold.”
Brody let out a snort. “I don’t know about around here but I don’t know any farmers who make a habit of shooting up their places with an AR-15.”
“Me either,” Thom said. “We need to check this out.”
“Hell, yeah, we do.” Brody planted his coffee down on the rail and spun toward the staircase.
“We’re on leave. We don’t have to do shit if we don’t want to, you know.” Rocky looked from Brody to Thom and then let out a sigh, putting his own cup down. “There goes my peace and quiet.”
“Do we go armed?” Thom asked.
It wasn’t like they were set up for a recon mission. They’d come prepared with beer and food for the barbecue, not body armor or weapons or anything else they’d normally have when heading out.
“Hell yeah, we go armed.” Brody turned to Rocky. “What’ve we got here?”
“Um, my grandfather’s double barrel shotgun. A couple of twenty-twos. Buckshot. Birdshot. And some knives.”
“So we’re roughing it.” Thom cocked a brow.
“Hey. What do you want from me?” Rocky frowned. “It’s not even hunting season. We came here to relax and shoot at targets. Not get in a firefight with the neighbors.”
“We’re not going to get in a firefight with anybody,” Thom said, worried by the gleam he saw in Brody’s eyes.
Brody let out a snort. “Not with our choice of weapons against what they’ve got, we’re not. Talk about bringing a knife to a gun fight.”
“We’re just gonna check on what’s going on. Maybe it’s just a couple of guys enjoying some time away, just like us.” Why did Thom feel like he had to supervise Brody? It wasn’t even his cabin. He turned to Rocky, looking for help.
Rocky pressed his lips together. “All right. We check it out.”
“Armed?” Brody asked.
“Yes, armed.” Rocky rolled his eyes. “Good thing my grandfather isn’t around to see this.”
Brody was already inside checking out the gun cabinet Rocky had unlocked when they’d arrived. He held up the double barrel. “You’re nuts. The man who owns this quality weapon would most definitely approve of what we’re doing.”
Rocky glanced at Thom and tipped his head toward Brody. “Guess he’s taking the double barrel.”
“Guess so.” Thom laughed.
Thom grabbed one of the .22s, squinting at the name on it. “A Henry. Nice.”
Brody’s head whipped up. “That’s a Henry rifle?”
Thom pulled the gun close to his chest and frowned at Brody. “Oh, no. You picked your gun already. This one is mine.”
Another round of shooting began in the distance and sobered Thom immediately. “We need to get out there.”
“Agreed.” Rocky pulled open drawers and started tossing ammo and knives onto the table.
They grabbed their weapons, shoved extra ammo in the cargo pockets of their pants, along with the knives and headed out the door.
As the three of them went outside Thom figured they would check out the source of the noise and then, when they found it was nothing but a couple of guys having fun, they could come back and continue their guys’ getaway.
If nothing else, they’d have an interesting story to tell at the wedding.
They moved through the woods like the well-trained commandos they were. Their training was so ingrained in them, into their minds, their muscles and reflexes, it didn’t matter if they were sneaking into an insurgent stronghold or a hunting camp the procedure was the same.
This could have been any one of the exercises they routinely ran through between missions to keep their skills sharp. Any live-ammo tactical scenario staged in a wooded terrain.
Except it wasn’t a training exercise . . .
It could, however, turn out to be an exercise in futility if all they found were a bunch of drunk guys taking their target practice to the extreme by shooting off a couple of hundred rounds from their AR-15s.
Whoever the shooters were, they were still at it. It was sporadic, but the sound of gunfire hadn’t stopped for more than a few minutes since when the three of them had left the cabin in pursuit of answers.
The bursts of sound increased in volume as they progressed through the woods. Thom, Brody and Rocky were definitely getting closer. Close enough they slowed their pace and began to move more quietly as they approached.
Maybe they were being overly cautious, but they didn’t know what they were walking into. Then again, maybe they were being foolish not being more cautious because they didn’t know what they were walking into.
Armed with hunting guns and not much more, this might be the stupidest thing they could have done. Normal people probably would have gone to the police to report the gunfire. SEALs tended to handle things on their own.
When Thom began to hear voices he knew they were almost upon the group of shooters. He gave Brody and Rocky the signal to hold where they were.
“There looks like there’s a clearing just ahead.” Thom tipped his chin toward where it looked as if the forest got less dense.
“I smell smoke. And . . .” Brody sniffed the air. “Barbecue.”
“I told you. It’s probably just a group of guys hanging�
�” Rocky didn’t finish the sentence as his eyes widened and he stared at something past Thom’s shoulder.
“What?” Thom swiveled his head to look just as the foliage behind him moved. The same happened three more places as the woods around them came to life.
“Ghillie suits,” Brody hissed.
Thom nodded.
The question was why in the mountains of Pennsylvania were there men hiding in the woods, camouflaged as well as any military commando and outfitted with automatic weapons, which happened to be pointed directly at them?
“Put them guns down.” The order came from one of the invisible men who’d become visible when he stepped out from a bush behind Rocky holding what looked like it could be an AR-15 draped in camo netting.
“A’ight.” Brody nodded, bending slowly to lay the double barrel on the ground. Thom and Rocky did the same with their rifles.
As Thom clasped his hands behind his head so none of these guys would mistake any move he made as him going for a handgun and then shoot him, he took inventory of what else he had on him that could be used as a weapon.
The folding knife he’d shoved in his pocket, his training and his wits were the sum total of what he had to defend himself with.
They were outmanned and outgunned. And the four surrounding them were just the men they could see. There were more men at the camp, as evidenced by the voices Thom still heard.
He supposed he’d be seeing them soon. One man clicked on a comm unit not quite as high tech as what they used in the teams but military grade.
“Intruders in the perimeter. Requesting back up.”
“Who the fuck are these—”
“Shut up!” One man cut off Rocky’s question and silenced any further discussion among them.
Whoever they were dealing with, it was best to humor them for now.
Once Thom and the guys figured out the situation and what they were up against, they could decide how to get themselves out of it. Because just like their current captors were an unknown entity, so too were Brody, Rocky and Thom to them.
There was no way these men, whoever they were, suspected they had three of Uncle Sam’s most highly trained operators in their possession. And Thom intended to keep it that way.