But first, he had another stop to make. It was close to four in the morning, but he didn’t feel bad at all about slamming on the door to wake up his best friend, Cameron Moore.
The men had saved each other’s lives. More than once.
Cam felt a little bad about it, had come at Dylan with a shotgun at his chest until he realized who was at his door. “Should’ve known. Asshole,” he mumbled, stumbled back through the living room into the kitchen and flipped on the switch for the coffeemaker.
Skylar, Cam’s girlfriend and soon-to-be wife, padded out of the bedroom briefly for a quick hug and to ask about Riley before heading back to bed.
Dylan’s girlfriend was finishing a job in Florida, but she would be here to see Skylar tomorrow night. The two women had become extremely close, despite a rocky start. And even though Skylar wasn’t on DMH’s radar any longer, Cam refused to take chances.
So did Dylan. So he would bring Riley here to stay with Sky while he convinced Cam to take the trip with him to see Caleb and Mace. One that was a long time coming.
And so he sat across from Cam, whose back was to the picture windows that highlighted the privacy of his Adirondack home, a hideaway he had built years earlier to help him ease out of the life of Delta Force and black ops.
Correction: out of a life he had no control over. He still ran black ops missions, but now he and Dylan called the shots. Things had really worked out for Cam, and the man deserved his happiness.
“They’re all fucked-up, not just Cael,” Dylan said after he’d mainlined two cups of coffee. His younger brother had been on his mind for months now; he blamed himself for not helping more, which Riley continued to point out to him was ridiculous.
At the time, he hadn’t known about the capture of the team—he hadn’t learned about it until they were rescued. Typically, the circles he ran in would let him catch wind of such a kidnapping, especially of American military, but DMH had kept it under wraps.
Caleb and the other Delta operatives by rights should be dead now. They should all be, hundreds of times over, and it was only by the grace of something bigger than themselves that most of them had survived.
Gray had not.
“Reid’s running around the Amazon jungle on the tip of another merc, looking for the last of the DMH guys,” Dylan told him.
“Reid’s not going to be happy you found him,” Cam commented after a long gulp of his coffee.
“Reid got found because he was sloppy. That’s not like him at all.” Dylan’s temper rose hot.
“So what are you saying?” Cam asked.
“They need out.”
“And you’re going to go gather them up under your wing and, what, comfort them with a great big hug?” Cam raised a brow.
“Don’t be an asshole.”
“It’s just fun watching you get all soft and cuddly.”
“Use the word soft around me one more time, buddy, and see what that gets you.”
Cam grinned, and then he grew serious. “Noah’s never going to let you take his whole team. Not without skinning you first and then doing the same to me for fun.”
“He might not have a choice.”
“Caleb’s not remembering?”
“He is, but slowly,” Dylan said somberly. “These guys need something more than orders. You and I both know that. So does Mace.”
“You told him?”
“Not yet.”
“And you haven’t found Kell, I’m assuming,” Cam said dryly. The man went more rogue than Dylan, if that was possible.
“I called, but he’s not answering.”
Cam snorted because that wasn’t unusual at all. If Kell had answered, they’d probably have something far greater to worry about.
“We’ll head to the bar in a few days and see what’s what,” Cam agreed finally.
“That’s all I’m asking.” But that wasn’t true; Dylan was asking for a whole hell of a lot more. And he would be giving the men a lot more too. More risk, for sure, but also stability the military wouldn’t necessarily be interested in doling out.
Old soldiers never die … they simply fade away.
His soldiers wouldn’t be allowed to fade unless that was their choice. Working together, they would be secret. Silent. Not for hire per se, but they would choose their own jobs.
They would be deadly.
No one would ever know the number of men and women involved, or their names. All locations would be kept separate. No paper trails, no bank accounts to be traced. Dylan would see to all of that.
They would be unstoppable without the bullshit red tape. And if the men he wanted weren’t ready now, that was all right. The door would always be open for them, no matter what.
Jesus, Dylan, your timing sucks.” Everyone’s timing did these days, but the thought of having to explain to Caleb that the team would all be leaving the Army and working with Dylan and Cam on their crazy spy-for-hire shit made his head hurt.
“I’m not asking you to do it now, just mull it over.” Dylan paused and Mace held the phone tightly, the tension building inside him. “Cam and I will come up this week and talk to you guys about it.”
Come work with me, with me and Cam and Riley. There’s plenty of work, not a lot of structure. We take on what we want, we leave behind what we don’t.
He wondered if it was too soon to talk to Caleb about Dylan’s offer and decided yes.
It was intruiging, would give them all more freedom than they’d ever had in the military, but it would also leave them flying without a net … except for one another.
“He’s going to get his memory back,” Mace told Dylan now. “And you know he’ll want to stay in if he does. He’s Army, through and through—he’s never itched to get out.” Neither had Mace, until recently, when he began to chafe at the thought of being sent in somewhere semi-blind. It was why Kell typically slipped off on his own, because he’d grown tired of the sit-around-and-wait crap … and Delta sat around far less than the rest of the Army.
“You’re as obsinate as he is,” Dylan said. “His memory’s not the point. It’s not an either-or situation. No matter what, I want you both working with us.”
“And Reid and Kell?”
“I figured I’d let you talk to them about it. They might not be as hard of a sell as you think.”
“Yeah, okay.” The two were as close as brothers, except these days, Kell had disappeared off the face of the earth, leaving Reid more lost than he’d been after the mission. Mace stared down at the paper with the phone number Dylan had given him—Reid’s sat-phone. A way to get in touch with the man without contacting or alerting their CO.
For now, he folded the paper and shoved it into the pocket of his jeans. The timing wasn’t right. He wasn’t sure it would ever be.
Coffee. It smelled good, inviting, and made Paige stir reluctantly from sleep.
She’d slept better on Mace’s couch than she ever had in her own apartment—despite the lingering remembrance of the nightmare, better than she had in years, if she was honest with herself—and it had nothing to do with the brandy. The few times she’d tried to drown the memories with drink, her nightmares had actually gotten worse—monsters she hadn’t known were there crawled out, and she’d finally understood that the memories were what had killed her mother.
She shifted and sat up, the heavy blankets falling off of her. The fire had been kept up all night, and from the looks of things, Mace had slept—or not—in the chair directly across from the couch. Deserted now, there were blankets still strewn around and the feelings that coursed through her told her she liked the idea of him watching over her. Watching her.
She glanced at the window—the blinds were up but it looked like evening. Hurriedly, she checked her watch. It wasn’t morning at all, but after two in the afternoon. She took up one of the blankets and wound it around her shoulders, padded to the window and realized all she could see was the snow on its ledge; the wind still howled outside, the storm far from over.
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“Coffee?”
She turned at the sound of Mace’s voice. He was barefoot, in sweats and a sleeveless undershirt, his hair wet from what she assumed was a recent shower, and he held two mugs. Gratefully, she nodded and accepted one—light and sweet, the way she liked it.
“I took a chance, that’s how Gray liked his,” was all Mace said before taking a gulp of his own.
She smiled into the mug, wondered how they could mention Gray’s name so freely and it didn’t fill her with sadness.
“Where’s Caleb?”
“He’s out.”
“In this weather?”
Mace frowned. “We don’t let things like storms stop us up here.”
In the light of day, he looked all the more dangerous … and that much more handsome because of it.
The coffee and fire began to warm her, so she dropped the blanket onto the couch, leaving her in the T-shirt she’d stripped down to before bed last night.
“What the hell?” He was on her before she could stop him. She’d forgotten about the myriad of bruises from the attack.
The ones on her arm caught his attention first. Handprints and dark, irregular shapes from when she’d been thrown against the wall stood out from her pale skin as Mace held her arm out for inspection. He followed the trail, pushing the T-shirt sleeve up and then lifting her hair to check her neck and upper back.
“Lift your shirt,” he said, and there was simply no refusing. She turned her back to him and obeyed, and he helped lift the fabric to get a better view of her badly bruised back.
She heard him hiss through his teeth and then mutter under his breath.
“It’s nothing. It happened on the job,” she told him over her shoulder.
“You’re a nurse, not a stuntwoman.” He dropped her T-shirt and she pulled it down completely and turned to face him.
“Sometimes the ER is rough.”
“So nonchalant.” He stroked her jaw with a single finger and she jutted it stubbornly despite the warm feeling in her belly.
This time, it had nothing to do with the brandy. “Shit happens.”
“Who did this to you?”
“A patient’s husband.”
“If he touches you again …” Mace didn’t finish the sentence but she knew how he would. The fire in his eyes was lit in a way she’d never seen and for some reason, it made her just as angry as he was.
“Now you’re going to protect me? If I’d known showing you a few bruises would make you listen to me …”
She trailed off because he’d moved on to her neck, running two fingers lightly over the circle of bruises there, the ones masked last night by her hair and sweater, and the darkness. “You should get these checked out.”
“I did. They’re fine, they’ll heal.”
He grunted something, as his fingers trailed her throat and the necklace of bruises fading there. He stared at them and then into her eyes and it took everything she had not to do the same to his scar.
She kept her eyes steadily on his but he knew, somehow, tilted his lips into a smile as if to say, Touché.
Hers would fade into oblivion. His would be a constant reminder.
“Hey.” Caleb’s voice cut through the tension as though he was oblivious to it and she wasn’t sure if she was upset or grateful. It pulled Mace’s eyes from her and she turned to face the big man as well. “I got the generator running.”
He turned on the light switch next to him to prove his point, and sure enough, it worked. “The boiler should kick on soon too.”
“Thanks. I’ve been meaning to get the generator hooked up for years,” Mace said roughly.
“Yeah, you can put together an M14 blindfolded but you couldn’t handle hooking up the gas pipe and some simple electrical wiring,” Caleb said with a laugh. “I’m headed out to plow the roads around us—be back in a couple of hours.”
He didn’t wait for a response before he left, which was good, since Mace had frozen at Cael’s words, was still staring where the man had been standing, although Caleb was already long gone. She heard the heavy thump of Cael’s boots descending the stairs, said to Mace, “You don’t want him to remember.”
Mace leveled his eyes to hers, his face hard again, the way it had been last night when he’d first recognized her, and his words came out as a growl. “You don’t know me. Don’t tell me what I want and don’t want.”
He pushed past her, his feet as silent on the stairs as Caleb’s had been loud, and yes, she’d hit a nerve for sure.
Mace needed to keep busy—goddamned, mind-numbingly busy—contemplated going for a ride on the ATV, until the liquor truck came skidding up the road, toward the bar.
Cael was busy plowing, so Mace and the driver unloaded cartloads of boxes into the storeroom and Mace gratefully took on the task of unpacking the bottles and sorting through the inventory. It was a time-consuming, boring-as-shit task he normally detested, but for now it was just the kind of distraction he needed.
He blasted music in the hopes of drowning out his thoughts and began to rip open boxes. Every time he paused for longer than a few seconds, he saw Paige’s bruises dancing in front of his eyes. Christ, between her and Caleb, when the hell had he started running a home for wayward souls? When had things spun so far out of control?
You’re a wayward soul yourself, Gray would tell him with that lopsided smile that always drew the females to him easily, that and his shucks, ma’am shrug. His friend had always been more willing to bullshit than Mace was and had always been much better at it too.
“Mace?” Paige’s voice, hesitant but not wavering. She was in the room with him and he cursed himself for leaving the door propped open, because he could’ve used some warning. He didn’t like being caught off guard.
“Yeah?” He didn’t turn around, continued stocking the bar the way he’d done every spring, summer, fall and winter when he was growing up after he’d been shipped here from the wilds of North Carolina, after his mother left him home alone once too often to take one of her trips to see a boyfriend.
Six weeks. He’d made it six weeks before some goddamned teacher turned him in to CPS. And that was the end of his freedom.
Sometimes, when the missions dragged, he thought about this, the bar, and he realized that no matter how much he sat on his ass in one of the Stans or Africa or where-the-hell-ever-else they sent him, it was a hell of a lot better than running a bar full-time.
He shoved the Jack Daniel’s onto the shelf viciously, the bottles clanking, and no, he didn’t give a shit if they all broke. Was ready to chug a bottle and let it all hang out the way Caleb had a few nights earlier, dancing on the bar and practically fucking a local right then and there.
He clenched his teeth and turned, since Paige hadn’t said anything else. “What do you want? I’m working.”
She’d been waiting patiently, watching him. It made him uncomfortable to know how well she read him without actually putting her hands on him.
She probably knew that too.
“I wanted to ask—can I work tonight?”
It was the last thing he’d expected to hear. Her face wore an earnest expression and he still wanted to tell her No way, that after last night’s disaster, he needed her to hide out upstairs in her room until all the customers went home.
Paige should be going home. The roads were okay for four-wheel drive, but her car had bald tires and was the biggest piece of crap he’d seen in a while. He had no idea how she’d made it here in the first place.
“Not a good idea.” He tried not to look at her neck—she’d put on a long-sleeved shirt but with her hair pulled back from her face, the bruises were very visible.
“I can’t sit around and do nothing. I’m not good at it,” she protested.
Join the club, honey. “You’ve bartended before? Because I can’t let you out into the crowd after what happened last night.”
“Okay, yes, I agree—I wouldn’t feel right doing that. But I think I can handle it behind
the bar.”
He shook his head. “I’ll have Cael show you some basics. It’ll be busy. People will be stir-crazy from being cooped up in their houses all day.”
“That’s okay, I like busy. No time to think.”
Yeah, well, she was a woman after his own heart. “I’ve got to finish up here.”
But she was already moving behind him, pulling bottles from the cardboard box and holding them out to him impatiently.
“Did you come here because of the assault?” he asked after a long moment.
“No, it was what happened after.” She told him about the news report. “It’s all dredged up again, especially with the recent school shooting.”
From his curt nod, she could tell he’d already heard about that—it had been widely reported two weeks earlier.
“What about your job?” he asked.
“I gave my notice,” she said bluntly. “I gave up my apartment too.”
Shit, she really had no place to go. No place, and everyplace, and both were equally as dangerous for the headspace she was in now.
Gray would never want her traveling around, aimlessly searching for some kind of peace and security she might never find. And he would kill Mace if he tried to send her back out now.
“You’re sure that was a good idea?” Mace asked.
“I couldn’t take it—they all know now. They’ll be looking at me, wanting to ask questions about what happened. Everyone wants to know what it’s like to live with evil.”
They continued to stock for a few more moments in silence, until he asked bluntly, “Is there a problem with your brother?”
They both knew which brother he meant.
She stopped, pulled her half-extended arm back, the bottle cradled against her, looked like she wouldn’t mind taking a shot or two. “I don’t know yet.”
“But since you were on the news …”
“An author called, wanted to interview me for a book on Jeffrey. Wanted me to be able to have my say. I left because I didn’t want to stick around and let the hate mail start, blaming me and my parents for what happened. I can understand why on a rational level—on every level, actually. I’ve always felt responsible.”
In the Air Tonight Page 6