by Hadley Quinn
“Why do you worry?”
He paused. She totally thought it had to do with his career as a soldier. Taking care of people was in his nature, so why wouldn’t he be concerned about the people around him? But if she didn’t know better, she would think he was nervous. Gabe never got nervous, so she wasn’t sure what the shifty eyes were about.
But she was not expecting the answer he actually gave her.
“Because I’m in love with you, Ava Carmichael. I’m so in love with you I don’t even understand it. I’m a total mess for you. I love you. I don’t like being away from you; I don’t want to lose you. It scares the shit out of me.”
She could only stare at him. It was the most unexpected thing to come out of his mouth and he almost looked pissed that he had to say it. It was also the most beautiful moment she’d ever experienced.
“I’m not romantic, I know,” he continued with a scowl. “I’m not even sure I know how to be in a relationship. Until you, I didn’t think I ever could. But I want to try, Ava. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you. I can’t help some of this stuff, but please tell me what I can do to make you happy, to make you feel safe with me. I don’t want to mess this up, but I also don’t know what I can do to win you over. As soon as I can control this shit going on inside of me, I want to make plans with you. I want a future with you…”
Her heart grew a few inches. She was also putty because of his meekness. A part of her was confused as to why he didn’t think he’d already won her over, but another part of her didn’t care. She would do anything for him, and for him to put himself out there like that just blew her mind.
She stood between his legs and leaned her forehead against his as a tear slid down her cheek. “I love you too, Gabe,” she hardly whispered. She felt overcome with emotion and had to pause before she could speak. “I’ve loved you since that day you were cleaning out the boat.”
He laughed and slid his hands around her waist. Their lips met and he gave her the sweetest, most definitive kiss imaginable. She’d been right about one thing in the beginning…
She could tell a lot of things by the way he kissed her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Remind me not to ever come hiking with you again,” Ava groaned. Gabe was probably taking it at half speed as it was, but seriously… She felt like she was in such poor shape.
“You’re doing awesome,” he smiled. “Not even lying. The last woman that had to keep up with me was pregnant with three kids tagging along. You’re making her look amateur.”
She smacked him in the arm. “You’re a shit.”
“I am,” he agreed with a laugh. “But I was carrying two of the kids. I’m giving her too much credit.”
She smacked him again but laughed. “You’re terrible.”
He sat on a rock and pulled out a bottle of water. He offered it to her first, so she took a long drink. She handed it back to him and sat down too, but he just stuck the bottle back in his backpack.
“So are you talking about…well, wherever you were at?” she asked.
He slightly nodded. “Yeah. Extraction of women and children before we took out a village.”
She shook her head. “I asked. Sorry.”
“Excuse me?”
With a sigh she clarified, “Last week I said I wasn’t going to ask about stuff like that if you just told me how you felt about me.”
“That kind of stuff isn’t classified, Ava. Names and places, yeah. Codes and team and operation names, sure. But not stuff like that.”
“But you don’t like to talk about it.”
He shrugged. “Like this it’s okay,” he motioned between them.
“In a light moment?”
He nodded. “Yeah, that seems to be fine.” He placed his hands on his knees, ready to stand. “You ready to head back to the truck?”
“Hell, yes!” she exclaimed, jumping up. He laughed and stood too, so they began their hike back. On the way, Ava explained how obnoxious she was the time she’d gone hiking with Chelsea and the others.
“All for the sake of seeing me, huh?”
“Yep, I can do crazy things with the right motivation.”
“I can relate,” he nodded. “But the unfortunate ending to that story is that I totally blew you off.”
“So?” she shrugged. “I conquered you later on. All in a day’s work.”
“True,” he chuckled.
They made it back to the truck in less time than it took them the first half of the trek. Probably because it was mostly downhill and Ava was dying to go swimming. And then Gabe gave her a piggyback ride the last quarter-mile because she joked about making him enchiladas for dinner if he did. That was an experience. The man was a solid machine.
A damn sexy one, at that.
Ava didn’t even wait to put on a bathing suit before she got in the water. She just stripped down to her bra and underwear and jumped in. The only neighbor that could see would be the one across the lake, and even so, how could they tell if her polka dots weren’t on a swimsuit?
Gabe did the same. He hadn’t put on proper swimwear since the day he’d arrived. And the day that Ava witnessed it for the first time, she’d decided she could watch him climb out of the water like that a million times over. Who wouldn’t?
She kept her word and made enchiladas for dinner. Gabe couldn’t decide if he wanted chicken or beef, so Ava just made both.
She loved spoiling her man.
They sat outside on the deck to eat. The sun was going down but it was still in the mid-seventies. Gabe drank a beer while she had some wine and life seemed so perfect at that moment. She served him seconds and sat down with him again. He pulled her bare foot onto his lap and rubbed it with one hand while he ate. Her life was content, full. She didn’t even feel guilty about calling to cancel her commitments for that week. She didn’t even care.
But things can shift pretty quickly in life. Ava knew that, Gabe knew that. So when they both heard the crunching of tires on gravel, there was an instantaneous feeling of dread shared between them. Gabe carefully removed her foot and stood, casually holding his bottle of beer between two fingers at his side. Ava stood with him and that’s when she noticed the vehicle.
No…vehicles. Plural. There were two of them, shiny black Hummers.
She glanced at Gabe for his reaction. There wasn’t one. His stone features only stared straight ahead as the doors began to open and several men trickled out.
Finally Gabe’s chest rose and fell with a deep breath as the men met his gaze and then froze. Gabe gave a slight nod to the cabin and they immediately made their way inside.
Ava watched until all six of them entered the cabin and the door shut. Gabe turned to her but still didn’t say anything. She was scared. She didn’t know what to think. Obviously this was his team and they had all come together to find him.
“Please tell me you’ve just planned a day at the lake with your buddies,” she joked uneasily.
He smiled, but it was cheerless. “I wish I could.” He kissed her on the lips and said, “You wait over here, okay? Let me see what’s up.”
She watched him walk across the driveway to the cabin, and when he reached the door, he turned back to glance at her before he entered.
***
Gabe knew this wasn’t good. He could feel it in every ounce of his bones as he looked at each one of his team members waiting for him in the cabin.
Chuck was the first to speak. “Looks like you’ve scored the best R&R out of all of us,” he smiled. “Fuck, man, where was the invite?”
Gabe wasn’t in the mood for chitchat. “What’s going on?” he asked Ronan.
“Jarib Radic,” he replied.
Gabe’s eyes narrowed. “What about that fucker?”
“He’s in the states.”
His guts turned to ice. Gabe was already in kill mode, ready to track down that son of a bitch and slit his throat.
“The LR-1 caught wind that Bobby was seeking information ab
out his kid. Little Kael is here in the states, too.”
Bobby. He was the only one not in the room.
Gabe closed his eyes with a sigh. “Please tell me he’s not on his own mission.”
“Sorry, that’s exactly what’s up.”
“Shit.” He took a moment to think. “Where is he right now?”
“Here in Washington,” Jessop answered.
Gabe stared at the red-haired tech specialist with surprise. “What the hell is here in Washington?”
“Radic is here in the states. You won’t believe this, but he’s got a compound about sixty minutes from here, northeast.”
Gabe’s mind was in comprehension mode, putting as many thoughts together as he could possibly form. Sixty minutes from where he was, still trying to escape it all? No fucking way. He sighed and shook his head. “Weapons?” he asked.
“Yeah. And the LR-1 picked up intel that Radic brought the kid over with him and his wife. Rumor has it that Bobby intercepted the information and tracked him to that Washington compound.”
“So Bobby’s on his tail,” Gabe stated, already knowing the answer.
“Bobby’s already inside,” Ronan answered reluctantly. He rubbed a hand through his blonde hair. “We can’t step in because he’s already in deep. That little shit worked fast.”
“And Radic doesn’t know who he is, right?”
“Not that we can tell. But I have no idea what Bobby’s cover is and what he’s doing yet. Our tech can’t get through the barriers of the building he’s in. It’s a damn fortress. And he did a damn good job fucking up any kind of tracker on his shit.”
Gabe shook his head. Damn it. Bobby was in over his head. It was an emotional war right now and he was gonna get himself killed. He’d had to leave his two-year-old son overseas and it did not go over well. That’s putting it nicely. Try having to be so deep undercover that you have to marry a local just to fit in. Bobby did it for the mission, but didn’t plan on falling in love with the son that was born during his sham of a marriage.
They had to tranquilize him just to get him on a chopper out of there.
“We have someone in that compound, though,” Ronan continued. “He’s from another agency but I haven’t figured out who it is. For some reason, we’re getting the shaft.”
“Is there a plan in place?” Gabe asked. It was a reluctant question. Gabe was in no way ready to jump into another mission.
“Somewhat,” Ronan answered carefully. “Depends on what you got going on here, bro.”
Gabe had expected that was coming. “I’m out, guys. I’m sorry. I’ll help you with intelligence if you need it, but I’m done with the heavies. I can’t.”
“That girl got you so pussy whipped you can’t help a brother?” Chuck glared at him.
“I’ll help Bobby,” Gabe shot back. “But I’m not combat ready, asshole. You don’t want me on this operation right now. It’s for your own damn good.”
“Gabe,” Ronan said. He paused until Gabe looked at him. “You can do this. We’ll be with you the whole way. You’re not gonna be on your own this time. It’s not gonna be like Novi.”
“You don’t know what I’ve been through since, Ro,” he sighed heavily. “Flashbacks, blackouts, nightmares… I can’t predict when it will happen. I could go ape shit in a matter of seconds.”
“You’ll be with us, man. We got your back. We know how to deal with that shit. Trust me, man. Bobby can’t do this on his own or we wouldn’t be here. He’s as good as fucked if he loses it in there. He needs our help. We need your eyes and ears, Gabe. And your smarts. We could use your help on this one.”
Gabe took another slow, deep breath. Not this soon. He just couldn’t do it. And Ava… What would she think? But it was Bobby. He was hoping the guys had better news than they had, but they wouldn’t be here if they could do this without him.
“You gotta promise me something,” Gabe said, looking each of them in the eye. When Ronan agreed first, everyone else nodded too. “Ava will think I’m only helping with intel, okay? Not one word about me being involved in person if it comes to that, got it?”
Ronan nodded. “Sure, kid. Not a problem.” He looked around the room that seemed to have shrunk in size with all of them in it: Ronan, Chuck, Oliver Jessop, Titus, and the twins, Kit and Kato. “Got that, fellas? The girl is in the dark.”
“Yes, sir,” they all agreed.
Gabe felt relieved, but he also felt the need to add one more thing. “And if any of you fuckers even look at her the wrong way, you’ll be very sorry you even showed up here.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Ava was pacing the floors. It’d been almost an hour and Gabe was still in the cabin. Not a single one of them had come outside or even popped a head out. She knew; she’d been watching.
Finally the door opened and she sucked in a breath of air. One of the guys came out, but it wasn’t Gabe. A second one exited and followed the first one to a Hummer. Two more came out and stood on the porch, and then Gabe appeared. He said a few words to the two next to him and then left them to come across the driveway.
Ava was nervous. She had no idea what to expect. His mood didn’t appear to be obvious and that made it even worse. When Gabe came up the steps to the deck, she stepped outside. His eyes met hers but he didn’t say anything right away until he was standing right next to her.
He leaned a hand against the house. “One of our team members got into some trouble and we need to locate him,” he said. “I’d like to set up a command if you don’t mind, so we have space to work on some intelligence and see where he’s at.”
A command? Intelligence? “Okay. What do you mean?”
He dropped his hand to his side and shrugged. “The cabin is a bit small for what we have in mind. Do you think we could use the basement?”
That caught her off guard. They wanted to set up a base in her house? “Um, sure, that’s fine,” she shrugged. But she sighed with relief. Thank God he wasn’t going anywhere!
“It won’t be for long,” he smiled, and he kissed her on the lips. “I’m sorry about this. Another skill of mine is tactical execution. Well, implementation might be a better word.”
“Oh.”
She had no idea what he even meant but he motioned to the six men and they began hauling black cases and bags of equipment from the vehicles. Gabe instructed them to head straight to the basement. Ava watched as all of them carried three large bags each, half of them giving her a brief nod, and the other half avoiding her entirely. She watched until they disappeared below the deck for the downstairs.
“Should I make more enchiladas?” she asked. She had no idea what to say about what was going on, so food was her only option.
“You don’t need to go out of your way, Ava—”
“I won’t be. They’re easy to make and it will take about forty minutes. That way you guys can set your stuff up and then they can eat some dinner too.”
She left for the kitchen before he could object. She needed to go to the store the next day anyway, and since there were now seven men in her house, she assumed food was going to be important.
“I’m sure they’ll be grateful,” Gabe said, entering the house behind her. She was removing items from the refrigerator as he wrapped his arms around her from behind. “I’d like to take you to bed right now, but I should go help them get set up.” He nuzzled her neck and it made her smile.
She turned around and pulled him close. “Well you know where to find me come bedtime, but if the guys need beds they can use what there is downstairs. And the closet has sleeping bags and pillows and stuff.”
“They’ll be fine,” he smiled. He kissed her so passionately that her legs went numb. “Okay, I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Am I allowed down there or should I ring a dinner bell?” She was somewhat joking, but not really.
“You can come down,” he said over his shoulder as he disappeared for the basement.
She sighed and went to work. A small
army in her house? Sure, she could handle that.
Couldn’t she?
When dinner was done she stood in the kitchen, wondering what she should do with it. Bring it down to them? No, it would be easier to leave it on the counter—buffet style. She had chips and salsa out and different drinks. Yeah, it was better to make them come up if they could.
She tentatively made her way downstairs. She was a little curious as to what she would find, but also nervous. This was Gabe’s team of brothers… What would they think of her?
The sight before her wasn’t a surprise in the least bit. Well, it looked odd in her basement, but she’d imagined what it would look like from movies she’d seen. Computers and video screens—in color and black-and-white or some in green—and what looked like a few GPS trackers of some sort. Two of the guys had on headphones, including Gabe, and two of them were reading a printout of papers. The other three were leaned over a map that was spread out across the air hockey table.
Six sets of eyes turned to look at her the second her legs came into view halfway down the stairs. There were three seconds of silence until Gabe must have realized the atmosphere had shifted behind him, and then he turned around to see what was up.
He slipped off the headphones and jumped up. “Guys, this is Ava.” He came over and stood by her, pointing to each member of his team. “Kato, Jessop, Chuck, Kit, Ronan, and Titus.”
She nodded at them and they in turn did the same. Except one of them added, “Ma’am.” It was the big guy, Titus. She could tell he was from the south, too, and before she scowled at the use of “ma’am,” she took his upbringing into consideration and let it slide.
“Um, there’s food upstairs in the kitchen,” she told them. “You guys are welcome to whatever you want. If there’s anything you don’t like, don’t worry about eating it—”
“They’ll eat shit if you serve it up, babe. Right boys?” Gabe asked them all with a steely expression.
“Right!” they all replied in unison.
Ava was amused, especially at the stupid lopsided grin that Gabe offered afterward.