“No way.”
Going great so far. “Why not?” When faced with the why question, most people either get confused or defensive or they lie. Tammy might go with a lie. I’m trying to get a read on her face and body movements so I can tell if she’s spinning one in her head. I spent almost twenty years in one military setting or another and often worked with CIA spies, watched them interrogate prisoners, learned from them, sometimes wondering if I chose the wrong profession, because I sure as fuck love getting the truth out of people.
“I don’t have a babysitter.”
Shit. I didn’t see that coming, but it’s true, and I recover fast only because I’m trained not to show shock. “Where’s the baby daddy?”
“Out of town.”
“For good?” I press.
“Temporary,” she says. Tammy stammered as she spoke, and she’s such a bad liar that I feel sorry I’ve cornered her the way a lion might corner a kitten. I back off, though not completely. I just give her some space in the hallway so she’s more comfortable telling more lies.
Chin up, she walks into the bathroom and slams the door. “Stay away from me, Reed MacLoyd.”
She said my name. Ha!
She must’ve seen it on the credit card I ran with her friend, or someone from the motel or, hell, a small-town news bulletin told her. Still, hurrah, motherfucker, she’s got my name. And that’s gonna be the end of her. She’s mine, because my name from her lips sounds like she said she wants my dick, so I snort and get back to the shitty motel room I share with three other grown men so I can plan. Tactical action must be immediate and massive so the target doesn’t know what hit her until she’s under me. By that time, the threat of rejection will be neutralized.
Chapter 3
Action Item One. “Check out Tammy’s past twenty years,” I order Senator, my man, best data geek in the country, and definitely someone who hates when I hover over him while he works. And I’m hovering over his shoulder, practically sitting on his lap.
He turns his face toward me, lips on my cheek. “You wanna make out?”
I can’t look at him or I’ll kiss him, so I give him the side-eye until he moves the chair to the right, a bored look on his face.
“Fine.” I sit back on my bed, then shift positions because I can’t see the screen past his broad shoulders or the spiky hair he gels like some rock-star renegade. He’s wearing rings too, got tattoos of some chick on a bike holding a smoking skull. Don’t ask. My men are turning into bikers and rock stars. Apparently, I’m turning into a stalker, so I sit and don’t comment on their transformations.
“Anything?” I ask.
“It’s twenty years, Cap. Gonna take time.”
“Just find the birth certificate.”
He turns. “That’s more like thirty-five years.”
“Not for her. The kid.”
“She has a kid?” Dawson and Senator ask in unison.
“Yeah.”
Senator purses his lips, then sighs, resolved to just do what I asked him because he knows better than to try to talk me out of the mission. Once I lock on a target, I’m not letting go. Perseverance is my middle name. Stalker too, but hey, perseverance sounds better.
I tap my knee while Senator searches the database. We have unauthorized access to shit. What can I say? Paranoid is also somewhere among my middle names, and frankly, boredom takes a toll. There’s only so much a war veteran can do out here in the Wild West of normal life before he needs a mission or goes crazy. We’ve done mercenary work but didn’t like it much since it involved lots of lawbreaking for the wrong reasons, so now we’re sort of retired. Shit. “It has just occurred to me we’re retired.”
“Please don’t use that word,” Dawson says, then slurps his vanilla milk shake.
“Got something, Cap,” Senator says.
I jump off the bed and hover again. On the screen is Tammy’s social media page showing two identical girls. I smile. “Girls.” I’ve always wanted girls. A pang of regret that I never had a normal adult life hits my chest, and I rub it, then sit back down. “What are their names?”
“Melany and Reagan.”
I like those names. The regret in my chest grows into a hollow place. Oh man, the things I gave up for my country. I sigh, thinking something had to give, and I made choices when I was young, choices I can’t say I entirely regret, just a little when presented with possibilities and only a bit. But it’s never too late, you know. Even for an asshole like me.
“How old are they?” I ask.
“Seven. And I’m going back as far as four years when she opened the account.”
“Yeah?” I know what he’s looking for. The same thing I’m looking for. A daddy to target and shoot. Okay, so I do have a slight problem with the way I think of competition for Tammy and the twin girls, and I’ll address that later. Or never. We’ll see.
“No pictures with guys. Lots of pictures with Ginger at the diner. Also, an older woman. Her mother lives here.”
“Any dicks in suits?”
“Nah.”
Dawson claps my shoulder. “I won’t have to spend my retirement money on your jail upkeep.”
“She said she doesn’t have a babysitter and that the baby daddy is out of town temporarily. See if you can find the father.”
“I can’t hack into Social Security right after I hacked them last week. They need to cool off and drop the search for my code.”
“But you will.”
Senator closes the computer. “There’s no baby daddy, Cap. I know a single mother when I see one, so she’s lying.” He props his foot on the desk. “Can we get on the housing thing we came here for? We need to find the handler and get the keys.”
I tap the gun tucked neatly in a holster on my belt, grab an extra magazine and drop it into my jacket, then sling the jacket back on. “Check out the houses without me. Dawson, take over.”
“Are you kidding me?” Senator protests. “You know the layout of the land. You said so yourself. No decision-making without you.”
“I still know the layout and will make decisions, but I’m gonna do it after you do the groundwork.”
“It’s all in the specs.” He yanks out a folder from his briefcase. What kind of rock star carries a briefcase? Senator is having an identity crisis.
I shake my head and open the door. “Layout matters, and for that, we need recon.” I close the door.
“Where the fuck are you going?” rings out behind me, but I get on my bike, rev it up, then shut off the engine. I get off the bike and open the seat, grab my Yankee ball cap, and put it on. Gonna go stealth mode for a bit, do my own recon. Stealth mode is also sounding better than stalker so I’m feeling good as I walk back to the diner and take position across the street inside the local market.
After spending a few hours staring out the window, watching her talk to the Suit, who’s still there as if he lives there, I’m annoyed as fuck and wanna get Dawson’s sniper rifle and off the dude. But I can’t do that because…no good reason comes to me. I mean, I could off him. Hm.
An elderly man approaches. Vaguely, I remember him from when I was a kid and used to come into this store. Stole an ice cream one time, and he called my dad, who picked me up and grounded me for a month after.
“Reed MacLoyd?”
Surprised, I turn my face toward him. “That’s right, sir.”
“Is the reason you came back to town working in our diner?”
It is now. “No, sir.”
“Then stay away. She don’t need a man on a bike leaving her pregnant. You understand?”
“I do.” I process his words and presume the baby daddy was a man on a bike, and that’s fine as long as he’s not coming in and out of her life, and even if he was, I brought my Sig and my men. “Can I grab a chair?”
“For eleven ninety-nine. Aisle three in the back. Can’t miss it, but if you think our Tammy is gonna jump on the back of your bike, you got it wrong, boy. She won’t do it.”
; “Good thing I walked, then.” Fuck off, I wanna say, but I don’t because I can’t risk an argument with an elderly man. When I’m on a recon mission, anything that’s not the mission itself gets my temper revved to that of an annoyed tiger and drops my patience to that of a roadrunner. Do not fuck with me while I’m on a mission, though I’m inside his store and he’s letting me stand here, which makes me wonder what he’s really up to. “What do you want?” I ask.
“I want that Suit out of town.”
Is he hiring me? I blink. “Why?”
“Because he’s trying to turn this place into a metropolis.”
“How so?”
“Put up a monstrosity of a housing development not two miles from here.”
“No shit.”
“I shit you not, boy. Our town is big enough already. You want the chair?”
“Depends. When’s Tammy’s shift over?”
“One thirty.”
“Then no. Where does she go next?”
“Today is Friday, so she’ll get the girls from Hazel’s place, then stop by the big grocery store before she heads home.”
So I’m gonna need a car or else she’ll spot me on the bike. “Can I borrow your car?”
“For a day?”
I purse my lips. “A week?”
“Eight hundred.”
“What the fuck?”
“New truck. I don’t drive. Got it to write it off taxes for the business.” He pulls out a key and dangles it in my face.
I snatch the key.
“Hey,” he protests. “Eight hundred.”
“I’ll get rid of the Suit. How’s that?”
“That’s good.”
Chapter 4
The “new truck” is a limited-edition Ford that came out a decade ago, but I’m guessing that’s new by the man’s standards and also because the total mileage is only ten thousand. When I got the truck, I saw an antique Mustang in the garage at the back of the store, which I remember taking for a joyride when I was about twelve. I drove to Headings Peak out in the middle of nowhere in our great state of Wyoming and then drove it back. Wish I’d known Tammy back then so I could have taken her for a ride with me and gotten a feel of her tits. Big tits. I’m gonna suck on them soon.
Thinking about sucking her tits puts me in a great mood while I duck inside the big grocery store in a bigger town and scurry through the aisles, finding her, then backing off so she won’t catch a whiff of a tail. She doesn’t. She’s a civilian, unlike me, who’s constantly looking at people, angles, exit points, shelters, and possible scenarios of a normal trip to the grocery store gone to hell.
She pushes the cart down the aisle and rounds the corner. I move from my spot, then stop to see what she was looking at. Barbies. Her girls come running around the corner and practically shove me out of the way so they can view the doll selection.
Same as their mom, they’ve got long brown hair that curls at the ends. One wears jeans and a white shirt, the other black tights with a red shirt. Their shoes are the same, though, sparkly and with flashing lights on the soles. I had no idea shoes could do that.
The one wearing jeans points at the red sticker on the Barbie box. “Clearance means it’s on sale,” she explains to her sister. “How much money do we have?”
“Not enough,” her sister says.
“Not even for one?” The girl wearing jeans glances at me, gaze lingering. She tilts her head. “Do we know you?”
“No.”
“Do you know our aunt?”
I did not see that coming. These aren’t her kids. “Yes.”
“Can I borrow two dollars, then?”
Get the fuck out of here. I blink. What’s the proper protocol here? Kids should come with manuals. I want to give them the money, but I can’t be seen as a creeper, even though I’m stalking their aunt and them by proxy. I scrub my jaw for a second when I hear Tammy call for them. The last thing I need is her seeing the girls talking to a “stranger.” I know that much about kids.
Before Tammy catches me, I grab two Barbies on sale and walk away without a word. I hear her chastising the girls for taking off on her as she’s trying to shop. I wait until they leave the aisle, then return to stare at the dolls, and an idea hits me. Who needs guns when you can do the job with Barbies?
I tuck the two sale-priced Barbies under my armpit and pick up two more, the ones that aren’t on sale, and some boxes of clothes and a pink car. I’m holding it all in my hands and bending, trying to see what else is there on the shelf at the bottom. More shit. I pick up a few things, though I don’t know what half this crap is. They’ll know, and that’s what matters.
Arms full of toys, I’m trying to figure out where to tuck Barbie’s toy poodles. Pockets. Good. I get two boxes with plastic poodles with pink bows in their hair, while searching the display for an armed badass bitch Marine Barbie and can’t find one. Army Barbie? Negative, and even Ken is just a pilot and not Air Force. This is some fucked-up shit. Neither Ken nor Barbie has a security team or defense personnel.
While I’m aware most girls like sparkly pink Barbies, I’ve gone to war with women beside me, and those who want a badass Barbie ought to have an option to buy one. I’m all for empowering ladies, and I intend to empower Tammy with my dick and some other qualities I can’t think of at the moment because I’m too busy trying to find her in the store.
At the bakery, she gets a brown bag of something, and I fucking missed what it is, which means now I’ll have to get inside the house to see what she likes to eat. I’m trying to think back to what she might’ve looked like as a teenager, but nothing comes to mind. I don’t know her from before. It’s for the best. Back then, at fifteen, I didn’t care about what kind of food girls got at the bakery. I just wanted to grab a tit.
I still want to grab a tit. It’s just now, I’m older and smarter and I know the tit is attached to a body and brain, and I want it all.
Tammy sees me, and her eyes immediately lock on the toys I’m managing to balance in my arms. Her eyes widen, and she hurries toward the cashier, leaving the girls behind her because the girls have stopped to stare at me. They’ve got that longing look on their little faces, and I smile, saying with no words that I’ll get this shit to them later, but the one in jeans sticks her tongue out and pulls at the one in tights, who’s dug in her heels, giving me sad, adorable puppy eyes.
I follow them to the cashier and find that Tammy’s practically throwing things on the track to get out of the store faster. Too bad the cashier lady is elderly and you can’t hurry her along because she’s too old to give a fuck about your attitude and why you’re throwing shit at her.
Martha—I read her badge—takes her sweet time, likely going even slower than usual, because Tammy’s huffing and puffing at this point, wallet ready, card out, waving and all. The girls pack the groceries, and the badass one who’s clearly more assertive than her sister keeps throwing covert glances my way.
The cashier rings me up while Tammy packs the rest of her groceries. When she pushes her cart toward the exit, I grab my stuff and dump the bags full of Barbie bribes inside. Before she has a chance to protest, the girls are screaming, ripping through the bags, getting the toys out, and I swagger away like Lucifer after an evil deed.
Chapter 5
Temperatures in the fifties in Wyoming is practically warm, but the winds are starting to pick up this afternoon, so it’s getting chilly. I spent most of my life in the desert of either California or Afghanistan, even Sudan a few times for special missions I don’t like recalling.
Tammy is great for making me think only about her and how long she’ll take to leave the store and face me outside. If she faces me at all. We’ll see.
For five minutes, she stays inside and finally rolls her cart out, passing the truck where I’m leaning against the back without a second glance. The girls hang their heads as if their mom chastised them for accepting gifts from a stranger, but she couldn’t make them return the things because they’d
ripped through the boxes almost immediately. The one in jeans looks up from under her bangs and mouths a thank-you.
I lift my thumb.
The girls help their aunt load the bags in the trunk, which thrills me. It means they help out with stuff, as they should. They’re old enough to work, and I won’t have to teach them work ethics and how to help your elderly parents, which is something I’ve done all my life with my parents. Taking care of the money, the house, the medical bills, getting rid of Dad’s secret fiancée that one time I was on leave. Stuff like that.
Once the girls get in the car, Tammy gives me her most violent stare and marches over to me, practically fuming at the ears. I wanna laugh, but I don’t. I’m trying to take her threatening look and determined stride as seriously as possible because I did, in fact, do the wrong thing. I came after the kids and left her scrambling for her wits in the middle of a public place.
She jabs a finger into my chest. “Reed MacLoyd, if you pull any shit like that again, I’m gonna…” She’s searching for words but can’t come up with any, so I grab her and push her against the back of the truck and slam my mouth over hers.
She kisses me back, grabs the lapels of my jacket, and pulls me closer. I take that as permission to lift her up and grind my hard-on into her jeans-clad pussy.
I forget where we are, the temperature outside, or that the girls must be watching a stranger making out with their aunt. I forget all that because Tammy tastes like home, and I realize, subconsciously, she tugged at me like an invisible string in the universe and influenced my decision to return to this area and buy a house in the middle of nowhere in a state where freezing winters chase most people away.
Her tongue is small and tastes like peppermint, and I twirl mine in her mouth, promising her that’s how I’m gonna eat her pussy too. Gonna make out with those lips too, lick them, flick them, kiss them, make love to them. When she’s breathless, I put her back on her feet. Her eyes tell me she’s horny. They’re brown, but now bright, almost hazel with lust, and her lips are red and wet as I peck them softly.
Full Force on Tammy Page 2