“If someone comes asking for you?”
“I’m hoping things will be chill.” If Sylvia had been straight up in saying she had his back covered. He hadn’t discounted that she could be following some other agenda. Although he couldn’t fathom what she had to gain in making herself look bad by losing the people she’d been assigned to watch.
Liam dropped onto the black leather sofa. “If all’s well, then I’ve already been cleared off the schedule for the next couple of days and you won’t need to answer jack.”
“Does this have anything to do with the OSI interview earlier?” Wade sat in the office chair across from him.
Since Wade and Cuervo had been called in, giving them some of the lowdown wouldn’t compromise them as long as he stuck with what they could have overheard while standing in the hall with him.
“There’s a loose cannon out there, a lieutenant named Brandon Harris. He’s wrestling with PTSD and making some wild accusations. He says he’s got proof of a conspiracy set to play out at the satellite summit. His ramblings have stirred up a firestorm, and Rachel got sucked in when she tried to help.”
Wade whistled lowly. “Damn, brother, that’s serious stuff. No wonder the OSI is involved. And I assume you got pulled in helping her?”
“Turning away from Rachel is not an option.”
“Which begs the question… What are you doing here?”
“Don’t know who to trust on base. Until I do, I need Rachel tucked away safely.”
“Okay.” Wade nodded slowly. “I can buy into that. What do you need me to do?”
“Make sure the team stays on track with training for the security at the summit. I’m guessing they’ll loan the team a captain from one of the reserve PJ units until I’m back, but I need you to keep the guys unified, solid. Stay under the radar. Do not call attention to yourselves. My leaving is going to cause enough unseen ripples. We don’t need that coming to the surface.”
“What do I tell people about why you’re missing?”
“I’ve decided to take some time off with my new girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend?” Wade’s black eyebrow slashed upward. “Are we back in high school or what?”
“All right, all right… You can make the wording sound cooler.”
“Shouldn’t be too tough, since everyone’s met her.” Wade grinned. “She’s a serious dime.”
“Dime?”
“She’s a ten. A dime, a ten piece. Like Gwyneth Paltrow and Kesha…” He leaned back in the office chair. “You are getting old.”
“Thanks.” Great. Just what he needed to remember right now.
“No disrespect meant, given your senior status.”
Liam gave up and laughed, a rusty sort of sound. How long had it been since he slept?
“I mean it when I say to be completely open if authorities question you. I don’t want to compromise you in any way. If Brandon Harris comes up at any time, feel free to say I’m as confused as the next fella about what’s going on. Never even met the guy. But again, be straight up if asked. I arrived, picked up some gear I’d stored in at your place when I moved here.”
“Like the gear I’ve got stored at your place?” There it was, the offer for more, for gear needed to fly under the radar for a while.
“Let’s just say Rachel and I have reunited after the Bahamas and are heading out to commune with nature for a couple of days. Thus the need for firepower. There are wild animals out there.”
“Fair enough.” Wade shoved to his feet. He rolled back a rag rug and pulled a key from underneath the desk. He slipped the key into a nearly undetectable groove in the wood floor. A spring popped and a trapdoor eased open to expose a safe built under the floorboards. Gun cases, ammo boxes, survival gear. “Take whatever you need.”
“Just my stuff stored here.” Liam knelt beside him, knees popping. “Pass me that, and I’m good.”
He lifted out a green duffel bag and hefted it over to the top of the desk. “You can take more from my personal stash. Might as well be better than good. No questions asked.”
“Thanks. But I want to make sure you’re armed as well.” And he didn’t want to cross a line. They would die for each other any day. That wasn’t something he would ever take advantage of.
He unzipped the bag and sifted around inside, inventorying.
Remington 308, a sniper rifle.
AR-15, a smaller assault rifle, easier to conceal.
Body armor.
Three sets of IDs.
Two prepaid, disposable cell phones.
And lastly, a Baby Eagle 9 mm, a smaller version of his Desert Eagle semiautomatic handgun. He would be passing the 9 mm to Rachel along with lessons on how to shoot it.
“Be alert. I wish I had more than that to direct you… I swear the minute I have something concrete, I’ll pass it along. You have to know I wouldn’t leave you in the dark unless there was no other choice.”
“Call me if you need anything.” Wade clapped him on the back.
“I won’t need you.” He slung the duffel over his shoulder. “But thanks.”
“Me? Hell no.” He laughed. “I’m talking about Sunny. That woman’s so resourceful, she can create a generator out of bubble gum and vegetable oil. She’s like an eco-friendly MacGyver.”
At least some guys got it right the first time. “She’s a keeper.”
“You don’t have to tell me. Enough of the sweet flowery love stuff.” He squatted down in front of the open safe again. “Let’s talk extra ammo.”
Chapter 9
Rachel cradled a mug of coffee between her palms, killing time until Liam armed himself to the teeth. Gulp. Ouch. She blew into the coffee. “It’s beyond nice of you to let us just walk into your home in the middle of the night.”
The sun was just starting to tease the watery horizon visible through the open kitchen window. A fan kicked up a breeze, and while there were AC vents in the bungalow, apparently the Rochas preferred the morning breeze.
Sunny poured a cup of coffee for herself as well, looking surprisingly awake in running shorts and a tank top. Her brown hair swung loose, with a feather woven into the strands on one side. “It’s nothing. Seriously. This is what we do for each other.”
She placed a plate of pineapple-mango muffins on the table. Home baked. Clearly.
Even if she hadn’t seen the muffin tin slotted in the dish dryer by the sink, she would have known. Everything about this place spoke of eco-friendly creativity, from the repurposed walnut table to the natural-fiber curtains. Rag rugs were scattered in front of the sink, by the door, in the hall.
Being here, bringing danger to their doorstep, felt so wrong. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Sunny sat across from her and scooped up a muffin.
Rachel’s mouth watered and she grabbed a muffin for herself, as good an excuse as any to give herself a moment to come up with a neutral answer. She thought of Liam’s insistence that they wouldn’t ask questions, which meant she should respect the need to keep them as uninvolved as possible. So what was she supposed to talk about?
The flippin’ weather? “Your home is beautiful, like you’ve found Florida’s little best kept secret nestled back here.”
“It’s a temporary place, just for their short stint.” Sunny thumbed a crumb from the corner of her mouth. “Some folks think I’m crazy for not picking an inexpensive condo and a more flashy setting, but I value my privacy.”
Short stint? Liam was moving soon? Suddenly sitting here was more than about killing time. Sitting here offered her an inside peek at what life would be like with Liam. Forget about denying she could ignore whatever it was she felt for him. She’d been trying that for six months and it hadn’t worked. “What do you mean about a short stint?”
“The guys are filling a billet here because the reserve squadrons were undermanned. They’ve been working on some special project. It’s all temporary, which isn’t that unusual in the military, from what I understand so far. We’ll be moving soon.”
“Where to?” And why was she already considering options for expanding the therapy dog operation?
“Haven’t heard yet.” She sipped from the earthenware mug.
“That doesn’t bother you? Not knowing where you’ll be living next?” Rachel had made a point of being in control of her life since Caden died.
“Would it do any good if I let it upset me?” She broke off another bite of pineapple-mango muffin. “There’s nothing I can do to change the way things are. To live with the man, I have to live with the circumstances.”
“Must be nice to have a marriage that solid. Um, I assume you’re married. I thought Liam said you were. Sorry if I—” She stuffed a piece of muffin into her mouth, chewing extra long on the sweet bite of pineapple.
Sunny shoved to her feet. “Don’t worry. We are married. I am officially Sunny Rocha. So my name is basically Sunny Rock.” Grinning, she filled two dog bowls with water. “But Sunshine Rock would be even worse, and there you have it.”
This woman was such a natural, at ease in her skin and so nonjudgmental. She was going above and beyond, and they’d never even met before. Rachel’s hands gripped the mug until they numbed. The enormity of it overwhelmed her. “Thank you for helping us, no questions asked. Liam’s lucky to have friends like you two.”
“I believe the both of you will manage just fine on your own. You used to work search and rescue stuff, right?” She placed one of the water bowls on the floor for Disco, the other for her dog.
“With my dogs. Yes. How did you know?”
“I’ve heard about you.”
“But I just got here yesterday…”
Sunny laughed softly as she reached into a cookie jar and passed the cookies to—the dogs? “The major got a little wasted at a beach picnic we threw right after they all got back from the Bahamas. He talked a lot about you before he passed out on the sofa.”
Forget wondering about the dog treats. She wanted to ask what he’d said. Desperately. But that would sound… desperate? Exactly.
Sunny took her chair at the table again, sitting cross-legged. “You don’t have to ask. I’m happy to spill all the deets. You made quite an impression on him in those three weeks you two spent together. He talked about how tough you were finding survivors. How tireless. He said if the air force ever let females into the pararescue field, you would make the cut.”
Hearing how he’d thought of her every bit as much as she’d been unable to forget him was exciting and unsettling. Although was she even the same woman he’d been taken with back in the Bahamas? The loss of that identity hit her all over again, surprising her with the new ways it could hurt her. “Yet I burned out and stepped away from search and rescue. Guess he was wrong about me.”
“I don’t know if I agree with you on that, but hey, no matter.” She leaned closer, her voice low. “He didn’t just talk about work. He said how you didn’t take crap off anyone, how you stood up to him. And he thought you were smart for giving him his walking papers, since he sucks at marriage.”
An obstacle she still wasn’t sure how to overcome. “That whole three divorce thing is tough to overlook.”
“This is a rough career field for relationships, no question.” Shadows chased through her eyes before she looked down into her coffee.
“If you don’t mind my asking, doesn’t that worry you?”
She looked up, eyes resolute. “Not being with Wade worries me more.”
Her stomach clenched. She knew too well how much it hurt to lose a man she loved. This conversation was definitely veering too close to painful territory.