Night Stalkers: By Break Of Day Part 12

He nodded. He'd owed them. His crew had risked and lost their lives; he couldn't abandon them, even if they were gone. He couldn't turn his back on...their service. He'd done a lot of thinking from that hospital bed, had been on the verge of calling it his last tour. Instead he decided to do everything he could against the people who had sent the crazed bomber. He knew who did that the very best, and he started aiming for SOAR from the hospital bed.

No one had understood, not even his sister flying Air Force, but it hadn't been a choice. Not even a duty to his past. It was need that drove him into the future-a desperate need to protect-because some crazy could just as casually walk into a horse show where his family rode. That wasn't going to happen if there was any way he could stop it.

He stood, releasing Kara's hand with a brief squeeze.

"Don't leave. Not like this."

Justin didn't answer. Instead, he pulled on his clothes and boots, and picked up his hat before looking back down at her.

A corner of the blanket covered her hips and one breast, but the other, her arms, and one long leg of the creamiest golden skin were exposed in the soft light.

"You don't want me here right now, Kara. You really don't. Believe me when I tell you that I'm not fit company for woman or horse right now."

She started to protest, so he leaned down to kiss her as softly as he could.

Almost. Almost her kiss, her incredible body, and her sympathy pulled him back down to lie with her.

Then he stood, pulled on his hat, and offered her a nod.

"Ma'am." Did his best to smile with it, but knew it was lame.

He tried to say her name, but it wouldn't come out.

"It will be okay," he finally managed. "I just need some time."

He slipped out of her cabin with no one the wiser. It was the middle of the day shift, so the Peleliu's corridors were deserted.

Once he was well clear of her section of the ship, he stopped and leaned against the wall. He locked one hand around a handy pipe to keep himself upright.

Leaving had been the right choice, the only choice.

Kara had welcomed him to her bed.

She wouldn't have if he had stayed. He'd have taken her, hard, in a desperate effort to purge the images inside his head. He'd made that mistake once and scared the c.r.a.p out of the poor woman he'd been with. You didn't take this kind of s.h.i.t to a woman's bed.

It didn't matter if she offered; it was something he would never do again. Ever.

Lying helpless on the ground beside the tortured wreckage of the Chinook, listening to Rom's screams as he burned alive. A crew chief's helmet on the ground close beside him. Blown right through the Chinook's hull by the force of the blast. The scorching so bad, he couldn't even tell whose it was. Despite the head still strapped in but connected to...nothing.

Chapter 11.

"Well, don't you look like s.h.i.t."

Kara was nursing her coffee and ignoring the Belgian blueberry waffles on her plate.

Now she could ignore Trisha instead.

Good. It took more effort and attention to ignore a person than an inanimate meal. Maybe that would keep her distracted.

"I see that your boyfriend left."

Left? Kara jolted up, ignoring the hot coffee that sloshed onto her hand other than to curse the sudden external pain added to the internal and scanned the room. No white cowboy hat! How could- "Hold on, Kara. I wasn't talking about Captain Roberts. I was talking about the nameless dude you, Michael, and the cowboy have been locked up with for the last four days."

There, just coming down the chow line. White hat. Tall Texan beneath it. She settled back, aware of Trisha holding one of her wrists and wiping down Kara's hand with a napkin dipped in a gla.s.s of ice water. It felt good on the coffee burn; thankfully the liquid had cooled some while she was ignoring her breakfast. She took a piece of ice out of her own gla.s.s and took over the job.

"Looks like you've had a busy couple days, in more ways than one."

"I don't think I can talk about that mission." Now that she'd said that, Kara was pretty sure it was true. She did her best to not make it obvious that she was watching Justin.

He, in turn, touched the brim of his hat to her, then moved to sit with Michael Gibson and the other Delta operators.

"Well, isn't that interesting. Mission, huh?" Trisha drowned her waffle in b.u.t.ter and syrup. She started to douse Kara's.

Kara managed to stop Trisha before the deluge hit. She tried sc.r.a.ping off some of the b.u.t.ter, but it had disappeared down into the holes of the waffle and melted.

"No. You're not going to get by me that easily." For lack of anything better to do with her hands, Kara tossed the piece of half-melted ice into her mouth and gave it a good crunch.

Trisha shivered at the sound.

Ha!

Kara crunched it again. Her middle brother, Joe, couldn't stand it either when she chewed on ice; made for a great weapon when he got out of hand.

"Cut that out!"

Kara did, only because she'd finished that bit of ice. "Can't take the pressure, huh? So much for the kick-a.s.s soldier I always thought you were."

Trisha gave her the finger and backed it up with a grin.

Kara cut into her waffle. Pretty good, even if it had enough b.u.t.ter to season an entire loaf of garlic bread.

"Well, since I can't see Michael getting into a four-way, and with the conspicuous absence of the Chinook and DAP Hawk last night... Holy s.h.i.t!"

Kara concentrated on her waffle.

"Spook city!" Trisha whispered it just below the general ambience of the room.

"What's spook city?" Lola came up and set her tray to one side of Trisha. Claudia sat on the other side, just as Connie sat beside Kara.

Kara now faced all three female pilots with only the mechanic on her side of the table.

"She got one." Trisha pointed her fork at Kara's chest.

They all turned to look at her in unison.

"What, Justin?" The instant Kara said it, she knew it was a mistake. She was sitting with four women who had all married military men.

"I knew it!" Trisha thumped the fist hard enough on the table to make dishes rattle. "High five, girl!"

Kara didn't feel much like high-fiving her or anyone else at the moment. She just wanted to crawl into a hole. Justin had not only sat in Delta country, but he'd sat with his back to her.

Connie leaned in. "Ninety-eight percent now. I warned you."

"Where's-"

Michael held up a hand cutting him off and then signaled for Justin to look around.

Across from him at their corner table were Michael Gibson and his right hand, Lieutenant Bill Bruce, Trisha's husband. The next table over had a trio of guys that Justin had long since identified as also Delta. Their corner of the officer's mess was a quiet haven in a world of turmoil-the main reason he'd come to sit with them.

Farther out from their oasis of silence, Rangers, Navy, and SOAR laughed, rubbed shoulders, and ate.

In their own island sat Kara with the other women of SOAR. Justin was glad for her. She'd need friends after how he'd treated her this morning. There were things that needed fixing. Needed saying. But he wasn't up to that yet, despite hours of walking the flight deck since he'd left her cabin.

He could still taste her on his lips, smell her on his hands. Her final sweet kiss had been as potent as how she'd bucked and moaned when he drove into her.

He turned back to Michael.

"You do not mention him or his department until you're sure who's listening. Bill has met him before."

Bill Bruce nodded, but didn't speak before returning his attention to his tall stack of pancakes and sausage. Justin had gone for the same thing and started in on his own.

"Because?" Justin prompted before biting down on a sausage.

"The Activity keeps a very low profile."

"Major Wi-That guy wasn't really good at doing that."

Michael nodded. "Willard turns into a jerk around women. But he is very good at getting his team in and out of places. He's gone to meet up with them."

Justin considered. Without Major Wilson's finding the 5D and the team aboard the Peleliu in the Eastern Mediterranean-then pushing hard for three straight nights and much of the days-those guys would be either captured or dead. Instead, they were out with their intel and headed back to wherever The Activity came from.

"As to men who turn into jerks around women..." Michael trailed off.

His tone had Bill's head coming up, glancing at Michael, then shifting his focus to Justin. The briefest look over Justin's shoulder toward Kara, then he returned his attention to Justin-except his look had gone dark and dangerous. This was a guy you never wanted to meet in a dark alley-not even if he was on your side. If he was there, it meant that things were going to be very bad very soon.

But Justin hadn't been a jerk.

Or if he had, it was in favor of not being unintentionally cruel to a woman he'd come to like far more than was decent for a fellow soldier.

Now Michael turned his attention slowly down to the meal that he'd ignored from the moment of Justin's arrival.

Bill's attention remained focused on Justin.

Two of the most effective and lethal soldiers there were had just threatened him aboard a United States warship. He wanted to laugh them off, but he was having some trouble holding on to his fork.

Kara's stomach was having some trouble holding on to the few bites she'd managed of her breakfast.

Her efforts to keep her mouth shut hadn't worked. Connie was absolutely right about Trisha's tenacity. When she looked at the other women, she saw some sympathy...enough that it was clear that each had fallen afoul of Trisha's ways at one time or another. But she could see a desire for more information.

"No." Kara aimed her fork at Trisha. "No b.l.o.o.d.y way, lady. That's all you're getting out of me."

A glint heated up in Trisha's eye and Kara girded herself for battle-one she had no enthusiasm for at the moment, as she'd just seen the cowboy's surrept.i.tious inspection of the room. His gaze had barely hesitated at their table.

Then Trisha flinched as if she'd been kicked under the table, fairly hard. She scowled around the group, and all of the others went to some trouble to look innocent.

Connie was a touch too carefully intent on her hot chocolate, and Kara did her best not to give her away.

Perhaps it was just as well. Kara could feel a dose of anger building up, what Rudi, her closest brother, had dubbed the Dreaded Red Brooklyn Haze. Kara's desire to unleash it on Trisha was building. The fact that she could see the real target's back wasn't helping.

Perhaps detecting the gathering storm, or perhaps having a desire to protect her shins from other women wearing Army boots-Kara wished she'd been the one to think of kicking her on the sly-Trisha evaded.

"I wasn't talking about him, anyway. She got one, I'm telling you."

There was a respectful silence as they all turned to look at Kara.

"I got one what?"

"A black-in-black mission."

"No." Kara shivered at the memory of the black-in-black a.s.signment she'd flown oversight on in her first month with the 5D. Her role in that had been strictly surveillance, but it had been pure h.e.l.l to even watch. Trisha and Claudia had been front and center on that one; the latter was lucky to be alive.

Lola was looking back and forth. She hadn't been a part of that mission and was clearly taken by surprise that Kara knew what one was.

"It's-"

"Shut up, O'Malley." Lola Maloney, friend, had just been replaced by the woman in charge of the 5D.

And Trisha did keep her trap shut, grimacing and biting her lower lip.

When Lola Maloney spoke with that tone, it would take a braver person than Kara to face her down. Apparently one braver than Trisha too.

Claudia, who flew an attack-version Little Bird just like Trisha, sighed and shook her head. Lola missed seeing the connection between the three of them from that mission.

A side glance showed that Connie had seen it go by, but she didn't miss anything, so that wasn't a big surprise. Connie had probably just connected a hundred clues and figured out that they'd flown a secret mission into Azerbaijan to fight with the Russian Navy. The woman was that scary sharp.

A new black-in-black? Kara rolled it around on her tongue and didn't like the taste of it. Was that what she and Justin had been in? No, it had been a weird and ugly black op on friendly soil, but no worse than that.