Cindy Gerard - Killing Time

He wasn’t the one who had betrayed that bond. Brown was.

“Urgent, my ass,” he muttered under his breath.

Fuck him and his eight-years-too-late explanation and appeal for help in setting the record straight. What was the point?

There wasn’t any.

In a foul, crappy mood, he finally got dressed and poured himself some coffee. For a long time he stared broodingly out his kitchen window at the thick clouds rolling in from the west. Finally, he booted up his laptop and checked his e-mail. A note from his agent. A message from Lonnie—already? He didn’t bother to open either.

Instead, he clicked on Create Mail. Let his fingers hover over the keys for a long moment before finally typing Bobby Taggart’s address. He debated even longer over the subject line, almost hit Delete a dozen times. In the end, he finally hammered it all out—everything Brown had said, what had supposedly happened, what he was planning, the name and phone number of some Jones person if he couldn’t reach Brown—and hit Send. It wasn’t as if he and Taggart were pen pals—he had Brown to thank for that split, too. He kept track of him was all. Last he knew—over nine months ago—Bobby was back in Afghanistan. Still in the thick of it, working for a private contractor, still taking fire. Still as pissed as Jamie was that Mike Brown had sold them down the river.

Only now he claimed he hadn’t.

He should go hit the weights. He had a big shoot scheduled in two weeks at Bondi Beach. Swimwear. Hot models. Big money.

Instead, he walked back to the bedroom, opened his bureau drawer, and dug until he found it. His one-eyed jack. The card—a jack of hearts—was timeworn, yellowed, and burned around the edges. He rubbed his thumb over the faded surface, thinking of what it had once meant to him. What it still meant to him.

Several long moments later, he tucked it back in the drawer where it belonged, packed a bag, and headed for the gym.

Bobby Taggart lay on his narrow cot, trying not to think about how fucking hot he was as the Afghan sun baked down on his tent like a blowtorch.

Outside, engines gunned and revved; the scent of diesel and gunpowder drifted inside on the ever-present dust that seeped into every nook, cranny, and crevice known to man and machine.

He’d returned to base after a sixteen-hour patrol. Exhausted, bone dry, and so hot he thought his head would explode, he’d stripped down to the bare essentials—boxers, T-shirt, and his AR-15—and collapsed. He was about to let sleep take him when Arnold poked his head inside.

“There’s a computer open,” his battle buddy said, standing in the open tent flap.

That snapped his eyes open. “Appreciate it.”

“No prob.” Then Arnold was gone.

Their civilian commo setup was primitive at best. Five computers shared by upwards of two hundred men did not make for easy access.

He forced himself up off the cot and walked barefoot across the thirty yards of dirt to the commo tent at the center of the base. The free computer had already been taken, but since there was only one other guy ahead of him in one of the lines, he decided he’d stick it out. Such was life on this all-expenses-paid getaway to beautiful bombed-out Afghanistan.

Twenty minutes later, he sat down in front of a screen and keyed in his ID and password. It had been two weeks since he’d checked his mail, and while the sad lack of people reaching out to touch him was no surprise, the fact that there was a message from Hondo Cooper was.

The subject line read: Primetime.

Bobby’s knee-jerk reaction was rage. A thick, bone-deep rage that he’d buried deep and only let out when he was drunk or certain he was going to die.

Why the hell was Cooper e-mailing him about that bastard? Maybe Brown was dead? Cause for celebration.

Or not.

Maybe he didn’t want to know.

He almost deleted the message unread, but curiosity got the best of him.

And by the time he finished reading, he didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, get drunk, or wish to hell he’d never opened the damn e-mail.

Eva headed straight for the guest bedroom after leaving Brown on the terrace. She needed some real distance from him, real fast. Unfortunately Gabe glanced up when she walked past his office door and swiveled around in his desk chair.

“I put a T-shirt and a pair of boxers—Jenna’s go-to sleepwear—on the bed. Help yourself to anything else you need.”

“Thanks.” She hung uneasily in the doorway, not wanting to appear unappreciative but hoping he’d realize she wanted to move on. “That was very thoughtful.”

He watched her with eyes that were far too perceptive. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, but everything was not okay. She’d let Mike Brown kiss her. And she’d liked it. There were more things wrong with that picture than she could begin to sort through. She forced a smile. “I’m just tired.”

“He’s a good guy, you know.” Jones was still watching her. “A smart-ass, but a good guy.”

She didn’t have a response for that. It rattled her that he was sensitive to the fact that Brown was on her mind. Was she that transparent?

She met Gabe’s eyes, hesitated, then walked into the office. She found a piece of paper and pen, wrote down a name, and handed it to him.

“A project for your spare time.”

“Brewster?” Gabe looked from the name to her. “Something you want to share with me?”

“It’s the name of Mike’s CO in Afghanistan.” She lifted a shoulder. “Might be worth checking out.”

“Checking out for what, exactly?”

She’d been thinking about this a lot, was now willing to give Mike’s CO the benefit of the doubt. “I have a feeling he might be my Deep Throat.”

“Seriously?”

“I don’t know. Word to the wise? Don’t mention this to Mike unless you’re up for a lecture.”

After shutting herself in the guest bedroom she stripped, pulled on the borrowed sleepwear, and crawled into bed. Exhaustion hit her like an anchor. She was dead on her feet. She should probably feel guilty that Mike was left with the sofa, but she couldn’t go there. Just like she couldn’t let herself think about that kiss.

As tired as she was, though, she did think about it. Couldn’t stop thinking about it. She closed her eyes and smelled him, felt the solid heat of him, the softness of his lips, the rapid beat of his heart pounding against her breasts.

This was not good.

Restless, she rolled to her back. Hot and achy, desperate to get the taste of him out of her head, she stared into the dark, a thousand other thoughts keeping her from sleep. Thoughts that started with Ramon and ended with how good it had felt to be kissed by Mike. She’d married the last man who had stirred her that way.

It was irrational, but even the thought of getting involved with Brown seemed like a betrayal. Ramon had hated him. Based on what Ramon had told her, she’d believed that Brown was a misogynistic, arrogant prick. A user, a grandstander, a bad human being, and a worse teammate.

Because of that, she’d flown to Lima and laid her trap without any guilt. All that had changed, however, once he’d dropped the smart-ass act and she’d seen the anguish Mike lived with.

“You led those men to their deaths.” She got right in his face again. “You got those people caught in the crossfire. Because you were hotdogging. Because you were playing games with people’s lives.”

“The hell I was! The hell I did!”

That kind of passion and conviction couldn’t be faked. She’d realized right then that he was innocent. At least, intellectually, she’d realized it. Her emotions, however, were dragging their feet. She’d wanted to believe he was guilty. Because believing in Brown meant no longer believing in Ramon.