Tessa stopped at the edge of the cabin’s porch, staring out at the quarter moon suspended amongst the stars. Gil stepped up and wrapped his arms around her waist, her back to his chest. Voices and laughter filtered up from the campfire. During his stay at the ranch, Gil had come to enjoy everyone’s company, and now considered them friends, but this, right here, standing with Tessa in his arms, her kid asleep in the cabin… this was better. He wanted to pretend, if only for a moment, that they were together. That he had a family.
That maybe one day he’d have a kid of his own.
Then he remembered what she’d said in the cabin when Jack had asked her about having another baby. I’m done having kids. It shouldn’t have mattered, but for some reason, it did.
Tessa leaned into him, resting her head against his shoulder. He linked his fingers with hers across her belly. “Did you mean what you said in there, that you’re done having kids?”
“I don’t know. Probably. One’s about all I can handle.”
“That would be a shame.”
“What does that mean?” She had a this-should-be-good tone in her voice, but he could tell she was smiling when she’d said it.
He pulled her in tighter against him, loving the way she fit beneath his chin, her ass snugged against his crotch. “Jack’s a terrific kid. You’re a great mom. You not having another kid would be like Hank selling off his prize heifer.”
“Oh, no,” she laughed, turning in his arms and giving his chin a playful nibble. “You did not just compare me to cattle.”
“Good breeding stock is good breeding stock.”
“Yeah? Does this mean you are volunteering to stand at stud?”
She was teasing him—but for some reason, maybe because he’d wanted a family of his own or the fact that Isaac may never get to have one—the words weighed on him. He sobered and said, “Yeah. I mean, someday I’d like to have a kid of my own.”
She leaned back, appraising him with an expression he couldn’t read.
“Is that surprising?”
“A little.”
Her words pricked, but he tried not to let it bother him. They were still getting to know each other.
“But after seeing the way you were with Jack tonight, I can see it. You’d make a good father, at least until it comes time to talk to your kids about sex.”
He laughed and shook his head. “Did you seriously say penis in front of your seven-year-old? You can’t go with winky, or ding-dong, or tallywacker? If it was good enough for my parents, then—”
“That’s what it is, a penis. The experts say—”
“What do they know? Euphemisms for the win. I turned out okay.”
“Except you can’t hear the word penis without blushing.”
Heat crept up his face, proving her point. Now all this talk about male body parts was starting to influence his. Shifting their positions, he straddled her leg. “Speaking of penises…”
He ducked his head and pressed a kiss along the column of her neck. She smelled of smoke with undertones of the JP-8 that fueled her helo, which somehow turned him on even more. He found the easy way she gripped the Sikorsky’s cyclic between her legs sexy as hell.
He’d flown in helo’s enough times before to know that she flew with a light touch and tight control. He appreciated that about her, but as much as she’d given of herself that morning, he wanted to know what she’d be like when she utterly, completely, unabashedly, surrendered.
He brushed her hair behind her shoulders, kissing his way up her neck, to the corner of her jaw. Her head thumped back against the porch column, eyes closed, lips parted. He dove in, their tongues meeting, mating.
“Mmm,” he said, pulling back a fraction, “You taste like chocolate.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He nipped at that luscious bottom lip. “The idea of you and me, a table, a bottle of chocolate syrup, and nothing else, makes me hard as fuck.”
She reached down and palmed him through his jeans. He sucked in a breath, rough and raw, and eased into her touch. He rested his forehead on hers. “We should stop before this gets out of hand.”
She huffed out a low laugh, but even in the dim light of the moon, he saw the smile slip from her face. She released him, and as she brushed her hand down his jaw, the corners of her mouth dipped down.
“What’s wrong?” Whatever was going through her mind had nothing to do with the fact he’d shut them down for the night, he was sure of that.
She ran her hands down his chest, one hand stopping over his heart. It beat stout and hard beneath his sternum, but the way she refused to look at him, made his heart go thump, clunk. “Tessa, tell me.”
Tessa shook her head, but said, “This is going to sound like a dick move, especially after how you were with Jack tonight… But I… I think…”
“I’m a big boy, spit it out.”
Damn. She looked up at him then. Though her chin quivered, she met his gaze head-on. “I-I think it’s best if you keep your distance from Jack.”
There was a sharp pain in the middle of his chest, and his heart kicked in protest against his rib cage. “I get it.” Though understanding why she was saying it didn’t make it hurt any less.
“Nothing against you. It’s that Jack is looking for a father figure to latch onto, and if things had been different, it wouldn’t have been an issue because I wouldn’t have introduced him to you unless I thought we were serious.
“Jack’s a healthy, happy kid, but he’s also smart and sensitive and intuitive, and even though his father left early in his life, I know that him not having a dad around has affected him. I don’t want to see him get hurt.”
Gil stepped back and scratched at his beard, trying to find the right words when all he wanted to do was protest.
“You’re mad.” She took his hand, though he could tell by the straightness in her spine and the jut of her jaw that she wouldn’t take her words back.
“You’re protecting your kid. That’s job number one. The only thing I’m mad about is the situation. I’m not angry with you. You gotta do what you think’s best for him.”
It was getting late, Tessa’s eyes drooped as she fought the fatigue. He took one step down the stairs, putting them near eye level. “For the record, if this thing between us gets serious, I’m good with that.”
She leaned a shoulder against the column. “We had sex.”
“We did.”
“That doesn’t make us…” She waggled her hand between the two of them as if at a loss for the right word. “…anything.”
“Does it need a definition? A label?”
“No.” The word came out a little soft and sad. “I’m not looking for anything that requires a label. I was upfront with you on that. That’s why you and Jack…” She shrugged one shoulder and let the rest of the sentence drop.
“What if I want more? What if I want a label?”
“I’m not sure I have any more to give.”
Tessa might have believed that with all her heart, but Gil didn’t. Not for a micro-second. She may be freer with her body, but from what little he knew of her history, he understood her need to protect her heart.
“Consider me warned.” He threaded his fingers through her hair and cupped the back of her head, placing a pleasing, promising kiss on her lips. “Sleep tight.”
He stepped down and waited at the bottom of the stairs until she’d disappeared into the cabin. He ran his hands down his face and scratched his fingers through his beard. Right then, a drink almost sounded better than sex. Almost. But with the ranch’s no alcohol policy in place because of the program, there wasn’t a can of beer or a bottle of whiskey to be had. Probably for the best.
He should have gone to bed himself, but he wanted to wait and welcome the new veteran when she arrived. That, and he really, really didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts. That would lead to thinking of Tessa, which would lead to him thinking of Tessa in the helo. Which would lead to one mother of a hard-on. It would be too pathetic for him to be rubbing one out in a one-room cabin in the foothills of the Rockies.
When he got back to the campfire, Boomer and Quinn were alone, nursing a couple bottles of water. “Where did everybody go?”
Quinn hitched his thumb over his shoulder at Boomer’s cabin. “The girls are inside. Something about Mac and baby showers.” Quinn kinda shuddered. “We decided to leave them to it.”
Gil flopped in the empty chair between the two men. The fire had died down, leaving nothing more than ghostly, glowing, logs. The fire popped and cracked, spitting sparks into the fresh night air.
“You were gone a long time.” Boomer’s tone was suggestive.
“I kinda tried to warn her off…” Quinn shrugged.
“You did what?” Gil reached into Boomer’s cooler and uncapped a water for himself.
“I don’t think she paid me any attention if that helps.”
Boomer eased down in his chair, a lazy grin on his face. “From what Sidney said, Mac gave Tessa the ‘if you hurt him’ speech.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Gil should have been angry, but many times since he’d been at Healing Horses, he’d sat around that very campfire with Boomer, Mac, and Quinn, hashing out their pasts, trying to make some sense of the senseless and put it all in perspective.
While he hadn’t suffered debilitating PTSD like many of his brothers and sisters in arms, it didn’t mean he was unaffected or that he didn’t have to come to terms with his own demons.
As much as he didn’t want to believe it, being able to swap stories with people who had lived it and understood it, helped. Because for the first time in a long time, he didn’t feel so alone. He felt like he had brothers and sisters, and people who had his back, even if sometimes they felt like that gave them the right to meddle in his personal life.
“I don’t need any of you running interference for me, I’m perfectly capable of screwing up my own relationships.”
“Relationship, huh?” Quinn teased.
Gil took a long drag on the water bottle, “It’s not like that, it’s—”
Headlights appeared along the dirt road, the “Taxi” sign lit on the roof.
“Jesus,” Gil said, “You couldn’t pick the poor woman up at the airport?”
“She refused.” Quinn tossed a couple of small logs on the fire. “I’ll go let Jenna know she’s here.”
Boomer collected his crutches and made his way to the road to meet the cab. Gil followed. The cabbie buzzed down his window. The latch on the back door popped, but Mia didn’t climb out.
Boomer pulled out his wallet. “How much?”
Boomer paid but Mia remained inside. Boomer leaned in the driver’s window and asked her, “You coming?”
One beat, then two, then the rear door was shoved open, and Mia Mann climbed out with reluctance and attitude. She stood about five- six or seven, but it was hard to tell by the way she held her shoulders, kind of curled in on herself.
She wore woodland green digital MARPAT fatigue pants with combat boots, topped off with an unzipped sweatshirt, the sleeves pushed up to her elbows over a white tank top. Metal pierced her left brow, and the tip of a tattoo snaked around the back of her neck from beneath her shirt. With her head shaved, she looked like the love child of the emo kid in high school and GI Jane. Only scarier.
Boomer introduced himself and shook her hand.
Gil did the same. The contact was brief, but her grip was firm. “Gil Brant. I’m also in the program.”
“Good for you.” She had one of those deep, Lauren Bacall voices a lot of guys found sexy. Either she smoked a lot, or she wasn’t used to talking much.
Boomer glanced at Gil, a this-should-be-fun tilt to his brow.
“You’re here, finally.” Jenna came up behind them, about to pull Mia in for a hug. Mia stiffened. Jenna settled for a handshake. “You want to come and sit by the campfire? I’ve got some food if you’re hungry, some water maybe?”
“I just need some rack time.”
“Yeah, sure.” Jenna schooled her face, but in the cab’s headlights, Gil caught the flicker of something on her face that made Gil wonder if, in less than a minute, Mia had made Jenna start rethinking the whole Healing Horses program. “A friend and her son will be sharing your cabin for a few nights, or I could put you on a cot in the barn office if you’d rather.”
“I can deal.”
“Somebody going to get that bag?” the cabbie called out.
Gil made a move toward the trunk. “I’ll get it.”
“No.” Mia held up a staying hand. “I’ve got it.”
After the taxi left, Jenna said, “Since it’s already late, we’ll start a little later in the morning. Meet us at the big house at eight for breakfast.” Jenna pointed up the road toward the big house, even though what she’d said was self-explanatory.
“Terrific.” Mia’s inflection said it was anything but.
Boomer put his hand on Jenna’s shoulder. “Come on, I’ll help you finish cleaning up and put out the fire.”
“I’ll walk her up to the cabin,” Gil said.
“I can find it.” Mia had one of those looks on her face somewhere between get-the-hell-out-of-my-way and get-the-hell-out-of-my-life.
“I’m sure you can. But I’m going that way.” Gil crossed his arms over his chest, refusing to give an inch. If she thought he was going to cower under her glower, if she thought anyone on the S would, she’d come to the wrong damn place.
She shouldered her duffel and started trudging up the hill toward their cabins, her hands gripping the straps. Both of her forearms sported vibrant tattoos, though the light wasn’t good enough for him to see any detail.
“Nice ink,” he said, trying to find some common ground. “Who did your work?”
She reached over and tugged the sleeves of her sweatshirt down but kept on walking. The two cabins came into view, and Gil pointed to the one that was hers. “You’re there.”
She grunted.
Prickly thing. All spines and sharp claws on every corner like a pissed off porcupine. “There’s this tattoo parlor I found in Murdock, off the main drag. The guy does some sick—”
“Dude.” Mia stopped walking.
Gil raised his hands, he’d surrender now, but that battle wasn’t over, not by a long shot.
She stared off into the distance. Gil waited her out. “Look,” she said, “I’m not some kid looking to make a friend at sleepover camp. I’m here to do my time. That’s all.”
“It’s a volunteer program. Not jail.”
Her low laugh was ripe with skepticism. “I don’t know your story. Maybe you want to be here. Maybe you don’t. Frankly, I don’t care. But I didn’t have a choice. The judge said it was this plus probation or prison.”
She glanced up and down the road. “Still not sure I made the right decision.”
As Tessa walked into Spinks’ standing-room-only temporary office, she realized she was the last person to arrive. All the ATF task force agents were there. Hugh Fisher, Joel Cook, and a couple of the other guys who had been on the ground when Rivera and Lang had been shot. Quinn had propped himself up in one of the corners of the room. There were some other agents there that she didn’t know, who she assumed had been brought in temporarily to help with the case.
At the front of the room, Spinks was speaking to Oliver Finn, the FBI agent who ran some of the local joint task force operations, as well as her cousin Massey.
Dressed in a suit, Massey looked all spit-polished, like a little boy dressed for his first communion. Massey glanced up and gave her a slight wave, his smile crooked, his crutch dangling from the cuff around his forearm. She returned the wave. He took a seat, then she caught Gil’s eye.
He shifted and made a space for her at the back of the room. “Who’s that?” He pointed with his coffee cup toward Massey.
“My cousin.” She stole Gil’s coffee out of his hand and took a fortifying sip.
When she tried to hand it back, he gestured for her to keep it. “What’s he doing here? I didn’t know you had family in law enforcement.”
“I don’t. Massey’s the kind of geeky computer genius who makes high school Bill Gates look like the cool kid on the block. Not sure what he’s doing here. Speaking of which, what are you doing here? I thought the shooting was under investigation.”
“Spinks said I could come in for the brief so I’d be up to speed once I’m released to come back to work.” Gil took a sip of the coffee and handed it back to her. “What did you think of Mia?”
“Never saw her, and her bed hadn’t been slept in. I thought she’d gotten delayed or something. Everything okay?”
“She probably decided to take the room in the barn after all.”
“What’s she like?”
“Hot and prickly, like a rash you shouldn’t scratch.”
A whistle pierced the air, and all extraneous conversations ceased. “Let’s get started,” Spinks said. “The sooner we get finished here, the sooner we can catch the rest of these bastards. Quick update on Rivera and Lang. Rivera has been moved out of ICU, his condition is serious, but no longer critical. Lang is stable, but doctors won’t know for a while if the paralysis is permanent. Agent Finn conducted the interview with Ross, the shooter we put in the hospital.” Spinks made a go-ahead motion to Finn.
As usual, Finn looked like he belonged in one of those Rolex advertisements in Forbes Magazine. All clean lines, gold cufflinks and freshly shaved face. Always calm, always clinical, and always by the book.
“Ross isn’t saying much. Yet. Fear of reprisal and retaliation against his family is keeping his mouth shut for now. Today, we’re notifying the media that he died due to complications from his gunshot wounds. Hopefully, that will give him enough breathing room to get him talking. As soon as he’s fit for travel, we’ll move him to a safe house until we can make some arrests.”
Finn turned his attention to the far end of the table. “Agent Cook, you have additional information on Ross?”
Unlike Finn, Cook’s clothes looked slept in. He had a large coffee in front of him and a tiny bottle of Visine.
Cook flipped open a file. “Drew Sullivan Ross. White male. Age thirty-two. Sealed juvie record. Short rap sheet, a couple of misdemeanor arrests for marijuana possession, burglary, petty theft, ages eighteen to twenty-two. Then a judge gave him a choice, jail or the Army.” Cook glanced around the room. “Guess which one our Ross chose.”
Spinks stared down at him, his arms crossed, and his face sporting a get-on-with-it glower.
Cook shifted in his seat and turned a page. “Ross first trained as a Unit Supply Specialist, then later became a Logistics Officer. Got busted down to private twice on accusations of sexual harassment—”
“Sounds like a real peach,” Tessa muttered.
Spinks eyed her under his brow. Cook continued, “Until finally about nine months ago he was dishonorably discharged. That’s pretty much all we have right now. I’ve got a call in to see if I can get the skinny on the discharge.”
“Fisher?” Spinks turned his attention to the agent beside Cook.
“Right.” Fisher wasn’t quite as organized, he flipped through a couple pages of notes he’d jotted on a legal pad. His handwriting was all slashes and quick, hard lines as if he hid an anger issue under his otherwise laid-back demeanor. “Got some good prints off the box truck we impounded, but no hits off those yet. Contents—a grab bag of goodies. Machine guns, mortar rounds, Stingers, you know, everything your average backyard weapons enthusiast needs. Crate and weapon serial numbers are being traced. Some have come back as surplus slated for destruction. Of the few items we were able to trace, shipping and receiving records match.”
“Inside job?” Gil asked.
Fisher glanced back at Gil. “That’s the working theory. This SOB was passed around from base to base like a rotten potato that no one wanted to be caught with. Tracking down the guys he’s worked with is like diving down a deep, dark rabbit hole. The guy that was killed, we don’t have a positive ID. Fingerprints not in NCIC.”
“The National Crime Information Center doesn’t have everything,” Gil said.
“We’re also cross-referencing with military records and Interpol,” Fisher was quick to point out.
“Stay on it,” Spinks said.
Fisher nodded.
Then Spinks held out his hand toward Massey. “We have Massey Yates here on loan from CTS, one of the nation’s top computer security firms helping us on tracking the money end.”
Because Massey’s CP affected his speech, Tessa knew he much preferred to work behind the scenes. He had one of those folded paper “football” triangles the kids in middle school used to always play with. He flipped it back and forth over his knuckles.
Massey dropped the “football” and tugged at his collar. “CTS has proprietary algorithms in beta testing that monitor cryptocurrency on the Dark Web.”
One of the new agents on the other side of Gil leaned into him and said, “This is messed up. I can’t even understand what he’s saying.”
The guy could use some lessons in how to whisper. Massey tried to ignore him, but he cut the guy a what-the-fuck, dude? glare. Gil shifted, and Tessa heard an oompf as if Gil had landed an elbow jab to the guy’s solar plexus.
Under his breath, Gil said, “Shut the hell up and listen.”
Spinks held up a hand to stop Massey. “There a problem back there?”
“We’re good,” Gil said. He turned to the agent beside him. “Right?”
The man managed a tight nod, but no words.
“Continue,” Spinks told Massey.
Massey explained about how cryptocurrency was gaining popularity in the criminal world because of its inherent anonymity, and how his company, as part of a national security initiative, monitored large spikes in deposits and transfers in an attempt to track potential black-market buyers and sellers of large quantities of weapons, drugs, diamonds and other black-market sales.
When Massey paused to take a breath, Cook asked, “So in English for those of us with an IQ a little closer to the double digits, what does this mean?”
“Saturday night, there was a transfer spike on CoinIt, an up and coming cryptocurrency. One of the accounts was accessed from a computer we tracked to the western part of the state.”
“Why can’t pinpoint the computer’s location?” This from the guy Gil had elbowed. He still sounded winded.
Gil caught Tessa’s eyes and hid his grin behind a sip of coffee.
“CoinIt is using a technology that makes tracing transfers nearly impossible. It routes through unusually high numbers of proxy servers all over the world. Then kind of like that QuickChat app the kids use where the picture or text disappears within seconds of it being read, the electronic trail of the CoinIt transfer disappears as well.
“If all three box trucks carried similar amounts of weapons, the amount of the CoinIt transfer, when you take in the conversion rate back to US dollars, is consistent with the sale of a weapons cache of the size involved in Saturday night’s bust. We’ve adjusted our algorithm, but we won’t know if it will be successful in tracking the transfer until another one is made.”
Spinks ended the brief with a couple of housekeeping items and passed out various assignments. To Quinn and Tessa, Spinks said, “You two hold up, we have a quick recon hop for you.”
As Gil was leaving, he caught her by the elbow and escorted her a little way down the hall. “I’ve got my hour with the shrink this afternoon. I’d really like to see you tonight.” When she hesitated, he added, “After Jack goes to sleep.”
He’s trying. There hadn’t been a clear demarcation in the boundaries Tessa had set, and he was feeling his way through it. It wasn’t like she didn’t want to see him at all, she just wanted to protect Jack.
Who’s going to protect you when it all goes to shit?
Gil’s not like that.
That’s what you thought about Bradley, but he turned out to be as manipulative and duplicitous as your father.
Man, she could really pick ‘em.
“I’d like that.” She glanced down the hall. Almost everyone had filed out of the room, and she gave Massey a nod as he crutched his way down the hall.
Gil’s gaze went to her lips, even as he took a step back. “You know where to find me.”
When she walked back into Spinks’ office, only Quinn remained. She took the seat across from him and waited for Spinks to glance up from his computer.
Spinks clicked through a document, and without looking up, he said, “There something you’re not telling me, Sterling?”
Had he heard about her and Gil’s extracurricular helo activities? Her scalp tingled and sweat started to bead along her hairline. She glanced at Quinn. He gave her an I’m clueless shrug. “Ehr…excuse me, sir?”
Spinks leaned back and gave her his full attention. “The break-in at your place.”
“Oh, that.” Phew. This wasn’t about her and Gil. She wanted to wipe her brow but didn’t want to do anything that might make her look nervous. Spinks didn’t get to be a Special Agent in Charge because he was stupid and unobservant. “You’ve got a lot on your plate. The sheriff’s department is looking into it.”
“If there is something that affects members of my team, I want to know about it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“About that recon.” With a blip of the remote, the big screen came to life behind Spinks with a satellite view that showed a few rectangular structures that could have been those mobile offices often seen at construction sites. There was also a more massive square building, a warehouse of some sort.
“What are we looking at?”
“It’s a coal strip mine operation. Built by BBM, Big Blue Mining, but closed by the EPA a decade ago. Potentially a Superfund cleanup site, but it has been embroiled in lawsuits for years. The GPS from that box truck places it here.”
“I can’t see a mining company buying weapons,” Quinn said.
“Our guess is whoever is buying and/or selling those weapons is using this place as temporary storage. It’s off the beaten path. No close neighbors and the surrounding topography make it impossible to see from the road. With the remoteness of the mine, the newest online satellite photo is more than a year old. There is no telling what kind of changes they’ve made if any.”
“Which is where we come in.” Tessa smiled. Maybe they’d finally get to use their military-grade surveillance cameras that had recently been installed, thanks to money confiscated from a big bust the ATF had had the year before. Word was that the camera’s resolution allowed you to count the gray hairs on a mouse’s nuts from a mile up.
Not the manufacturer’s exact words, but close.
It was the perfect tool to allow them to fly high yet get high-resolution photos of the site.
Spinks filled them in on distance and altitude parameters. They didn’t want the helo to be easily seen or heard on the chance that people were guarding the site.
Tessa and Quinn beat it back to the hanger. After changing into their flight suits, she met Quinn at the helo. He’d already started on the external visual inspection.
She strapped into the pilot’s chair and had picked up the pre-flight checklist when Quinn climbed in, wearing a stupid grin on his face.
“What?” Tessa asked.
“You’re my hero.”
“I’m your what?” She listened with one ear as she went down the list, flipping switches and checking gauges.
“Hero.” He buckled in, but his grin never wavered.
She turned the APU generator switch to ‘on,’ and marked her spot on the checklist. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear this. “How so?”
“Sex in the back of a helo is on my bucket list. Looked like you’ve crossed it off yours already.”
How could he know that? Even though it was a complete tell, she glanced behind her, trying to find something that would have given her and Gil away. But everything was as it should be. Except…Tessa pulled her shades to the end of her nose, to see the interior of the Sikorsky better.
Yeah, that was her bra hooked onto some webbing in the back.
There wasn’t much point in denying it. “Where did you find it?”
“Between my seat and the door. The turquoise and lace was a surprise. I’d always pictured you as a gray sports bra kind of woman.”
She didn’t say anything. Quinn was going to give her a rash of shit no matter what she said. She knew that because they were a lot alike and if she’d found another woman’s bra in the helo, it would be a while before he’d hear the end of it.
She continued down the list, calling out things for Quinn to check. They started the engines, cleared the tower and climbed to their cruising altitude without another word that didn’t have to do with their flight, but Tessa knew Quinn well enough to know she hadn’t heard the last from him about the sex.
As they rotored toward the strip mine, Quinn checked to make sure they weren’t on an open channel. “Even before I got my wings, I’ve had helo sex fantasies. Not nearly as much room here as in my Super Stallion, and the ‘60 doesn’t have the ramp, but it’s obviously doable. No deets, but did the reality exceed the fantasy? Please, please say yes. Even if it isn’t true.”
She gave him a quick glance and said, “You want my advice?”
“Hit me with it, LT.”
“We should stash a pair of knee pads back there.”