Ricochet (Renegades #3)(90)
Author: Skye Jordan

“You might be fixing awhile,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “So, Ryker seems…subdued.”

“He’s just focused on pulling this off. Hell of a favor you asked of him, considering how deeply he was affected by that blast in Kandahar.”

His head twisted toward Rachel, lips parted in surprise. “He told you?”

“In pieces. It’s horribly painful for him.”

“Wow.” Troy’s mouth edged up in a smile. “That’s progress. And Ray’s accident?”

Rachel nodded. “Hit him hard, but he’s getting through it. He drove all the way into town and argued with his doctors until they let him take Ray out of the hospital to watch this shoot.” Her gut ached with the memories resulting from the trauma. “And he went to see his teammate who survived in Kandahar. He lives about an hour south of here. I saw a difference when Nathan got back. A real positive change.”

“Really.” Troy’s eyes narrowed on Rachel now, his suspicion clear. “Sounds like you didn’t hear anything I said to you before you left.”

“I heard every word. But I’m not you, and I don’t have the same relationship with him that you do. And, with all due respect to you as a guy who’s known him for decades, he’s not the kid you grew up with anymore. He’s an exceptional, complex man who impresses the hell out of me. Daily.”

Troy pursed his lips, glanced around the area. “And how are you going to deal when he leaves in…” He glanced at his watch. “Five days?”

She shrugged. “The same way we all deal with people who float through our lives.” She set a purposeful gaze on Troy. “It happens to all of us, and we all find our own way through. Don’t we?”

His dark eyes grew serious, and a sliver of that haunted look Nathan sometimes got floated through Troy’s eyes. Then it was gone. “I suppose we do.”

“Troy,” she said, linking her arm through his. “I really, really love you.” She tilted her gaze up to his. “But I am my own person, no matter how much I might remind you of someone else. Don’t ever interfere with my relationships again.” She paused, let the shock in his expression fade into belligerence, and added, “Am I making myself clear?”

Troy heaved a sigh. Nodded. Wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his side. “I’m sorry, Rach.”

“You owe Nathan an apology too.”

He nodded again. “I’ll set things right with him.”

She wrapped her arm around his waist, lifted to her toes, and kissed his cheek. “Thank you.”

Charlie came out of the booth, and the clapper, a young man Rachel had seen on several sets, ran to the center of the bridge with a slate. The assistant director running the scene called for quiet, and silence descended over the audience. The clapper’s voice rang clear when he called out the scene, and then when, he should have called out the take number, he paused and said, “The one and only take.”

A ripple of laughter traversed the onlookers, the slate clapped, and everyone fell silent again as the clapper sprinted off the bridge and into a safety zone.

Josh lifted a radio to his mouth where he stood on the bluff with the choppers and spoke to Jax in the control booth, then motioned with his hand and crouched as the choppers—five for this shoot—floated into the air and headed south.

Charlie came out of the booth, pushing Ray in a wheelchair. Ray held the megaphone in his good hand, his other covered in bandages and hooked into a sling across his chest. Rachel smiled as Ray lifted the megaphone, his gaze on the choppers, a smile on his fatigued face. And this was one of those moments when Rachel knew Nathan’s heart—no matter how malformed and battle scarred—was truly gold.

All day she’d been thinking about Nathan. About what he’d been through in his life, about how far he’d come in such a short amount of time, about how resilient and strong he stayed. And after this was over, she wanted to sit down with him in a quiet, private, no-stress environment and find out if that “what if” offer had been the desire for more hookups in the future, as he’d claimed in the heat of the moment. Or if it had been what she’d believed at the time he’d offered—the glimmer of desire to shoot for more between them, despite everything standing in the way.

The choppers banked hard at the ridgeline, angled back toward the bridge, and settled into formation. Rachel’s chest tightened, and she dragged in air. She tingled with anticipation, adrenaline, hope, and fear. She crossed her arms tight, and Troy pulled her closer.

“Don’t worry, Rach,” he murmured at her temple. “I’m telling you, Ryker is as brilliant as they come when it comes to explosives.”

He certainly had been brilliantly explosive in bed. It was a split-second thought that vanished as soon as Ray lifted the megaphone to his mouth.

“Five,” Ray yelled, steady and strong. “Four…”

Nathan stepped out of the booth, posture tight, expression stern.

“Three…”

Rachel’s stomach flipped, and she leaned closer to Troy, who tightened his arm around her shoulders.

“Two—”

Ray’s voice cut out in the first explosion. The blast sounded muffled through her ear protection, but the ground shook with the force of a monster earthquake, and a monumental fireball erupted into the dark sky, lighting everything around them in fiery oranges and reds.

The crowd around her gasped and murmured in alarm. Rachel covered her mouth as fear burned up her chest.

Too soon. The blast had come too soon.

“Fuck.” Troy’s voice barely reached her ear, but the alarm there registered.

Rachel glanced toward the choppers first, her stress easing when she found them already sweeping in. The filming may not be perfect, but the editors could make it work. She darted a look toward Nathan, to check his reaction, but he was gone.

She searched the booth and the surrounding area but couldn’t locate him. A flash of panic sizzled along her skin, her eyes frantically searched the crowd, then the control booth again, the shadows surrounding the area where he’d been standing.

Another pair of explosions rocked the earth, just seconds apart. Rachel gasped and pulled away from Troy. Fireballs mushroomed into the sky, illuminating the bridge, the choppers, and the night in brilliant orange flashes. But Rachel didn’t watch the explosion; she searched for Nathan and found him in the light cast by the fire where he was making a stealthy, almost inhuman crawl along the ground toward Ray and Charlie, where they were now shielded behind the control booth.